Orbis Terrarum 2009 Challenge

While I like reading about reading challenges way more than I like participating in them, I have some good news about my absolute favorite challenge of them all. Bethany of the book-crazy B&b ex libris blog is hosting the Orbis Terrarum Challenge again this year, a 10-month extravaganza dedicated to reading "10 different books, written by 10 different authors, from 10 different countries" beginning March 1st. Although the so-called rules thankfully haven't changed all that much from the 2008 version of the challenge, Bethany has livened things up by adding optional bilingual, film, poetry, and short story mini-challenges for those who are interested. You can check out the blog's dedicated page post here to sign up for the challenge yourself or here if you just want to keep up with all the updates throughout the year. In the meantime, a few of the things I'm looking forward to reading/watching for this year's challenge are listed below. I'll link all my other OT 2009 Challenge reviews here once things get going in March. ¡Hasta pronto!

Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina): a likely candidate for double duty in the poetry and short story mini-challenges.

Margaret Mazzantini, Non ti muovere (Italy, 2001): I'm going to try to read this romanzo in Italian for the bilingual mini-challenge, but unfortunately my Italian is basically limited to food and wine vocabulary and a few other helpful words like "aiuto"!

Carlos Saura, Cría cuervos (Spain, 1976): One of my favorite movies of all time, this was recently released in a deluxe US DVD edition from Criterion. A natural for the film mini-challenge.

Click here to jump to my OT list from last year.

1) BRAZIL: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (review)
2) MEXICO: José Emilio Pacheco, Las batallas en el desierto [Battles in the Desert] (review)
3) CHILE: José Donoso, Historia personal del "boom" [The Boom in Spanish American Literature: A Personal History] (review)
4) SPAIN: Enrique Vila-Matas, Bartleby y compañía [Bartleby & Co.] (review)
5) LEBANON: Hanan al-Shaykh, The Story of Zahra (review)
6) SUDAN: Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North (review)
7) PERU: Mario Vargas Llosa, La guerra del fin del mundo [The War of the End of the World] (review)
8) NORWAY: Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter (links forthcoming)
9) HONDURAS: Horacio Moya Castellanos, Senselessness [Insensatez] (review)
10) COLOMBIA: Fernando Vallejo, La Virgen de los Sicarios [Our Lady of the Assassins] (review)

1) MÉXICO: José Emilio Pacheco, Las batallas en el desierto (reseña)
2) CHILE: José Donoso, Historia general del "boom" (reseña)
3) ESPAÑA: Enrique Vila-Matas, Bartleby y compañía (reseña)
4) PERU: Mario Vargas Llosa, La guerra del fin del mundo (reseña)
5) COLOMBIA: Fernado Vallejo, La Virgen de los Sicarios (reseña)

1) GERMANY: Werner Herzog, My Best Fiend [Mein liebster Feind] (review)
2) DENMARK: Carl Theodor Dreyer, Vampyr (review)
3) FRANCE: Jean-Pierre Melville, Le Deuxième Souffle (review)

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