My 2007 A-Z challenge

Well, I almost made it. If I hadn't gotten so involved in bookrings, I would have all the letters (actually have books in my TBR pile for the missing letters here).

2007 A-Z Challenge (read one book during the year that starts with each letter of the alphabet)
A Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble (Mar)
B Breakwater - Carla Neggers (Feb)
C Coastliners - Joanne Harris(Jan)
D Double Shot - Diane Mott Davidson(Mar)
E Everyone Worth Knowing - Lauren Weisberger (Mar)
F Fashionistas - Lynn Messina (May)
G Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
H The History of Love - Nicole Krauss (May)
I The Ice Queen - Alice Hoffman (May)
J
K Kingdom of the Golden Dragon - Isabel Allende (July)
L Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis (July)
M Metro Girl - Janet Evanovich (Apr)
N Nature Girl - Carl Hiaasen (Mar)
O One Thousand White Women - Jim Fergus (July)
P The Pact -Jodi Picoult (Aug)
Q
R The Reading Group - Elizabeth Noble (Apr)
S Singletini - Amanda Trimble (Feb)
T
U The Undomestic Goddess - Sophie Kinsella (Aug)
V Valley of Silence - Nora Roberts (Apr)
W
X The Xenophobe's Guide to the English - Antony Miall (Dec)
Y
Z

Books read in 2007

Books read in 2007 (originally started this list in May but moved the journal entry to the end of the year)

1. Coastliners - Joanne Harris (Jan)
2. Murder at the Brown Palace: A True Story of Seduction & Betrayal - Dick Kreck (Jan)
3. Breakwater - Carla Neggers (Feb)
4. Singletini - Amanda Trimble (Feb)
5. Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble (Mar)
6. Double Shot - Diane Mott Davidson(Mar)
7. Everyone Worth Knowing - Lauren Weisberger (Mar)
8. Nature Girl - Carl Hiaasen (Mar)
9. Metro Girl - Janet Evanovich (Apr)
10. The Reading Group - Elizabeth Noble (Apr)
11. Morrigan's Cross - Nora Roberts (Apr)
12. Dance of the Gods - Nora Roberts (Apr)
13. Valley of Silence - Nora Roberts (Apr)
14. Cider With Rosie - Laurie Lee (May)
15. The History of Love - Nicole Krauss (May)
16. Fashionistas - Lynn Messina (May)
17. The Ice Queen - Alice Hoffman (May)
18. The Main Corpse - Diane Mott Davidson (May)
19. Son of A Witch - Gregory Maguire (June)
20. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (June)
21. Apocalipstick - Sue Margolis (June)
22. City of Beasts - Isabel Allende (July)
23. One Thousand White Women - Jim Fergus (July)
24. Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis (July)
25. Kingdom of the Golden Dragon - Isabel Allende (July)
26. Forest of Pygmies - Isabel Allende bookspiral - Isabel Allende (July)
27. The Pact -Jodi Picoult (Aug)
28. Shopaholic Abroad - Sophie Kinsella (Aug)
29. Shopaholic & Baby - Sophie Kinsella (Aug)
30. Love Walked In - Marisa de los Santos (Aug)
31. The Bad Twin - Gary Troup (Aug)
32. The Adultery Club - Tess Stimson (Aug)
33. She Went All the Way - Meggin Cabot (Aug)
34. The Dirty Girls Social Club - Alisa Valdez-Rodriguez (Sept)
35. Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult (Sept)
36. Baby Proof - Emily Griffin (Sept)
37. My Antonia - Willa Cather (Sept)
38. Walking in Circles Before Lying Down - Merrill Markoe (Oct)
39. Accordian Crimes - Annie Proulx (Oct)
40. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water - Michael Dorris (Nov)
41. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (Nov)
42. The Autobiography of Santa Claus - Jeff Guinn (Dec)
43. So Many Books, So Little Time - Sara Nelson (Dec)
44. The Xenophobe's Guide to the English - Antony Miall (Dec)

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzz...

Argh! My reading time has seriously decreased. Of course there is the usual work/holidays/projects/chores that get in the way. But the new thing is the ability to nod off in less than 10 pages. It makes it difficult for me to get through a book in my usual amount of time. In fact, I am way behind in my bookring books and was late finishing my November and December bookclub selections.

So my goal for 2008 is to read one book a month (likely my bookclub book). With the new addition pending in my life, I will have even less reading time (and the ability to stay awake). I also have a huge TBR (to be read) pile that I would love to read and pass on.

I plan to send on my current pile of bookring books shortly (mostly unread). I've had the oldest since July. Yikes! I am not that bad bookcrosser, am I??

Follow up on the smelly book

After several weeks in a bin of cedar chips and cat litter, I hung it under the porch with the pages fluffed out for another couple of weeks. That seems to have done the trick!

Now I have to read it...

Smelly books

I am on a lot of bookrings (through Bookcrossing). Occasionally I get a book that smells musty but recently got my first that was permeated with cigarette smoke. My sense of smell is heightened these days (along with nausea) so I'm desperately seeking out methods of ridding the book of the odor so I can read it.

I found a list of items here:
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf000592.tip.html

I'm trying the cat litter method -- sealed in a plastic box with clay litter. If that doesn't work, I'll move on to newspaper. My dryer sheets are moist so I would probably need to get a different kind. Although the cedar method sounds interesting... I have some old cedar shavings from when I used to have gerbils a couple of years ago....

Anyway, I ramble. Will keep posted on how this works.

1,001 books you should read before you die

An interesting list: http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm?content_id=22845

From this list, I have read:
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
93. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
187. Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
209. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
240. Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
252. The Lover – Marguerite Duras
276. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
312. The Shining – Stephen King
367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
456. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
459. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
461. Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
564. Animal Farm – George Orwell
565. Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
574. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (in French and English)
592. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
640. Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
689. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
863. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
883. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
896. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
902. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
904. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
918. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
970. Candide – Voltaire

There's a bunch that are on my to be read shelves, a bunch more I've seen the movie adaptation, and I'm sure a handful I've read before but forgot. :-)

My first RABCK received

Surprise, surprise ... amongst the junk mail, bills and catalogs was Janet Evanovich's High Five from jenvince. It's a dedicated bookcrossing book - well decorated. It included some goodies inside -- a stay-put bookmark (cats won't take off with this one losing my place) and an artist trading card.

I'm getting ready to read the series from the beginning. So I'll do that, read this one and then pass it on in true bookcrossing fashion -- maybe as a RABCK (Random Act of Bookcrossing Kindness) to the next lucky soul.