Seasonal Rituals

Click the beautiful image for the Challenge Site

On the tenth day of My Twelve Days of Challenges, I’m bookchatting about Carl’s two traditional challenges: the Once Upon a Time Challenge and the R.eaders I.bibe P.eril Challenge.

The former was new to me; the latter simply gave a name to a long-standing reading tradition: both were stuffed with great reads. And reading about other participants’ choices only made me want to read more for each.

Once Upon a Time Challenge

So, even though I was obsessed with the Orange Prize Longlist in the spring, I joined “The Journey”, which only required me to read a single book from any of the four categories (fantasy, folklore, fairy tale, mythology).

And then… well, you don’t need me to explain what happened next. It’s happened to all of us, right?

Hiromi Goto’s The Water of Possibility (2001)
Hiromi Goto’s Half World (2009)
Terri Griggs’ Cat’s Eye Corner (2000)
Alison Goodman’s Eon: Dragoneye Reborn (2009)
Nnedi Okorafor’s The Shadow Speaker (2009)
Kenneth Oppel’s Silverwing (1997)

Other books which I read during this time period, which also would have fit with the criteria for this challenge, but which I read for another challenge were Nalo Hopkinson’s The New Moon’s Arms (2007) and Hiromi Goto’s The Kappa Child (2001).

How challenging was it? It was fun, but I did drive myself a little crazy, regularly inflating my reading plans for it. So I’d give it a 6. And favourites from this list? Half World and The Shadow Speaker.

R.I.P. Challenge

Click image for the Challenge Site

This is a reading habit with me and Mr. BIP and I always watch at least 13 films each October, so it was a thrill to so easily complete Peril the First (4 books), Short Story Peril, and Peril on the Screen.

Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds (1952)
Daphne du Maurier’s Flight of the Falcon (1965)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)
Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer (1996)
Giles Blunt’s Blackfly Season (2005)
Giles Blunt’s By the Time You Read This (2006)
Giles Blunt’s Crime Machine (2010)
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead (2005-2010)

Short stories
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1842)
Edgar Allan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” (1839)
M.R. James’ short story “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (1904)
Edith Wharton’s Miss Mary Pask (1925)

Kidlit
Virginia Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear (1968)
Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Running out of Time (1995)

Movies
.Le Manoir Du Diable (1896) (Apparitions, Trickery) (This is 3 minutes long: you can watch it online!)
.Another Man’s Poison (1951) (Murder, Sinister close-ups, Dark country roads)
.House of Wax (1953) (Mortality, Disappearance, Mystery, Masks)
.The Crazies (1973) (Slow-moving zombies, Disease caused by science-gone-wrong and government-gone-bad)
.Poltergeist (1982) (Hauntings, Suburbia gone wrong, Dangers of television)
.Dracula (1992) (Blood, Erotic, Castle, Transformation)
.Dawn of the Dead (2004) (Fast-moving zombies, Seriously scary, Consumerism-gone-wrong)
.Shaun of the Dead (2004) (Fun-moving zombies, Seriously hilarious, Pub-crawls-gone-wrong)
.The Crazies (2007) (Survival, Disease caused by powerful body that remains appropriately vague to avoid lawsuits)
.Trick r Treat (2007) Four interconnected stories of Hallowe’en festivities, some deliciously unpredictable)
.Martyrs (2008) (Obsession, Blood, Abuse, Torture, Devotion)
.Repo: The Genetic Opera (2008) (Bodily cavities, Bizarrely beautiful).Drag Me to Hell (2009) (Curses, Dark spirits)
.Shutter Island (2010) (Madness, Isolation, Haunting, Deception, Death)

How challenging was it? Only a 2, despite the quantity! Cuz this spooky reading just comes naturally this time of year.

And favourites from R.I.P.? Robert Kirkman’s series of graphic novels, The Walking Dead (print) and “Trick r Treat” (film).

Any of these overlap with your reading/viewing?