2010 Reading challenges

Book Worm Bot by ittybittiesforyou (via Flickr)

Happy new year, everyone!

First of all, a reminder that our Desperate Duchesses giveaway ends next week. To enter, tell us what chess piece you’d be and why, post your answer as a comment to this post.

To kick off 2010, I thought I’d list the reading challenges that we’re joining this year. We’re paring down our challenge list because, as we found out last year, it can be stressful trying to keep track of them all!

So for 2010, I’m doing the Aussie Author Challenge and the Book Binge Challenge in April, if MaryP hosts it again. Wandergurl is doing the Year of the Historical Challenge. She also wants to read more steampunk novels.

I’m planning to host the Books Alive Challenge in September … and to do a better job of hosting it this year!

Aussie Author Challenge

I found this challenge via Marg of Reading Adventures. You can find the details at Booklover Book Reviews, but here’s a summary of the rules:

1. Write a challenge sign-up post on your blog. In that post provide a link to this original post acknowledging Booklover Book Reviews and put this Challenge Button on your sidebar, linking the button to my challenge post.
2. Add your name and the direct link to your AUSSIE AUTHOR CHALLENGE sign-up post in the Mister Linky list.
3. Decide which Aussie authors you will read in 2010, although you can change your book titles or challenge level at anytime!
4. Each time you read and review a book as part of this challenge, share this with other challenge participants by adding a direct link to your book review to the list at this post AUSSIE AUTHOR CHALLENGE Book Reviews.

The challenge has 2 levels:

TOURIST – Read and review 3 books by 3 different Australian authors
FAIR DINKUM — Read and review 8 books by Australian authors (a minimum of 5 different Australian authors)

I’m going for the Fair Dinkum level, which should be doable, judging from the number of Aussie authors I read last year.

Aussie authors whose books I plan to read this year: Tracey O’Hara, Erica Hayes, Justine Larbalestier, Glenda Larke, Fleur McDonald, Denise Rossetti.

(I should also mention Aussie authors who I wish would release books next year so I can read them: Toni Jordan, Krissy Kneen, Dominic Knight, Melanie La’Brooy, Ann Somerville.)

I’ll be keeping track of my progress here.

The Year of the Historical: A 2010 Reading Challenge

This will encompass both straight historical fiction and historical romance. I’m hoping this challenge will allow some of us to get back into reading historicals, like me, as well as help us get into some of those books in our TBR piles or maybe to just discover something new…

The figure in the banner is none other than the infamous Anne Boleyn. Proclaim your participation to the world! Muahhaha! In other words, feel free to snag it for your site.

This is the post I’d like participants to sign up on, but I will do monthly posts and ask that you link your reviews there. I will then link in the post itself all the participant reviews (if only Mr. Linky worked in posts on WordPress.com…). Books can be older, just published or previously read. Authors can be old favorites or new-to-you. I didn’t want to specify specific requirements for each month – though I contemplated it. Write those reviews any way you please – you’re blogs, your styles, dudes. This way you, the reader, are free to pick and choose what works best for you. This might be a challenge, but who says it needs to be difficult? The main thing is to enjoy yourself.

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I will post something along the lines of Year of the Historical: January, etc. during the last week of each month. Again, these will be the posts for you to link your reviews in, hopefully making it easier for participants to share reviews, etc. I would appreciate it if you labeled your reviews in way that associates them with this challenge.

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ETA: I keep seeing questions regarding the number of books for this challenge – it’s 12 total, one a month, hence my stating that I’ll do a post once every month for reviews to be linked in. Yes, you are welcome to do more than that if you wish. No, you don’t actually have to do even one a month – it’s a reading challenge, not homework and I can’t make you do it even if you sign up to. So just…have fun with it however you want to.

Wandergurl will be keeping track of her progress here.

Wandergurl also has a personal challenge to read more steampunk novels this year.

We’d love any recs for these challenges. Aussie authors, historicals, steampunk—what books should we add to our lists?