Monthly Wrap-Up for Challenges

As you can see on the sidebar, I've entered a number of reading challenges this year, and I'm really having fun meeting the requirements.  I'm especially pleased that I've been able to clear out so many ARCs and I'm keeping pace with the ones arriving this year. I'm still not completely caught up, but by April, I hope to be on track, and then I've promised myself I'll never get so far behind again...

Several of my challenges feature criteria that are overlapping, so books can count for more than one challenge. However, I'm finding that when I go to enter all of these in the individual Mr. Linky's set up by the contest people, Mr. Linky doesn't like that overlap. So.........I'm going to do a monthly post and list (and link) them here, and then just use this one post in Mr. Linky to see if that works. If you're a challenge maestro, I'll be emailing you (if I can find your email) to let you know what's happening.

The composite report indicates that for the month of January, I've read  and reviewed 20 books (not counting the four I abandoned).  Of those my top five are

1. Fireworks over Toccoa
2. Then Came the Evening
3. Supreme Courtship
4. True Blue
5. The Postmistress.

Unfortunately, Fireworks and Evening won't be in the stores until next month...But they are worth waiting for.
So here's the progress for the month--the Challenge Title links to that blog's contest, and the Book title links to my review:

Books Won Reading Challenge:
Supreme Courtship
True Blue (Audio)
Simon's Cat

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Reading from My Shelves Challenge:
A Year in the Merde
Kitchen
Founding Brothers
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Thriller and Suspense Reading Challenge
Death Goes on Retreat
A Fountain Filled with Blood
Key Lime Pie Murder
True Blue
The Black Echo
China Lake 
Death of a Valentine
A Fatal Grace
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Typically British Reading Challenge
Starburst
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Audio Book Challenge
Death Goes on Retreat
A Fountain Filled with Blood
Key Lime Pie Murder
True Blue
The Black Echo
China Lake
Starburst
A Fatal Grace
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ARC Reading Challenge
The Book of William
My Name is Will
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Lovely Bones
Then Came the Evening
The Postmistress
Death of a Valentine
Fireworks over Toccoa
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TBR Challenge
Supreme Courtship
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Support Your Local Library
China Lake
The Black Echo
Death Goes on Retreat
A Fountain Filled with Blood
Starburst
Key Lime Pie Murder
The Body in the Cast

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So there you have it for January.  I even took time off last nite to watch that gorgeous full moon rise over the river!  Even though meeting those reading challenges is fun, I don't want ever to lose sight of the best the world has to offer...it's right outside the door, and sitting right next to us and it's all the friends we've make over the years.  On to February.

2010 Challenge - Reading from my Shelves

Diane of Bibliophile By the Sea is hosting this great challenge that goes right along with my goal for the year---to read the books that are already on my shelves. I'm going to aim for 20 for the year.  I may have a teensy problem totally fulfilling the rules since Diane wants us to get the books out of the house...trade them, sell them, give them away.  My books are like children, so I may not get them out of the house, but I will move them off the specific shelves designated as TBR shelves.  You can sign up over on her page.

I'll be posting titles and a review as I read them......

2010 TBR Challenge

MizB's Reading Challenge Blog is hosting this one and it's made to order for me.  I've got to get the guilt level down a bit from all the fantastic books sitting here staring at me screaming "pick me! pick me!"

Here are the rules:

* the challenge is to read 12 TBR books in 12 months — you can read those all in one month if you want, or one a month, or however you wanna do it.
* you should have a list posted somewhere for others to see
* you CANNOT change your list after January 1st, of the current year!!!
* you can create an Alternates list of MAXIMUM 12 books, if you want, in order to have options to choose from (you can read these in place of books on your original list).
* audiobooks and e-books ARE allowed
* re-reads are NOT allowed, as they aren’t TRUE “TBRs”
* you CAN overlap with other challenges.

So here's my list (subject to change thru midnite Dec 31st);


1. Beat the Reaper byJosh Bazell
2. Fitzgerald Ruse by Mark de Castrique
3. School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
4. The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim
5. Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley
6. Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir by Katrina Kenison
7. The Woman who named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths by Charlotte Gordon
8. Amigoland by Oscar Casares
9. A Separate Country by Robert Hicks
10.When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman
11. Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir
12. Property by Valerie Martin

Now the challenge allows a list of 12 alternates (in case the fancy doesn't strike to read from the first list) so here are my alternates:

1. The Love Letters by Madeline L'Engle
2. The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst
3. Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
4. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
5. Here If you Need Me by Kate Braestrup
6. Death At La Fenice by Donna Leon
7. Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
8. Alligator: A Novel by Lisa Moore
9. Journey to Portugal by Jose Saramago
10.In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
11. The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets by Bill Moyers
12. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

If you're fixin' to clean out some of that TBR pile to make room for more, mosey on over to MizB's and sign up.