This took some time to devise: I had to do research to fill some categories. But here's my list. . .

A. best-kept secrets

    1. nom de plume--Mill on the Floss (George Eliot)

    2. a less famous work by a famous author--The Blithedale Romance (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

B. Fantastic!

    1. ghost story--The Rose and the Key (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu)

    2. folklore/fairy tale collection--Early Irish Myths (author unknown)

C. Get inspired!

    1. work that inspired the writing of others--Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)

    2. made into film--The Call of the Wild  (Jack London)

D. Other Genres

    1. black/African-American--Every Tongue Got to Confess (Zora Neale Hurston)

    2. feminist--Women in the 19th Century (Margaret Fuller)

E. Transported

    1. travel writing--Death in Venice (Thomas Mann)

    2. transportation--Captains Courageous (Rudyard Kipling)

F. Special topics

    1. Russian lit--Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (Nikolai Gogol)

     2. banned book--Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe)

                                                                                             Rose

(Will read 6 of these...)

Best kept secrets

• Espionage
• nom de plume
• a less famous work by a famous author: 

Fantastic!

• magic realism
• ghost story: 
• folklore or fairy tale: 

Get inspired!

• work that inspired the writing of others: Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Stevenson (1/1/13) 
• made into film: Oliver Twist by Dickens
• spiritual

Other genres:

• Native American: Joaquin Murieta by Yellow Bird (5/13/13)

Transported: 

• travel writing: 
• transportation: Rickshaw Boy by Lao She
• love story: 

Special topics

• Eastern European: 
• banned book: Brave New World by Huxley (12/31/13)

Best kept secrets

• Espionage: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre
• nom de plume/a less famous work by a famous author: Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Fantastic!/Get inspired!/Other genres:

• ghost story/movie adaptation/feminist: Carmilla by J.S. leFanu

Get inspired!

• spiritual- The Inferno by Dante

Other genres:

• black/African-American- Black Boy by Richard Wright
• black/African-American- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• feminist- The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• GLBT- Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Transported: 

• transportation: The African Queen by C.S. Forrester

Special topics

• Russian lit: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Banned book: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• Love story/erotica): Justine by the Marquis de Sade
• post-modern lit/nom de plume: Alas Babylon by Pat Frank

To complete the challenge, read 12 books or any 6 choices for a light challenge

A. best-kept secrets

 1. nom de plume Françoise Sagan. Bonjour Tristesse

2. a less famous work by a famous author Ivy Compton Burnett. Manservant and Maidservant

3. Espionage. Ian Fleming. Casino Royale

B. Fantastic!

1. ghost story Wharton. Ghost stories of Edith Wharton

2. folklore/fairy tale collection Pullman. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm; a new English version. Completed 12/14/13

3. magic realism

C. Get inspired!

1. work that inspired the writing of others  Boccaccio.The Decameron

2. made into film Amis. lucky Jim finished 8/21/13

3. spiritual

D. Other Genres

1. black/African-American . Walcott. Omeros

2. feminist Colette. Chance Acquaintances

3. GLBT

E. Transported

1. travel writing Graham Greene.Travels With My Aunt

2. transportation Isherwood. Mr. Norris Changes Trains finished 11/26/13

3. passion

F. Special topics

1. Russian lit  Bulgavkov. Heart of a Dog. Completed 12/22/13

2. banned book

3. post-colonial/modern classic

To complete the challenge, read 12 books or any 6 choices for a light challenge:  12 read

A. best-kept secrets

 1. nom de plume:  From the Harry Potter series:   Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Bk 5 by J. K. Rowling, 8/20/2012, 5 Stars

2. a less famous work by a famous author:  Barrack-Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling, quite a change from most of Kipling's writing, but I enjoyed many of the poems very much, 3 stars.

3. Espionage:   Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre, 7/27/2013, 4 stars.

B. Fantastic!

1. ghost story:  The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, completed 3/22/2013, great read, 5 stars,, or In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan Le Fanu 

2. folklore/fairy tale collection (including a classic fantasy):   The Prince and the Pauper  by Mark Twain which I really think belongs here, 8/292013, 4.5 to 5 stars.  A wonderful read. 

3. magic realism:  The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, 9/15/2013, 3 stars

C. Get inspired!

1. work that inspired the writing of others:  The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, 4/15/2013, 4.5 stars, finished the trilogy - very good, 4.5 stars.

2. made into film:  The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 3/8/2013 , a story I enjoyed even though I found the reading of Hawthorne's prose difficult at times.  He uses such long descriptions to set the stage for this tale, 3 stars.  

3. spiritual:  The Inferno by Dante  

D. Other Genres

1. black/African-American:   Something by Zora Neale Hurston:  Mules and Men?

2. feminist (viewing this topic as someone who rejects the mores of the day):  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear (Translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

3. GLBT:  The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall -- groundbreaking lesbian novel of the 1920s or Breakfast at Tiffany's byTruman Capote

E. Transported

1. travel writing:  Around the World in Eighty Days   by Jules Verne (1873), (library)

2. transportation:  Rickshaw Boy by Lao She. 11/7/2013, 4 stars

3. passion:  The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof (looks interesting Bonnie but I can't find a copy!  Our library did a search but came up with nothing in our three state area.  Yiks!)

F. Special topics

1. Russian lit:  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

2. banned book:  The Perks of Being a Wallflower  by Stephen Chbosky from goodreads 2007-2008 Banned books list, read in 2013. Jan. 25-26. 2013 . 3 stars

3. post-colonial/modern classic:   The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, 8/2/2013, 4 stars

A. best-kept secrets

Reading Goal: Lite Challenge - 6 Books (reserving the right to change my book selections)

Best kept secrets

• Espionage:
• nom de plume
• a less famous work by a famous author:

Fantastic!

• magic realism
• ghost story: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James - completed March 27
• folklore or fairy tale (i'm including myth/legend):

Get inspired!

• work that inspired the writing of others:
• made into film The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott - completed 11/15
• spiritual

Other genres:

• black/African-American
• feminist
• GLBT

Transported:

• travel writing
• transportation:
• passion (love story/erotica)

Special topics

• Eastern European lit:
• banned book:

Doing the lite!

This should be interesting.  Done-only 6, I was hoping to read more.

Red is Read

A. best-kept secrets

A. best-kept secrets

Intriguing categories!

I haven't settled on any titles yet.  I've been thinking of taking a 'serendipitous' approach to reading during the coming year.  I mean, waiting to see what books come my way, urged on me by friends or family members, great bargains I find in thrift stores or at the public library's annual book sale, as selections of a reading group I sometimes attend, and 'forgotten' books that come to light when I dig in my TBR collection (that now consumes quite a lot of space in the garage, besides a tall bookcase in the house proper.

My first selection for 2013 will be The Saga of Gosta Berling, by Selma Lagerlof.  I bought a copy of it from PBS,. after it had been on my Wish List for so long . . .I want to read it because it's by a Nobel Prizewinner whom I have not read before, who was the first female and the first Swedish author to be awarded the prize.  Plus, I read somewhere a reviewer called the book "the Gone With the Wind" of Sweden.   (I'm hoping to get hubby to read it, too, since one of his grandmothers was from Varmland, Lagerlof's lifelong home province.)

But I find I can "do" the 2013 Classic Challenge (Lite), too.  I've managed to settle on four categories thus far, and have read five titles to date (early June) and selected a title for a fifth category.    So I have posted a list elsewhere in this thread.

I would like to join your challenge.  I will do the lite!!

A. best-kept secrets

Tess, you've made some spectacular choices!

                                                                            Rose

Completed five of the six books in my Light Challenge

A. Best-kept secrets

1. nom de plume:  OMIT

2. a less famous work by a famous author:  OMIT

3. espionage:  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (Completed 3/19/13)

B. Fantastic!

1. ghost story:  Armadale by Wilkie Collins (Did not read)

2. folklore/fairy tale collection:  OMIT

3. magic realism:  OMIT

C. Get inspired!

1. work that inspired the writing of others:  OMIT

2. made into a film:  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (Completed 7/13/13)

3. spiritual:  The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton (Completed 10/26/13)

D. Other Genres

1. black/African-American:  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass  (Completed 1/31/13)

2. feminist:  OMIT

3. GLBT:  OMIT

E. Transported

1. travel writing:  A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck (Completed 5/5/13)

2. transportation:  OMIT

3. passion:  OMIT

F. Special Topics

1. Russian lit:  OMIT

2. banned book:  OMIT

3. post-colonial/modern classic: OMIT

A. best-kept secrets

A. best-kept secrets
updated Feb 4, 2013 1. nom de plume--V., Thomas Pynchon, a very reclusive author so good enough for nom de plume
updated April 18, 2013 2. a less famous work by a famous author--The Forged Coupon, Leo Tolstoy
updated August 19, 2013 3. espionage - Greenmantle - John Buchan

B. Fantastic!
updated May 6, 2013 1. animal tale collection--The Animal Story Book, Andrew Lang
updated Feb 28, 2013 2. folklore--Monkey: A Folk Tale of China, tr. by Arthur Waley
updated June 26, 2013   3. ghost story: Victorian Ghost Stories - ed. by Cox and Gilbert

C. Get inspired!
updated Jan 21, 2013  1. work that inspired the writing of others--The Great Books Foundation Short Story Omnibus
Updated May 23, 2013 2. originally written as a screenplay for Universal but never made into film--Playback, Raymond Chandler
updated July 29, 2013 3. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America - Garry Wills

D. Other Genres

updated Feb 11, 2013  1. African-American--My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass
updated Jan 14, 2013    2. feminist--The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, Mary Seacole

E. Transported
updated March 14, 2013 1. travel writing--The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
updated April 4, 2013  2. camels--Travels in Arabia Deserta, Charles M. Doughty
3. adventure - The Tragedy of the Korosko - Arthur Conan Doyle
4. life on a man-of-war - White Jacket - Herman Melville

F. Special topics
updated May 15, 2013 1. Russian lit--The Gololyov Family, Shchedrin
updated March 25, 2013    2. banned in USSR for 30 years--The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
 

For Russian Lit:   The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Feminist Lit: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark, and

                     To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

Black/African American Lit: Uncle Tom's Cabin, or, Life Among the Lowly, by Harriet Beecher Stowe; and   Tar Baby, by Toni Morrison

A Less Famous Work by a Famous Author: The Mother's Recompense, by Edith Wharton  ("the last of her major fictions")

Travel :A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, by Isabelle Bird  (an intrepid Englishwoman's 1873 adventures afoot and on horseback)

Native American: The Painted Drum, by Louise Erdrich (the present day discovery of a rare Ojibwe drum leads to a journey

both forward and backward  in time)

Serendipitous reading:  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie (how Mao's  "Cultural Revolution" had unintended con-

sequences in the  lives of two city youths sent to rhe "country" for "re-education", and that of the daughter of the local tailor in that rural area.

Difficult to categorize:  Moon Tiger, by Penelope Lively---this book is so much more than "an anti-war novel"   The principal character, Claudia, is a brilliant, unconventional, "prickly" British woman who, terminally ill but totally unsubdued, reviews her tumultous life as war correspondent and historian, and the roles of the persons who figured most significantly in it, an unusual assortment for sure.  (I couldn't help wondering if Penelope Lively is a brilliant, "prickly" woman, too?)

Made into a film:  The Saga of Gösta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf---a silent film version of this book launched Greta Garbo into stardom.  But the reasons I'm reading it are (1) with it, Lagerlöf became, in 1909, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature; and I am still trying to read more of the Nobel prizewinners; and (2)  it's "the Swedish Gone With the Wind.   It was originally published in Sweden in 1891, and this translation into English, by Paul Norlen, in 2009, is the first new English translation in more than one hundred years.  I suppose the reason it got dubbed "the GWTW of Sweden" is that it has occasional touches of "unabashed melodrama", although Lagerlöf's narrative voice  has lots of registers, from "deceptively simple to passionately lyrical", as the translator explained in a prefatory note.

Spiritual: The Spiral Staircase, by Karen Armstrong--the former Catholic postulant-novice descibes the intense intellectual and emotional quest that obliged her to leave the convent and plunge into the realm of Academia, but to be obliged to quit that realm to enter into her true 'niche' in the world, that of the profound scholar of religion that she has become today.

Leftover category from a previous year, a Dickens novel: Dombey & Son  I'm closing out 2013 with this 900+ page novel, and I selected it because a principal character in Moon Tiger , a British tank officer, spent the night  reading it (en toto), before going into the battle in the North African desert in which he was killed.                               

How about some up-dating of our 2013 Challenge lists?

CHALLENGE COMPLETED!!!!

Reading the list of categories for the 2014 Challenge set me to drooling . . . . but I'm still reading away in late October, 2013, on my own warped list of 'choice' reading.  I have a hunch I'll be lucky to finish Dombey & Son by the end of December, 2013.

But I'm up for 2014, and you all can choose any categories you like----they all sound full of possibility to me!  Cheers . . . . .