Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge: Participation Announcement

I've been meaning to join the main Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge (hosted by Mom's Small Victories, I'm Lost in Books, and Savvy Working Gal) since I participated in the Readathon in September, but I am a constant procrastinator (tomorrow will always be another day). I thought I'd better put this up before the new year, given I tend to forget about things during the hectic holidays where I eat, bake, and craft much of my time away.

The “Rules” (From the Challenge Post at Mom's Small Victories)
And the “rules” are simply this…YOU choose your own adventure! These are your goals but you can change them any time.

1. Determine length of time you will participate in the challenge. Just one month, An entire season, a year or 5 years?

2. Determine how many countries you would like to read about during your adventure. What criteria are you using to determine the number of countries you read about (ex. book setting, author background or both)?

3. How will you track the countries you visited in books? You could create a map in Google Maps, track on your blog or on a Goodreads shelf.

4. Determine your book list or genre if you like. Will you be listing specific books you would like to read? Do you aim to read fiction, nonfiction or a mixture of both?

5. Link up your posts. Linkies will be available for sign up/goals, wrap up, and a linky for each continent for you to add your book reviews whenever you are ready.

6. Please follow each of our 3 hosts by at least one social media or bloglovin, RSS, GFC so you can keep informed of news, updates and events regarding this challenge.

My Goals:

-Read 15 books set in a different country from mine (I live in the U.S.) or by an author from a different country than mine. For my beginner challenge, I'm going to set the timeline to be from now until January 1st, 2016 (which seems so far away!). And then I'll also try to review those books on this blog.

-I have no set number of countries I'd like to 'visit' but I will try to do at least five different countries. I have so many the-pile and the-invisible-pile books set in England or the UK that it's absolutely ridiculous.

-I already made a Google book map with help from Guiltless Reader's tutorials, and have been adding my recent reads. I'll try to keep it updated, but I occasionally fall behind.

-I'll be reading books from my the-pile (unread physical books I've gathered) or the-invisible-pile (unread ebooks) shelves on Goodreads, but have documented the applicable ones from my current the-pile below. I won't be reading any specific genre, as I have everything from urban fantasy to memoirs/biographies in my piles of books I bought as a thrift shop junkie.

These are the massive amounts of current selections in my pile:

Fiction Set Mostly in Britain or Wales
From Left to Right, Top Tier to Bottom Tier:
An Old Betrayal (Charles Lenox Mysteries #7) by Charles Finch (Historical Mystery, England)
Dark Angels by Karleen Koen (Historical, Mostly England)
The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel (Historical, England)
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (Historical, England)
The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) by Jasper Fforde (Urban Fantasy, Great Britain)
Wideacre by Philippa Gregory (Historical, England)
Atonement by Ian McEwan (Historical, Mostly England)
Schooling by Heather (Historical, England)
The Master by Colm Toibin (Historical, Mostly England)
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (Historical, England)
The Quincunx by Charles Palliser (Historical, England)
Meridon by Philippa Gregory (Historical, England)
The Chalice and the Blade by Glenna McReynolds (Historical/Fantasy, Wales)
A Sundial in a Grave: 1610 by Mary Gentle (Historical, Mostly England)

Fiction Set Mostly in France
An Army of Angels by Pamela Marcantel (Historical, France)
Rashi's Daughters: Joheved by Maggie Anton (Historical, France)
Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst (Historical Spy Thriller, Paris, France)
The Rose Grower by Michelle de Kretser (Historical, France)

Fiction Set in European Countries Other Than Mostly England or France
The Watchers (Angelus Trilogy #1) by Jon Steele (Thriller, Mostly Switzerland)
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross (Historical, Mostly Italy)
Poison by Kathryn Harrison (Historical, Mostly Spain)
The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean (Historical, Mostly Russia)
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco (Historical, Italy)
Queen's Own Fool by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris (Historical, Scotland)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières (Historical, Cephalonia Greece)
The Sign of the Eagle by Jess Steven Hughes (Historical, Italy)
A Death in Vienna by Frank Tallis (Historical Mystery, Austria)
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland (Historical/Art, the Netherlands)

Fiction Set Mostly in Asia
The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly (Historical Mystery, India)
One Man's Bible by Gao Xingjian (Historical/Contemporary, Mostly China)
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (Historical, China)
Peony in Love by Lisa See (Historical, China)
Out by Natsuo Kirino (Mystery/Thriller, Japan)

Fiction Set in the Rest of the World
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay (Historical, South Africa)
The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots by Tamar Myers (Historical Mystery, Congo)
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (Historical, Australia)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Contemporary/Historical, Afghanistan)
Resurrection by Tucker Malarkey (Historical, Egypt)
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (Fiction, Haiti) Author is also a native Haitian
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley (Historical, Greenland)
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (Historical, Chile)
The Romanov Prophecy by Steven Barry (Thriller, Russia) Not sure why I didn't put it with Europe.

Classics (Various Countries)
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (Historical, England)
The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene (Historical Thriller, England)
The Quiet American by Graham Greene (Historical Thriller, Vietnam)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (Historical, England)
The Romance of Tristan by Béroul (Historical, England/Ireland/France)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Historical, England)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (Historical, England)
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (Historical, India)
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (Historical,
Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore (Historical,
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric (Historical, Bosnia)
Cheri and the Last of Cheri by Colette (Historical, France)
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (Historical, England/Europe)
Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction by Joseph Conrad (Historical, Congo)
The Moonstone by William Wilkie Collins (Historical, England)
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (Historical, England)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Historical, Mostly Russia)

Nonfiction/Biographies/Memoirs (Various Countries)
Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone (Nonfic, Europe)
Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel (Biography, Italy)
The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell (Biography, Europe)*
The Lady and the Monk by Pico Iyer (Memoir, Japan)
Catherine the Great by Zoé Oldenbourg (Biography, Russia)
Dear Theo by Vincent van Gogh and Irving Stone (Autobiography, Europe/France)

*One of the Mitford sisters ends up becoming an American, but given they all began in England and there are five others who end up somewhere in Europe, I decided to include this book.

As you can see, I have a lot to choose from, and that isn't even including my ebook selection. I think I'll have plenty of books to complete my first year-ish challenge.

                        Until Saturday,