Blue Archipelago

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There are so many things happening in the booking blogosphere that I feel the need for a round up post!

A well-rounded challenge

Jan is hosting a challenge challenge - yes I did write that twice! The object is to read at least 6 books from 6 other challenges in 6 months.

Beginning July 1, 2008, join me in this eclectic reading game. Read a minimum of 6 (six) books. Read 1 book from 6 different challenges that you’ve signed up for. The challenges you choose must run during the 6 month period of this challenge (7/1/08 - 12/31/08).

Now I was going to take part in this one - but I feel its just a little too restrictive - I have more than 6 challenges on the go but working out the end dates and then assigning specific months to each book just made my head spin! If you’re more organised than me give it a whirl

100 post celebration

The Devourer of Books is getting ready to celebrate her 100th blog post by hosting a fantastic giveaway - she  is asking readers to choose one of the books she has read and listed on her blog - then if enough people enter she will send the lucky winners a copy of the book they selected.

The Host by Stephanie Meyer

Becky is looking for people to sign up for July’s Reading Group - and the chosen book is The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I’m seriously tempted by this one - although I’m not sure how good I’ll be at reading to a schedule - and I have a feeling this is a hardback book. I’ll head over to Amazon and do some investigating.

The Classics Challenge

I’ve been looking forward to this one. Here’s what its all about:

• OPTION 1: Read FIVE classics.
• OPTION 2: Read FIVE classics from at least TWO different countries
• OPTION 3: Read FIVE classics with any combination of at least TWO different countries and TWO different genres (see above for genres).

You can find out all the rules over at Trish’s challenge blog.

Before I reveal which classics I’ll be reading here’s my answers to the pre-challenge meme:

1. My favorite classic is - Anne of Green Gables

2. The classic I had the toughest time finishing was - Hard Times by Charles Dickens; we had to read it at school and it put me off Dickens for life!

3. I would recommend - To Kill a Mockingbird - to someone who doesn’t read a lot of classics or who doesn’t generally like classics because - it’s such an amazing book that everyone should read once in a lifetime, but isn’t a hard slog to read

4. To me, a classic book is a book that - withstands the passage of time

5. The type of relationship I have with classics is - not a particularly positive one - which is why I’m taking this challenge!

And without further ado - here are my choices:

1. June - Wuthering Heights
2. July - Little Women
3. August - Anne of Green Gables
4. September - TBC
5. October - TBC
6. November - Bonus Book TBC

*lol* I need to do some thinking about 4 and 5 - can you recommend something?

Daily Lit

A few of my fellow book bloggers have mentioned this site so I thought I’d check it out. There are hundreds of books to choose from - some are free, some are not - and you receive an extract of the book every day by email or RSS. I’ve signed up for Anna Karenina which apparently will take me over a year to read (430 installments)  - and to be honest I now have 6 extracts in Google Reader to catch up on! I’m not sure how successful this will be…

Google Reader Friends

Megan introduced me to Google Reader Friends - anyone can share items from their Reader and they can be accessed via a web page (here’s the link to mine) but you can also make friends within the Reader and then your friend’s shared items appear as a feed. If you’d like to test it out simply send me a chat invite via gmail to clareswindlehurstatgmaildotcom - let’s get connected *smile*

*phew* I think that about covers everything I wanted to share - oh one last thing - I’m in a vote over at This Book for Free to win a copy of the latest Jodi Picoult - and in the words of American Idol… please come and vote for me!

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Here are some Christmas Gift ideas you might find useful.

Related posts:

1. Aside | Blogging tips meme
2. Aside | A classic meme
3. Sunday Salon | April round up
4. Weekly Geeks | Photos Week
5. Book Review | Problogger: Secrets for blogging your way to a six-figure income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett