One of my favourite yearly occurrences is the Reading Rush, which I've been participating in from time to time and always find to be an engaging reading challenge. However, there will be no official Reading Rush this year, for reasons I don't know yet. My solution, as someone who wants the challenge anyways, is to create my own list of seven challenges mostly based on the prompts of previous years so that I can still experience this week. Below you will find my seven challenges, not including the voluntary extra challenge of reading a total of seven books (I will personally not try to achieve that this year) and which books I plan to read :)
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"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood
Pigs might not fly but they are strangely altered. So, for that matter are wolves and raccoons. A man, once named Jimmy, now calls himself Snowman and lives in a tree, wrapped in old bed-sheets. The voice of Oryx, the woman he loved, teasingly haunts him. And the green-eyed Children of Crake are, for some reason, his responsibility.
Pages: 433
Thoughts: I've never read a book by Atwood before, but many of her works have good ratings on Goodreads and she's overall a renowned author. This is a sci-fi story that I'm reading for one of my summer university courses. It's rather long, which is why I will dedicate two full days to reading it.
Thoughts: I've never read a book by Atwood before, but many of her works have good ratings on Goodreads and she's overall a renowned author. This is a sci-fi story that I'm reading for one of my summer university courses. It's rather long, which is why I will dedicate two full days to reading it.
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"All Systems Red" by Martha Wells
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
Pages: 152
Thoughts: Another book for the sci-fi course! This is the shortest novel I'll read during the Reading Rush this year, which is why it's best suited for this challenge. I'm really looking forward to reading it, as I've heard only great things about this book and the rest of the series.
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"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood
Pigs might not fly but they are strangely altered. So, for that matter are wolves and raccoons. A man, once named Jimmy, now calls himself Snowman and lives in a tree, wrapped in old bed-sheets. The voice of Oryx, the woman he loved, teasingly haunts him. And the green-eyed Children of Crake are, for some reason, his responsibility.
Pages: 433
Thoughts: Yes, I will use this book for two challenges. I am pretty sure the novel is set in North America, and I live in Europe, so that works out just fine. Like I wrote before, I look forward to reading Atwood and I hope I will like this enough to eventually read more by her.
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4/ Read a book that has been adapted to a movie
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"Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding
As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her thirties and tries to weigh up the eternal question (Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy?), she turns for support to four indispensable friends: Shazzer, Jude, Tom and a bottle of chardonnay.
Time: 8h 19min
Thoughts: A book I honestly never thought I'd pick up in my lifetime, but here we are. This is required reading for the Jane Austen university summer course I'm taking this year. I can't say I'm not a little bit curious about it and I look forward to listening to this as an audio book rather than physically reading it.
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5/ Read a book with a face on the cover
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~5/ Read a book with a face on the cover"Sanning och skvaller" by Curtis Sittenfeld
Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.
Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master's degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won't discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane's fortieth birthday fast approaches.
Pages: 460
Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.
Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master's degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won't discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane's fortieth birthday fast approaches.
Pages: 460
Thoughts: This is the second book that I will dedicate two days to read. I think the premise sounds interesting enough, but it's not a book I'd willingly pick up and read in my spare time. I don't have great expectations for it, I just need to get it over and done with for my summer studies.
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6/ Read a book with a one word title
6/ Read a book with a one word title"Annihilation" by Jeff VanderMeer
For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness. The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic. Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.
Pages: 208
For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness. The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic. Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.
Pages: 208
Thoughts: Another sci-fi novel. I hadn't heard of this one before, but the description sounds intriguing and I've really been enjoying the other required reading for this sci-fi course so far. I expect this to hold up to the same standard.
"Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding
As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her thirties and tries to weigh up the eternal question (Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy?), she turns for support to four indispensable friends: Shazzer, Jude, Tom and a bottle of chardonnay.
Time: 8h 19min
Thoughts: Using this for another prompt as well. This was first published in 1996 (I think) and is the only book in my reading pile for this week that was published before the year of my birth (2000).
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If you want to use these challenges yourself and have your own Reading Rush, just feel free to do so. Most of them have appeared before and were ones that I remember liking then. I look very much forward to getting through all of these books, and I wish you the best of luck if you will attempt this challenge as well.
Happy reading!
Happy reading!
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