Wednesday, January 22, 2020

2020 Nature/Environment Reading Challenge

This is a new one and a new reading theme to me. Hotchpot Cafe had offered such a challenge in the past. I'd never participated in that one, and wanted to this year, only to see HC not offer it. But here is a similar challenge, at Gum Trees and Galaxies. I will get as many books as I can.




Lets call the challenge the Gaia 2020 reading challenge, (really not sure about that name but it evokes all the themes I guess). The parameters are simple, read one or more books that have a nature, climate or environment theme of some sort. To really get back to nature read at least one book a month on this theme. You don’t have to blog to participate, you can set up a Gaia reading challenge shelf on goodreads and link to it. If you blog, write a post about the challenge and what you plan on reading and leave a link to your blog post here in the comments, you can link to your goodreads shelf as well in the comments. The challenge button above is optional, if you want to grab the button just copy and paste the code into your post.
I would love discussion and sharing of ideas, given that climate can be a contentious subject I just want to state that I respect the views of everyone and just want to fascilitate respectful sharing and understanding. 
Books can either be non-fiction or fiction, so for example thrillers with an environmental angle like those of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) or say James Patterson’s Zoo could be counted, or maybe some of John Wyndam’s classic science fiction, or a classic nature novel like Watership Down. Goodreads is full of lists with an environmental theme including a cli-fi (climate fiction) list, I only just discovered that such a genre exists. 
This is meant to be flexible and inclusive. Non-fiction could be anything that touches on nature, environment or climate. Emily’s nature book club list is one good stating point or Goodreads has plenty of lists on the environment and sustainability. Re-reads are okay, as are double ups with other challenges. The only restriction books must be read between the 1st of January 2020 and the 31 of December 2020.
My Books:
  1. White Fang--Jack London
  2. The Call of the Wild--Jack London
  3. Silent Spring--Rachel Carson
  4. Gold Fame Citrus--Claire Vaye Watkins
  5. Clan of the Cave Bear--Jean M. Auel
  6. Dead Wake--Erik Larson
  7. Wilder Girls--Rory Power
  8. The Girl Who Loved Horses--Paul Goble
  9. A Dog's Purpose--W. Bruce Cameron
  10. Midnight Sun--Stephenie Meyer 
  11. The Story of More--Hope Jahren
  12. Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined--Stephenie Meyer 
  13. Kalona's Fall--P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast
  14. All the World--Liz Garton Scanlon
  15. Mountain Time: A Western Memoir--Jane Candia Coleman
  16. The Mute Stones Speak: The Story of Archaeology in Italy--Paul MacKendrick
  17. Winter in Paradise--Elin Hilderbrand
  18. Red Riding Hood--Sarah Blakely-Cartwright


Challenge completed on December 24

2 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Have fun.
Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel 'Unsheltered' fits firmly into that theme (as do several of her other books). I struggled with Unsheltered though - it felt that she was hammering the environmental message too hard, and manipulating the story to fit.

Sandra Cox said...

When our KMart closed the HH stocked up on things for the medicine cabinet:)
Have a great one, Jamie.