Sunday Salon: lists and challenges

Do you love lists? I know I do. I am an inveterate list maker. And I not only like to make lists, I love to cross things off of them, only to then turn around and write out a pristine copy of the newly revised list. Many trees have sacrificed for this weird quirk of mine as I go through reams of paper writing and re-writing things as different as "Errands to Accomplish" and "To Be Read Books I Already Own." I won't bore you with the former list and the latter is too long to publish here. But they give you some idea of how far and wide my lists range. Perhaps this love is why I thrive on the book challenges you find all over the blogging world. Each challenge requires a list of books to be read for the challenge (although the ones I like best allow you to change your mind at any time and substitute other books). I love to find books that will work for multiple challenges. Because in addition to lists, I like the small thrill I get when I accomplish everything I've laid out on a list. I'm certain I've mentioned what a dork I am before this, haven't I? So I've spent my week making up lists not only of my challenges but also a list of which books I'll need to read each month in order to fulfill each and every challenge I've decided to join. Looking at my lists, I'm not certain I'm going to be able to sleep until after December (at which point I'm certain to have joined new challenges and generated new lists so sleep will probably still be out of the question). In any case, my March is slated to look like this:

Fork It Over by Alan Richman
Johanna by Claire Cooperstein
Kristin Lavrensdatter II by Sigrid Undset
Spies by Michael Frayn
Bunnicula by Deborah Howe
The Lost Years of Jane Austen by Barbara Ker Wilson
One Hundred Million Hearts by Kerri Sakamoto
A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev
Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols
Anne’s Perfect Husband by Gayle Wilson
Slam by Nick Hornby
The Alphabetical Hook-up List by Phoebe McPhee

We'll see how it goes. Heaven knows this is all subject to change, of course!

To see other Sunday Salon posts, go to: http://dhamel.typepad.com/sundaysalon/.