Reading Challenge Completed: FOUR IN A ROW TBR Challenge
I’m always looking for a way to attack the unread books on my own shelves, so when Rebecca at Bookish Beck decided to host a new type of challenge, I decided to try it.
Her project is inspired by Phyllis Rose’s The Shelf –from LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading for which Rose picked a shelf of the New York Society Library and after some housekeeping, read all the books on it. Rebecca’s is a variation for any set of four books in a row on my own shelf. See Bookish Beck for more details.
It was a lot of fun choosing the books to read and a great satisfaction in having an empty space on my shelf. I think I’ll probably play again with another letter.
I started with Such a Long Journey which was Rohinton Mistry’s first book. I was able to read it because of the Faber Firsts series which celebrated Faber’s 80th birthday and brought to light the first published novels of a variety of acclaimed authors. Some were the book that made their career and reputation; others, like Journey are not so well known. In 2009, there was a faberfirsts.com website but Norton blocked me from visiting today, telling me that it is a “known dangerous webpage”. I’ve never seen that message before, so Norton must have run into something.
I wasn’t able to find the cover that I have on my edition so this will have to do.
For those of you interested in such things, here is the list of Faber Firsts provided on the cover of Such a Long Journey:
William Golding Lord of the Flies
P.D. James Cover Her Face
John McGahern The Barracks
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar
Peter Carey Bliss
Kazuo Ishiguro A Pale View of the Hills
Paul Auster The New York Trilogy
Orhan Pamuk The White Castle
Hanif Kureishi The Buddha of Suburbia
Rohinton Mistry Such a Long Journey
#4BooksinaRow
I’ll cover the other three books in this challenge in my next post. Have you read any of these “first books”? How did it compare to the author’s later works?
P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.
I’m so pleased that my challenge inspired you. I loved the first book I read by Mistry, Family Matters, so I would like to read his other two major novels. A Fine Balance is the one that I own.
I’ve gotten derailed on my own M chain, and also started on an H string… At least this is a very adaptable project!
Inspired is the word! I spent so much (happy) time browsing my shelves trying to decide, my husband began teasing me about it. I’m pretty sure I’m going to pick another letter and do it again.
Debbie, sorry I’ve been away from your blog for so long:( I wanted to say that I struggle to read books off my shelves. I used to say I’m saving them for retirement but, I’ve been retired 5 years now and not much movement. I have donated a good number of these as they no longer appealed to me though, so I guess that’s something.
The donation is a great start, Diane – that’s what I did. After two culls, a year apart, I felt that I really did want to read everything on my shelves. This challenge is the best way I’ve found so far!
P.S. I haven’t been blogging that much the past year or so, so don’t feel bad that you haven’t been here.
P.S. I’ve read four of those Faber Firsts and have another one on the shelf. An interesting concept for a series!
I guess it’s pretty obvious I thought so, too, Rebecca since I think I’ve devoted most of this post to it. Wasn’t my plan but . . . 😉
I have been doing something similar. Right now I have culled three novels by Joyce Carol Oates that I had but never read. Will read the first one in a couple days. I have read Lord of the Flies and it got me going on William Golding. He wrote some great novels.
I didn’t even know that Golding wrote more novels, Judy. Comes of taking Lord of the Flies in high school. I could still have nightmares about those boys, 50 years later.