Right now there are about 25 URLs lingering in a document titled "2011 Challenges" in my reading folder. And those are the ones that "really" interest me. The ones that make my reader's heart beat a little faster. And those are not including the two challenges to which I've already
The Heroine's Bookshelf Challenge Check it out here! Come on, you know you want to! (If all this is news to you, check out yesterday's response to this sweet little volume.) Or, if you'd rather, the book itself is structured in such a way that it invites a twelve-month exploration. The website
Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat (1970) Putnam Publishing, 1984 In between, I forget how chilling they are. Muriel Spark novels. Somehow I mix them up with other skinny reads (like Penelope Fitzgerald novels) and other UK authors (like Penelope Lively), and they don't seem so upsetting, sitting there tidily pressed between
Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) New Directions, 1946 My friend Margaret put me onto Nathanael West, which is ironic because it was by virtue of her not having recognized his name in a discussion of literary masterpieces; she was relieved that I hadn't heard of him either. Ignorance loves company, even
Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking (1945) Trans. Florence Lamborn Illus. Louis S. Glanzman NY: Viking Press, 1950 My copy of Pippi Longstocking is a bookclub edition, one of several that my mother ordered for me when I was a girl. What sets Pippi (and Rudyard Kipling's Kim) apart in this series, however, is the
