Book Awards Reading Challenge... the Second!

The time has come for another Book Awards Reading Challenge! And, lucky for me, I failed so spectacularly at completing the first one that my list of possibilities is extremely easy to formulate this time: my list for the second challenge will largely consist of the unread books from the first challenge, with a few key additions. What a delightful challenge, and what a joy to get a second chance at completing it!

You can read about the challenge in greater detail (and sign up for it) at the challenge's blog, but the basic rules (as laid out on the blog) are these:

  1. Read 10 award winners from August 1, 2008 through June 1, 2009.

  2. You must have at least FIVE different awards in your ten titles.

  3. Overlaps with other challenges are permitted.

  4. You don't have to post your choices right away, and your list can change at any time.

  5. 'Award winners' is loosely defined; make the challenge fit your needs, keeping in mind Rule #2.

And here is the "list of possibilities" from which I will draw my ten titles:
  • Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (NBCC Award, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Small Island by Andrea Levy (Commonwealth Writer's Prize, Costa/Whitbread, Orange Prize)
  • Hyperion by Dan Simmons (Hugo Award)
  • Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (Nebula Award)
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson (Hugo Award, Nebula Award)
  • The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize)
  • Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (Booker Prize, Miles Franklin Literary Award)
  • Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (Booker Prize)
  • Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (Giller Prize)
  • March by Geraldine Brooks (Pulitzer Prize)
  • The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (The Governor General's Prize, Pulitzer Prize)
  • The Gathering by Anne Enright (Booker Prize)
  • The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Alex Award)
  • The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (Costa/Whitbread)
  • The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin (Edgar Award)
  • The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart (The Governor General's Prize)
  • My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (IMPAC Dublin)
  • Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (IMPAC Dublin, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize)
  • Saturday by Ian McEwan (James Tait Black Memorial Prize)
  • Looking for Alaska by John Green (Printz Award)
Such is my need to work through my ginormous TBR pile that I made it a criteria of inclusion on this list that I must actually OWN a copy of the book. And still I needed to weed the list pretty heavily to get it down to 20 possibilities.

For those of you who love a good challenge, keep an eye out for my second "Unread Authors" challenge, which will run from August to January, and which I will be announcing (officially) soon!

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