What Does the Bookworm Say?: Reading Resolutions

Hey! And welcome to the very first edition of “What Does the Bookworm Say?” I've been blogging just over four year and I've really wanted to start up some kind of recurring discussion posts because there are so many great bookish things to talk about! So I enlisted the help of my blogger friends and this is what we have come up with. A twice monthly discussion post on Saturdays where we each talk about the same subject but it’s going to be awesome because I bet we will all say something a little different. So go check them out! Thuy @ Nite Lite Book Reviews, Kimberly @ The Windy Pages and Nicole @ The Reader's Antidote.

This week’s topic is: Reading Resolutions-yay or nay? If yay, what are your reading resolutions/goal?

When it comes to New Year’s Resolutions in my personal life I usually don’t make them. I figure that if I’m going to change something in my life I’m going to do it immediately instead of waiting until the new year. I’ll make little resolutions here and there such as: keep my room cleaner or check my email daily which I should probably try to do both of those more this year. But that’s about it.

When it comes to reading resolutions and signing up for reading challenges I am all about it! I love starting the year off fresh with new reading goals and a huge amount of motivation. I love giving myself reading challenges for the new year because it feels like I’m working towards what CAN be a satisfying accomplishment.

Because I have horribly failed multiple reading challenges in the past, I choose my reading challenges wisely. I choose ones that allow me a certain amount of freedom and I usually only go for the first level which is like 7 books per challenge. These challenges allow me to still read what I want while still satisfying the requirements. So here are my 2014 reading challenges/resolutions!

1. Personal Goal: 100 books

2. 2014 Full House reading challenge hosted by The Book Date

3. 2014 Dystopia Reading Challenge hosted by The Blog of Erised

4. 2014 End of the Series Reading Challenge hosted by The Reader’s Antidote

5. 214 And So it Begins Reading Challenge hosted by The Reader’s Antidote

6. 2014 Graphic Novel Challenge hosted HERE.

Oh I’m so excited for all of these and I can’t wait to see how well I do this year! Now that I’m thinking about it I should have signed up for some sort of graphic novel reading challenge. So what do you guy think about reading challenges/resolutions? Yay or nay? Let me know in the comments!!

2014 Reading Challenges!

I feel like 2014 is going to be a really good year in reading, books and blogging! I have finally decided which reading challenges I'm going to participate in this year and I can't wait to get started on them!

As always I am challenging myself to read 100 books in 2014!

2014 Reading Challenge

Crystal (Elegantly Bound Books) has read 0 books toward her goal of 100 books.

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2014 Full House Reading Challenge

The Book Date is hosting the 2014 Full House Reading Challenge which sounds so fun and includes a variety of books! This is really going to force me to read a lot of genres that I don't read too often.

2014 Dystopia Reading Challenge

The Blog of Erised is hosting the 2014 Dystopia Reading Challenge!

Because it's my first year participating in this challenge I'm only going for level 1: Recruit which is 1-6 books. I'm hoping to read about 6 dystopia books this year! 

2014 End of the Series Reading Challenge

My good friend Nicole @ The Reader's Antidote is, again, hosting two of her challenges from last year! The first one is the End of the Series Reading Challenge! For this challenge I have to read at least 7 books that are the last book in a series or trilogy. I'm excited for this one because I definitely have some series/trilogies that I need to finish already! 

2014 And So it Begins Reading Challenge

Nicole is also hosting the And So it Begins Reading Challenge in which I have to read at least 7 books that start a new series or trilogy and the book can be published any year as long as it's read in the year 2014. This will give me a chance to get involved in some really awesome series that I haven't had a chance to pick up yet. 

My reading in 2013 was absolutely abysmal and I failed in every single challenge that I gave myself.  I didn't even read my normal 100 books! I'm hoping to make up for it this year and I'm excited to see what the year has in store. It's gonna be a great year for reading!  

'Bout of Books Read-A-Thon 2013

I've decided that I need a really good, intense read-a-thon to get me through a whole bunch of books and hopefully catch up on my Goodreads challenge. There's a lot of other fun things going on like challenges and giveaways but I'm only going to be reading.  Reading as much as I possibly can when I'm not working or sleeping.

So I decided that 5 books is a pretty noble goal and if I get through 3 of them then I will be happy! So here's what I tentatively plan to read during the read-a-thon:

So a bunch more ARCs from last year and a few books I got for Christmas that I still haven't read. Wish me luck!!

ARC Clean Sweep: Mini Challenge!

How have you guys been doing with the ARC Challenge? I hope you're all doing really well and getting through all those ARCs and meeting your goals! It's time for my mini challenge and it's really self explanatory. All you have to do is make a sentence out of book titles! You can omit the small words like "the", "or" and "and" but the main words of the title must be in the sentence and you can't leave out any of the main words either. Divide book titles with slashes. Leave your answer in the comments and the winner will win a mystery box full of books! The winner will be the one that I think is the most creative. 

Rules:

• US residents only!
• No cheating I will figure it out!
• One sentence per person
• Contest ends May 17 at 11:59pm EST!!!

Good Luck!!!!

The Clean Sweep ARC Challenge Begins Today!

It's time to get out those dusty ARC's that are sitting on your shelves that you promised yourself you would read as soon as you finished your current read because the Clean Sweep ARC Challenge is finally here! I'm so excited to be a part of this awesome month long adventure because I have so many ARCs to read. There is going to be so many fun challenges to participate in and a whole lot of giveaways! Below you can find the schedule of ALL the happenings!

Clean Sweep ARC Challenge

Saturday May 4th

• 9am (EST) Barbara @ Basia's Bookshelf
• 4pm (EST) Thuy @ Nite Lite

Saturday May 11th 

• 9am (EST) Kristen @ My ParaHangover
• 4pm (EST) Crystal @ Elegantly Bound Books

Saturday May 18th 

• 9am (EST)  Ali @ My Guilty Obsession
• 4pm (EST) Nicole @ The Reader's Antidote

Saturday May 25th 

• 9am (EST) Lola @ Lola's Reviews
• 4pm (EST) Jenn & Mary @ YA Book Twins

So don't forget to come back here, Elegantly Bound Books, on May 11 for my mini-challenge where you will get a change to win some awesome books!

Clean Sweep ARC Challenge: May 2013

Hey guys! I'm participating in this years Clean Sweep ARC Challenge in May. As a blogger I have fallen into ARC and Netgalley guilt! I can't help it! There are just way too many great books out there and I just want to read them all! So in the month of May I will only be reading ARC's that have been sitting on my shelves for way too long! There will also be some mini-challenges and some awesome prizes, as well! 

This challenge is hosted by Kimberly @ The Windy Pages and Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer! If you want to sign up too, you can add your link to either of these ladies' pages! 

I've challenged myself to quite a large amount of books but since I know myself pretty well, I know I need a pretty big selection to choose from. 

It's a lot but if I really put my mind to it, I can read a lot of books in a month. I hope you guys decide to sign up and get rid of some of your ARC guilt!

Summer ALA Read-a-Thon Final Wrap-Up!

Yesterday was the final day of our little read-a-thon and when it's all said and done, I didn't do half bad! I started off a little shaky, but I finally picked up my reading speed and read a few awesome books! I had hoped that I could read six book but I ended up knocking out four! Here's what I read:

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

Behind the Bookcase by Mark Steensland

The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson

50 pages of Through to You by Emily Hainsworth

To be completely honest I read about 250 pages of Dark Companion but I just couldn't finish it.  So my total number of book is 3 but my total number of pages is 1334 which is a pretty good accomplishment in my book! Thanks for everyone who participated and I hope your read-a-thon was a success as well! 

ALA Summer Read-a-Thon: Aug. 8-13

Hi everyone! I'm one of the hosts of this awesome read-a-thon where you can start really diving into those review copies from ALA that you picked up. I and the other hosts decided that early August made sense, so that it would be way before school starts.

But what if you didn't go to ALA? Don't worry. This read-a-thon is not just for people that went to ALA but for anyone who wants to get through a bunch of review copies or books that you've been wanting to read but haven't had the chance! The only thing you need is some sort of site where you can prove that you've read the books (either your blog or your Goodreads page), and then the day after the read-a-thon is over, you have the chance comment on any of the three host's ending blog posts telling us what books you've read or how many books you read!

There are no prizes. This is just something that Nicole, Thuy and I decided would be fun to do, especially since we received so many books at ALA. Here's the button, if you feel like participating and putting it on your blog.

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The linky list I'll post below is open until the 12th, a day before the read-a-thon ends. Please feel free to spread the word! Here are the other two wonderful and lovely hosts:

Thuy @ Nite Lite Book Reviews

Nicole @ The Reader's Antidote

My goal during this almost-week read-a-thon will be to read a book a day. Since this is a read-a-thon, I figure that that is a descent request. If you can't do a book a day, that's fine, but try and set a goal for yourself and let us know what that is if you want. I have made a rough list of the books I plan of reading but it could change depending on what I read from now until then!

Entice by Jessica Shirvington

Defiance by CJ Redwine

Crown of Embers by Rae Carson

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

Through to You by Emily Hainsworth

This read-a-thon is pretty flexible. So when you comment on the post on the last day, tell us how many books you finished so we can all compare. And you can even comment on the post when you review the books how ever many days later; we all love reading what other reviewers have to say about these exciting reads.

So enter the links to either your Goodreads page or your blog, and start figuring out what you're going to read! This should be a lot of fun!

New Year, New Resolutions and Reading Challenges

Since it's the start of another new year, it's time for the new resolutions, goals, and of course the hosted and personal reading challenges.  I didn't give myself any reading challenges last year since I was still working my graduate degree, so I've decided to do it big this year because I didn't last year (and because I only work part time so I have a lot of reading time on my hands).  2012 is going to be a great year for books and I'm super excited and grateful to be a part of the book blogging community.  So without further ado, here is what 2012 is going to look like:

Hosted reading challenges:

1.  The Debut Author Challenge hosted by Kristi @ the Story Siren:  Even though it's only required to read 12 debut novels, I'm hoping to read a lot more.

2.  Off the Shelf reading challenged hosted by Bookish Adour:  I'm all about this challenge.  I buy more books than I could possible read and I know a lot of other book bloggers do as well.  It's a problem.  So the only books that are supposed to be included in this challenge are those books that you have bought in 2011 or before.  I'm going to set my sights high and set my level to "On a Roll" and hope that I can read 50 of the books that I bought this past year that are just sitting on my self.

Personal reading challenges:

1.  Read more ebooks: I have a nook and I don't use it as much as I should.
2.  Don't overwhelm myself with the amount of books that I accept for review.  Enough said.
3.  Read 100 books this year in total!
4.  Keep up with my blog and all my reviews.  Enough said there too!

Personal goals:

1.  Stick to the "Change Write Now" project.
2.  Work out more and strive for a healthier lifestyle.
3.  Do a half-marathon and a mud run.
4.  Save more money.
5.  Buy less books (ya right, haha).
6.  Go to more author signings.
7.  Make more real life friends.

I wish all the best of luck to those with New Year's resolutions and with their reading challenges.  Be excited for all the books next year and Happy New Year!!