Welcome to Andy and Netty’s Reading Challenge 2012 (aka the End Of The World As We Know It edition)

This is the fifth – and possibly final – year of Andy and Netty’s Reading Challenge.

Hear that? It’s the sound of jaws dropping all over the blogosphere. Or perhaps not …

Anyways, seeing that we post on each month’s books the following month, bear in mind that you might only get 11 months worth of Reading Challenge this year, on account of it being the end of civilisation an’ all, what with the Mayan calendar running out on December 21. Hey, don’t trust me, though. I’m the chick who stockpiled so many cans of tuna pre-Y2K that I was still eating variations of “tuna surprise” well into September the following year. Washed down by about 50 bottles of V8 juice. But I digress.

It’s halfway through January already, so better get the 2012 list up pronto, before I get any threatening messages from Andy. Here we go:

JANUARY: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

FEBRUARY: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

MARCH: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

APRIL: Howl by Allen Ginsberg

MAY: Raining in Mango by Thea Astley (inspired by Dan Fox)

JUNE: M by Peter Robb

JULY: July’s People by Nadine Gordimer (natch)

AUGUST: Collected Stories by Jorge Luis Borges

SEPTEMBER: Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes

OCTOBER: The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

NOVEMBER: Beloved by Toni Morrison

DECEMBER: The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Not too shabby, eh?

But wait folks – that’s not all. Due to the astounding (ahem) success of our Revisited section, we are doing another version of it this year – except we are both “revisiting” books, chosen by the other, that neither of us has read before. Cool, huh? In no particular order, Andy is tackling Bret Easton Ellis, Cormac McCarthy, Paul Theroux, Haruki Murakami, Anne Sexton and D.M. Thomas, while yours truly will be making an acquaintance with Tim Winton, John Wyndham, Chris Isherwood, Helen Garner, Gore Vidal and China Mieville. You’ll be hearing from Andy soon on Mr Ellis, and myself next month on, err, one of the six books he has chosen for me. How excitement.

Better get cracking then. That’s a helluva lot of reading to be done before Judgment Day …

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