Let the challenge commence

Happy New Year to one and all. May it be happy, healthy and prosperous :)

As mentioned in my inaugural post, I had several reasons for setting up this blog. One of them was to carry out my own personal '50 book challenge', which I carried out for the first time in 2007 as part of a Livejournal community. The clue is in the title: the aim is to read 50 or more books in 2009, not counting rereads.

I would ideally like to read some Proust this year, and I would also like to get to two other authors who were on my hit list in 2007: Toni Morrison and Terry Pratchett. My list is also bound to be littered with random French-language finds from the local library and from my boyfriend's personal collection. I am open to recommendations. I am starting, however, with You Are Here, by the perhaps infamous (in Britain anyway) Bremner, Bird and Fortune. Arrivals in my hopefully-soon-to-arrive Amazon package thanks to a €30 gift voucher from my uncle this Christmas (cheers Neil!) will make up #2 and #3 - Born on a Blue Day, by Daniel Trammett, and The Tale of Genji, an ancient Japanese epic. I told you my tastes were varied ;)

Beyond this...we'll see. For now...on with the show. The list of books I read in 2007 (not counting books read for my course, or rereads), can be viewed below:
1. The Blind Watchmaker (Richard Dawkins)
2. My Uncle Oswald (Roald Dahl)
3. Switch Bitch (Roald Dahl)
4. Someone Like You (Roald Dahl)
5. Espresso Tales (Alexander McCall Smith)
6. Pistache (Sebastian Faulks)
7. Common People (Martin Knight)
8. Losing My Virginity (Richard Branson)
9. The Musical Companion (A.L. Bacharach)
10. A Short History of French Literature (Geoffrey Brereton)
11. The Space of Joy (John Fuller)
12. The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer (Irwin et al)
13. The Pointe Book: Shoes, Training and Technique (Barringer & Schlesinger)
14. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
15. The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
16. Suite Française (Irène Némirovsky)
17. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
18. Campus Conspiracy (anon)
19. Poppy Shakespeare (Clare Allan)
20. One Red Paperclip (Kyle Macdonald)
21. The Adventure of English (Melvyn Bragg)
22. So Many Ways To Begin (Jon McGregor)
23. Salmon Fishing In The Yemen (Paul Torday)
24. Black Swan Green (David Mitchell)
25. A Million Little Pieces (James Frey)
26. The Snapper (Roddy Doyle)
27. Music of Chance (Paul Auster)
28. The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)
29. The Human Stain (Philip Roth)
30. Inconnu à cette adresse (Taylor Kressman)
31. Retour d'Uruguay (Pascale Kramer)
32. Méfie-toi des fruits (Anna Rozen)
33. Elle sera de jaspe et de corail (Werewere Liking)
34. The Rose and the Beast (Francesca Lia Block)
35. Bush at War (Bob Woodward)
36. How To Talk To A Widower (Jonathan Tropper)
37. Ghosts/A Public Enemy/When We Dead Wake (Henrik Ibsen; collection of 3 plays)
38. One For My Baby (Tony Parsons)
39. Moab Is My Washpot (Stephen Fry)

+ 4 fictional course books, and Lord knows how many non-fictional course books!