For the second year I’ve joined and completed MiizBooks’ TBR Challenge. This is one I enjoy and one of the few I plan on doing again next year. 
The rules were:** Pick 12 books - one for each month of 2008 - that you've been wanting to read (that have been on your "To Be Read" list) for 6 months or longer, but haven't gotten around to.
Obviously I opted to ignore the one a month part. I did that the first year and it bugged me to want to read a book but have to wait. So this time I picked 12 books for my primary list and 12 alternates. I managed to read 4 of my alternates before finishing the primary list. Now that I’ve read all the books on my primary list I’m calling this one completed.
** OPTIONAL: Create a list of "Alternates" (books you could substitute for your challenge books, given that a particular one doesn't grab you at the time)
** Then, starting January 1, 2008, read one of these books from your list each month, ending December 31, 2008. :o)
These are the books I read for this challenge.
The Primary 12:
- Faithless by Karin Slaughter – this is a series that can be pretty brutal, but I really like it
- The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander – enjoyable speculative historical fiction about the last Russian Tsar and his family
- Peter the Great by Robert Massie – a huge sweeping biography of a fascinating man
- Smonk by Tom Franklin – skip it and read Hell at the Breech instead
- The Diamond by Julie Baumgold – I expected more from this one and felt that it dragged a lot
- Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs – this is a cozy mystery series about a teashop owner/ amateur sleuth in Charleston, SC
- London Bridges by James Patterson – when I want a fast read with lots of action I turn to James Patterson
- Black Wind by Clive Cussler – The Dirk Pitt series is being handed off to the second generation both in characters and authors
- The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington – an American classic about changing times
- Tonight I Said Goodbye by Michael Koryta – a new author for me that I enjoyed
- Diana Lively is Falling Down by Sheila Curran – funny and entertaining in parts, puzzling in others
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson – a fun classic
Alternates:
- Aunt Dimity's Good Deed by Nancy Atherton – another cozy series, this one with a ghost
- Rueful Death by Susan Wittig Albert – more cozy mystery with an interesting main character who is a former lawyer turned herb shop owner
- Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult – she consistently manages to make me consider alternative viewpoints
- Pawley's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank – summer reading that makes me feel the sand in my toes and smell the ocean.
Several of these were the next book in one of the many series I’m reading. Others were just books I’ve been wanting to read for a long time. Most of them were either good or very good. None of them were excellent, which is probably why they’d been on the TBR list for a while.
The only read disappointments were The Diamond which didn’t live up to my expectations and Smonk which was awful and a huge let down from an author I really like.
I’ve already decided that for next years TBR challenge, I’m going to ignore the one a month rule
The Rules were simple and flexible – I like that in a challenge (in fact it’s not too late to join in if you want):
