First, let’s get this out of the way:
And now, Part 1: the FAILED CHALLENGES. Don’t worry, this will be brief. (I hope.)
[Updated a week later when I discovered that I signed up for other challenges and then promptly forgot. Like the poetry one and the Page to Screen. oh well. 🙂 ]
1. Regarding the ongoing Jon Cusack’s Top Books Challenge hosted by moi. Didn’t read a damn thing towards this, this year. But I did accumulate a few of the titles for the in-house shelf. Still have yet to find (cuz I’m trying to find CHEAP, ie free, or at GoodWill, library sale or at bookmooch.com) Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller and Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.
2. Europa Editions – I was supposed to read FOUR books but I managed THREE. Actually, I was very happy with my results on this. It’s one I jumped into without really thinking when it was announced because I had two in house and someone sent me a book (Thanks JILL!) for the third option. And then I moved on. Couldn’t decide what book to look for next and didn’t want to purchase any books. On the other hand, I still have a few days left in the year. I seem to be doing bookish things like rather than real reading, though.
3. Read-alongs… I failed to finish Ulysses with FizzyThoughts. Yea, whatever. I wanted to participate in the John Adams bio readalong at Wallace’s Unputdownables but got sidetracked when the library couldn’t seem to get part 2 on audio. I meant to BUY the darn book and just finish it in print. Then I forgot all about it.
4. In a post here back about a year ago, I said I would participate in the Aussie Author Challenge AND the Kiwi YA Challenge. Didn’t read a thing. SHAME on me. When I fail a challenge, I trip right over into the mud! So to redeem myself a little, I do hope to concentrate on reading SOMETHING in these categories in 2012 but without any official signing-upness.
5. That same post also declared my tippy-top reading goals to be slight but powerful and I called it the Personal CARE Challenge (get it? ‘care’?). I was to read THREE, only 3 books and I accomplished about 75%.
I was to read a book by Rosy Thornton – I did and I LOVED it: The Tapestry of Love. Plus, I know that my enthusiasm for the book, which seemed to hit my perfect mood when I read it for a lovely experience, inspired a few of my goodreads friends to acquire the book and they loved it, too. I’m so happy and I look forward to experiencing more Rosy in the future.
I managed to read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and was quite struck by it’s simple power. Very effective collection of short stories. I convinced my husband to read it – I don’t want this to sound bad, but it was his one fiction read of the year. He allows himself such. He thought it ‘ok’. My mom, too, didn’t seem to think it was as good as I did. Say laveee. (I have no idea how to spell that…) (but I do have powers to look it up in google: c’est la vie; means ‘such is life.’)
And finally, the 3rd book I said I wanted to read this 2011 was my D.H.Lawrence collection Erotic Works and as much as I did enjoy what seemed like many many pages – egads, is it DEEEEEEP. I put the book somewhere and have misplaced it. [glances at bookshelf, confirms ‘nope – don’t see it.] I read it almost too cerebrally – like “OOoooo! must include this in blog post! blah blah blah”. I didn’t finish anything but the poems. Sigh. But I did read some which is how I arrived at a 75% completion for reading 2 out of 3 books. Few of you would wonder how I got 75% I’m sure. You won’t do the math anyway!
Plus I got extra credit points (so what if it is ME giving myself extra credit?!) because my post says I want to read something by Tom Hardy and I did! Tess of the D’Urbervilles! I just never got around to reviewing it. I’m keeping the points. *glare*
6. I forgot about Bart’s 20 in 2011 and was SO CLOSE. But I only read ONE series book: Hunger Games. But I think the idea was to read a SECOND and not a first in a series. I also didn’t get ANY books re-read in 2011.
Now I know what the FAIL stamp* is for.
I never got around to reviewing any of the chapters I did read of Ulysess. I never got around to reviewing True Grit. I didn’t do that hot at read-book-watch-flick this year, either. I didn’t see very many movies in 2011 and am going to cancel Netflix. Something about that feels like ‘end of an era’ nostalgia. I used to love movies and now, I’m just not as interested.
C’est la vie.
* We were given a nice FAIL stamp at BEA 2010. I think we all wondered “what?!”
HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
Care's Books and Pie 
Hahah, I didn’t wonder “what?” when I got that fail stamp. I’d been following the fail blog for awhile by then. 😀 Love it!!!!! I still have my stamp too.
I’ve probably said this before, but I’m so glad you loved The Tapestry of Love. I’ve been thinking about rereading that one soon.
The fail blog? huh. I don’t think I know of this. I still don’t know why we got it in our goodie bag…
I don’t even want to think about all the challenges I failed this year.
They balance out the challenges I did succeed at. 🙂
Well, you might have ‘failed’, but you wrote an entertaining post in the meantime. 🙂
Snort! thanks.
You did way better than me when it comes to this year’s challenges. I failed the majority of them. Every year I fail and yet I always sign up for a ton! 😉
As Susan says, the fun is in the joining.
I want that FAIL stamp. I failed almost all my challenges this year as well. Um, actually, all of them. I’m signing up for far less next year. I may be to embarrassed to post about them!
Guess you’ll just have to borrow Amanda’s. I think I will sign up for less ‘official’ ones, too, but my own personal challenges seem to be growing.
Gosh, I’m so glad I’m not the only one to fail at so many challenges! and if I do read some in the challenge, I then fail to blog about them, and to link to the challenge. I did try something new: I joined only a few challenges this year, and let myself read whatever I wanted.Still, I managed to fail at reading Ulysses too, like you. And I”m contemplating the chunkster challenge for 2012, of which the same Ulysses is not so surprisingly turning up on my ‘might join this’ challenge list. So thanks for a very entertaining post about your challenge reading failures this year. I think there are a few of us! The fun is in joining them, isn’t it??
no, you are NOT the only one! 🙂
No WAY will I sign up for the chunkster one. I have to let those sneak up on me.
Well, the only reason why I haven´t failed as many as you is that I didn´t join more than five challenges.
And I used to be such a control freak so I suppose this development can count as progress, eh? 😉
Sure, Dorte, let’s count this as progress. First step is to admit you have a problem, second step is avoidance?!
You’re welcome! Guess I should have sent you another one. 😉
Sure! I can always be counted as a good place to send books. You know I will treat them well and then send them along on to more appreciative readers.
I need a FAIL stamp, too!
I joined Europa, reviewed one book on my own blog, and never posted to the Challenge blog 😦
Other than that, I avoided challenges/readalongs (except perpetual challenges for some imprints). Oh, wait! I did the Maisie Dobbs readalong with Booking Mama – extra credit!!
p.s. I love the lobster ornament 🙂
Extra credit to Dawn! You should have received the fail stamp – weren’t you there?
I think I succeeded at one challenge and failed at the other, but I’m so not into challenges that you can see how deeply my success or failure registered. I’m tempted to join back in on challenges, next year, but so far I’m resisting because I suck at them.
Loved this post. I love True Grit. Did I give you my copy? I know I sent it to someone. Half of me wishes I’d kept it and the other half is sick of tripping over books, so . . . probably good that I sent it on.