Becca’s Cyber Home

Since I’ve been participating in Booking Through Thursday, I’ve found about a dozen book blogs I read regularly. Lots of these blog authors are participating in reading challenges. So far I’ve managed to stay away, figuring I didn’t need yet another thing to keep me busy. But I ran across a challenge today that really grabbed me: the 1% Well-Read Challenge. From the challenge web site:

The goal of this challenge is to read 10 books in 10 months from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. For you non-math people, 10 out of 1001 is approximately 1%, hence the title. The challenge will run from May 1, 2008 through February 28, 2009.

According to a nifty spreadsheet provided by Arukiyomi, I’ve only read 25 of these books, or 2.50%. And, statistically speaking, as a western female, I need to read 20 books per year in order to check off all of the books on the list.

So, figuring I won’t read all 1001 of these books (I’m sure I’ll find others!), I figure the 1% challenge is workable.

Using the nifty spreadsheet and relying on fate, I ran a random number generator and came up with these 10 books:

1. The Names by Don DeLillo
2. The Inferno by Henri Barbusse
3. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
4. Everything You Need by A.L. Kennedy
5. Mrs. ‘Harris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico
6. Unless by Carol Shields
7. The Sea by John Banville
8. A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
9. Billy Budd, Foretopman by Herman Melville
10. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

I haven’t read any of the books that fate (and random.org) chose for me, so I’m really looking forward to this! And bonus–some of these are available for Kindle!