synapses misfiring I babble. A lot.

As it has been for the past few years, next year’s reading will be dictated in part by homeschooling. There’s just no getting around that. So, I have to wonder at myself a bit for wanting to to have even more of my reading “assigned.” But what can I say—I think the only thing that could make me more more excited about this is if I knew I got personally sit down with my dear friends to discuss the books in person afterward.

But what exactly am I talking about here? Well, inspired by the mutual reading challenge that Ana and Katie have been doing for a few years now, I just got up the guts and asked my closest friends if they would do a mutual reading challenge with me. And honestly, I can’t thank Chris and Ana and Rich enough for agreeing to do it with me! :D

In each case, we picked five books for each other. I was sooooo excited to get my lists from them. (And I drove myself crazy trying to pick out the perfect books for them…and I feel terrible, because they all did a better job of picking out books than I did. But what’s a poorly read girl to do, huh?)

Anyway, on with the lists…

Ana chose for me:

• Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
• The Love We Share Without Knowing by Christopher Barzak
• Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
• Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (not pictured)
• What I Was by Meg Rosoff (not pictured)

Chris chose for me:

• Mirabilis by Susann Cokal
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (not pictured)
• The Bells by Richard Harvell (not pictured)

(Added fun note here: Pat made the cutest darn little button for Chris’s and my mutual challenge. :)  It will make it’s debut when I read the first book from his list. Thank you Pat!)

Rich chose for me:

• The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins
• Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer
• Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
• The Passage by Justin Cronin

As for those books on the top—well, I decided that I wanted to pick out five books for myself as well. Five books that I really, really want to read, but that keep getting pushed aside for one reason or another. The problem came when I actually went to pick them out…because not surprisingly, there were easily a hundred books that could have made my list. So I gave myself one minute. I figured that way I wouldn’t have time to second-guess myself. Sure, there are tons of other books that could have made the list, but at least I know that I *will* get to at least five of those books.

I chose for me:

• The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
• The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
• Paper Towns by John Green
• The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith

*****

I’m actually hoping that this overall list will expand a bit as well. Ana and I are currently working on a list for Renay. It was never made quite clear, but I do hope Renay is going to put together a list for me, too. :)  Renay???