Competitive reading challenge

I need little reason to pick up an interesting book and dive in. Every since I got my grubby little hands on my first book, it's rare not to find one (or 10 or 20) within arm's reach.

Throughout my life, there have been clear examples that I became a bookworm early on:

• Cleaning my room: Growing up, my bedroom was pretty much always a disaster. So when my mom was at her wits' end and forced me to clean it, she would have to regularly check on me, as I would be hiding on the far side of my bed with my nose buried. After a couple of hours, the rolltop desk in the hallway supported a nice pile of books a foot or so high that she had confiscated.

• Want Kate to shut up? Stick a book in her hands: As no one who knows me will be surprised, I can be verbose. Example: Spent most of first grade facing the wall by the pencil sharpener for talking in class. Anyway, family vacations consisted of many, many hours and hours and miles and miles in our camper/van, so my parents learned early on that the best way to manage me was to put a book in my hands. I think my dad instituted a "Kate's book budget" every summer vacation, since I was also a quick reader.

• Everybody knows your name: At our neighborhood library in Lisbon, all of the librarians knew my sister and I by first name. I bet we were there at least once a week picking out a new stash of books to enjoy. (We'll skip the part where I was hoooooorrrrrrriiiiiible about returning books on time. My mom swears I personally paid for the library's addition. Note: She also made me pay the fines out my weekly allowance, which somehow did not deter me from continuing to rack up more.)

Ok, enough of this stupid rambling, this blog isn't about my weirdness (well, it may be down the line) as much as it's about me taking on the challenge of reading 100 books in a year. The book challenge gauntlet was originally thrown down by my friend, The Book Pimp, who obtained the it from her cohort, Magnolia Kelly. (Want to make sure to give credit where credit is due.)

And as it isn't just any 100 books, I'm going to loosely use the same rules as The Book Pimp:

Rule #1: All new material. Although I love to re-read books, and have a number that I re-read on a yearly basis, re-reading kind of defeats the purpose of this exercise.

Rule #2: No audio books. I will limit my audio book listening in the workplace to books I have already read.

Rule #3: The 100 books have to represent a variety of genres and subjects. (From me, I'm changing up my categories from her's a little bit.)

• 20 recommendations from friends, colleagues or random people I meet on the street (or anyone brave enough to leave a comment here) (20 = done)
  

• 15 classics (7)
  

• 10 books that have been adapted into movies (1)

• 5 autobiographies or biographies (5 = done)
  

• 10 other non-fiction books (5)
  

• 2 books of poetry

• 3 short story collections (2)
  

• 5 historical fiction (1)
  

• 5 science fiction

• 10 fantasy (10 = done)
  

• 3 graphic novels (1)

• 3 teen (3 = done)
  

• 2 children's (2 = done)
  

• 1 romance (1 = done)
  

• 1 Oprah's book club pick (1 = done)

• 5 "just for the hell of it" books (5 = done)
  

Hopefully, that equals 100.

Rule #4: I will post a book report style review for each book that I finish, and I will also rate them, using a 1-5 star rating. (From me: I'm not much of a book report writer, so I'm going to choose one quote or passage from each book that is meaningful or impactful to me.)
Ok, I'm ready, are you? Game on!
(By the way, I started my challenge on October 21. And, any book recommendations for the above categories will be much appreciated...)