First Quarter Challenge Check-in

It's the last day of March, and the last day of 1st quarter. Spring arrived a little bit early in my neck of the woods this year, but I'm okay with it! At least until it gets too hot! ;)

How is everyone doing on their challenges?

I'm behind of course, but have 3 read-a-thons to look forward to in April, so maybe I'll gain some ground then!


Bookobssessed 2012 "How Many" Challenge



2012 Mt. TBR Challenge - Only physical books, already owned before 2012 began



2012 E-book Challenge



2012 Speculative Fiction Challenge



2012 Speculative Romance Challenge



2012 Mystery and Suspense Challenge

Spring Into Horror Read-a-thon April 23rd - 29th

Michelle over at the True Book Addict is hosting the Spring Into horror Read-a-thon on her Castle Macabre blog. Sign Up

This starts the Monday after Dewey's Read-a-thon which is April 21st this time.

I'm looking forward to them both! It will ease me back into work from post Dewey and post vacation let down if I have another read-a-thon to focus on while going back to work! Plus I have to no read-a-thon's in March so far, so I'll be good and ready!

Best Reads during 2011

And now the post that none of you knew you were waiting for! Because everyone else has already done their top reads from last year! HA!

I read and listened to so many great books last year it was hard to choose, but I've whittled it down to my top 10 (books or series) out of the 110 books I finished. These are in no particular order.

Title/Series: Soul Screamers Series Author: Rachel Vincent Kaylee is a teenager struggling to come to terms with her powers/curse/gift, the knowledge of which has been hidden from her. Start with the Novella My Soul To Lose to get the real sense of the fear she feels as her heritage manifests. As she learns the truth about herself she discovers the existence of a whole new dark world that is eager to get to her side. Rachel Vincent has also written the Shifters series for adults that I'm looking forward to getting into and has started a new series called Unbound that looks great!

Title/Series: The Iron Druid Chronicles Author: Kevin Hearne The Iron Druid Chronicles was a great new find for me this year! Atticus is one tough guy, no matter what gets thrown at him, he can handle it, one way or another! Kevin has created some wonderful, lovable characters, and some not so lovable characters, that always keep Atticus on his toes. With friends like his, he doesn't really need enemies, but he's got those too, poor guy! I loved the first two books of this series and will definitely be reading the rest!

Title/Series: Dream Catcher Author: Lisa McMann The Dream Catcher books were something I discovered for a read-a-thon. I had received the first one from another Bookcrosser, and it had sat on the shelf for awhile. Looking for quick reads, I chose this one because of the type size, but became quickly enthralled by the story. Janie gets sucked into other people's dreams and she has no way to control this disturbing ability. With a mother that is often the one needing to be taken care of instead of caring for her daughter, Janie's life is difficult, but she does have a couple of close friends, and does finally learn to use her Dream Catching ability, though it comes with a high price.

Title/Series: The Lies of Locke Lamora (#1 of the Gentleman Bastards) Author: Scott Lynch Fantastic! The Lies of Locke Lamora has been described as a cross between Oceans Eleven and Robin Hood, and I completely agree! Locke and Jean are very lovable characters, their interaction with each other is great, and their schemes are so complicated, there's no way they should work, and they don't always, at least not as planned. There is quite a bit of drama as well, it's not all fun and games, there is a lot of meat here, and I highly recommend it.

Title/Series: Insider series Author: Maria V. Snyder #1 in this series was on my list last year I believe, and #2 was just as good! Trella thinks she's off the hook now that she's led the rebellion to success and can spend her time exploring and letting others make decisions, but everything soon dissolves into chaos and that's when the real trouble starts, when they realize that something from Outside wants to get In.

Title/Series: The Hunger Games Author: Suzanne Collins I think that 4.5/5 stars across over 400,000 ratings on Goodreads speaks for itself. I'll just say that I stayed away from this series for a long time because the premise sounded horrific to me, a truly deadly game of survivor played by kids. When many of my reading friends were gushing over it, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. It is horrific and shocking, kind of in the same way as Lord of the Flies made us think. Will it become a classic? I don't know, but it does have a better overall rating than Lord of the Flies, if a 160,000 or so fewer. *Shakes head in wonderment* Anyway, I'm excited to see the movie and see how it compares, and to read other work by Suzanne Collins!

Title/Series: Leviathan Author: Scott Westerfeld I've listened to the first two in this series so far, and I have to say that Alan Cumming is excellent! He does all the different voices and accents and it's very easy to get wrapped up in the story! This is completely different than Westerfeld's Uglies series, which I also really liked! The setting here is World War I, but with the fantastical organic technology of the Allies facing the Clanker technology the Axis (not terms used in the book, but ones I remember from history class). The characters are well developed and likable, Deryn (who disguises herself as a boy to join the air service) and Alec, a prince on the run with only a few loyal men to take care of him. Coming from different sides, they become unlikely friends, and there's enough action and interesting creatures and machines to keep your attention!

Title: Vamped Author: David Sosnowski I was really surprised at how much I liked this one. It seems to have a little bit of so many genre's mixed in, horror, humor, family drama, a little chicklit, it was an unexpected pleasure. Martin is a vampire who is bored with life and ready to end it all when he finds something rare, a human girl. He takes her home to snack on, delaying his gratification, or so he keeps telling himself. Somehow he never does get around to making a meal of her, and ends up raising her, in constant fear that someone else will find out she's there. There are just so many complications to having a human around! By turns humorous, horrible and heart-warming, I highly recommend this one!

Title/Series: The Felix Castor Series Author: Mike Carey I have the first three of these on audio and listened to #2 last year, Vicious Circle. They are very dark, yet also sarcastically humorous and the premise is interesting. Felix "Fix" Castor can call ghosts by using music, his instrument of choice being a tin whistle. He always gets himself into huge trouble, usually just by trying to help out, and the resulting detanglement is quite the ride! I would say that fans of the Harry Dresden series might also enjoy these, but that they are grittier in content.

Title/Series: Master of None (Gavyn Donatti #1) Author: Sonya Bateman Gavyn Donatti has to be the worlds unluckiest thief, poor guy. Everything goes wrong for him. He even manages to get a genie, who only helps him out if he really thinks he needs it, and their opinion differs on when that is. This was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one!

Wicked Winter Read-a-thon - Feb. 3 - 5

It's time for the The Wicked Winter Read-a-thon, hosted by Kindle Fever! Here are the Signup and Details if you haven't joined yet. I'm going to read all e-books this time (notice the hopeful plural). I'll do all my updates here. I'm not going to set a goal this time, just going to see how I do! We'll be using Twitter hashtag #WWReadathon

Curiousity Thrilled the Cat by Sofie Kelly Start Day 1: page 1 EOD1: page 70 EOD2: Page 195 EOD3: Page 324 - finished!

Good Luck Everyone!

I only finished one book this time, but at least I'm staying pretty consistent at 108 pages per day! Thanks for a fun read-a-thon @kindlefever and co-hosts! I'm definitely in for next time!

Winter's Respite Read-a-thon - Jan 23 - 29 2012

It's time for the Winter's Respite Read-a-thon hosted by Michelle @ The True Book Addict! I'm going to post all of my updates here in this post.

Goal

*750 pages

Progress:

	Lover Unleashed by J R Ward Start - Day 1: page 208 EOD1: page 212 EOD2: page 350 EOD4: page 489 - finished
	Girl Vs. Ghost by Kate McMurry and Marie August Start - Day 1: page 1 EOD1: page 100 EOD3: page 207 - finished
	Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell Start Day 5: Page 1 EOD5: page 45 EOD6: page 160 EOD7: page 263

Good Luck Everyone!

Current Page Count: 751
Avg. pages per day so far: 107
Pages per remaining days needed to reach goal: 0 -goal achieved!
Books Finished: 2.35 if I add up all the parts!

February 2012 Read-a-thons

The Wicked Winter Read-a-thon, February 3-5, 2012, hosted by Kindle Fever. Signup and Details So far this is the only February read-a-thon I know of, if you know of any others, please let me know, because I might want to join in!

I belong to Bookobsessed, which is a group formed of Bookcrossers, and we're going to have our own group read-a-thon from February 10 - 12. I'm very excited about this because as I've joined so many others, I think it would be a lot of fun to host a read-a-thon, but I don't have a big enough blog following to probably get much interest, not to mention I know it's a lot of work, so this will give me some practice on a small scale!

Built for Adventure

I was so excited to win a copy of Built for Adventure from Book Trib! I have been a Clive Cussler fan for a long time, I love Dirk Pitt, and his love of classic cars is part of who he is as a character, and a well known facet of the author.

Quite by accident I discovered the existence of the Cussler Car Museum while looking for different things to do on a vacation to Denver. While I'm not a classic car enthusiast, my husband was quite interested, and I was too from being a fan of the Dirk Pitt series. I highly recommend anyone visit this collection, they are absolutely beautiful, sparkling chrome, bright body colors, amazing to see even to someone who really knows nothing about what they're looking at, which is where I fit in! You're in the presence of history while touring these cars, and it's a treat! It's really not necessary to know anything about Cussler as an author, or the Dirk Pitt series, while that is a fun addition to those of us who are, to have little asides about which car Dirk was driving in which book, it is in no way necessary to enjoy the spectacle.

On to the book! This is a photographic coffee table style book and is gorgeous! The photos are many and beautiful, and I recognized quite a few of the cars we saw from the museum, but also some that were not on display at the time. Cussler gives personal history for how he obtained each one as well as factual information on each, but in a way that is not boring or overwhelming. There are some great anecdotes! I found it to be an enjoyable momento of that unexpected gem my husband and I discovered in Arvada, Colorado.

Thank you so much for sharing your collection with us Clive!

The Joy of Books

Totally cool bookstore video! Now we know what they do at night on their own!

Bout of Books 3.0 Read-a-thon - Jan 9th - 15th

It's time for the Bout of Books Read-a-thon 3.0! I'm going to post all of my updates here in this post.

Goals

I owe a few books out to friends, so I'm going to start in on a couple of those, and they will probably be all I get through as they are both pretty hefty for me, 400+ pages each.

*2 books
*843 pages - approx. 120 pages per day


Progress:

	Inked, an anthology by Karen Chance, Marjorie M. Liu, Yasmine Galenorn and Eileen Wilks Start - Day 1: page 1 EOD1: page 31 EOD2: page 128 - first story finished "Skin Deep" - loved it! Looking forward to more by Karen Chance! EOD3: page 219 EOD4: page 304 EOD5: page 416 EOD6: page 437 - finished!
	Enemies by Lee Hogan Start - Day 1: page 1 EOD3: page 16 EOD6: page 170 EOD7: page 316

Good Luck Everyone!

Current Page Count: 753
Avg. Pages per day so far: 107 - didn't reach my goal, but this is still a respectable finish for me!
Pages per remaining days needed to reach goal: 90 - missed it by this much!
Books Finished: 1 3/4

Thank you to Amanda @ On a Book Bender for putting this together for us, and to all of the challenge co-hosts! I'll be looking forward to the next one!

2012 Mystery & Suspense Challenge

This was actually the only challenge I did get all the books read for in 2011, though I didn't get reviews posted on them all. I'm in again at the 12 books level for 2012.

I will keep track of my accomplishments here: My Progress on the Mystery & Suspense Challenge

2012 Speculative Romance Challenge

I'm joining Book Chick City's 2012 Speculative Romance Challenge! Like the Speculative Fiction it's a large umbrella that encompasses many of my likes, with the Romance theme as the common thread. This challenge takes place from January 1 - December 31st 2012. Click the button above to check out the sign up and details.

I will declare the Two Sexy Werewolves level, which is 12 books. Audiobooks do not count, but all other formats are okay.

I will keep track of my accomplishments here: My Speculative Romance Progress

Marvelous Middle Grade Read-a-thon Jan 2 - 8, 2012

It's time for the Marvelous Middle Grade Read-a-thon hosted by Just Deb! Here are the Signup and details. It will take place January 2 - 8, 2012.

Since I'm still awake and it's now Monday morning where I live, I might just get started! I'll do all my updates here in this post.

	I'm starting with The Boggart by Susan Cooper Start Day 1: page 1 EOD1: page 196 - finished! Thoughts: Very cute! I'd definitely recommend. Look closely at the cover, I completely missed seeing the Boggart himself, hubby pointed him out to me!
	Next up is The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau Started Day 2: page 1 EOD2: page 101 EOD3: page 212 EOD4: 270 - finished Thoughts: Kept my attention all the way through, I couldn't wait to find out if they made it and what was outside! Definitely recommend and will be looking for the next one!
	I read #1 long ago, have seen the movie, and have the Wii game, so I think it's time I continue reading the books, don't you? Guardians of Ga'Hoole #2: The Journey by Kathryn Lasky Started Day 4: page 1 EOD4: page 75 EOD5: page 150 EOD6: page 180 EOD7: page 244 - finished

Total Pages Read: 710
Books Finished: 3

All done! I'm pleased with my reading, I managed an average of 101 pages a day over 7 days, and enjoyed all the books I chose. Thanks to our hostess Deb, and I'll be looking forward to joining in again sometime!

2012 Speculative Fiction Challenge

The 2012 Speculative Fiction reading challenge is being hosted by Adventures of 2.0 and will run from January 1 - December 31st, 2012. Signup and Rules

This challenge encompasses so many of my likes, from Science Fiction to High Fantasy to Urban Fantasy and everything in between, or out in left field! Check out the sign up post for a list of what is included under the umbrella of "Speculative". I'm going to declare the In Nirvana level, which is 24 books, since so many different things are included in this area.

I will keep track of my accomplishments here: My Speculative Fiction Progress

Exercise Challenge for 2012

I've decided to set myself a little exercise challenge in 2012. I'm going to try and walk 5,000 steps a day. During the work sponsored 10,000 steps a day challenge I realized how little I really move around in a day. I managed 10,000 steps probably a little more than 50% of the time during that challenge, but I was exhausted, so I think I'll start at 5,000 and see how it goes. That's still more than I get from a normal day's activity. I've made myself a ticker to track my progress. There will be days I'll do less and days I'll do more, but my goal is 1,830,000 steps in a year. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? The scary thing to me is that a work friend of mine who is in the warehouse and so filling orders all day generally clocks around 20,000 steps every work day, just in the normal course of what he does. I'm sure you can guess who is skinnier! ;)

2012 E-Book Reading Challenge

The 2012 E-Book reading challenge is being hosted by Workaday Reads and will run from January 1 - December 31st, 2012. Signup and Rules

My E-Books are starting to pile up as well, and since they aren't taking up room anywhere, it's easy to forget about them, so I think this is a great challenge for me!

I read about 20 e-books/novellas this year so I'm going to declare the DVD level which is 25.

I will keep track of my accomplishments here: My E-Book Progress

2012 Mount TBR Reading Challenge

The Mount TBR Challenge is hosted by My Reader's Block and will run from Jan. 1 - Dec. 31, 2012. Sign up and rules

I not only have a Mount TBR, I have a TBR Mountain Range! I'm not trying to brag, it's more that I look around and start to think that maybe I have a problem... My husband says no, but I'm not so sure! At any rate, this is a great challenge for me!

I'm going to declare the El Toro level, which is 75 books. I was about to declare Mt. Everest, but realized that of the about 110 books I've read in 2011, almost 45 of them were audiobooks and e-books, which I'm not going to count since they're not taking up space, and that's my goal here is to work on the books that are taking up room!

I will keep track of my books here: My Mount TBR Progress

January 2012 Read-a-thons

Just Deb is hosting the Marvelous Middle Grade Read-a-thon, here are the Signup and details. It will take place January 2 - 8, 2012




Bout of Books 3.0 Read-a-thon takes place January 9th-15th, here is the Sign-up.




The Winter Mini Readathon hosted by Sarah Says Read is a one day event on January 22, 2012. Signup and details




A Winter's Respite Read-a-thon hosted by The True Book Addict takes place January 23-29th 2012, Signup and details, we will use Twitter hashtag #WintersRespite

Christmas Spirit Challenge - The Day After Christmas

It's the day after Christmas, which is my favorite time if I'm lucky enough to take the day off because that means all the before work is done, all the presents are open, and it's time to play and relax! My favorite online game, Guild Wars always hosts a Holiday event where they have special missions, holiday drops from monsters and festival hats and costumes for your characters to wear. The towns are always decorated too. Here are a couple pictures from the game:



Since my last update we have also been to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert which has sort of become a tradition for us at this time of year. If you don't know who they are you should really check them out, you may have heard some of their music being used in synchronized Christmas light displays. Here is a video of one of their more well-known songs.



Neither of those count for our challenge of course, but in the interest of sharing all things Christmas, I decided to report in!

Today I watched Snow with Tom Cavanaugh, very cute and I recommend it as a fun holiday movie. Tom starred as Ed Stevens on the TV series Ed. In Snow, Tom plays Nick Snowden who has inherited the role of Santa Claus from his father. Buck, the villain has captured one of Nick's younger reindeer who has not yet learned to fly, and is hiding him at the local zoo, where Sandy works. Nick must get Buddy the reindeer back in time for Christmas because he's not able to pull the sleigh with only 7 reindeer. He tracks Buddy down at the zoo and has to try and get him back safely. In the meantime he falls in love with Sandy and tries several times to let her know who he really is but the timing is never quite right. Buck finally brings his own plan to fruition, which was to sell Buddy to a rich hunter as a premium game experience since he's able to jump very high, though not yet fly. It's during the rescue attempt that Nick is finally able to show Sandy who he is as they escape from Buck themselves. Of course is must end happily, so Buddy takes care of escaping himself, getting the best of Buck, and learns to fly at the last minute, saving Christmas. I had actually watched the sequel Snow 2: Brain Freeze first, in which Nick has amnesia and Sandy must help him to regain his memory of being Santa Claus. I really enjoyed them both, they were ABC Family titles.



As for reading, I did finish A Dixie Christmas, which was two novellas by Sandra Hill. The rating on Goodreads isn't too high, but I enjoyed them both, they were light and humorous. In Blue Suede Suites a rich business man falls (quite literally) for a farm girl and finds out what is really important in life. This one sports an Elvis theme, and I can only imagine the nativity scene that is described there! In Jinx Christmas a NASCAR driver gets the help of a matchmaker to win his ex-wife's love back and ends up as the star of a bad boy strip show. I picked this up free for Kindle, though I think it's not on the free list anymore.



I'm not sure what holiday read I'll settle on next, I'm reading for the Wrap Up 2011 Read-a-thon right now, trying to finish a non-holiday book, so I'll check in later on that!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday!

Wrapping Up 2011 Read-a-thon

It's time for the Wrapping Up 2011 Read-a-thon hosted by Jessie's Remarkable Reads This read-a-thon lasts from December 22nd - January 1st. There is also a Twitter Hashtag to use: #WU2011R

I will do all my updating in this post.

	First up is Lessons in French by Laura Kinsale, one of my absolute favorite romance authors! Start: page 60 EOD1: page 113 EOD2: page 184 EOD3: page 240 EOD4: page 264 EOD5: page 373 EOD6: page 447 - finished
	Start Day 6: page 1 EOD6: page 13 EOD7: page 92 EOD8: page 109 EOD9: page 165 - finished
	Start Day 6: page 1 EOD6: page 35 EOD7: page 66 EOD10: page 128

Total Pages: 680
Books Finished: 2.5

And we're done! You would think I could have done better in 10 days! I managed a fairly typical 68 pages per day. At least I wasn't a lot worse than normal, and considering we had a major holiday in there, I think I did pretty well!

Thanks for hosting Jessie! I'll definitely look forward to future read-a-thon's!