Orbis Terrarum, To Be Read, Non-Fiction Five and Chunkster Challenges Accepted.

Follow this link and join. I will do this within the 50 book challenge.
Orbis Terrarum 2010 Challenge Rules:
*The Orbis Terrarum Challenge begins April,1st 2010 (you are welcome to join later) through the month of November.
*For the challenge each reader is to choose 8 books (for the 8 months of the challenge).
*Each book must from a different country, I have decided to go by the country of origin of the author, or the country he/she lives in is fine as well-meaning not the country the book is set in!!
*You don’t have to have a list, that means you can change your mind at any time. As long as there are 8 books you have completed the challenge.

Here is my plan, though it is flexible:
1. Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler - Hungary
2. Remains of the Day - Kazou Ishiguro - Japan
3. The Sky Unwashed - Irene Zabytko - Ukraine
4. Night Train - Martin Amis - England
5. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand - Russia
6. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi - Iran
7. A Thousand Spledid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - Afghanistan
8. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - Nigeria

Possible alternates sitting on the shelf:
The Odyssey - Homer - Greece
The Age of Reason - Jean-Paul Sartre - France
Utterly Monkey - Nick Laird - Northern Ireland
The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang - China
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde - England
Candide - Voltaire - France
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse - Germany

Another challenge is called the "To Be Read" challenge. This is where you list twelve books (one per month)that have been sitting on your shelf for a year or more that you have been wanting to read. Keep track of those twelve as you read them. Read them all during the year and you have reached the goal.
Here are my twelve for this challenge:
1. The Sky Unwashed - Irene Zabytko
2. The Remains of the Day - Kazou Ishiguro
3. The Hot Zone - Richard Preston
4. It Can't Happen Here - Sinclair Lewis
5. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
6. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
7. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
8. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
9. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
10. Walden - Henry David Thoreau
11. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
12. The Art of War - Sun Tzu

Next is the Non-Fiction Five challenge. Read five non-fiction books between May and September 2010.
1. The Redneck Manifesto - Jim Goad
2. Gianna: Aborted...and Lived to Tell About It - Jessica Shaver
3. Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap labor in the American
      Black Market - Eric Schlosser
4. Blood on the Shores: Soviet Seals in World War II - Viktor Leonov
5. Scientific Dumbology: Gaffes, Foul-Ups and Blunders - Robert Youngson



Alternates:
-That Others May Live: The True Story of the PJs, the Real Life Heroes of The Perfect Storm - Jack Brehm
-Jihad Vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World - Benjamin R. Barber
-How to Read Literature Like a Professor - Thomas C. Foster
-None Dare Call It Treason - John A. Stormer
-The Bobby Kennedy Nobody Knows - William Nicholas
-Juiced - Jose Canseco
-Stormin' Norman: An American Hero - Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta
-Chariots of the Damned: Helicopter Speacial Operations from Vietnam to Kosovo - Maj. Mike McKinney
-Hawk, Occupation: Skateboarder - Tony Hawk
-The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things - Barry Glassner
-Selling Olga: Stories of Human Trafficking and Resistance - Louisa Waugh
-A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character - Charles J. Sykes
-My Turn At Bat: The Story of My Life - Ted Williams
and many others.


I am also going to accept a challenge called "The Chunkster" challenge. This one requires three books per year to have 450 or more pages. It is designed to keep readers from grabbing shorter novels just to reach the fifty book goal. I think I will make that 500 pages and at least 4 books.
--Walden was well over 560 pages. One down.
--Child 44 was 528 pages. Two down.
--The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is the next Chunkster. I have made a deal with a guy at work where we both start reading it on 1 June 2010.
--I have yet to decide what other Chunksters will follow, but I have a few on the shelf.

See my menu lists to the right and follow along all year.