Literature
I was actually planning on doing a short-story reading event in the near future but I'm glad to have discovered the Deal Me In Challenge hosted by Jay over at Bibliopholopolis through Cleo because it saves me from all the necessary leg-work required to host one. Besides, it's unlikely that many people would sign up anyways so this just saves me the headache of trying desperately to get people to join. Here are the challenge details:
What is the goal of the project?
To read 52 short stories in 2014 (that?s only one per week)
What do I need?
1) Access to at least fifty-two short stories (don?t own any short story collections or anthologies? See links to online resources below)
2) A deck of cards
3) An average of perhaps just thirty minutes of reading time each week
Where do I post* about my stories?
(*You don?t have to post about every single story, of course, but if you have something to say about the story you read any given week, your fellow participants would love to hear it.)
1) On your own blog or website if you have one (I will link to your post at the bottom of my weekly post. I currently plan to do my weekly post on Sundays)
2) if you don?t have a blog or website you may comment on my weekly post, sharing thoughts on your own story ? or start one at WordPress or blogspot ? it?s easy and free to create a basic blog.
How do I pick which stories to read?
(The 52 stories themselves are totally up to you.) Before you get start reading, come up with a roster of fifty-two stories (you can use any source) and assign each one to a playing card in a standard deck of cards. It can be fun to use different suits for different types of stories, but that is optional. Each ?week,? (if you?re like me, you may occasionally fall a story or two behind) you draw a card at random from your deck and that is the story you will read. There are links to last year?s participants? rosters here if you want to see some examples.
What if I don?t have time to read a story every single week?
Try one of the challenge variations noted below, the Fortnight (or ?payday? if you prefer) version is one story every two weeks or the ?Full Moon Fever? version with just thirteen stories read or selected on seeing each full moon?
How do I sign up?
Leave a comment below with your URL and I will link you. My first wrap-up post of the year (I post weekly, usually Sunday night or Monday morning) will include links to any new Deal Me In posts and a list of the participants with links to their roster of stories.
What is the purpose?
To have FUN and to be exposed to new authors and stories and maybe get in the habit of reading a short story a week. Isn?t that enough?
I obviously have a lot of catching up to do but that shouldn't be too difficult considering the focus will be on short-stories rather than novels. The most difficult task will be narrowing down my list to 52 short stories. The challenge allows for participants to tweak their lists if they see fit and I intend to do just that. I have many short-story collections sitting on my shelf but many of them are thick and contain a lot more than 52 stories to choose from. So, I've decided to designate the card suits to specific categories: Spades is my personalized anthology list. If I happen to draw a spades card, then I will choose a story from that collection at random. Clubs is for science-fiction, Hearts is for Canadian authors and Diamonds is random. Here is my reading list:
Spades: Anthologies
A - Philip K. Dick - The Complete Short Stories
2 - The Stories of Ray Bradbury
3 - John Updike - The Collected Stories
4 - Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
5 - Babylon Revisited and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6 - D.H. Lawrence - Selected Stories
7 - Dorothy Parker - Complete Stories
8 - The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard
9 - May We Borrow Your Husband + Other Stories by Graham Greene
10 - The Stories of John Cheever
J - Theodore Sturgeon - The Complete Stores
Q - Katherine Mansfield - Selected Stories
K - Story of Your Life and Other Stories by Ted Chiang
Clubs: Science Fiction
A - 2BR20B by Kurt Vonnegut
2 - Bloodchild by Octavia Butler
3 - Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan
4 - For a Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny
5 - Driftglass by Samuel R. Delany
6 - Mimsy Were the Borogroves by Lewis Padgett
7 - Adam and No Eve by Alfred Bester
8 - All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein
9 - Vintage Season by C.I. Moore
10 - Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh
J - Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Q - Baby, You Were Great! by Kate Wilhelm
K - The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
Hearts: Canadian
A - Ray by Guy Vanderhaeghe
2 - Rape Fantasies by Margaret Atwood
3 - The Collectors by Rohinton Mistry
4 - A Scarf by Carol Shields
5 - Voices Lost in Snow by Mavis Gallant
6 - Real Life Writes Real Bad by Timothy Findley
7 - Let Me Promise You by Morley Callaghan
8 - Vision by Alistair Macleod
9 - The Baby in the Airmail Box by Thomas King
10 -The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy
J - Paper Shadows by Wayson Choy
Q - Alice Munro - The Turkey Season
K - Four Stations in his Circle by Austin Clarke
Diamonds: Random
A - Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin
2 - Cathedral by Raymond Carver
3 - The Werewolf by Angela Carter
4 - The Man Who Was Almost a Man by Richard Wright
5 - Petrified Man by Eudora Welty
6 - Super-Frog Saves Tokyo by Haruki Murakami
7 - The Passenger or Signs and Symbols by Vladimir Nabokov
8 - Gooseberries or The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekov
9 - Souls Belated by Edith Wharton
10 - Let the Old Dead make Room for the Young Dead by Milan Kundera
J - A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka
Q - Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates
K - The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
- Deal Me In Challenge: A&p By John Updike
Card Drawn: 3 of Spades. One might think that my luck has run out for drawing another 'short-story anthology card' from the deck but lo and behold, it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to announce...
- Deal Me In Challenge: The Turkey Season By Alice Munro
Card Drawn: Queen of Hearts A Nobel prize winning author, Alice Munro is often considered one of Canada's greatest literary treasures and a master of the short-story. She tends to receive nothing but the highest praise from critics and readers alike...
- Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books On My Fall To-be-read List
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- The Classics Spin #5
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Welcome to my ultimate reading challenge! This will be an on-going project of mine and I hope to read everything on this list before departing from this world. I am always open for recommendations so if you want me to read something that is not already...
Literature
Deal Me In Challenge 2015
What is the goal of the project?
To read 52 short stories in 2014 (that?s only one per week)
What do I need?
1) Access to at least fifty-two short stories (don?t own any short story collections or anthologies? See links to online resources below)
2) A deck of cards
3) An average of perhaps just thirty minutes of reading time each week
Where do I post* about my stories?
(*You don?t have to post about every single story, of course, but if you have something to say about the story you read any given week, your fellow participants would love to hear it.)
1) On your own blog or website if you have one (I will link to your post at the bottom of my weekly post. I currently plan to do my weekly post on Sundays)
2) if you don?t have a blog or website you may comment on my weekly post, sharing thoughts on your own story ? or start one at WordPress or blogspot ? it?s easy and free to create a basic blog.
How do I pick which stories to read?
(The 52 stories themselves are totally up to you.) Before you get start reading, come up with a roster of fifty-two stories (you can use any source) and assign each one to a playing card in a standard deck of cards. It can be fun to use different suits for different types of stories, but that is optional. Each ?week,? (if you?re like me, you may occasionally fall a story or two behind) you draw a card at random from your deck and that is the story you will read. There are links to last year?s participants? rosters here if you want to see some examples.
What if I don?t have time to read a story every single week?
Try one of the challenge variations noted below, the Fortnight (or ?payday? if you prefer) version is one story every two weeks or the ?Full Moon Fever? version with just thirteen stories read or selected on seeing each full moon?
How do I sign up?
Leave a comment below with your URL and I will link you. My first wrap-up post of the year (I post weekly, usually Sunday night or Monday morning) will include links to any new Deal Me In posts and a list of the participants with links to their roster of stories.
What is the purpose?
To have FUN and to be exposed to new authors and stories and maybe get in the habit of reading a short story a week. Isn?t that enough?
I obviously have a lot of catching up to do but that shouldn't be too difficult considering the focus will be on short-stories rather than novels. The most difficult task will be narrowing down my list to 52 short stories. The challenge allows for participants to tweak their lists if they see fit and I intend to do just that. I have many short-story collections sitting on my shelf but many of them are thick and contain a lot more than 52 stories to choose from. So, I've decided to designate the card suits to specific categories: Spades is my personalized anthology list. If I happen to draw a spades card, then I will choose a story from that collection at random. Clubs is for science-fiction, Hearts is for Canadian authors and Diamonds is random. Here is my reading list:
Spades: Anthologies
A - Philip K. Dick - The Complete Short Stories
2 - The Stories of Ray Bradbury
3 - John Updike - The Collected Stories
4 - Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
5 - Babylon Revisited and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6 - D.H. Lawrence - Selected Stories
7 - Dorothy Parker - Complete Stories
8 - The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard
9 - May We Borrow Your Husband + Other Stories by Graham Greene
10 - The Stories of John Cheever
J - Theodore Sturgeon - The Complete Stores
Q - Katherine Mansfield - Selected Stories
K - Story of Your Life and Other Stories by Ted Chiang
Clubs: Science Fiction
A - 2BR20B by Kurt Vonnegut
2 - Bloodchild by Octavia Butler
3 - Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan
4 - For a Breath I Tarry by Roger Zelazny
5 - Driftglass by Samuel R. Delany
6 - Mimsy Were the Borogroves by Lewis Padgett
7 - Adam and No Eve by Alfred Bester
8 - All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein
9 - Vintage Season by C.I. Moore
10 - Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh
J - Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Q - Baby, You Were Great! by Kate Wilhelm
K - The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
Hearts: Canadian
A - Ray by Guy Vanderhaeghe
2 - Rape Fantasies by Margaret Atwood
3 - The Collectors by Rohinton Mistry
4 - A Scarf by Carol Shields
5 - Voices Lost in Snow by Mavis Gallant
6 - Real Life Writes Real Bad by Timothy Findley
7 - Let Me Promise You by Morley Callaghan
8 - Vision by Alistair Macleod
9 - The Baby in the Airmail Box by Thomas King
10 -The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy
J - Paper Shadows by Wayson Choy
Q - Alice Munro - The Turkey Season
K - Four Stations in his Circle by Austin Clarke
Diamonds: Random
A - Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin
2 - Cathedral by Raymond Carver
3 - The Werewolf by Angela Carter
4 - The Man Who Was Almost a Man by Richard Wright
5 - Petrified Man by Eudora Welty
6 - Super-Frog Saves Tokyo by Haruki Murakami
7 - The Passenger or Signs and Symbols by Vladimir Nabokov
8 - Gooseberries or The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekov
9 - Souls Belated by Edith Wharton
10 - Let the Old Dead make Room for the Young Dead by Milan Kundera
J - A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka
Q - Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates
K - The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
- Deal Me In Challenge: A&p By John Updike
Card Drawn: 3 of Spades. One might think that my luck has run out for drawing another 'short-story anthology card' from the deck but lo and behold, it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to announce...
- Deal Me In Challenge: The Turkey Season By Alice Munro
Card Drawn: Queen of Hearts A Nobel prize winning author, Alice Munro is often considered one of Canada's greatest literary treasures and a master of the short-story. She tends to receive nothing but the highest praise from critics and readers alike...
- Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books On My Fall To-be-read List
It's been a while since I last participated in the Top Ten Tuesday held by the Brooke and the Bookish so let's give this another go. As the first day of fall, this weekly meme is quite appropriate and asks fellow book bloggers to list their...
- The Classics Spin #5
I missed the last four Spin events hosted by the Classics Club so its time to finally participate in one of them. The challenge this time around is to list 20 books left to read from the Classics Club Challenge, which will then become my Classics Spin...
- The Literature Frenzy Challenge!
Welcome to my ultimate reading challenge! This will be an on-going project of mine and I hope to read everything on this list before departing from this world. I am always open for recommendations so if you want me to read something that is not already...