Doctor Who Reading Challenge
So, earlier, when introducing this three month themed extravaganza I mentioned "The Doctor Who Reading Challenge," and then told you you'd have to wait for an explanation. Well now is the time for said explanation. For us bibliophiles, what better way is there to celebrate Doctor Who then to read lots and lots of Doctor Who books? In fact, the written and audio books should be lauded as what kept the show alive during the years it was dark. We got new stories from new authors, some of which went on to then write on the show! Mark Gatiss anyone? So yeah books and yeah Doctor Who!
The idea behind this book challenge is that there are 11 Doctors so far (remember we're not quite 100% sure what they're doing with John Hurt and the 12th doesn't come round supposedly till Christmas, I'm guessing it will be at the 50th though). The 50th anniversary is in the 11th month of the year. So the idea is to each month count down till the 50th by reading a book staring that months Doctor. So January would be the 1st Doctor all the way till November would be the 11th Doctor, you get the idea. I'm more condensing this into an epic read crammed into three months, and this is for a multitude of reasons, my other themed months being one of them. But my main reason was I was figuratively paralyzed... what books to read? I mean, I have a lot of 9th and 10th Doctor books lying about, and a few 11th. Then there's a few old 4th Doctor paperbacks I have somewhere... but which ones to read? Then I started to make a list based on authors I love who wrote Doctor Who books, you know, Mark Gatiss, Paul Magrs, George Mann, those ones... but so many of them are out of print. Grrr I say.
So the BBC came to my rescue. I don't know if they had planned this all along for the 50th, or, if hearing about this book challenge, went "Aha! A marketing idea we can exploit!" So what they did was re-release eleven books, one for each Doctor, in nifty new and special 50th Anniversary editions (seen above on my Doctor Who shelf, and yes, I have a Doctor Who shelf, no judging). So viola! My reading list was made. Of course the books didn't come out till April, so there's four months wasted right there, so time to cram some reading in now! Therefore, over the next few weeks, one of the features of my 50th Anniversary Special is the review of said books... here's hoping these live up to the name of The Doctor (whatever that name might be)!
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