I stumbled across The Pre-Printing Press Challenge at All Booked Up via Howling Frog Books (can you tell that I like her blog?). It’s rules are reasonably unstructured so I thought it might fit nicely into my year.
The rules of the Pre-Printing Press Challenge:
1. All books must have come out before 1440, when the printing
press was first invented.
2. Books chosen for this challenge can overlap with other
challenges.
3. Books can be translated into the language of your choice.
4. All the books you’ve chosen must be read by December 31,
2014.
5. You can read 1-3 books, 4-6 books, 7-9 books or 10 or more
books if you’re feeling particularly ambitious.
6. The choice of books is up to you. There are not set reading
lists, and you don’t have to set one when you join.
7. Post your blog address where you’ll be posting your
comments on your choice of books in the comments of
this post when you join, and tell me how many books
you’ve chosen. I’ll set up a link to participating blogs
from here.
8. Above all, have fun!!!
The challenge starts December 1, 2013.
So, remaining list-less (that’s me!) I will add my books to the list below as they are read:
1. The Apology (of Socrates) by Plato — December 12, 2013
2. The Odyssey by Homer — March 23, 2014
3. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles — May 25, 2014
4. Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles — June 24, 2014
5. Confessions by St. Augustine — June 30, 2014
6. The Book of Margery Kempe — August 1, 2014
7. The Epic of Gilgamesh — August 14, 2014
8. Defence Speeches by Cicero — August 20, 2014
9. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers — August 25, 2014
10. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri — October 15, 2014
11. The Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri — October 25, 2014
12. Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory — December 6, 2014
I’m so glad that this challenge begins in December so I can get started right away!
Thanks for joining the challenge and good luck.
Thanks, Elena! I'm looking forward to your challenge!
Very interesting… I'm going to have a good think about this one!
It's a great challenge because it gets you reading in a certain time period. It's a period that I love, but find the books at times a little intimidating. It's a good challenge to force me to read them. I hope you join in!
I think I will 🙂 Need to sort out my challenges, I'm picking them here and there and I still haven't written a post!
This sounds like a fun challenge. I have a lot I want to read from this time period, actually, but I know I'm not going to get anywhere near to reading it this year. Good luck and have fun!
Oh, so you're not being impulsive like me? Very wise of you! 😉
Perhaps the following year? There are quite a few shorter works from this period that can be covered quickly. Plato's four works on Socrates are very short, the Epic of Gilgamesh is reasonable, and many of the Greek plays are not very lengthy. So the challenge shouldn't be too difficult to complete.
Yes, perhaps. Although I feel like I'm already mentally pushing a lot of books into 2015! It's a good problem to have.
Congratulations on the books read for this challenge. You certainly out did me!
Thanks! I always expect to read less in this category, but I love what I read so much, that I end up reading more.
Best wishes for the 2015 challenge!