Reading Challenges for 2012 and summary of 2011.

I always enjoy Reading Challenges
Here is a link to the ones I joined for 2011.
Plus one, The Canadian Book Challenge, I joined later in the year that runs July to June. (This one I am already done the required 13 and racking up more reads every month and thoroughly enjoying them.)

What's In a Name
The What's in a Name Challenge I've done for a few years, and finished the one for 2011.
I will be joining the 2012, which has the following as the challenge:
Between January 1 and December 31, 2012, read one book in each of the following categories:

1. A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title: Black Hills, Purgatory Ridge, Emily of Deep Valley
2. A book with something you'd see in the sky in the title: Moon Called, Seeing Stars, Cloud Atlas
3. A book with a creepy crawly in the title: Little Bee, Spider Bones, The Witches of Worm
4. A book with a type of house in the title: The Glass Castle, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Ape House
5. A book with something you'd carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title: Sarah's Key, The Scarlet Letter, Devlin Diary
6. A book with a something you'd find on a calendar in the title: Day of the Jackal, Elegy for April, Freaky Friday, Year of Magical Thinking

The book titles are just suggestions, you can read whatever book you want to fit the category.

Other Things to Know

• Books may be any form (audio, print, e-book).
• Books may overlap other challenges.
• Books may not overlap categories; you need a different book for each category.
• Creativity for matching the categories is not only allowed but encouraged.
• You do not have to make a list of books before hand.
• You do not have to read through the categories in any particular order.

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Global Reading Challenge
I signed up for the Expert Challenge for 2011, which required reading three books from each continent. I did not complete this, doing no books at all for Australia/Oceania, only one for Africa and only one for South America. (I think I was reading too much Canada!)

I'm still looking for information on whether this challenge will be offered in 2012.

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Chunkster Challenge

This is another challenge I've done before. I have until the end of January to finish the 2011 challenge, which I signed up for at the "Do These Books Make My Butt Look Big" level. At this point I only have one 750 page book left, and I have my eye on a couple.

The rules are changing for 2012 and the challenge is running January to December. They are also allowing collections now, so I can read short story or essay collections as part of my challenge, so that sounds like I have a few on my shelf that will fit in. Given that, I'm moving up to the "Mor-book-ly Obese" level, which requires 8 chunksters (450+ pages) of which three must be over 750 pages.

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1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Challenge

I thought that I would easily be able to do this even though I signed up for the PhD level of 16 books, since I actually owned 28 I hadn't read. But no, I only read a couple. Not so good. I don't know if this challenge is running again, but if I see it I will likely join, but at a lower level.

Update: This challenge is running again.So I will join. The levels have changed to an Olympic theme for 2012, so I will go for "Made the Olympic team" which means my goal is 6-10 books from the list.

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War Through the Generations Challenge

This is a new challenge for me, although I have lurked before. This year the war is WWI, and I will go for the Swim level which is 11 or more books. There's so much available to read on this war or set during it.

These challenges should keep me with lots to read this year.