Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Reading Challenges - 2011

As a BookCrosser, I do participate in a selective number of challenges, and I've hostessed a few myself. Yearly, I'm in the BookCrossing Reduce Mount TBR (To Be Read) and the Keep Them Moving challenges, and the annual Canada Reads challenge.

I was just reading Sherri's Thoughts & Ramblings' 2010 in Review post and her Honorable Mentions for 2010, and noticed she's in Book Chick City's Mystery & Suspense Reading Challenge 2011. Since I always read a LOT of mystery novels (suspense, not so many thrillers), I'm going to participate in that.

Pretty sure I get my mystery reader genes from my dad, as mystery and humour was mostly what he read. Ellery Queen (really cousins Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay, and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee) and Rex Stout were among his favourites. Mum read those mysteries too, but liked Agatha Christie and Josephine Tey more. (I read 'em all after Mum and Dad finished.)



I'll pick a favourite mystery read each month to review. The first I've read in 2011 was The Exception by Christian Jungersen. Great novel! Book Chick City has a list of suspense and thriller sub-genres. This would fit into her 'Psychological Thriller' category. (She doesn't have a feminist category. That's something I should write about here.)

I'll be reviewing this and favourite Scandinavian mysteries in general soon, then bookcrossing The Exception later on, releasing it probably at the Lower Mainland (Vancouver BC) BookCrossing Meetup as there are many mystery readers among us there. If you live in Greater Vancouver, do contact us or come to a meetup.