Follow That Blurb Reading Challenge

So.....there I was, just minding my own business, looking through my blog feed, and guess what? Temptation wandered across my path and I found another reading challenge! As Oscar Wilde said: "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it." AND "I can resist everything but temptation." [Especially when it involves books.]

Anyway, so I'm signing up (like you really believed I wouldn't). And here's the scoop:

As Jennifer over at Reading with Tequila says, the importance of blurbs on book covers is often debated. A blurb on the cover of a book is usually written by an author who writes in the same genre, but occasionally you find a quote from a high-profile, but seemingly random author. After noticing a few of these peculiar choices, she started wondering - if I followed the blurbers, where would they lead me?

Well, she's developed this challenge to see exactly where the blurb-path will take us. What we have to do is choose a starting book. Read that one. Then look at the blurbs and read a book by one of the authors who have been quoted. And so on. Do this for ten books and then see where your journey has taken you. If you start with a mystery, will you end in the mystery field or will you wind up in some far off country like non-fiction? The journey will be half the fun. The challenge runs from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012. So, if you think this sounds interesting, hop over to Tequila's site (link above) and join us. Now, I just have to figure out my starting point....

1. The Last Matryoshka by Joyce Yarrow (7/2/11) [starter book which leads to...]
2. Hot & Bothered by Jane Isenberg (7/9/11) [and that takes me to...]
3. The Case of the Deceiving Don by Carl Brookins (7/13/11) [Onward I go...]
4. The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt (7/16/11) [which will take me to....]**
5. Bone Harvest by Mary Logue (7/17/11) [blurbed by Nancy Pickard]
6. No Body by Nancy Pickard (7/24/11) [and that leads me to....]
7. Random Walk by Lawrence Block (7/26/11) [blurbed by Harlan Ellison...]
8. Shatterday by Harlan Ellison (8/23/11) [blurbed by Ursula K LeGuin, Ray Bradbury, Dan Simmons, Roger Coman, Michael Moorcock, Steve Allen, William Kotzwinkle]
9. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K LeGuin (9/18/11) [blurbed by Michael Chabon]
10. The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon (9/18/11)

**Could also have led to The Prop by Pete Hautman (which I read anyway because it looked interesting).

Challenge Complete 9/18/11