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TBR Challenge 2014 -- Sure, why not

I think I completed Adam's TBR Challenge one year. Once. And I have tried since to reach such heights of glory, with nary a shadow of success. It is, however, what started me having a book blog and for that I will forever view it with affection.

Medieval Women, Eileen Power. I've owned this for years. Years. I brought it with me to read on a trip in high school but instead ended up playing ping pong. I will read it.

Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld. She's supposed to be good, right? And I really wanted to read this. And then I bought it yeears ago, but I still have not read it. I find that ridiculous.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole. Do eBooks count? Because I've owned this for like three years, and I REALLY want to read it and it just hasn't happened. But I KNOW IT'S GOOD. I know it's really good. But nope. Not yet.

Wigs on the Green, Nancy Mitford. I bought this when Borders was going out of business. And then my prediction came true. Except instead of that being its fate in the hands of another, it has been caused by me. Alas.

Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell. My copy is from the 1950s and I super-love it. Also I need to read some Elizabeth Gaskell that isn't North and South, because obviously EVERYBODY has read North and South, amirite? Gotta stay ahead of the herd. Gotta stay ahead.

Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick. Back in college (when I bought this book), I was real psyched about it. Then I read like 50 pages, found out some stuff about cod, and never finished it. I even own Philbrick's next book about General Custer, which I ALSO have not read. Mayflower needs to happen. (I will gain all the knowledge, like Pokemon, and then I can die with dignity, with all my knowledge Pokemon scattered about me at my funeral)

Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys. You knowwww how the word "postcolonial" can make your eyes glaze over and you to suddenly cease to be interested in whatever's being talked about? No? Just me? Right, well couple that with a hatred of PC retellings that is only now dying down after more than ten years of being a primary characteristic de moi, and Wide Sargasso Sea (which is kiiiiiiiind of a reinterpretation of Jane Eyre) has not been directly up my favorite of alleys. But I am 28. It is 2014, and I can read this.

How to Be a Woman, Caitlin Moran. Remember how everyone else who was going to read this has read this and how Laura sent me a copy and I somehow still haven't read it? Yeah, so there's all of that, and I do really LIKE Caitlin Moran, because how can you not (unless you're a Sherlock fan, amirite?), so I WILL READ THIS THING.

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut. My dad got me this last Christmas (2012), because I ASKED for it, because he loves Kurt Vonnegut. This copy is pretty. Vonnegut wrote my favorite short story. I would like to read this.

The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan. DID YOU ALL KNOW I LOVE RICK RIORDAN? I went through a Percy Jackson thing a few years ago, then slowwwly fell out of it while he was releasing the Kane Chronicles series (which is about Egyptian mythology instead of Greek). He's not the BEST writer ever, but he improves over time, and his updating of gods/monsters into the 21st century is A+. I've owned Son of Neptune since it came out, and it's one of those books I've REALLY wanted to read, but just...haven't. Now there're two others in the Heroes of Olympus series and a THIRD coming out in October, and I want to read them all, damnit.

Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser. I tried reading Dreiser's An American Tragedy back in college, but got upset with it because of some Christianity stuff early on (upset in a way a 20-year-old gets upset), BUT I found Sister Carrie in a used bookshop in Sarasota, Florida and the FIRST sentence is

When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money.
Yeah. Like I'm not gonna read that. (I mean, evidently I'm not, until this year. also -- four dollars in money? just four dollars, Dreiser. just four dollars)

Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo. You know how when you take a Hugo/Balzac course in college and you're supposed to read Notre Dame de Paris, but instead you sit on your couch and watch The X-Files with your roommate, so you're forever stuck on page 473, the chapter "Grès et Cristal"? Like 150 more pages and I can finish this book from 2007.

ALTERNATES (because really what're the chances I'll like all of these)

What Was She Thinking?, Zoe Heller. I love Notes on a Scandal. What a great film indeed. And I had my mom buy me the book yeeeears ago, and I need to read it. Because it's just sitting there.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling. Poor Mindy. I've had her book since it came out. I have a signed bookplate for her book. And I have not read her book. 2014, it'll be your year, Kaling.

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