Gearing Up

Okay, so I figured I should join a few challenges here and there.

You're all laughing at me, aren't you, because you know where this one is headed? A few challenges worked its way into a bunch more. I don't have most of my lists filled out. Recommendations, anyone?

DreamKing Challenge
Challenge Blog
Host: Jessi
Rules:
The Dream King Challenge will run from 1 January 2009 - 31 December 2009. You can join at any time during the year.

There are four different levels:

Neophyte: Read one work and watch one movie
Acolyte: Read three works (from three different categories) and watch one movie
Devotee: Read six works (from six different categories) and watch one movie
Zealot: Read twelve works (from at least six different categories) and watch one movie

List of his works
My list (Devotee Level):
Sandman #4 Season of Mists
Sandman #5 A Game of You
Sandman #6 Fables and Reflections
Fragile Things

Young Adult Challenge
Host: J. Kaye
Rules:
1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
2. Read 12 Young Adult novels. No need to list your books in advance. You may select books as you go. Even if you list them now, you can change the list if needed.
3. Challenge begins January thru December, 2009.
4. You can join anytime between now and December 31, 2009.

My List:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Paper Towns by John Green
Tigerheart by Peter David
Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
Sisters of Misery by Megan Kelley Hall

Sci-Fi Experience
Challenge Blog
Host: Carl V
Rules:
And so with great pleasure I announce The Sci Fi Experience 2009, which will run from January 1st through February 28th, 2009. As I said last year, this is an experience and not a challenge. There are no reading lists, book requirements, etc. I do not argue about what is or is not considered ’science fiction’. Nothing about this two month period of science fiction celebration should cause anyone to feel obligated to participate. I host two other very involved challenges throughout the year and the last thing I want to do is start a new year adding stress to your busy lives or my own. This is simply a time to experience how exhilarating science fiction can be.

My Pool:
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
Unholy Domain by Dan Ronco
Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Planet That Wasn't by Isaac Asimov
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
Transition by Vonda McIntyre
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick
Quicker Than the Eye by Ray Bradbury
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury

My Year of Reading Dangerously
Challenge Blog:
Host: Estella’s Revenge
Rules:
Read 12 books you deem "dangerous." between January 1st and December 31st 2009. They may be banned or challenged books, new-to-you genres, books that seem to inhabit a permanent space on your stacks, or authors you're afraid of. The possibilities are endless! If it's dangerous to you, it's challenge-worthy to us!

Instead of breaking the year down into monthly Mr. Linky's, we'll be hosting one ongoing Linky this year. We'll post updates and notices to participants in sticky posts at the top of the blog, but your reading will be the centerpiece of this site. Whenever you finish a dangerous book, come leave the link to your review so other participants can ogle your accomplishments.

My List:

World Citizen Challenge
Challenge Blog
Host: Eva
Rules:
The challenge begins January 1st, 2009 and ends December 31st, 2009. However, you can join any time before the challenge ends. You do not have to have a blog to participate; you can either e-mail your reviews/thoughts to me, or I can make a participant on this blog and you can post here. You do not have to make a reading list ahead of time. There will be monthly mini-challenges that you can choose whether or not to participate in.
There will be prizes. There are six categories of books: politics, economics, history, culture or anthropology/sociology, worldwide issues, and memoirs/autobiographies.

There are six levels of participation to choose from:

The Prospie Level So, you’re a prospective high school student trying to decide if this is the right college for you, and you happen to sit in on a world citizenship class. This is for those of you with no time to read another book, but who still want to do something. I’ll be running a different mini-challenge each month of the challenge, and all you have to do to be a prospie is say you want to participate in at least one of them. I promise they’ll be fun, and there will be prizes involved!

The Auditor Level You thought the class sounded interesting, but you didn’t really want to have to worry about attendence or grades or stuff like that. Good thing you can audit. For this level, you just need to declare your interest in the challenge. Anything else you might want to do: the mini-challenges, making a list of potential books, participating in the discussions, etc. is completely up to you. Maybe you want to commit to reading a newspaper or magazine instead of a book-go for it. Also, if you want to choose a different number of books than what I’ve offered in the other levels, come here!

The World Citizenship 101 Level Maybe you’re a freshman trying to decide what to major in, maybe you’re an upperclassman in need of a distribution credit. Either way, you end up in the intro class. For this level, you need to commit to one book.

The Minor Level You’ve taken a couple classes in World Citizenship and decide to go ahead and get the minor. After all, you’ll learn more stuff and you can still have a practical major! For this level, you need to commit to three books, from at least two different categories.
The Major Level Despite the occasional, impertinent “And what are you going to do with a degree in that?!” question, you’ve realised that World Citizenship is where your passion really lies, so you declare your major. For this level, you need to commit to five books, from at least three different categories.

The Postgraduate Level Four years just wasn’t enough for you! You’ve decided to continue your education in World Citizenship, since you’re a bit obsessive about the whole thing. For this level, you need to commit to seven books, including one book from each category.

Suggested Reading

My List (Minor Level):

Dewey’s Books Challenge
Challenge Blog
Review Blog
Host: Chris and Robin
Rules:
I made a comment in a recent book review of mine that it would be cool to have a “Dewey Challenge” in honor of Dewey from The Hidden Side of a Leaf who recently passed away, where participants would read books that she reviewed. I know my wishlist has grown tremendously as a result of her and I’ve loved every book that I’ve read that she’s recommended. Dewey was such a prolific reader and her reviews were honest, intriguing, and beautifully written. What better way to celebrate her wonderful life than by having a year long challenge in her name!

When I commented about having the challenge, I didn’t think I’d actually do it :p But then Robin (that wonderful person!) emailed me and had already designed a button for it! And it’s quite beautiful. She’s offered to help in any way she can, and I just might take her up on that The original plan was that Robin was going to look up all of her 2003-2005 reads and I was going to do her 2006-2008 reads. I started going through Dewey’s archives and realized that my list would be close to 700 books long and no one would read through all that! I also realized that I was really enjoying my time over at Dewey’s blog, searching through all of her old posts. It was like visiting with an old friend. So instead of me giving you a list of books, I say we all go visit her again and pick out books that sound interesting to us. There are two ways to join this challenge:

1. Pick one book from each of the 6 years that Dewey has archives of. You can access her archives by clicking on the archive link in the sidebar of her website. It’s a dropdown menu. For instance, you would read one book that she reviewed in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 for a total of six books.

2. The other option is to read 5 books that Dewey reviewed. These can be from any year and I’m guessing that each of us has at least 5 books on our TBR list because of Dewey!
And the rules:

1. Choose either option 1 or 2 from above.
2. Commit to read your books (either 5 or 6 depending on which option you choose) throughout 2009. The challenge will end on December 31, 2009 but we’ll go ahead and unofficially start it right away! We’ll officially start it on January 1st, 2009.
3. Check back to this page often as I’ll put up Mr. Linky’s for reviews and I’ll mention prize giveaways!

I’m hoping to do some prize giveaways that have a “Dewey Theme”. I have a couple of books in mind that she reviewed which I read and loved and of course there’s the ever so popular Chocolate Monkey that Dewey would give away! Anyone know where she got that from?

Finally, this is my first time EVER hosting a challenge and Robin’s as well, so please have patience with us, lol. If anyone would like to give me a nudge if I’m missing something or just totally screwing up, please do! It’ll be appreciated. And lastly, if anyone wants to donate prizes to the challenge, you’re more than welcomed to do that too! Don’t feel pressured to though, I’ll have some prizes of my own.

Lastly, have fun!! And enjoy spending time with the books that our wonderful friend recommended to us. Please comment below if you’d like to join and I’ll add your name to a list. Also, feel free to take a button that Robin designed! We’ll have different sizes posted soon!

My List:
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland

Graphic Novels Challenge
Challenge Blog
Host: Laza
Rules:
1. Choose a level of participation:
Minor: Read 6
Major: Read 12
Masters: Read 18
Doctorate: Read 24
2. Challenge begins Jan 1, 2009 and ends Dec 31, 2009. You may join at any point during the year.
3. Can I Overlap? Titles may overlap with any challenges and your list can change at any time.
4. Join the Blog!

My List (Major):
Sandman #4 Season of Mists Neil Gaiman
Sandman #5 A Game of You Neil Gaiman
Sandman #6 Fables and Reflections Neil Gaiman

The Dewey Decimal Challenge
Challenge Blog
Host: The Novel World
The Rules:
- Starting January 1st, the goal is to read 1 book from each Dewey Century per month from 000 to 999.
The Review:
- Post the title and the correlating Dewey Decimal Classification Code
- You can verify this a number of ways. Look up the title in your local library catalog and use that Dewey Code.
- You can look it up on the LibraryThing catalog.
- Post a link to your review on here. Check at the beginning of each month for updates, prizes, giveaways and discussion topics.
So, the Dewey Chain goes as follows:
000 - Generalities
100 - Philosophy and Psychology
200 - Religion
300 - Social Sciences
400 - Language
500 - Natural Sciences + Math
600 - Technology
700 - The Arts
800 - Literature and Rhetoric
900 - Geography and History

My List:
600-Eat This, Not This by David Zinczenko (613)
800-Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: techniques and exercises for crafting dynamic characters and effective viewpoints by Nancy Kress
900-The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama (973)

Manga Challenge
Challenge Blog:
Host: Rhinoa
Rules: Read at least 6 manga novels in 2009 (cross overs with other challenges are fine and please feel free to read more!). Sign up with Mister Linky below. I will put up a post each month with a Mister Linky for you to add your reviews to. You do not need to set a list of books to read in advance, just fill them in as you go if it's easier.

My List:

9 Books for 2009
Challenge Blog
Host: Books and Other Stuff
Rules:
This challenge is set up so you can read some books in your TBR (To Be Read) Stacks
(If you need more challenges to keep whittling your TBR stacks, click on A NOVEL CHALLENGE also.)
RULES
• Open to anyone, whether you have a blog or not!
• No need to register or to announce what you are going to read.
• Start in any category that you wish.
• 3 books from this reading challenge can be used in other reading challenges.
• Just post in the comment section.
• The genre of the books can be ANYTHING (fiction or non-fiction), but it must be decent (because you have to write reviews about the books).
• Other reading materials (graphic novels, poetry, museum catalogs, art books, zines etc.) are OK.
• The book must already be in your bookcase or storage area.
• The Challenge starts 12/27/08 to 12/27/09. (I hate to begin anything on January 1st).
• You can post starting on 12/27/08.
• Format of work can be paper, audio, or electronic.
These are the NINE categories to celebrate 2009! See the above tabs for details. (I had to abbreviate some of the categories due to WordPress Code restrictions.)
To post, please click one of the tabs for the specific category and place your review JUST in that category, not on any of the 4 pages on the front of this blog.
1. Long
2. Free
3. Dusty
4. Used
5. Letter
6. Strange
7. Distance
8. Alive or Not
9. Cover
REWARDS
I will give out one prize each quarter, one prize for finishing five books (deadline 8/29/2009), and a nice gift for finishing the challenge (deadline: 12/27/2009).

My List:
1. Long Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
2. Free Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
3. Dusty
4. Used Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
5. Letter
6. Strange Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
7. Distance The Road by Cormac McCarthy
8. Alive or Not
9. Cover