2018 - PennyT's Monthly Themes Challenge
Nov 30, 2017 8:19:19 GMT
pennylane, elliej84, and 1 more like this
Post by pennyt on Nov 30, 2017 8:19:19 GMT
I've thoroughly enjoyed all the different categories I've used this year to choose my monthly reading plans and have got another 12 sorted out for the year ahead. Does anyone fancy joining in for any them in 2018? You could just pick a couple of books a month from the categories, or join in with some and not others - whatever suits. I just thought it would be fun to see what books other people could choose for the same themes.
My schedule for 2018 looks like this:
January - all swaps (a tribute to RiSi and all the fun it's given me. Luckily I'd picked these out just before the site died)
February - books written in the past 5 years
March - books all from one shelf
April - all female authors
May - Commonwealth writers
June - books written before I was born
July - books set on/by the sea
August - books with a colour in the title
September - books bought new
October - second-hand bargains
November - books set abroad
December - books with a winter/Christmas setting
January – 8 Swaps
Someone at a Distance – Dorothy Whipple
The Power of the Dog – Thomas Savage
Eyrie – Tim Winton
Martha, Jack and Shanco – Caryl Lewis
The Final Confession of Mabel Stark – Robert Hough
The Old Boys – William Trevor
Quick Curtain – Alan Melville
Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler – Trudi Kanter
February – 12 books published since 2000
The Gustav Sonata – Rose Tremain
Top Down – Jim Lehrer (audiobook)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
Munich – Robert Harris
A Line Made by Walking – Sara Baume
Bettyville – George Hodgman
Theft of Life – Imogen Robertson
The Soul of Discretion – Susan Hill
See What I Have Done – Sarah Schmidt
The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream – Katharine Norbury (audiobook)
Three Things About Elsie – Joanna Cannon
A Very Special Year – Thomas Montasser
March – 9 books all from one shelf in the bedroom
Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng
Mr Mercedes – Stephen King
The Draughtsman – Robert Lautner
The Swansong of Wilbur McCrum – Bronia Kita
Five Star Billionaire – Tash Aw
Original Sins – crime shorts anthology
Merivel – Rose Tremain
Tell Tale – Jeffrey Archer
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock – Imogen Hermes Gowar
April – 11 female authors
A Glove Shop in Vienna – Eva Ibbotson
The Land of Neverendings – Kate Saunders
Whose Body? / Clouds of Witness / Unnatural Death – Dorothy L Sayers (audiobooks)
The Secrets of Wishtide – Kate Saunders
The Hoarder – Jess Kidd
The Wonder – Emma Donoghue
I Am, I Am, I Am – Maggie O’Farrell
Sugar Money – Jane Harris
The Nine of Us – Jean Kennedy Smith
Dear Mrs Bird – A J Pearce
Orphans of the Carnival – Carol Birch
May – 7 Commonwealth authors
The Artist of Disappearance – Anita Desai
Foreign Correspondence – Geraldine Brooks
Sweetland – Michael Crummey
The Confabulist – Stephen Galloway
The Well – Elizabeth Jolley
The Dry - Jane Harper
Their Brilliant Careers – Ryan O’Neill
June – 15 books from before I was born
1895 The Lost Stradivarius – John Meade Falkner
1902 The Grand Babylon Hotel – Arnold Bennett
1918 My Antonia – Willa Cather
1930s & ‘40s The Long Arm of the Law – short story anthology
1930 The Secret of High Eldersham – Miles Burton
1930 The Westminster Mystery – Elaine Hamilton
1932 Doctor Sally – P G Wodehouse
1946 Chloe Marr – A A Milne
1946 Miss Ranskill Comes Home – Barbara Euphan Todd
1947 A View of the Harbour – Elizabeth Taylor
1952 Fortune is a Woman – Winston Graham
1960 Uncle Paul – Celia Fremlin
1961 The Methods of Sergeant Cluff – Gil North
1961 Call for the Dead – John le Carré
1962 A Murder of Quality – John le Carré
July – 10 books set on or by the sea
A Summer of Drowning – John Burnside
Cove – Cynan Jones
Resort to Murder – T P Fielden
The North Water – Ian McGuire
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Stranger from the Sea – Winston Graham
Wrecker – Noel O’Reilly
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst – Nicholas Tomalin, Ron Hall
Dolores Claiborne – Stephen King
August – 13 books with a colour in the title
Mauve – Andrew Garfield
Green for Danger – CWA anthology of crime shorts
My Purple Scented Novel – Ian McEwan
The White Feather – P G Wodehouse
The Black Flower - Howard Bahr
The Blue and the Grey – M J Trow
White Houses – Amy Bloom
Silver & Salt – Elanor Dymott
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit – Judith Kerr
Red Leaves – Thomas H Cook
The Red Pony – John Steinbeck
Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries – anthology
Greengates – R C Sherriff
September – 8 books bought brand new
Don’t Skip out on Me – Willy Vlautin
A Shot in the Dark – Lynne Truss
A Death at Fountains Abbey – Antonia Hodgson
A Spot of Folly – Ruth Rendell
The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place – Alan Bradley
The Melody – Jim Crace
Beau Death – Peter Lovesey
Lethal White – Robert Galbraith
October – 7 second-hand bargains
My Italian Bulldozer – Alexander McCall Smith
Guilty Parties – Crime Writers’ Association Anthology
The Triple Echo – H E Bates
Finders Keepers – Stephen King
London Lies Beneath – Stella Duffy
A Box of Tricks – Simon Brett
All Among the Barley – Melissa Harrison
November – 14 books set abroad
The Colours of All the Cattle – Alexander McCall Smith (Botswana)
West – Carys Davies (USA)
So Much Life Left Over – Louis de Bernières (Ceylon)
Birds, Beasts and Relatives – Gerald Durrell (Corfu)
Reunion – Fred Uhlman (Germany)
The Whole Town’s Talking – Fannie Flagg (Missouri, USA)
Unsheltered – Barbara Kingsolver (Pennsylvania, USA)
If Cats Disappeared from the World – Genki Kawamura (Japan)
Rocket Men – Robert Kurson (USA and space!)
Elevation – Stephen King (Maine, USA)
Stay With Me – Ayobami Adebayo (Nigeria)
There There – Tommy Orange (California, USA)
The Durrells of Corfu – Michael Haag (Corfu)
Heads You Win – Jeffrey Archer (Russia & USA)
December – 6 books set in winter/at Christmas
The Santa Klaus Murder – Mavis Doriel Hay
The Long Shadow – Celia Fremlin
The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories – short story anthology
Sleep No More – P D James – short story anthology, not all related to winter/Christmas
Murder Under the Christmas Tree – short story anthology
An English Murder – Cyril Hare
My schedule for 2018 looks like this:
January - all swaps (a tribute to RiSi and all the fun it's given me. Luckily I'd picked these out just before the site died)
February - books written in the past 5 years
March - books all from one shelf
April - all female authors
May - Commonwealth writers
June - books written before I was born
July - books set on/by the sea
August - books with a colour in the title
September - books bought new
October - second-hand bargains
November - books set abroad
December - books with a winter/Christmas setting
January – 8 Swaps
Someone at a Distance – Dorothy Whipple
The Power of the Dog – Thomas Savage
Eyrie – Tim Winton
Martha, Jack and Shanco – Caryl Lewis
The Final Confession of Mabel Stark – Robert Hough
The Old Boys – William Trevor
Quick Curtain – Alan Melville
Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler – Trudi Kanter
February – 12 books published since 2000
The Gustav Sonata – Rose Tremain
Top Down – Jim Lehrer (audiobook)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
Munich – Robert Harris
A Line Made by Walking – Sara Baume
Bettyville – George Hodgman
Theft of Life – Imogen Robertson
The Soul of Discretion – Susan Hill
See What I Have Done – Sarah Schmidt
The Fish Ladder: A Journey Upstream – Katharine Norbury (audiobook)
Three Things About Elsie – Joanna Cannon
A Very Special Year – Thomas Montasser
March – 9 books all from one shelf in the bedroom
Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng
Mr Mercedes – Stephen King
The Draughtsman – Robert Lautner
The Swansong of Wilbur McCrum – Bronia Kita
Five Star Billionaire – Tash Aw
Original Sins – crime shorts anthology
Merivel – Rose Tremain
Tell Tale – Jeffrey Archer
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock – Imogen Hermes Gowar
April – 11 female authors
A Glove Shop in Vienna – Eva Ibbotson
The Land of Neverendings – Kate Saunders
Whose Body? / Clouds of Witness / Unnatural Death – Dorothy L Sayers (audiobooks)
The Secrets of Wishtide – Kate Saunders
The Hoarder – Jess Kidd
The Wonder – Emma Donoghue
I Am, I Am, I Am – Maggie O’Farrell
Sugar Money – Jane Harris
The Nine of Us – Jean Kennedy Smith
Dear Mrs Bird – A J Pearce
Orphans of the Carnival – Carol Birch
May – 7 Commonwealth authors
The Artist of Disappearance – Anita Desai
Foreign Correspondence – Geraldine Brooks
Sweetland – Michael Crummey
The Confabulist – Stephen Galloway
The Well – Elizabeth Jolley
The Dry - Jane Harper
Their Brilliant Careers – Ryan O’Neill
June – 15 books from before I was born
1895 The Lost Stradivarius – John Meade Falkner
1902 The Grand Babylon Hotel – Arnold Bennett
1918 My Antonia – Willa Cather
1930s & ‘40s The Long Arm of the Law – short story anthology
1930 The Secret of High Eldersham – Miles Burton
1930 The Westminster Mystery – Elaine Hamilton
1932 Doctor Sally – P G Wodehouse
1946 Chloe Marr – A A Milne
1946 Miss Ranskill Comes Home – Barbara Euphan Todd
1947 A View of the Harbour – Elizabeth Taylor
1952 Fortune is a Woman – Winston Graham
1960 Uncle Paul – Celia Fremlin
1961 The Methods of Sergeant Cluff – Gil North
1961 Call for the Dead – John le Carré
1962 A Murder of Quality – John le Carré
July – 10 books set on or by the sea
A Summer of Drowning – John Burnside
Cove – Cynan Jones
Resort to Murder – T P Fielden
The North Water – Ian McGuire
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Stranger from the Sea – Winston Graham
Wrecker – Noel O’Reilly
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst – Nicholas Tomalin, Ron Hall
Dolores Claiborne – Stephen King
August – 13 books with a colour in the title
Mauve – Andrew Garfield
Green for Danger – CWA anthology of crime shorts
My Purple Scented Novel – Ian McEwan
The White Feather – P G Wodehouse
The Black Flower - Howard Bahr
The Blue and the Grey – M J Trow
White Houses – Amy Bloom
Silver & Salt – Elanor Dymott
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit – Judith Kerr
Red Leaves – Thomas H Cook
The Red Pony – John Steinbeck
Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries – anthology
Greengates – R C Sherriff
September – 8 books bought brand new
Don’t Skip out on Me – Willy Vlautin
A Shot in the Dark – Lynne Truss
A Death at Fountains Abbey – Antonia Hodgson
A Spot of Folly – Ruth Rendell
The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place – Alan Bradley
The Melody – Jim Crace
Beau Death – Peter Lovesey
Lethal White – Robert Galbraith
October – 7 second-hand bargains
My Italian Bulldozer – Alexander McCall Smith
Guilty Parties – Crime Writers’ Association Anthology
The Triple Echo – H E Bates
Finders Keepers – Stephen King
London Lies Beneath – Stella Duffy
A Box of Tricks – Simon Brett
All Among the Barley – Melissa Harrison
November – 14 books set abroad
The Colours of All the Cattle – Alexander McCall Smith (Botswana)
West – Carys Davies (USA)
So Much Life Left Over – Louis de Bernières (Ceylon)
Birds, Beasts and Relatives – Gerald Durrell (Corfu)
Reunion – Fred Uhlman (Germany)
The Whole Town’s Talking – Fannie Flagg (Missouri, USA)
Unsheltered – Barbara Kingsolver (Pennsylvania, USA)
If Cats Disappeared from the World – Genki Kawamura (Japan)
Rocket Men – Robert Kurson (USA and space!)
Elevation – Stephen King (Maine, USA)
Stay With Me – Ayobami Adebayo (Nigeria)
There There – Tommy Orange (California, USA)
The Durrells of Corfu – Michael Haag (Corfu)
Heads You Win – Jeffrey Archer (Russia & USA)
December – 6 books set in winter/at Christmas
The Santa Klaus Murder – Mavis Doriel Hay
The Long Shadow – Celia Fremlin
The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories – short story anthology
Sleep No More – P D James – short story anthology, not all related to winter/Christmas
Murder Under the Christmas Tree – short story anthology
An English Murder – Cyril Hare