Off The Shelf Challenge 2011

I'm starting to think that I may well be signing up for too many challenges. But it's not like they don't all overlap anyway...and it's good motivation, so there.

So: new challenge = the Off The Shelf Challenge, hosted by Bookish Ardour. The aim is to read the books on your to-read pile. As mine is slowly reaching gargantuan proportions, this can only be a good thing.

I have chosen the second level -- Trying: Choose 15 books to read -- and, in a spirit of unusual optimism, I am going to list them all now:

1. The King's Daughter -- Mary O'Connell
2. The Planets -- Dava Sobel
3. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA -- Brenda Maddox
4. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell -- Susanna Clarke
• (These first four are all gifts from various years from my cousin, who is wonderful and gives books to an ungrateful relative who forgets to read them. Mea culpa.)
5. Rum Rebellion -- H.V. Evatt
• Rightly or wrongly, Evatt is my hero and so when I saw this 1936 tome in a second-hand bookshop, I had to have it.
  
6. The Prime Minister Was a Spy: an Australian mystery explained -- Anthony Grey
• About the mysterious disappearance of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt. I'm suspect he's taking the "kidnapped in a Chinese submarine" line rather than the "abducted by aliens" line, but I live in hope...
7. A Woman's Place: Women and politics in Australia -- Marian Sawer & Marian Simms
• From my mother's collection of 1970s feminist literature. (To be honest, the main reason I'm reading this is because it's written by not one, but TWO Marians.)
8. The honest politician's guide to crime control -- Norval Morris & Gordon Hawkins
• Recommended by both my parents as an adjunct to my studies of law.



See. Gargantuan proportions. And this was taken back in July!!

9. The Devil's Advocate -- Morris West
10. Am I Too Loud? -- Gerald Moore
11. My Brilliant Career -- Miles Franklin
12. Birds, Beasts and Relatives -- Gerald Durrell
13. Bugles and a Tiger -- John Masters
• An Indian Army memoir, given to me by a friend. It promises to be hilarious.
14. Geomancer -- Ian Irvine
• A piece of trashy fantasy to round out the list. I read a series of his when in high school and enjoyed it, and this one was $1 at a fete. It's been sitting on my shelf for too long.
15. Uncommon Law: being 66 misleading cases revised and collected in one volume -- A.P. Herbert
• Legal humour. Yes, I know.

There's a link over at the hosting website for adding reviews and a link to declare completion.