2013 TBR Challenge

This year’s reading included over two dozen oldies off my shelves. I should have signed up for Roof Beam Reader’s TBR Challenge, and this year I do plan to link reviews to the 2013 TBR Challenge. The goal is to read 12 books from your 'to be read' pile (within 12 months), and the books should have been collecting dust for a while.

Yesterday I noted a decided turn toward nonfiction in my anticipated 2013 reading, and that holds mostly true for these books chosen for the TBR Pile Challenge.

1. The West Indies and the Spanish Main (1860) by Anthony Trollope. He traveled from England to Jamaica in 1858 on post office business. He also visited Central America.
   
2. Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age (1999) by R. Stephen Humphreys.
   
3. Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall (2007) by Amy Chua. Chua is better known for the Tiger Mother book about educating her children, but she is a Yale law prof specializing in international business, ethnic conflict and globalization.
   
4. Sudan: Darfur and the Failure of an African State (2010) by Richard Crockett.
   
5. Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850 by Linda Colley (2002).
   
6. Audrey: Her Real Story by Alexander Walker (1994). Biography of film legend Audrey Hepburn.
   
7. A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio by Foster Hirsch (1984). Lee Strassberg taught the craft to James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Paul Newman, and many others.
   
8. Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870: A Brief History with Documents by Kathryn Kish Sklar (2000). I am becoming a big fan of these short, concise volumes in the Bedford Series in History and Culture.
   
9. Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson (2007). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
   
10. Paris Stories by Mavis Gallant (2002). One of our great short story writers, she published in The New Yorker for almost 50 years. Michael Ondaatje selected the stories for this collection.
    
11. A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America, edited by Thomas Colchie (1991).
    
12. The Kellys and the O'Kellys by Anthony Trollope (1848). One of his early Irish novels.

In case a couple of those books do not work out, here are a some alternates. The Glamour Factory: Inside Hollywood's Big Studio System by Ronald Davis (1993) and Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary by Hugo Ball (1974).

It seems like a good sign that choosing a first read from these titles proves difficult. I will probably begin with the Louisa May and Bronson Alcott bio.

Comments

[Lisa]

I should sign up for this as well. The books your list all look excellent - and I'm tempted to check the library for the Sklar book.

[Fay]

Lisa, as you probably already know, the volumes in the Bedford series have the advantage of being both serious and short. Nice overviews.

[Lisa]

Fay, I don't remember coming across that series yet, but I'll keep an eye out now, thanks.

[Fay]

These little books make speedy reading. The primary sources they contain are usually helpful in understanding the periods under discussion.