My challenge for 2011? Read 100 books. Your challenge? Read the same 100 books in the same order I did within a single 365 day period. There's something for everyone, as the list criss-crosses between the worlds of fiction, history, memoir, biography, graphic novels, literary criticism, theatre and science.
Your prize? A literary education and my eternal praise. Maybe a certificate you can frame and hang on the wall. Plus, the authors listed below would probably appreciate it, especially if you buy all the books at full price.
The 1 Year, 100 Book Challenge
1. "Finishing the Hat" by Stephen Sondheim (read review)
2. "Race Against Time" by Stephen Lewis
3. "The Ministry of Fear" by Graham Greene
4. "An Object of Beauty" by Steve Martin (read review)
5. "The Statement" by Brian Moore (read review)
6. "Fred Astaire" by Michael Freedland (read review)
7. "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel (read review)
8. "The Coke Machine" by Michael Blanding (read review)
9. "Next" by Michael Crichton (read review)
10. "Sons and Lovers" by D.H. Lawerence (read review)
11. "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame
12. "Fine and Dandy" by Vicki Oh (read review)
13. "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess" by Robin Thompson
14. "Reading Stephen Sondheim" ed. Sandor Goodhart.
15. "The Brief History of the Dead" by Kevin Brockmeir (read review)
16. "A Fairly Good Time" by Mavis Gallant
17. "Fosca" by Igino Tarchetti (read review)
18. "The O. Henry Prize Stories of 1962" ed. Richard Poirer. (read review)
19. "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss (read review)
20. "The Irony of Manifest Destiny" by William Pfaff (read review)
21. "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" by Nathan Englander
22. "Lucky Man" by Michael J. Fox (read review)
23. "Shaw on Shakespeare" by George Bernard Shaw
24. "The Pat Hobby Stories" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (read review)
25. "An End to Chivalry" by Tom Cole
26. "Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence" by Doris Plikington
27. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway (read review)
28. "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender (read review)
29. "Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist" by Michael J. Fox
30. "The Hidden Reality" by Brian Greene (read review)
31. "Moonwalking with Einstien" by Joshua Foer
32. "The Dew Breakers" by Edwidge Danticat
33. "Patriotic Fire" by Winston Groom (read review)
34. "The Manitcore" by Robertson Davies (read review)
35. "Homer and Langley" by E.L. Doctorow (read review)
36. "Unfamiliar Fishes" by Sarah Vowell (read review)
37. "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Vol 2" by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
38. "The Year of the Flood" by Margaret Atwood (read review)
39. "Sweetland Stories" by E.L. Doctorow
40."The Ebony Tower" by John Fowles
41. "Men Without Women" by Ernest Hemingway
42. "Family Sins" by William Trevor (read review)
43. "Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell (read review)
44. "Dancing with Mister D" by Bert Keizer (read review)
45. "Islam: A Short History" by Karen Armstrong
46. "True and False" by David Mamet
47. "Of Love and Shadows" by Isabel Allende
48. "Ghosts of Cape Sabine" by Leonard F. Gutterage
49. "The Cabin" by David Mamet (read review)
50. "Father of Frankenstien" by Christopher Bram (read review)
51. "Wishful Drinking" by Carrie Fisher
52. "Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of James A. Garfield" by Kenneth Ackerman (read review)
53. "Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust" by Josip Novakovich
54. "The Memory of All That" by Katharine Weber (read review)
55. "The Great Stork Derby" by Mark Orkin
56. "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" by Sarah Vowell
57. "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Vol 1" by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
58. "Holes" by Louis Sachar
59. "Robert Todd Lincoln: A Man in His Own Right" by John S. Goff (read review)
60. "Bossypants" by Tina Fey (read review)
61. "Various Postitions" by Martha Schabas (read review)
62. "I Remember Nothing" by Nora Ephron
63. "Lost in Shangri-La" by Mitchell Zuckoff
64. "2030" by Albert Brooks (read review)
65. "Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester A. Arthur" by Thomas Reeves (read review)
66. "The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers and Child Traffickers" by Scott Carney
67. "Nightwood" by Djuana Barnes
68. "I Am Mary Dunne" by Brian Moore (read review)
69. "Women's Body, Women's Rights: A Social History of Birth Control" by Linda Gordon
70. "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton
71. "George Gershwin: His Life and Work" by Howard Pollack (read review)
72. "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton (read review)
73. "I Want to Go Home" by Gordon Korman
74. "Paris Was Yesterday" by Janet Flanner (read review)
75. "The New Day Recalled: Lives of Girls and Women in English Canada, 1919 - 1939" by Veronica Strong-Boag
76. "The World of Apples" by John Cheever
77. "Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character" by Alyn Brodsky (read review)
78. "Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court and Buck vs. Bell" by Paul Lombardo
79. "Of Love and Other Demons" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
80. "The Bedroom and the State" by Angus McLaren and Arlene Tigar McLaren
81. "Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter" by Carmen Aguirre (read review)
82. "Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika" by Tony Kushner
83. "All the Time in the World: New and Selected Stories" by E.L. Doctorow
84. "A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era" ed. Paul Lombardo
85. "The Mark of Zorro" by Johnston McCulley (read review)
86. "Saturday" by Ian McEwan (read review)
87. "Along Human Lines: Drama for Refugee Lives" by George Sermba, Carmen Aguirre and Ann Lambert
88. "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" by Michael Lewis (read review)
89. "The Black Stork" by Martin S. Pernick
90. "Benjamin Harrison" by Charles W. Calhoun (read review)
91. "Felicia's Journey" by William Trevor
92. "Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life" by Alice Wexler (read review)
93. "The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama" by Pierre Berton
94. "A Sort of Life" by Graham Greene
95. "Emma Goldman in Exile" by Alice Wexler (read review)
96. "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes (read review)
97. "Amsterdam" by Ian McEwan
98. "The Magician's Wife" by Brian Moore
99. "Cross Channel" by Julian Barnes
100. "Look, I Made a Hat" by Stephen Sondheim
