I have not been very good with the challenges I joined this, my first, year as a book blogger. I've read 3/5 of the books I planned to read for the War Through the Generations challenge and reviewed two of those three. I'm planning on getting the third review up in the not too distant future, but I know already that I will not be reading any more books about WW II this year. The other challenge I joined this year is the 9 Books for 2009 challenge, which has been really useful for finally reading some of those books I own that have been waiting for their turn for, in some cases, quite a while. I have read 4/9 of the books I chose for the challenge. I might read maybe one more, but I'm not sure. I simply have too many other, interesting books waiting for their turn! And now new challenges for 2010 have started popping up all over the blogosphere!
I have thought of joining two challenges now and then we'll see, I might join one or two more a bit later. But to start with I have chosen these two: GLBT Challenge hosted by Amanda from The Zen Leaf and the Women Unbound Challenge hosted by Aarti from Booklust, Care from Care's Online Book Club and Eva from A Striped Armchair.
Let's start with the GLBT Challenge for 2010:
The idea of this challenge is to read books written by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender authors and/or books about GLBT topics.
I have been thinking of joining on the Rainbow level and reading 12 books. I have not yet decided on which 12 books to read, but here is a list of possible "candidates":
Baker, Dorothy: Cassandra at the Wedding (lesbian theme)
Cunningham, Michael: Specimen Days (gay author)
Duffy, Carol Ann: Rapture (poems, lesbian author) (re-read)
Ebershoff, David : The Danish Girl (transgender theme)
Hollinghurst, Alan : The Line of Beauty (gay author & theme)
Jansson, Tove : Fair Play (lesbian author)
Le Guin, Ursula: The Birthday of the World (scifi, different sexualities)
Kapur, Manju : A Married Woman (lesbian theme)
Mann, Thomas: Death in Venice and Other Stories (gay theme)
Peters, Julie Ann: Luna (transgender theme)
Shaw, Fiona : Tell It to the Bees (lesbian theme)
Sinisalo, Johanna: Troll -A Love Story/Not Before Sundown (gay theme) (re-read)
Smith, Ali: The First Person and Other Stories (lesbian author)Strachey, Dorothy : Olivia (lesbian theme)
Warner, Sylvia Townsend: The Corner That Held Them (lesbian author)
Wilde, Oscar : The Picture of Dorian Gray (gay author)
Winterson, Jeanette : The PowerBook (lesbian author)Woolf, Virginia : Orlando (lesbian/bisexual author, also theme goes well with this challenge) (re-read)
I would like to add 1-2 novels with a bisexual theme, but have not found any yet. Any suggestions?
I think I will be concentrating on fiction, but being a librarian and loving book lists I compiled also a short list of non-fiction titles, if someone else wants to read some GLBT non-fiction:
Baird, Vanessa: Sex, Love & Homophobia : Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Lives.
Lee, Hermione: Virginia Woolf.
Raitt, Suzanne: Vita and Virginia: The Work and Friendship of V. Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. (On second thought, this will very probably be among the books I'll read)
Seidman, Steven: Beyond the Closet : The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life.
Spencer, Colin: Homosexuality: A History.
Vicinus, Martha: Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928.
Well, it was my intention to write about both challenges in one post, but I'm running out of time (I still have to do some house cleaning before heading for the tennis courts tonight :)) I'll post about the Women Unbound Challenge soon.
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