2015 Challenges

Tis the season of signing up for reading challenges for the fast approaching new year! Is it just me or has this year gone incredibly fast? A few challenges have caught my eye, and I'm planning on doing a 2015 challenge for myself (probably reading the epics - Iliad, Odyssey, the Aeneid, Metamorphosis, etc). I haven't decided yet though. Anyway, here are the challenges I've decided to join for 2015:


Reading England: 

As soon as I saw this challenge I just knew I needed to participate. The aim of this challenge is to make your way around the counties of England by reading novels set in various counties. I'm planning to visit England in 2015 so this will be a good gateway into the literature that has been influenced by the English landscape in some way. There are four levels and I've decided to go for Level Three (eight books). More details about this challenge can be found here. The titles I've chosen are as follows:

1. Berkshire: Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
2. Cornwall: Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
3. Cumbria: The Tennant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte 
4. Dorset: Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
5. Kent: the Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
6. London: Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
7. Sussex: Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
8. Yorkshire: Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 

~~~~

TBR Challenge:

I participated in Adam's TBR Challenge last year, and failed miserably. I think I managed to read two or three, which is better than nothing. This year I'm determined to read all of the books I set out to read, especially since I've had a few of these titles on my shelves for years. The aim of this challenge is to "read 12 novels from your TBR pile." More details about this challenge can be found here. The titles I plan to read (plus two alternates) are: 

1. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier 
2. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
3. The Tennant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
4. Metamorphoses - Ovid 
5. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
6. Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights - Anonymous
7.  Silas Marner - George Eliot 
8. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
9. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe 
10. The Iliad - Homer 
11. Tess of the D'Urbervilles 
12. The Divine Comedy - Dante 

Alternates:

1. The Odyssey - Homer 
2. The Aeneid - Virgil 

~~~~

Literary Movement Challenge:

The challenge I'm most looking forward to for 2015 is Fanda's Literary Movement challenge. It's a really great concept which will enhance my knowledge of different literary periods throughout the last 600 or so years. The aim is to read one book a month for each of the twelve main literary periods; from the Medieval period in January to the Post Modernism period in December. I'm personally looking forward to the Medieval, Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Existentialism periods. More information about this challenge can be found here. The titles I've chosen for each month are as follows: 

January - Medieval: The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio
February - Renaissance: The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
March - Enlightenment: Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
April - Romanticism: Complete Poems - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
May - Transcendentalism: Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
June - Victorian: Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
July - Realism: Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 

August - Naturalism: The Fortune of the Rougons - Emile Zola
September - Existentialism: The Stranger - Albert Camus
October - Modernism: The Waves - Virginia Woolf
November - Beat Generation: On the Road - Jack Kerouac
December - Post Modernism: Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

~~~~

Pre-Printing Press Challenge:

As I was looking through the books I'm planning to read next year, I realised a lot of the texts I want to tackle were written before 1440, which is why the Pre-Printing Press challenge is ideal for me to join this time around. The aim of the Pre-Printing Press challenge is to read texts released before the printing press was created in 1440. I'm aiming for 10+ books (ambitious I know) . More details about this challenge can be found here. The books I'm planning to read for this challenge are:

1. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer 
2. Metamorphoses - Ovid 
3. Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights - Anonymous
4. The Decameron - Giovanni Boccaccio 
5. The Divine Comedy - Dante
6.  The Iliad - Homer
7. The Odyssey - Homer 
8. The Aeneid - Virgil 
9. Arthurian Romances - Chretien de Troyes 
10. Le Morte d'Arthur - Thomas Mallory (let's try this again shall we?)

I think that's all of the challenges I'll sign up for this year! I think I'll sign up for the Victorian Perpetual Challenge but that will take up an entire post by itself, so I shall leave that for another day.