Hey Saloners and friends. It has been ages since I've done a SS post. Last weekend I went on a mini vacation for the Thanksgiving Holiday. There was a 92 mile bike trail that we had been itching to do for a couple of years. We failed miserably, but not because of lack of endurance! The universe had ulterior plans - even tho' we checked the weather multiple times before packing up and going, the skies parted and torrential rain poured down on us. A drizzle, perhaps, we could have handled. But, between the cold and rain pelting on our bodies...well, let's just say, we only managed to clock in 60 miles.
Prior to that weekend my only excuse for no SS post is shear laziness and defeat from an overworked lifestyle!
Reviews To Come
I haven't been terribly productive this week after the biking misadventure. An awesome friend of mine mailed me her copy of The Time Traveler's Wife, which I finished and will review sometime this week. I also began Skinny, which I just haphazardly picked up at Target while I was getting the Vampire Diaries books for my classroom (review on that one soon too!)
Organization and TBR
My biggest accomplishment is reorganizing my bookshelves yesterday. It took hours, but I'm happy to say that overall I'm content with the final product. Oh, and while I reorganized, I opened up a separate LibraryThing account and catalogued all of my TBR books that I own. I have 138 unread books on my shelf; I'm hoping to diminish that quite considerably next year. Haha, in fact, my goal is by the end of 2010 to have less TBR books on my shelf rather than more. We'll see how that goes since I have four books coming to me from Bookmooch already and I'm a sucker for BookMarks magazine so my want list grows and grows.
Challenges, Oh My!
I cannot believe that this year is almost over. I have to start considering my top ten books read for 2009. This is going to be so difficult because it was such a great year in reading for me. I was able to read books that i normally wouldn't have checked out and I owe that entirely to the book blogging community. And what has helped with this book discovery? Challenges of course! So here's the thing. I loved me some challenges. Seriously, even though this was my first year blogging, I signed up for challenges left and right. I made lists, I read books,and all was good in the world. But then, I just sorta dropped the ball. I completed most of my challenges: Gaiman, Amanda's GLBT, War thru the Ages, 100+, Library, YA, and a couple more that are not coming to me. But, I was hardly a good participant. I forgot to link posts, I didn't interact as much as I wanted, I forgot to do follow posts. Le-sigh.
Of course I am still signing up for challenges for the year 2010. One of my reading goals will be to make sure I am a better participant. But there are so many good ones out there...so what do you think? Which challenges should I sign up for? What are you signing up for?
Cheers!
Still - 60 miles!! That's wonderful! I wouldn't have the endurance for that. Not that I've ridden a bike since I was about 12 years old...
ReplyDeleteI need to organize my GoodReads library...
Of course i have to recommend the GLBT challenge for next year, too. :) But other than that, this year I'm mainly going with challenge I think are on important topics, rather than ones that just sound fun. Like the Women Unbound challenge.
Wow, 60 miles sounds like it would take me weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm going a bit challenge crazy - for me - this coming year. I would recommend GLBT, Women UnBound, and my Banned Books Challenge for sure.
I go back and forth about challenges. I *love* making the lists, but the updating and the linking and all that makes it feel like a chore. I do enjoy readalongs of books I was going to read anyway--they seem more interactive. And I'm co-hosting the Lord of the Rings Readalong and looking forward to that.
ReplyDeleteIf I join any challenges (and that's a big if), they'll probably be topical (Women Unbound, GBLT) or based on a particular genre. And they'll be ones I can complete with the 200+ unread books I have in the house.
I love challenges, but I very rarely actually link to my reviews on the challenge blog, lol. It didn't occur to me to feel guilty over that! I guess I join challenges for the book aspect rather than the community aspect-I hope that doesn't make me sound like Scrooge, though.
ReplyDeleteMy brother rides his bike a lot and has his two 20-something sons going along for the ride as well (hahahahaha). Me, not so much. And it's not like I don't enjoy the outdoors. Hmmm, something to think about when it's warm again.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many books would be on my own TBR list, if I cataloged the shelves? A distressingly large number, I fear. Then I go to the library and get more. I always feel there's something interesting just inside the next cover.
Something interesting was in the last set of covers, "Love Tag," about a family and its friends. I liked the boy's search for his birth parents -- and what happens next, plus the depiction of the highly ambitious buy. We all know people like that in real life!
There is no pleasure quite so great in the world (for me at least) than reorganizing my books. I am filled with envy just reading about your organization fest!
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