Reading in Reykjavík

The next genre I chose to feature is romance, starting with none other that Miss Jane Austen herself:  The Pride and Prejudice Bicentenary Challenge is hosted (where else) on Austenprose. As the title suggests, it is a celebration of the 200th publication anniversary of Jane Austen's most famous book. This is a year-long challenge and sign-up ends on July 1. The aim is to read, listen to or watch between 1 and 12 books, audio books, movies, TV series or web series (there are 3 incremental levels) hat are adaptations, sequels or spin-offs of Pride and Prejudice . There are prizes to be won and more rules can be found in the sign-up post. The Book Vixen is hosting two romance challenges I chose to feature (and a few more): The Romantic Suspense challenge runs all year long and you can sign up whenever you want. The goal is simply to read 13 romances belonging to the suspense sub-genre. Any format is allowed, as are re-reads and crossovers from other challenges, and...

The craze for paranormal literature is still going strong and this is reflected in the growing number of reading challenges being offered. By the way, if you see a bloody mess of images and text on the screen, blame Blogger. I have given up trying to fix it. We begin with the Paranormal Fiction 2013 Reading Challenge, hosted by Reading with Martinis. This is a year-long challenge with no sign-up deadline and 4 levels. Reviewing does not seem to be required, but some kind of online tracking is. There are only 4 participants so far, but I see an opportunity for someone who is doing the Reading Challenge Addict challenge to combine it with the next challenge - or even all of the following challenges - for extra points: The Paranormal Reading Challenge is hosted by Auntie Spinelli Reads and Megan Likes Books . This is a challenge to read books featuring several different paranormal creatures. It is a year-long challenge with sign-ups open until December 1. Posting reviews is ...

Edit: Have I ever mentioned that I !# * &>" % hate it that the Undo command on Blogger is utterly  useless and that certain actions can not be undone at all, such as retrieval of accidentally deleted posts and pages? I think I have. I wrote this post at home last night and published it this morning from work and then went to write a post that I then decided to delete. I must have had a cross-eyed moment, because I deleted this post accidentally instead. Arrrrgggghhhhh! However: I am fortunately not completely helpless around computers and was able to retrieve it from my home computer's cache. Imagine if I'd had to write it all over again. Somehow such writings never seem as good as the lost original.  Therefore: Folks: I heartily recommend setting Blogger to send you a copy of all your blog posts by e-mail, which is what I have done now and should have done much sooner. It may save you a lot of time and prevent panic in the future. And now we resume regular p...

From individual country challenges we move on to areas, continents and world reading challenges. Actually, I only found one each of the first two, Sadly, neither the Africa challenge or the South Asia challenge are running this year, but instead we have a Middle East challenge and a repeat of the Europe challenge. The 2013 Middle East reading challenge is hosted on a dedicated blog of the same title. It is a challenge to read books, to quote the host: "...which are written by Middle Eastern writers, or take place in the Greater Middle East, or are concerned with the Greater Middle East and with historical and contemporary Middle Eastern issues." The area covered is more or less what is sometimes referred to as the "Greater Middle East" and is comprised of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories and all the nations within, bordering or relatively close proximity to the Arabian Peninsula ...

Next up are the geographical challenges. These include country challenges, continent/area challenges and international country-hopping challenges. I'll start with individual countries.The next post will be about area/continent challenges and international challenges. Please, if you know of more country challenges, let me know (just leave a comment). First up is the Books on France challenge , hosted on the Words and Peace blog. The challenge is to read books related to France in some way: set in France, written by a French author, written in French or featuring a French theme. Any genre is valid, there are 4 levels, reviewing is expected, and there is a giveaway drawing for the participants at the end of the year. There are 22 participants so far, and you can find out more by following the link. Then we hop over the Channel to Britain. The British Books Challenge is hosted on the Feeling Fictional blog. It is, quite simply, a challenge to read at least 12 books by Br...

I finished the year 2012 with a more-than average reading month, finishing 16 books, most of which were begun as well as ended within the month. It's no wonder, since because of the way the weekends lined up the Yule holidays were long this year – I only worked one day between December 22nd and January 2nd because traditionally, in my workplace, we get the half-workdays of Christmas Eve and New Year‘s Eve completely off, as well as one extra winter vacation day over the holidays. 12 of these books were romances and 7 were written by Nora Roberts. Romances are a good genre for me during the darkest winter months, dealing as they do with positive feelings and happy endings, things I need as ammunition in my battle with depression, which is exacerbated by seasonal affective disorder at this time of the year. The rest included true and fictional crime, historical fiction and a cookbook. The Books: Dorothy H. Becker & Nancy S. Wallace : Fabulous Fondues . Cookbook. Debbie Mac...

Here you will find two related types of challenges: those that have something to do with titles and ones were you read books from a specific list. I have also updated the list from the original posting to include challenges to finish a certain number of books. Starting with the title challenges we first have: The fabulous What's in a Name Challenge , 6th edition. It's being hosted on the Beth Fish Reads blog. To participate, you pledge to read one book in each of six categories. The categories consist of titles having a specific type of word in them: up or down (or equivalent) something you'd find in your kitchen a party or celebration in the title fire (or equivalent) an emotion in the title lost or found (or equivalent) The challenge runs throughout 2013 and you can join up at any time. The challenge can overlap other challenges, reviewing is necessary (in a blog post or comment) and you are encouraged to be creative when choosing books. Further rules and...