On The Well-Trained Mind message boards I saw the idea of a “999 reading challenge”. I’ve seen this other places and I’m not sure where it originated but the basic idea is you read 9 books in 9 categories in ’09. I decided to try it. I didn’t succeed in meeting the challenge but I did read more diverse books and felt like it was a good exercise.
Read Alouds (Chapter books I’ll read to my 5 yr old. This is cheating a bit I know. It’s my list and I can do that.)
- Half Magic by Edward Eager
- Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat
- The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
- Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
- The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson
- Otis Spofford by Beverly Cleary
- The Doll People by Ann Martin and Laura Godwin
- The World According to Humphrey by Betty Birney
- Friendship According to Humphrey by Betty Birney
- Trouble According to Humphrey by Betty Birney
- Surprises Accoding to Humphrey by Betty Birney
- Adventure According to Humphrey by Betty Birney
- Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace
- The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
- The Mayor of Central Park by Avi
- Nim at Sea by Wendy Orr
- Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
- Centerburg Tales by Robert McCloskey
- Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
Novels from The Well Educated Mind list
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Homeschool/Self-Education/Parenting
- History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer
- Story of the World Vol 1 (Ancients) by Susan Wise Bauer
- The Well-Trained Mind (new edition) by Susan Wise Bauer
- Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma
- The Trouble With Boys by Peg Tyre
- Lighting Their Fires by Rafe Esquith
Science and Medicine
- Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
- Autism’s False Prophets by Paul Offit
- Everything Conceivable by Liza Mundy
- The Mercy Rule by Perri Klass
- Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
- The Soul of Medicine by Sherwin Nuland
Religion
- The Bible (reading daily)
- Calvin’s Institutes (reading daily here)
- The Shack by William P. Young
- The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Tim Keller
- Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport by Richard Mouw
- Fruit of Her Hands by Nancy Wilson
- For a Glory and a Covering by Doug Wilson
- Feathers from My Nest by Beth Moore
Biography/Memoir
- Look Me In The Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison
- Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton
- Ruth: A Portrait by Patricia Cornwall
- Kindred Spirit: A Biography of L. M. Montgomery, Creator of Anne of Green Gables by Catherine Andronik
- Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks
- It Sucked and then I Cried by Heather B. Armstrong
- Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases by Paul Offit
- Things I’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi
- Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin
Potpourri Fiction (Doesn’t fit elsewhere. )
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
- The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
- The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
- A Mercy by Toni Morrison
- Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
- The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
- The Private Patient by P.D.James
- The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
- The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell
- The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
Potpourri Non-Fiction
- Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammett
- Starbucked by Taylor Clark
- The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Alison Hoover Bartlett
- The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Shelves (Things on my shelves I’ve been “meaning” to read for years. )
- The Living by Annie Dillard
- Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
- Legacy of the Dead by Charles Todd
