To Be Read Chal­lenge 2009

I think if you are even a some­what reg­u­lar reader, you prob­a­bly have a TBR list of books. TBR stands for To Be Read. I know that I have about 80 books that I would love to read, but I also have a three year old and a 1 year old. Some­times vora­cious read­ing and two tod­dlers don’t always com­bine well.

Last week, I was perus­ing blogs dur­ing the What’s on Your Night­stand car­ni­val from 5MinutesForBooks, and I found the TBR Chal­lenge. The rules for the chal­lenge are that you choose 12 books before Jan­u­ary 1st with a few alter­nates. Then, you read and post about them through­out 2009. You may not change your list after Jan­u­ary 1st, 2009.

After a lit­tle thought and some con­tem­pla­tion, here is my list of books and alternates.

To be read:
1. Ani­mal, Veg­etable, Mir­a­cle by Bar­bara King­solver — I heard her talk­ing about this book on NPR’s Speak­ing of Faith one morn­ing on our way to church. I found it very inter­est­ing, and I’ve been wait­ing for this book on Book­Mooch ever since. I may have to give up on Book­Mooch for this one and either buy it or get on the library’s wait­ing list.
2. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tam­met — This one piques my inter­est because of my back­ground as a spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher.
3. The Year of Liv­ing Bib­li­cally by A.J. Jacobs — This is another book I heard about on NPR. This one was from Mid­Morn­ing with Kerry Miller.
4. Harry Pot­ter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowl­ing — This is the book I’m least look­ing for­ward to read­ing. I bought it and the next two or three years ago think­ing they’d be good to read with stu­dents while I was teach­ing. I still want to read this to know what all the fuss is about, but I don’t think it sounds inter­est­ing at all.
5. Mem­ory Keeper’s Daugh­ter by Kim Edwards — I read the back of this book one day in Tar­get while I was wan­der­ing around. It stuck with me, and even though I couldn’t remem­ber the name or author of the book, when I tracked it down, I added it to my TBR list.
6. Blue Like Jazz by Don­ald Miller — My hus­band, Jason, got this book for his birth­day, and I’m intrigued.
7. Screw­tape Let­ters by C.S. Lewis — This is another book I’ve had for quite a while and I’ve always meant to read it, but I never have.
8. Cross of Christ by John Stott — Same as #7
9. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb — I’ve thought about read­ing this book for a while now, too. Since Lamb just released his newest book, there’s been a lot of talk about She’s Come Undone on, you guessed it, NPR. I guess it’s time to see what all the talk is about.
10. Nine­teen Min­utes by Jodi Picoult — I’ve only read one other book of Picoult’s. I thought it was fine. I know some peo­ple LOVE her books, so I put this one on my list because I thought it sounded thought pro­vok­ing.
11. Run­ning with Scis­sors by Augesten Bur­roughs — I got this book from Book­Mooch, and it’s just sit­ting on my shelf even though I really want to read it. Now I have a def­i­nite dead­line instead of let­ting it get pushed back fur­ther and fur­ther or even for­got­ten.
12. Moth­er­ing Your Nurs­ing Tod­dler by Norma J. Bum­gar­ner — Since I’m nurs­ing two tod­dlers, this book seemed pretty timely.

Alter­nates:
1. Wild Goose Chase by Mark Bat­ter­son
2. The Kite Run­ner by Khaled Hos­seini
3. Play­ful Par­ent­ing by Lawrence Cohen
4. How to Talk so Kids Will Lis­ten By Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
5. What to Eat by Mar­ion Nes­tle
6. The Think­ing Woman’s Guide to a Bet­ter Birth by Henci Goer
7. A Heart­break­ing Work of Stag­ger­ing Genius by Dave Eggers
8. Glass Bead Game by Her­mann Hesse
9. Lord of the Flies by William Gold­ing
10. A Clock­work Orange by Anthony Burgess
11. The Shack by William Young
12. Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman