Off The Shelf Challenge

Thanks to Cheryl at CMash Loves to Read...I've found yet another reading challenge to sign up for. I feel like the talking dogs in UP! There I am just minding my own business, blogging away, checking out my favorite blogs and, oh look...Reading Challenge! (Squirrel!)

But the Off The Shelf Challenge for 2011 is a made-for-me kind of challenge...it's meant to make the participants actually dig in to those TBR piles that are lying aroung everywhere in taunting stacks. As it says on the challenge post:

"Are your books multiplying like rabbits before you even get a chance to read them? Trying to keep up with them, but can't stop buying new ones? Maybe this challenge is for you." (Oh, yes, indeed!)

For full rules and details on how to participate, click on the challenge name above and you'll go right to Bonnie's site. In short, you need to pick a level, sign up on the Linky, and create your own post about the challenge. You cannot use any books bought after the beginning of the challenge.

Challenge Levels

1. Tempted~ Choose 5 books to read

2. Trying~ Choose 15 books to read

3. Making a Dint~ Choose 30 books to read

4. On a Roll~ Choose 50 books to read

5. Flying Off~ Choose 75 books to read

For extra hard challenges

1. Hoarder~ Choose 76-125 books to read

2. Buried~ Choose 126-200 books to read

I'm always a little ambitious on these things...I'm signing up for #4 On a Roll. Surely I can knock out 50 of those TBR books staring at me from the shelves and piles. And here they are....

The Books To Be Read:

1. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (5/24/11)

2. Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse (3/2/11)

3. The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell (9/8/11)

4. Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside (2/4/11)

5. The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (7/6/11)

6. A Flaw in the Blood by Stephanie Barron (1/30/11)

7. The Praise Singer by Mary Renault (12/20/11)

8. The Silk Stocking Murders bt Anthony Berkeley (2/19/11)

9. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson (11/25/11)

10. Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes (5/13/11)

11. The Habit of Widowhood by Robert Barnard (12/4/11)

12. The Porcupine by Julian Barnes (4/20/11)

13. Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh [2/28/11]

14. A Time to Be in Earnest by P. D. James (1/18/11)

15. A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis & Ministers by Ray Bradbury (9/28/11)

16. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (8/30/11)

17. Robert F Kennedy: In His Own Words by Edwin O. Guthman & Jeffrey Shulman (eds) [7/19/11]

18. The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson [8/17/11]

19. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice [9/13/11]

20. The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte [12/5/11]

21. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (4/11/11)

22. Emma by Jane Austen (1/9/11)

23. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milord (11/9/11)

24. Middlemarch by George Eliot (9/27/11)

25. The Detections of Dr. Sam Johnson by Lillian de la Torre (6/19/11)

26. The Fashion in Shrouds by Margery Allingham (1/25/11)

27. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (3/15/11)

28. A Graveyard to Let by Carter Dickson (1/31/11)

29. Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes (4/2/11)

30. The Prince Lost to Time by Ann Dukthas (11/29/11)

31. Sir Nigel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (8/21/11)

32. The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green (2/8/11)

33. Evvie by Vera Caspary (8/1/11)

34. Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (8/24/11)

35. My Foe Outstretch'd Beneath the Tree by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley (4/16/11)

36. No Case for the Police by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley (8/14/11)

37. The Caravaggio Books by Bernard Peterson (6/2/11)

38. Blood upon the Snow by Hilda Lawrence (3/16/11)

39. The Ampersand Papers by Michael Innes 1/23/11)

40. Black Orchids by Rex Stout (1/21/11)

41. Alfred Hitchcock: The Best of Mystery (from his Mystery magazine) [7/9/11]

42. Therapy by David Lodge (7/3/11)

43. Dragons of Light by Orson Scott Card (11/24/11)

44. Shroud of Darkness by E. C. R. Lorac (3/10/11)

45. An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear (12/12/11)

46. Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen (8/15/11)

47. The Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny (3/19/11)

48. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis (1/22/11)

49. Perelandra by C. S. Lewis (9/2/11)

50. That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis (12/17/11)

As I was going through my books looking to see which TBRs I wanted to put on this challenge, I became amazed (and a little ashamed) at how long I've had some of these. I buy them and then just keep adding them to the pile. And somehow books that thrilled me to pieces at the bookstore, garage sale, Red Cross Book Sale, or wherever manage to just not be the "right" one when it comes time to pick up my next read. But now I'm committed--these are the books To Be Read for this challenge. They will be read.