Japanese Literature Challenge 17

JAPANESE LITERATURE CHALLENGE 17

#JapaneseLitChallenge17 #JapaneseLiterature

This year I plan on participating in Dolce Bellezza's ~for literary and translated literature~ blog's Japanese Literature Challenge which is in its 17th year. It is a reading challenge that occurs in January and February of 2023 only, and the idea is pretty straightforward. Read as many books as you like in those two months. (Even if that is ”only” one.) Make sure the work was originally written in Japanese. Choose from classic to contemporary works, whatever appeals to you.

Last year was a bust for me on this challenge so I'm going to try to read and review as many as I can this time around.

Here are my choices:

The Detective Kaga / Kyoichiro Kaga series by Kunihiko Hidaka
Malice
Newcomer
A Death in Tokyo
The Final Curtain

Before Your Memory Fades (Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, #3) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

Penance by Hiromi Kawakami

Classics Club Reading Challenge - Spin #34

Here is my current "Spin" List of 20 books for the "Classics Club Reading Challenge." This list was developed from the poster "100 Essential Books" Scratch Off Bucket List. However, since I've already read and scratched off a number of the original books, my ending number is 70 (as of June 12, 2023.) This "master list" is shown below.

On June 18, 2023, the Classics Club blog will post their CC Spin #34, a random number from 1 to 20. The challenge is to read and review whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by the 6th of August, 2023. 

Duration of Challenge: June 18 - August 6, 2023

Number selected for Spin #34 - ?

Spin List

1.  Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare

2.  The Stranger – Albert Camus

3.  A Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela

4.  The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X

5.  The Radium Girls – Kate Moore

6.  The Shipping News – Annie Proulx

7.  Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

8.  A Death in the Family – James Agee

9.  A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking

10.  The Commitments – Roddy Doyle

11.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

12.  Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

13.  Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

14,  Dracula – Bram Stoker

15.  American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

16.  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo, #1) - Jules Verne

17.  The Story of My Experiments with Truth – Mahatma Gandhi

18, Ulysses – James Joyce

19.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

20. The Martian – Andy Weir

The following is the Master List of what I have left to read on this poster. Some of the selections shown on the poster are actually entire series, so I have listed the books in those series that I've not completed further down the page. As I complete a series book from the master list, I will replace it with the next one in the series. In order to get my Spin List, I used a Table of Random Numbers to generate 20 numbers from 1 to 71 (the total number of books in the Master List.)

Master List

1. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo, #1) – Jules Verne

2. Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays, #1) – Sophocles

3. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin – Benjamin Franklin

4. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes

5. Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare

6. The Story of My Experiments with Truth – Mahatma Gandhi

7. The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Malcolm X

8. The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson, #2) – Rick Riordan

9. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

10. Sophie’s World – Jostein Gaarder

11. A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking

12. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

13. A Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela

14. Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie

15. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

16. The Color Purple – Alice Walker

17. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

18. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone (Harry Potter, #1) – J.K. Rowling

19. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

20. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

21. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift

22. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells

23. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

24. Macbeth – William Shakespeare

25. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1) – J.R.R. Tolkien

26. The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle

27. Ulysses – James Joyce

28. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje

29. The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

30. The Commitments – Roddy Doyle

31. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells

32. Dracula – Bram Stoker

33. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1) – C.S. Lewis

34. Hamlet – William Shakespeare

35. The Odyssey – Homer

36. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

37. 438 Days – Jonathan Franklin

38. How to be Champion – Sarah Millican

39. The Romanov Sisters – Helen Rappaport

40. The Martian – Andy Weir

41. A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1) – Deborah Harkness

42. Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1) – Stephen King

43. Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1) – Pierce Brown

44. Hamilton: The Revolution – Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarter

45. The Fireman – Joe Hill

46. The Radium Girls – Kate Moore

47. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy

48. The Shipping News – Annie Proulx

49. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

50. Play It As It Lays – Joan Didion

51. The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosiński

52. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

53. Naked Lunch – William S. Burroughs

54. Go Tell It On the Mountain – James Baldwin

55. A Death in the Family – James Agee

56. Blindness – José Saramago

57. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien

58. Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett

59. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

60. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

61. Little Town on the Prairie (Little House, #7) – Laura Ingalls Wilder

62. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

63. On the Road – Jack Kerouac

64. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

65. The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka

66. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

67. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

68. A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle

69. The Stranger – Albert Camus

70. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Series books to add as needed. (34)

Replaces #1 - The Mysterious Island (Captain Nemo, #2) – Jules Verne

Replaces #2 - Oedipus at Colonus (The Theban Plays, #2) - Sophocles

Replaces #2 - Antigone (The Theban Plays, #3) – Sophocles

Replaces #8 - Percy Jackson and the Stolen Chariot (Percy Jackson, #2.5) – Rick Riordan

Replaces #8 - The Titans Curse (Percy Jackson, #3) – Rick Riordan

Replaces #8 - Percy Jackson and the Bronze Dragon (Percy Jackson, #3.5) – Rick Riordan

Replaces #8 - The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson, #4) – Rick Riordan

Replaces #8 - Percy Jackson and the Sword of Hades (Percy Jackson, #4.5) – Rick Riordan

Replaces #8 - The Demigod Files (Percy Jackson, #4.5) – Rick Riordan

Replaces #8 - The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson, #5) – Rick Riordan

Replaces #12 - Go Set a Watchman – Harper Lee

Replaces #18 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2) – J.K. Rowling

Replaces #18 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3) – J.K. Rowling

Replaces #18 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) – J.K. Rowling

Replaces #18 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5) - J.K. Rowling

Replaces #18 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6) – J.K. Rowling

Replaces #18 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7) – J.K. Rowling

Replaces #25 - The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2) – J.R.R. Tolkien

Replaces #25 - The Return of the Kind (The Lord of the Rings, #3) – J.R.R. Tolkien

Replaces #33 - Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia, #2) – C.S. Lewis

Replaces #33 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chronicles of Narnia, #3) – C.S. Lewis

Replaces #33 - The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, #4) – C.S. Lewis

Replaces #33 - The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5) – C.S. Lewis

Replaces #33 - The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia, #6) – C.S. Lewis

Replaces #33 - The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7) – C.S. Lewis

Replaces #40 - Artemis – Andy Weir

Replaces #41 - Shadow of Night (All Souls, #2) – Deborah Harkness

Replaces #41 - The Book of Life (All Souls, #3) – Deborah Harkness

Replaces #42 - Finders Keepers (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #2) – Stephen King

Replaces #42 - End of Watch (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #3) – Stephen King

Replaces #43 - Golden Son (Red Rising Saga, #2) – Pierce Brown

Replaces #61 - These Happy Golden Years (Little House, #8) – Laura Ingalls Wilder

Replaces #61 - The First Four Years (Little House, #9) – Laura Ingalls Wilder

List of completed Spins!

Spin #30 - Misery by Stephen King (August 9, 2022)

Spin #31 - The Picture of Dorian Gray (October 30, 2022)

Spin #32 -  The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (January 29, 2023)

Spin #33 -  Did not participate

#ccspin

Karen's Japanese Literature Challenge 2023

JAPANESE LITERATURE CHALLENGE 16

#JapaneseLitChallenge16 #JapaneseLiterature

This year I plan on participating in Dolce Bellezza's ~for literary and translated literature~ blog's Japanese Literature Challenge which is in its 16th year. It is a reading challenge that occurs in January and February of 2023 only, and the idea is pretty straightforward. Read as many books as you like in those two months. (Even if that is ”only” one.) Make sure the work was originally written in Japanese. Choose from classic to contemporary works, whatever appeals to you.

Once again, I'm going to try to read one book for each month of the challenge, plus one.

Here are my choices:

Before Your Memory Fades (Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, #3) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

Penance by Hiromi Kawakami