The Reading Challenge Group discussion

Let's Have Pie - Books to Read Before You Die
(Boxall's / Guardian / Awards)



Interested in chipping away at the Boxall's or Guardian's lists of books to read before you die? How about exploring award winners?

This challenge combines the themes from the Guardian list with your own particular focus. Choose a list or an award (you can choose more than one award to help fit the categories), and eat some pie to complete the challenge.

Themes

1. Comedy
2. Crime
3. Family & Self
4. Love
5. Science Fiction & Fantasy
6. State of the Nation
7. War & Travel

Levels

Level 1: Just a Taste
1.
2.
Level 2: Getting Greedy
3.
4.
Level 3: I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing
5.
6.
7.

Guardian List:

Complete Guardian List
Comedy
Crime
Family & Self
Love
Science Fiction & Fantasy
State of the Nation
War & Travel

Boxall's List:

Listopia: Favorites from 1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die
Books shelved as Boxall on Goodreads

Awards:

(Only winners, not nominees.)

Some popular awards: Pulitzer Prize,
ALA Alex Award, National Book Award,
Man Booker Prize, Orange Prize, Newbery Medal,
Walter Scott Prize, Macavity Award, Hugo Award.

You can also search for awards on Goodreads to find one that interests you.

I'm in this year.

I'm going to start with awards and then try for another pie with the Guardian list if I have time.

1. The Underground Railroad NBA 2016
2. The Obelisk Gate Hugo Award

I'm in this year. I will use the Guardian List again.

Level 1-Just a taste
1. Family and Self Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
2. Love Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Level 2- Getting greedy
3. War and Travel: Monkey: A Journey to the West by David Kherdian
4. Crime - The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

Level 3- I can't believe I ate the whole thing
5. Comedy - The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
6. Science Fiction/Fantasy - Vathek by William Beckford
7. State of the Nation - La luna e i falò by Cesare Pavese

I'm goanna chip away at some more of this this year, just with the theme. I may do a second round for awards though.

That is a good idea, Jenny. I may do the same, change the topic for pie 2.

Not sure which list I'll use yet - maybe both!

Themes:

1. Comedy
2. Crime
3. Family & Self
4. Love
5. Science Fiction & Fantasy
6. State of the Nation
7. War & Travel

Levels

Level 1: Just a Taste
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. American Gods

Level 2: Getting Greedy
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Level 3: I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing
5. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
6. Blindness by José Saramago
7. Emma by Jane Austen

Levels

Level 1: Just a Taste
1. The Bell Jar
2.
Level 2: Getting Greedy
3.
4.
Level 3: I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing
5.
6.
7.

I'll eat pie, I'll just use the Guardian list to make it easy.

A Bookworm Reading (Plethora) wrote: "I'll eat pie, I'll just use the Guardian list to make it easy."

Good luck! It is a great ride. A wonderful way to expand your reading horizons. Choose carefully. Some of this "great" books aren't so great for the 21st century. They tend to be wordy. Remember to be in their present time.

Yay!!

I will be using the Guardian List again.

Level 1: Just a Taste
1.
2.
Level 2: Getting Greedy
3.
4.
Level 3: I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing
5.
6.
7.

I've decided to try this, using the Guardian list.

Themes

1. Comedy
2. Crime
3. Family & Self
4. Love
5. Science Fiction & Fantasy
6. State of the Nation
7. War & Travel

Levels

Level 1: Just a Taste
1. Science fiction The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
2. Love Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Level 2: Getting Greedy
3. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
4. A Room with a View - E.M. Forster
Level 3: I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing
5. Emma - Jane Austen
6. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
7. Silas Marner - George Eliot

I finished the Guardian Pie.

Next pie will be Rosemarie's Award Winning Pie. My goal is to use a different award for each piece.

Level 1 - Just a taste
1.State of the Nation- The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (Pulitzer Prize)
2. Family and Self - The Luck of Ginger Coffey by Brian Moore (Governor General's Award)

Level 2 - Getting greedy
3. Love - Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (W.H. Smith Literary Award)
4. Crime - The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (Edgar Award)

Level 3 - I can't believe I ate the whole thing
5. War and Travel - The Sorrow Of War by Bảo Ninh (Independent Foreign Fiction Prize)
6. Science Fiction/Fantasy - Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (Hugo Award)
7. Comedy - The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge (Guardian Fiction Award)

Wow Rosemarie, nice work!

Thanks. The only book I didn't like was Vathek, a very early gothic novel that was just too weird for me.

Lol. I felt the same way when I read it several months ago!

That book is on my to read this year list. I am glad to hear you enjoyed it.

I finally finished my 2nd pie.

Crime ~ L.A. Confidential 9/20/16
Sci/Fi i ~ Fahrenheit 451 11/15/16
Family/Self ~ Song of Solomon 11/15/16
Love ~ Sense and Sensibility 11/19/16
State of the Nation ~ Vanity Fair 3/2/17
War and Travel ~ All the Pretty Horses 10/5/16

My Favorite, hands down, was Fahrenheit 451. It was so well written. Should have read it years ago. May have to read more Bradbury. That was my first, and certainly won't be my last.

Nice work, Lynnette!

Great work, Lynette.

I just read the first book for Award Winning books.
It is the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction of 2013, in the State of the Nation category, called The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. This is not an easy read, due to the topic, but very worthwhile.

I am done, for now, with difficult reads. I do know one has to remember the times which many classics are written, but sometimes they make my brain hurt. Isn't there a classic out there beside The Three Musketeers by Dumas that might make me be glad to Read it?

I really liked Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini. It was a lot of fun-- and on the Guardian list.

Guardian Pie #2

Just a taste:
1. Love - The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
2. War and Travel - Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

Getting greedy:

3. State of the Nation - Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
4. Crime The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett


Level 3- I can't believe I ate the Whole Thing

5. Family and Self At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
6. Comedy A Tale of a Tub and Other Satires by Jonathan Swift
7. Science Fiction/Fantasy Dracula by Bram Stoker

Renee's First Pie 2017

1. Comedy: Brewster's Millions**
2. Crime: My Cousin Rachel**
3. Family & Self: The Bell Jar**
4. Love: The Good Soldier**
5. SciFi & Fantasy: Solaris**
6. State of Nation: Passage to India**
7. War & Travel: A Town Like Alice**

And it was a tasty one! I found every book to be interesting on some level; with a few that are current favorites of 2017.

I just finished my second Guardian Pie.
I am going to try a Boxall Pie next.

Level1 - Just a taste

1. Science Fiction/Fantasy: Solaris by Stanisław Lem
2. Love: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Level 2 - Getting Greedy

3. State of the Nation- Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
4. Family and Self - A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

Level 3 - I can't believe I ate the whole thing

5. War and Travel - Le Tour du monde en 80 jours by Jules Verne
6. Comedy- Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
7. Crime- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Finished the Award Winners Pie. This one was harder than the others.

Rosemarie wrote: "Finished the Award Winners Pie. This one was harder than the others."

Well done Rosemarie! Which award(s) did you do?

The Award Winners Pie is at message 16. The hardest book to find was for Comedy. It was also the book I liked the least, since I didn't find it funny.
The style reminded me somewhat of Georgy Girl by Margaret Forster.

I am addicted to the Guardian Pies!

Guardian Pie # 3:

Level one-Just a taste

1. Science fiction/ Fantasy - The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
2. Comedy - Brewster's Millions by George Barr McCutcheon

Level two - Getting greedy

3. State of the Nation - La peste by Albert Camus
4. Love -Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Level 3- I can't believe I ate the whole thing

5. Crime - Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
6. War and Travel - Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
7. Family and Self - The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

I finished the Boxall pie, but prefer the Guardian list (by far).

Well done, Rosemarie! I struggled to eat even one pie last year, so I'm impressed at how well you're doing. Glad you're enjoying the selections.

Thank you. I have found lots of great books that I had never heard of until this challenge. The Guardian List also has a lot of books by my favourite authors.

Renee's Second Helping
1. Comedy: Three Men in a Boat
2. Crime: The Secret Agent**
3. Family & Self: The Poisonwood Bible**
4. Love: Death in Venice**
5. Science Fiction & Fantasy: The Monk**
6. State of the Nation: The Last Chronicle of Barset**
7. War & Travel: The Things They Carried**

My favorites were The Poisonwood Bible and The Last Chronicle of Barset. Poisonwood was a reread. It's just a terrific read.

Signed,
Renewal (my new alias) :D

I finished my third Guardian pie.

Starting a new Guardian pie: (#4)

1. State of the Nation - Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
2. War and Travel - Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
3. Crime - The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Science Fiction/Fantasy - The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
5. Family and Self - Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
6. Comedy - Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse
7. Love - A Lost Lady by Willa Cather

Go Rosemarie!!

Thank you.

Guardian Pie #5:

1. War and Travel - The Castafiore Emerald by Hergé
2. Crime - The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
3. Science Fiction/Fantasy - Foundation by Isaac Asimov
4. Comedy - Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
5. State of the Nation - Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis

Do not have time to complete level 3.

It looks like you did really well Sonia! Maybe next year there should be another way to complete a pie without having to do all of the themes.

Some of the books in SciFi/fantasy are not that fantasy oriented. House of the
Seven Gables is in that category.

I agree with Sonia to keep all seven categories, or I would not have tried new authors in my weak category-- crime.

True enough :)