My 999 List

9 books in 9 categories in 2009, 9 can overlap, 72 books total

Can I do it?  Highly unlikely.  I’m shooting for 5 or 6 in each category.  45 or 54, either way 5+4=9 in 2009.  It works for me.

***Updated to add that I’m also working on the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge that we have going on the Well-Trained Mind forums

Titles in bold are what I’m currently working on.  Based on last year’s experience, expect this list to be updated, changed, and rearranged frequently. 

I.History/Biography

1. 1066–The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth 1/9
2. Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
3. The Four Voyages by Christopher Columbus
4. The Illustrated Life of Washington by Joel Headley
5. Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford
6. Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
7. John Adams by David McCullough
8. We were not alone: how an LDS family survived World War II Berlin
9. The Story of Europe by H. E. Marshall 

II. Prelude to Glory series by Ron Carter (there are 9!)

1. Our Sacred Honor 5/4
2. The Times That Try Men’s Souls 6/8
3. To Decide Our Destiny 6/18
4. The Hand of Providence 7/13
5. A Cold Bleak Hill 8/5
6. The World Turned Upside Down 9/18
7. The Impending Storm

III. Well-Trained Mind Literature recommendations

1. Dante’s Inferno Cantos I-V
2. Shakespeare Henry V
3. A Christmas Carol
4. Don Quixote
5. Gulliver’s Travels
6. The Pilgrim’s Progress
7. Robinson Crusoe
8. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle
9. Perrault’s Complete Fairy Tales

IV. Parenting/Homemaking/Homeschooling

1. Wanting Another Child: Surviving Secondary Infertility
2. Homeschooling by Gregory and Martine Millman 6/1
3. The Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion 6/10
4. Deconstructing Penguins by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone 6/19
5. Raising up a Family to the Lord by Gene R. Cook
6. So You Want to Raise a Boy by Cleon Skousen
7. It’s Here…Somewhere by Alice Fulton-Osbourne and Pauline Hatch

V. Religion/Scripture

1. The Book of Mormon 10/20
2. November 2008 Ensign
3. May 2009 Ensign 10/4
4. *Doctrine and Covenants
5. Jesus the Christ
6. Song of the Righteous by Darwin Wolford

VI. Mystery

1. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie 2/3
2. Endless Night by Agatha Christie 2/24
3. A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters 4/6
4. The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters 4/13
5. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 10/14 

VII. Fiction

1. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale 1/12
2. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire (for bookclub)1/23
3. The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli 3/19
4. A Parcel of Patterns by Jill Paton Walsh 4/9
5. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown 5/16
6. The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale 8/6
7. Nurse Matilda by Christianna Brand

VIII. Read-Alouds/Audiobooks with the Boys–the long ones

1. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (audio) 1/15
2. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 2/4
3. The Wind in the Willows 2/25
4. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall 4/?
5. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall 4/27
6. Freddy the Detective by Walter R. Brooks (audio) 7/27
7. Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge 10/9
8. *Seacrow Island by Astrid Lindgren
9. Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren

IX. Books recommended to me or Books I have yet to discover! (That should make up for 2008’s habit of finding good books and holding off on reading them because they didn’t fit into any of my categories.)

1. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks 3/9
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (for bookclub) by Betty Smith 10/5
3. Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron
4. The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder (recommended by Lorna) 
5. *The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen (recommended by Anne)