New Author Challenge 2012

When I said I was going to sign up for less reading challenges in 2012, I may have inadvertently been lying... However, what I am doing is signing up for more manageable challenges (I'm not sure what's up with the italics.. I'm an italic-ey mood today I guess). Instead of getting completely carried away in a sea of lists, recommendations, and books I absolutely must read now, I'm trying to be calmer and going for challenges that incorporate a lot of the books I already own, along with library books, and which can all be used to help each other. As I love to expand my list of authors I love, I am really excited by the idea of the New Author Challenge, hosted by Literary Escapism. The rules are fairly simple:

• The challenge runs between January 1st, 2012, and December 31st 2012
• You can use books from other challenges but the authors must be new to you, and only a third of your total reading for this challenge can come from anthologies. The rest must be from novels.
• Either pick 15, 25, or 50 new authors to try during 2012
• After reading a new author, add the review to the linky on the website

Because I don't want to be too mad, I'm going to go for 25 new authors to start off with. This hopefully shouldn't be too difficult as I know there are a fair few I've not yet read on my list for the Mount TBR Challenge to start off with, plus it gives me an excuse to browse the library even more than usual!

These are the new authors and books I have read in 2012:

1. Yossarian Slept Here by Erica Heller
2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
3. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
4. The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
5. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
6. Kick Ass by Mark Millar
7. A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve
8. Dear Fatty by Dawn French
9. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen 
10. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 
11. Ragnarok by A.S Byatt
12. Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta
13. The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
14. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
15. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
16. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
17. French Lessons by Ellen Sussman
18. We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee
19. The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman
20. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
21. Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
22. One Moment One Morning by Sarah Rayner
23. The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan
24. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
25. Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel
26. The Resourceful Mum's Handbook by Elen Lewis
27. Fairytale Ending by Gigi Levangie
28. The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai
29. Secrets to Happiness by Sarah Dunn
30. Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers by Marika Cobbold 
31. Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
32. The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March
33. I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron
34. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch
35. The Politically Incorrect Parenting Book by Nigel Latta
36. Last Christmas by Julia Williams
37. The Pi**ed Off Parents Club by Mink Elliot