Bibliophilic Books Challenge

I love books about books, reading, and writing, so this challenge seemed like a natural. I've got hordes of these books in my home, and hopefully this challenge will get me organized about actually reading them! I'm hemming and hawing right now about which level to join at. My choices are:

Bookworm: Read three books
Litlover: Read six books
Bibliomaniac: Read twelve books

I'm deciding between Bookworm and Litlover right now. I should probably go in at Bookworm, as I can always do more. I'm definitely looking forward to starting. Roll on the New Year!

Chunkster Challenge

I'm excited to be participating this year in the Chunkster Challenge- an effort to get those very loooong books read. Qualifying chunksters are adult (no, not that kind of adult) books over 450 pages. I've got several in the hopper that I've been meaning to read, so this challenge will hopefully make me get at them. I'll be participating at the lowest level to start: The Chubby Chunkster. That's three chunksters over the course of the year. Right now I'm planning on:

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
East of Eden
The Crimson Petal and the White

This might change, but probably won't. If I can handle the low-level chunksters this year, I'll perhaps move up next year. Now I have to decide which one to dive into come February 1.

Thriller and Suspense Challenge

Having looked over my reading for the past year, it's pretty surprising just how many of the books fit in the thriller and suspense category, broadly speaking. Thus, I've decided to join the Thriller and Suspense Challenge for next year. The rules are to read 12 books in the genre over the coming year, which will hopefully not be a problem. In the spirit of how I read (choosing on a whim) I'll not be making an advance list, but I'll be posting and reviewing once the new year starts.

GLBT Challenge

This challenge seemed a natural for me, as so many of my beloved Virago Modern Classics were written by lesbian or bisexual women. I'm choosing to go in at the Lambda level, for a start, requiring me to read four GLBT books in 2010. Likely I can do more, but I want to actually finish my challenges in the coming year. Most of my choices likely will come out of the Virago Modern Classics, and thus, most will be late-19th and early-20th c. choices.

Marple-Poirot-Holmes Challenge

There's nothing quite like hunkering down with an Agatha Christie on a weekend afternoon, and staying on the couch until the whole thing is read. That guilty pleasure has brought me to a new challenge: The Marple, Poirot, and Holmes reading challenge. The requirements are to read two Miss Marple, two Hercule Poirot, and two Sherlock Holmes mysteries in 2010. The Christies will be no problem, and this will be my first foray into Holmes- that's a deficiency I certainly need to rectify. I'm not picking in advance for this one- I'll read whatever strikes me at the time.

Colorful Reading Challenge

It's now the season for me to sign up for many more reading challenges for next year than I will ever be able to finish, so I submit my first: The Colorful Reading Challenge. The requirements are simple: nine books, with nine different colors, in a year. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be choosing, but I'm thinking about:

Blood Orange by Drusilla Campbell
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali
Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber
Violet Clay by Gail Godwin
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig

I will most certainly be adding others, but that's a starting point.

Green Books Campaign: Medicine Trails by Mavis McCovey

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

This memoir tells the story of Mavis McCovey, a Karuk medicine woman and health care advocate. It also tells us much more than the story of McCovey offering broad discussion of her life and land. The result is a fascinating look at Native American spirituality, community, life and labor in northwestern California. Stretching from the early-nineteenth century, we learn the long and broad history of McCovey's family. As the subtitle suggests, McCovey is a woman who has lived in many worlds: through her family, in which her ancestors married and raised families with European partners, to her own marriage, in which she relocated to her husband's Yurok community. Perhaps most importantly, McCovey has also occupied the world of the medicine woman, a role for which she was singled out in childhood, and trained from a young age. By no account has Mavis McCovey had an easy life, physically or emotionally. After losing her own parents at age six, McCovey also lost two of her five children. Work is a constant theme in this memoir, and we see all of the residents of McCovey's community working, and working hard, almost constantly. As a spiritual leader, McCovey has hardly been absent from this labor, and her spiritual leadership is well-grounded in a hardworking community. The tremendous wealth of information on the process of becoming a medicine woman is surely one of this book's strengths. As a woman who lives in many worlds, McCovey does an excellent job of highlighting for the reader the spiritual differences among the communities in which she has lived, showcasing for the reader the significant variety in Native American religious practices, even in close geographic proximity. This book will likewise be valuable to those interested in women's studies, as McCovey reflects on her role as a medicine woman, and as a wife, daughter, and mother in the Karuk and Yurok communities. This text is narrated by McCovey, literally, in that it was told to the anthropologist John Salter (McCovey's co-author), who offered annotations. Salter has presented McCovey's words as they were told to him. This presents certain benefits, clearly in that we hear directly and mostly unmediated from McCovey. It also presents challenges. As a spoken history, the style of narration is somewhat different from what most readers may be accustomed to- this is a book that sometimes begs to be read out loud, to offer full appreciation of the style. In sum, this is a very interesting book, which offers information not necessarily available elsewhere. Blurbers described this book as a "definitive text," and I would agree. I would use this book in the classroom without hesitation. McCovey's story has taught me a great deal.