Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

These are my my personal reading challenges.

I found so many good books this morning creating my 2016 Women Writers Challenge I decided I wanted to create a personal challenge. I came up with my "2016-2020 Sea to Shining Sea Challenge" - 1) one book per US state, DC & US territory 2) Set primarily in one state/territory 3) no repeat authors 4) literary fiction genre 6) no prior reads 7) story takes place in last 65 years (I'm 65).

It took me all day to research & compile but I'm excited at the books and authors I found. I was pleased how few rule compromises I had to make to fill the list.

My goal is 12 books per year from this challenge.

I don't know how to get titles linked so I need to be clued in on that.

Alabama Breakheart Hill. Thomas H. Cook
Alaska The Cloud Atlas Liam Callanan
Arizona La Maravilla Alfredo Véa
Arkansas Lightning Bug Donald Harington
California The Human Comedy William Saroyan
Colorado Plainsong. Kent Haruf 2/28
Connecticut Angel Angel April Stevens
Delaware Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk
Florida Continental Drift Russell Banks
Georgia. Past, Present and Promise. Patricia H Graham
Hawaii. Still, Life with Woodpecker Tom Robbins
Idaho Five Skies. Ron Carlson
Illinois Idiots in the Machine Edward Savio
Indiana Snapper Brian Kimberling
Iowa A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley
Kansas When You Were Older. Catherine Ryan Hyde
Kentucky A Parchment of Leaves Silas House
Louisiana The Moviegoer. Walker Percy
Maine The Beans of Egypt, Maine Carolyn Chute
Maryland. Mason's Retreat Christopher Tighman
Massachusetts The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Gabrielle Zevin (2/25)
Michigan What Looks Like Crazy
on an Ordinary Day (Idelwild) Pearl Cleage
Minnesota The Life We Bury. Allen Eskins
Mississippi. The Neon Bible John Kennedy Toole
Missouri Sharp Objects: A Novel Gillian Flynn
Montana 600 Hours of Edward. Craig Lancaster
Nebraska The Echo Maker Richard Powers
Nevada Battleborn: Stories Claire Vaye Watkins
New Hampshire The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. Joël Dicker
New Jersey Drown Junot Díaz
New Mexico Cities of the Plain Cormac McCarthy
New York The Brooklyn Follies Paul Aster
North Carolina This Dark Road to Mercy. Wiley Cash
North Dakota Downtown Owl Chuck Closterman
Ohio Middle C William S Gass
Oklahoma Shell Shaker LeAnne Howe
Oregon The River Why David James Duncan
Pennsylvania Back Roads.Tawni O'Dell
Rhode Island. The Drowning Girl: A Memoir Caitlín R Kiernan
South Carolina One Foot in Eden Ron Rash
South Dakota The Battle of Pollocks Crossing J L Carr
Tennessee Suttree.Cormac McCarthy 08/28
Texas Horseman Pass By Larry McMurtry
Utah The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer
Vermont Dublin Lives Bernard Malamud
Virginia Prodigal Summer Barbara Kingsolver
Washington East of the Mountains David Guterson
West Virginia John Henry Days Colin Whitehead
Wisconsin Off Keck Road: A Novella Mona Simpson
Wyoming The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard. Stephen Jimenez
District of Columbia The Navigator Michael Pocalyko
Puerto Rico The House on the Lagoon Rosario Ferré
Guam Attitude 13: A Daughter of Guam's Collection of
Short Stories Tanya Chargualaf Taimanglo
American Samoa Where Once We Belonged Sia Figiel
U.S. Virgin Islands. Land of Love and Drowning Tiphanie Yanique
Northern Mariana
Islands. The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia P F Kluge

I'm starting my first two states in my 2016-2020 Sea to Shining Sea Challenge - New Hampshire with "The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair" by Joel Dicker and North Carolina with "The Dark Road to Mercy" by Wiley Cash. Although I've just started, I put them on my new map just to give me a sense I have started my challenge journey.

Desertorum wrote: "Dave wrote: "I'm starting my first two states in my 2016-2020 Sea to Shining Sea Challenge - New Hampshire with "The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair" by Joel Dicker and "The Dark Road to Mercy..."

Yes, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affairs is great, I'll finish it tomorrow. I find it so interesting that the most interesting book set in New Hampshire that met my criteria is written by a Contemporary Swiss author and , although the book has not been promenent in the US it replaced 50 shades of Grey on French bestseller lists. It won a french literary prize. I also am enjoying The Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash. I've read Cash's Land More Kind than Home -great Southern Gothic. So with two books I'll get 2 checks on my personal challenge and two checks on my classic bingo challenge!

Great challenge, Dave.

I love this challenge. I have something like this ongoing, but I am doing so many other challenges that I'm not focusing on it this year. There are quite a few books on your list I have never heard of and and several on my TBR. I have only read 4 on your list, so I look forward to seeing what you think of the others. Good luck!

Finished The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair last night and rated it 5 stars. A literary genre murder mystery. A real page turner. It would make a good movie. Not sure why is didn't catch on in US since it was so popular elsewhere. It won 4 foreign literary prizes and was nominated for a 5th. Well good choice for B5 on classic Bingo for winner of foreign literary prize.

I'll finish Wiley Cash book set in North Carolina today or tomorrow. Next I decided to read 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster . When I built this challenge I was continually struck by the inconcruity of my stereotype of a state's literary landscape and the reality of what I found. Montana is a good example, I was expecting ranchers or outdoor adventure. Instead I find a sensitive and funny story of a loner struggling with Asperger's Syndrome and OCD which is compared on the cover with Flowers for Algernon.

Well Dave I've read only 1/58 of your selections. The one I've read is your selection for Texas Horseman, Pass By, enjoyed it very much. But then I'm a huge fan of Larry McMurtry.

Bob wrote: "Well Dave I've read only 1/58 of your selections. The one I've read is your selection for Texas Horseman, Pass By, enjoyed it very much. But then I'm a huge fan of [author:Larry McMurt..."

I found it interesting Bob in building this challenge that some states were much easier to choose from than others for various reasons. In Texas my problem was that, as a native Texan I had already read most qualifying books.

If anyone is interested in building geographic challenges my technique was to google "novels set in XXX". A number of links came up but I primarily used the Goodreads list and the Wikipedia list. The Goodreads list is in order of popularity in Goodreads I think. Wiki list was pretty short but only it lists important books (but the classics stand out).

Pulitzer Prize Winners for Literature (Courtesy of Kathy
For future reference in challenges.

1918 - His Family by Ernest Poole
1919 - The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1921 - The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
1922 - Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1923 - One of Ours by Willa Cather
1924 - The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1925 - So Big by Edna Ferber
1926 - Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1927 - Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady by Lewis Bromfield
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1929 - Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930 - Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story by Oliver La Farge
1931 - Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932 - The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
1933 - The Store by Thomas S. Stribling
1934 - Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1935 - Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 - Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
1937 - Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1938 - The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand
1939 - The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1942 - In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1943 - Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1944 - Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1945 - A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
1947 - All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
1948 - Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1949 - Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950 - The Way West by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.
1951 - The Town by Conrad Richter
1952 - The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1955 - A Fable by William Faulkner
1956 - Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1958 - A Death in the Family by James Agee
1959 - The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 - Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1962 - The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1963 - The Reivers by William Faulkner
1965 - The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1966 - The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1967 - The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1968 - The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1969 - House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970 - The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
1972 - Angle of Repose. Wallace Stegner 2/20/16
1973 - The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1975 - The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1976 - Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1978 - Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1979 - The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980 - The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1981 - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1982 - Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1983 - The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984 - Ironweed by William Kennedy
1985 - Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
1986 - Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1987 - A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1988 - Beloved by Toni Morrison
1989 - Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1990 - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1991 - Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1992 - A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1993 - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories by Robert Olen Butler
1994 - The Shipping News by E. Annie Prolux
1995 - The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1996 - Independence Day by Richard Ford
1997 - Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1998 - American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1999 - The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2000 - Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2002 - Empire Falls by Richard Russo
2003 - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2004 - The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2005 - Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2006 - March by Geraldine Brooks
2007 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2009 - Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
2010 - Tinkers by Paul Harding
2011 - A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2013 - The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
2014 - The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
2015 - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Dave's Shakespeare Challenge
3 Year Challenge - 12 plays a year (any order)

1589 Comedy of Errors
1590 Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part III
1591 Henry VI, Part I
1592 Richard III
1593 Taming of the Shrew
Titus Andronicus
1594 Romeo and Juliet
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Love's Labour's Lost
1595 Richard II
Midsummer Night's Dream
1596 King John
Merchant of Venice
1597 Henry IV, Part I
Henry IV, Part II
1598 Henry V
Much Ado about Nothing
1599 Twelfth Night
As You Like It
Julius Caesar
1600 Hamlet
Merry Wives of Windsor
1601 Troilus and Cressida
1602 All's Well That Ends Well
1604 Othello
Measure for Measure
1605 King Lear
Macbeth
1606 Antony and Cleopatra
1607 Coriolanus
Timon of Athens
1608 Pericles
1609 Cymbeline
1610 Winter's Tale
1611 Tempest
1612 Henry VIII

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I finished 600 Hours of Edward for Montana in my Sea to Shining Sea Challenge. A wonderful book, rated 5 stars. Review to follow.

Well, I'm switching out my Pennsylvania read after realizing that American Rust started in PA but was a transcontinental road-trip book. After a lot of searching I replaced Pennsylvania slot with Back Roads. Tawni O'Dell. This was O'Dell's first book and an Oprah Book Club pick. There is no discount on the Audible narration when you by the Kindle version so I'll have to defer PA. Until later in the challenge. Tomorrow I will figure out another State to read now.

Another change out on my list - Kansas. Gabriel's Story starts in Kansas but moves to Texas. Flag on the play. I am sending in When You Were Older. Catherine Ryan Hyde. Filling this list continues to surprise me. I was thinking I should have a 9/11 novel on the list but did not expect to find it in Kansas.

Having finished North Carolina I am moving to Louisiana to read The Moviegoer. Walker Percy.

Looks like you're off to a great start!

Thanks Pink.

Thank you Anne. I love to read but I have given myself 5 years to complete this challenge.

I finished The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard. Stephen Jimenez for Wyoming slot. Lengthy review posted to Goodreads and Amazon.

Finished The Moviegoer. Walker Percy

Finished When You Were Older by Catherine Ryan Hyde 1/25 wonderful story by the author of Pay it Forward, review posted.. Surprised again by this challenge to find a 9/11 story ser in a small town in Kansas

Looking good Dave, nice to see that you have found some good books to go with your challenges.

I'm borrowing Anetq's Neverending Country Challenge to create 2 County tracking lists 1) Countries of Author's I've read & 2) Countiries that are the setting of books I've read. I have enough challenges for now. But a personal goal is to diversify my reading geographically and culturally and these maps will help me track that goal.

Dave's 2016-2020 Sea to Shining Sea Challenge 2/28/16.

Dave wrote: "Dave's 2016-2020 Sea to Shining Sea Challenge 2/28/16.


Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com
"

Oh, sea to sea looks interesting. Perhaps one day I'll make it across Europe with my map!

Read Suttree for Tennessee and The Life We Bury for Minnesota.