The Read A Myth Challenge-Reading Challenge Number 1-2011

The Read a Myth Challenge

Last year I signed up for 46 reading challenges and completed 44 of them.   2010 was my first full year as a book blogger.    I enjoyed being in all of these challenges, I learned from about a lot of goods books from other participants and I also expanded my  contacts way beyond my January 2010 expectations.    As the year went by, I began a number of my own reading projects and have more in mind.    I will still be joining in reading challenges and other events in 2011 but I am going to try to limit my participation in reading  challenges to 10.   

The Read a Myth Challenge is hosted by Jovenus of Bibliojunkine and Bina of If You Can Read This.    Jovenus and I did joint posting in Honor of Malaysian Independence Day (celebrated on August 31) during which I posted on three excellent short stories by Malaysian authors and Jovenus told us a bit about the literary culture of Malaysia.    I know based on that experience that this challenge will be a great one with excellent support

The full rules for the challenge can be found in the challenge blog.    Basically the idea is to read books based on classical myths.     Most of the examples given on the challenge web page are from Classical Greek myths, which is perfectly logical.    Of course there are many other mythological systems which still reverberate in world literature.   Here are the levels of participation:

Level 1 Athena: That’s a Myth!
Read any two (2) books about myths.

Level 2 Erlang Chen: Demystify the Myth!
Read any four (4) books about myths.

Level 3 Mimir: World Myth!
Read any six (6) books from the myth series must covers 2 different countries, including any one from the following list:

• non-fiction book on the study of mythology (figure), or
• Karen Armstrong’s A short history of myth, or
• The original text of myth (many to choose from the Greek Mythology)

Level 4 Ogma: The God of all Myths!
Mix and match of any eight (8) books from the myth series or any mythology books, with the following conditions:

• Must cover more than 3 countries.
• Must contain at least 1 non-fiction book on mythology study.

I am going to participate at the Athena level.    I pretty much for sure will read and post on The Bacchae by Euripides (405 BC).    If you watch the American TV program True Blood  (I do) then you will recall there was  a character from this myth in the show, Mary Ann who was determined to be a maenad.

I also thing I will post on a couple of short stories by authors from the Philippines based on Filipino myth.


This looks like a fun challenge with the potential to be edifying.     I look forward to reading all the posts this challenge will generate and thank Jovenus and Bina for hosting it.


Mel u