The Sunday Salon: Announcing Two Challenges

Two new challenges I'm hosting, now looking for participants.

The Rescue Challenge
In this weeks Booking Through Thursday people were asked about those books which just linger on the shelves for years, never making it to the top of the pile. Which got me thinking about a new challenge, The Rescue Challenge. Help rescue those unloved books from the obscurity of the bottom of the tbr pile.
There would be two parts to the challenge, the first would be to get rid of any books you know deep down you will never read, so whether you bookmooch, bookcross, give them away to a charity shop these books will take up less of your space and have the opportunity to be read.
The second part of the challenge, will be to set up a pool of those unloved books and read between 3-6 of them between Nov 1st 2008 - Dec 31st 2009.
Books can definitely count for other challenges as well, in fact this will probably urge you to read them, and you set yourself the amount of books you'd like to read. The prize, is simply space on your shelves and freeing yourself of guilt when you once again sweep past that copy to reach for a shiny new book.
List of Participants here

I'm going to aim to read 4 of these, all have been on my shelves for more than 3 years:
A Suitable Boy - Seth
Arthur and George - Barnes
Sister of my Heart - Divkrum
Glasgow - Freud
Acts of Mutiny - Beavan
Big Sur - Kerouac
Alias Grace - Atwood
The Robber Bride - Atwood
The Swimming Pool Diaries - Hollinghurst
Heart Songs - Proulx
The Woodlanders - Hardy
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Adam Bede - Eliot
North and South - Gaskell
Love in a Time of Cholera - Marquez

Exploration: Latin American Reading Challenge
This challenge will run for 4 months, between the 1st January - 30th April 2009. The aim is to read a 4 books from Latin America, these can be fiction or non-fiction the mix is up to you. The books can be used as part of other challenges, but must be finished between the dates of the challenge. I will supply a small prize drawn from the names of those people who finish the challenge.
I've shown below a couple of options you may want to follow:
Free Choice: Read any four Latin American books
Mix it Up: Read a variety of fiction and non-fiction Latin American books
Author Challenge: Read a variety of work from just one author.
States: Read a book from a variety of the different states of Latin America
Magic Realism: Latin America is famous for producing the Magic Realism genre, you may decide just to read books fitting this genre.

Just so everyone is clear as to what will count as Latin America, I found this handy definition:
The Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. The 20 republics are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The term Latin America is also used to include Puerto Rico, the French West Indies, and other islands of the West Indies where a Romance tongue is spoken. Occasionally the term is used to include Belize, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname.

List of Participants here
Reviews here

For now pick which option you would like to participate in, create a list or a pool of books you'd like to read (these can be changed at any point).
My List: (Free Choice)
Love In a Time of Cholera - Marquez
The House of Spirits - Allende
Easter Island - Vandebes
Bel Canto - Patchett
The Agero Sisters - Garcia
The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto - Llosa
The Empress of South America - Cawthorne


Signing up for the challenges: if you'd like to sign up for either of these, please leave a comment below with the challenge you'd like to join and a link to your pool of books. Anyone without a blog can list their pool in the comments. I'll then create a participants list. I'll also create a post where people can leave links to their reviews once the challenges are up and running.