Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for lists] 

A few years ago, I made the goal to read every book that has been, or will be, awarded the Newbery Award and as many of the honors as possible. Every year, beginning in 1922, the Medal is awarded to the book considered to be the most distinguished contribution to children's literature of that year. A year or so after I decided to read all of the books on the Newbery list, I decided to add the winners of the Printz Award as well, which is the YA equivalent of the Newbery.

I've never been quite about this goal, and it's actually been, for the most part, an amazing and rewarding experience for me. Although I've read some winners that I feel less than favorable towards, for the most part I've loved the experience, and I've discovered some very, very favorite books through these two lists. I mentioned something about these lists on Twitter and Jacinda from The Reading Housewives mentioned that it would make a great challenge idea. And so, here we are.

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For a long time, this has been an individual and personal goal for me. My sister mocks me regularly for being stuck to a list, citing The Story of Mankind, Gay-Neck and Hitty for reasons I should stop, overlooking the absolute love I now have for The House of the Scorpion, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and Jellicoe Road, all books I would have either overlooked, ignored or never heard of without these lists.
So now, along with The Reading Housewives, I am extending an invitation to all of you to join me in my quest to read these two amazing book lists. I want to share the love I have for these lists, and I've gotten Jacinda all excited about it too!
So — onto the *Rules *Details *Guidelines *General Information
The challenge will run from Memorial Day to Labor Day — May 30th until September 5th.
There will be 4 levels of participation-
Level 1 — Underachiever: Read 3 books
Level 2 — Nerd: Read 6 books
Level 3 — Brainiac: Read 9 books
Level 4 — Teacher's Pet: Read 12 books

No matter which level you chose to participate in, you must read at least one book from each of the award lists. You can focus primarily on one or the other, but there must be at least one Printz honor/award and one Newbery honor/award.
There will be giveaways throughout the challenge as well. There are a lot of giveaway details, so there will be separate post specifically for the giveaway information. But, I will tell you now, that there is a guaranteed winner from each of the 4 levels, as well as a few other winners, including a super special giveaway that you can enter only by reading some of my very favorite titles from the list.:) Ya, I'm a book pimp. So what?!
Anyway — We would LOVE to have a lot of participants in this challenge. We have decided to keep it pretty low key — You can sign up for whatever level you think you can make (everyone should be able to handle one book a month!) and reviews are completely optional — although they will gain you an extra entry into the giveaways!
So what are you waiting for?! I'm staring a lovely pile that constitutes less than half of the books I'm going to be giving away, my lovely friends at The Reading Housewives have books to offer as well, and if no one enters, we are just going to have to keep all these lovelies for ourselves! Each of the following links will take you to a Goodreads page listing each of the winners of both the award and honor for the Newbery and Printz. Makes it really easy to just pop over and add it to your tbr!
Newbery Winners Newbery Honors Printz Winners Printz Honors
Come on and fill out the form, grab a button and start prepping those lists!

This past week Becky wanted to know what reading challenges you are participating in or hosting this coming year. She also wanted to know how you plan ahead for the next year. Do you make lists? Or do you just read whatever catches your attention?

Kerry wrote a great post taking about why she does challenges, lists the ones she is interested in, and give ideas for other challenges she would think about joining. Overall, her goal consists of 3 challenges and 43 books.

Gautami also signed up for 3 challenges which she says is her max amount. She prefers to read whatever takes her fancy than planning everything out.

Rikki isn't fond of sticking to lists, but also signed up for 2 challenges and is hosting a Steampunk Challenge of her own.

Becky is hosting three challenges (42 Challenge, A-Z Challenge, Young Readers) and one mini challenge (Connie Willis). She's also signed up for quite a few challenges hosted by other blogs and lists a few that have caught her attention, but she isn't sure if she'll sign up or not.

Melanie is signed up for 4 challenges, but has also set a personal goal of reading some of the Russian books off her TBR list. (If anyone knows of a Russian challenge, please let her know!)

Zee hosts the Nordic Challenge and has signed up for at least 9 others. She planning on getting a post up with book lists for all of these within the next couple days.

Chelsea is a new Weekly Geek who hasn't done any reading challenges in the past and isn't sure that she'll sign up for any this year (unless she can find one that gets her to read a wider variety of books).

Katherine hasn't thought about which ones she wants to do this coming year, but lists her favorites from past years and a few that she'll be looking for in 2011.

Carina has signed up for 9 challenges and has 2 that are on-going from this year. She's looking for imput as to what your favorite reading challenge and if there are any you would recommend.

Hannah has signed up for more posts that she originally thought she would. She's up to 5 starting in 2011 and 2 carrying over. She likes the structure and setting goals for herself. She's still looking for more suggestions!

Margaret has only signed up for 3 challenges and has mixed feelings about them. While part of her likes the structure, the other part stops wanting to read a book as soon as "should" read it.

Lifetime Reading Plan has reading goals that she has set for herself based on the book The Lifetime Reading Plan. She has them broken into 6 categories and hopes to read them chronologically.

Amat Libris loves reading challenges! She has signed up for 2 and is thinking about a few more. Her goal for next year can be summed up in three words "Read. More. Books."

Alex wants to sign up for them all. The problem is making sure it is manageable, which should be too hard to this list-maker.

Florinda tries not to sign up for too many due to her mixed experiences with them in the past. She is signed up for at least 2 and is going to continue working on her own Blogging Authors Reading Project.

Suey is going for more general goals after seeing how spontaneous of a reader she really is this past year. However, she's still keeping an eye open for a good challenge.

Jacqueline didn't even realize there were reading challenges prior to this week's post. She isn't sure that she would like being over structured with her reading, but she's ruling out the possibility of doing one if she comes across something great.

Have you posted about your reading challenges yet?
Link up here!

‘Tis the season…for lists! Christmas lists, shopping lists, to-do lists. And top 10 lists! As the year draws to a close, people start reflecting on what they’ve read in 2009, and what their favorites (and maybe not so favorites) were.

Last week Jackie invited people to share their 10 favorite books published in 2009. This week many Geeks are off celebrating Thanksgiving with families and friends. So rather than posting a new Weekly Geeks today, we’re just going to encourage everyone not only to join in and post their top 10, but to encourage others to post their lists, as well. The end result will be a list of what book bloggers consider to be the best books of 2009.

You have until December 4th to put together and post your list, at which time Jackie will start compiling the votes.

Please see the original post for complete details. And a big thanks to Jackie for organizing everything!

This week Becky opened things up and let participants decide on posting from two options:

Option 1: Write a post (or leave a comment) with suggestions for future weekly geek topics! Share as many ideas as you'd like! Be as creative as you want. Or if you can't think of any "new" topics of your own, consider listing your top five topics from the past, from our archives.

Option 2: Write a post about your genre prejudices or your genre allergies. (I tend to be allergic to westerns, for example.) Are there genres that you haven't read that you avoid at all costs? Are there genres that you don't take seriously? Would you be willing to try something new? (Or someone new!) Consider asking for recommendations and challenge yourself to get outside your comfort zone a bit. Alternatively, you may want to write a post about one of your favorite genres and recommend titles to newbies. Which books would you recommend to those readers who are new to that genre?

Seven geekers took up the challenge this week...and choosing both options was a popular choice:

Gautami provided some great ideas for future posts, including a poetry-focused challenge, and creating a book-related collage (go to her post to see all her terrific ideas). She also shared that her book allergy is YA fiction, and she would like to read science fiction.

Serena also picked both options. Her ideas for future posts included several focused on poetry (I especially liked this one: "Video yourself reciting a poem and post it or find a YouTube video of a poem being read and post that.") - again, visiting her post will let you see all of her suggestions. Serena's book prejudices include westerns, self-help books and nonfiction written like textbooks...

Bookworm's post suggestions were fantastic - one of my favorites: Play Matchmaker and get two of your favorite literary characters together on a date. Her biggest book allergy? Harlequin Romance, followed by Self-help books.

Kimberly shared some of her top favorite Geek posts which included literary tatoos, romancing the tome, and Christmas wish lists. She has a few allergies too: romances, westerns, and mystery novels. She'd like suggestions in these genres which might change her mind. And, she also shared her favorite genres which include fairy tale re-tellings and YA dystopian novels.

Bibliophile talked about "red flag subjects" in her reading...I found her discussion about pirate protagonists interesting (she writes: "I enjoy reading about the lives of real pirates, and will pick up a book where pirates are the bad guys without a second thought, but to me pirates and privateers always invoke the image of violent murderers and robbers and therefore I have never been able to suspend my disbelief sufficiently in order to enjoy a tale in which a pirate is the hero."). Read all her thoughts here.

Becky also chose to address both options. She would love weekly topics that include lists ("lists, lists, more lists. I like topics that give me an opportunity to write and share lists with readers.")...and she listed several other really good ideas, which can be found here. She admits she used to have an allergy to mysteries - but now it is her favorite genre! Becky also gave recommendations for other readers who might want to cure their allergy to mysteries.

Finally, Corey played Weekly Geeks this week by addressing not only her literary allergies (boy fantasy, stream-of-consciousness, and poetry), but gave plenty of recommendations for her favorite genres (Historical Fiction, Books about Books, and Classic Literature). Don't miss her post - it is full of wonderful stuff!

Hey all! Today is the official end of the Award Winning Reads Challenge. I've had a lot of fun hosting the challenge and I'm so glad that Jacinda from The Reading Housewives agreed to co-host!

I do want to encourage people to continue reading from the lists, whether it's a goal to read every book on the lists, just one list, only winners, or even just to pay especial attention to winners for possible reading choices. Honestly, there have been some books I picked up only because they were on the list and I didn't enjoy them. But, there have also been some that I wouldn't have picked up without the list that I have absolutely loved. And you know what, Jellicoe Road, which is one of my all time absolute favorite books is a book I picked up because of it's Printz Award. I might have read it anyway, but it was on my radar because of the Printz and it is such an amazing book. I can list so many others that are like that for me, and I love these two lists.

I strongly encourage participants of the challenge to keep going, and non-participants to maybe pick up some of the list books (I'm more than happy to recommend good starting places, if you'd like!:) ) and let's keep giving these two lists some love!:)

Anyway, at the last check in, I mentioned that I had read 16 award winners, and was hoping to finish off the Printz list. But... alas. I didn't get any new reading done, but I'm still very satisfied with the progress that I've made! I think I'll have to reform my goal for the end of the year, and we'll see where that gets me.:)

So now — We have the final check-in/accounting and giveaways! If you'd like to write up a finish line blog post, we'd love to see it! Love to hop over and check out your progress. If you don't have a blog, or don't want to write a post, just go ahead and fill out the form below. Jacinda and I will be contacting the winners of the giveaways this Saturday, the 10th, which gives you a week to fill out the form.

If you completed your challenge level, you are entered to win a giveaway for your level. If you signed up for the challenge, but didn't complete it, you are still entered to win a randomly drawn prize.

AND, if you read any of the award winners from the list I posted in the initial sign up post, you are entered to win a special giveaway, just from me! So make sure you list all the books read in the form or your completion post and show us links to your reviews, no matter where they got posted so we can tally it all up!:)

Also, please let me know if you have any questions! Thank you all for participating! Let me know if this is something you'd like to see happen again next year!:)

Make sure you don't forget to link up! Link your finish line posts, and/or any reviews!!:)

Ti from Book Chatter and Other Stuff tagged me for a fun meme

Here are the rules: I am going to list three categories of books. 3 MUST Read Books, 3 Keep Your Eyes on These, and 3 Look For These Soon. Keeping with the theme, I am going to tag at least 3 bloggers. They should put these same lists on their blog but SUBTRACT one book from each list and ADD one of their own. Then they should tag at least 3 more bloggers. It will be fun to see how the lists change as they go around the blogosphere. Please come back to this post and leave a comment so I can see how the lists are changing.

Since this is Book Buzz…please keep your lists to titles released in 2007-2009.
So, here goes…[asterisks are next to my additions]

3 MUST Read Books:
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell
*The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry

3 Keep Your Eyes on These:
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer
*The Keepsake, by Tess Gerritsen

3 Look For These Soon:
The Prudent Mariner, by Leslie Walker Williams
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
*The Fire by Katherine Neville

3 Tags to keep this meme going:
No More Grumpy Bookseller
Bookish Ruth
Redlady's Reading Room

It's Back! The Second Incarnation of the Award Winning Reads Challenge is here! Who else is totally excited for this?! I know it can't just be me!!:)
Last year, Jacinda and I hosted this reading challenge from May through September. And it rocked. I have personally been meaning to read all the Newbery and Printz books for years. And I've found some absolutely phenomenal books because of it. (Umm hello and thank you — Jellicoe Road, my absolute most favorite book ever.) And last years challenge gave me the motivation I needed to pick my list back up and get reading. (I think I read 16).
Because it was so awesome last year, Jacinda and I decided that this year, it would be a year long challenge of awesome (with extra awesome during the months of the original challenge).
My goal for this year is even bigger. I am so close to finishing both award lists. (Just the winners, not the honors). I only have 4 Printz winners and 13 Newbery winners left to read (including the 2012 winners to-be-announced). I would love to finish these lists next year.
So that is my goal. But I would like to read more than only 17 of the books on the list, so my official goal is going to be 24. That's only 2 a month, totally do-able.:)
To see the books on either list that I've already reviewed on the blog, you can click the corresponding tags below
Newbery Award
Newbery Honor
Printz Award
Printz Honor

And now — Onto the rules!:)

This month readers have been participating in Orange July - a fun event which encourages participants to read books which have either won or been nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction. I have been participating, and it got me thinking about literary prizes in general. I have my favorites (the Man Booker, the Pulitzer, and the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, to name a few)...and, like many readers, I haunt the lists and have fun tracking my reading from them.

So, I thought it might be fun for this Weekly Geeks to focus on the literary prizes. There are tons of them...some very well known, some a bit obscure. Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive list of literary prizes throughout the world which you might want to browse.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a post about any of the following...or take this challenge and run off in your own direction with it - write about anything to do with literary prizes:

• Do you haunt the literary prize lists? And if so, which are your favorites


• Do you participate in any reading challenges which revolve around reading from a specific literary prize? Tell us how successful you've been and give us a link to the challenge and the books you've read for it


• If you are unfamiliar with reading from literary prize lists, check out the Wikipedia link above and chose 1 or 2 prizes that intrigue you, or 1 or 2 prizes that are obscure...and share them with your blog readers


• Tell us about a little known prize whose winners or nominees you've read and loved.


• Write about a prize winning author you love and share any book review links to their work


• Do you keep a running tally of the books you've read for a particular prize? Share a link to your tracking page.

Remember to have fun! And then come back and share a link to your post here!

It's Banned Books Week!

I don't know about you guys, but it seems like an awful lot of my favorite books or authors have been banned or challenged at some point. I always have two reactions when I hear about the removal of a book from a school or public library — On one hand, I'm always saddened and annoyed by the desire to keep information from kids, but on the other — I'm kinda glad, because it means that a whole bunch of people are now going to pass the name of that book or author around, and it's going to go on lists like these, and be bought and read and given away by people like us and... Yay for publicity... But mostly, I'm sad and angry and wish that instead of saying — NO ONE CAN TOUCH THIS BOOK, people would instead say — I don't want MY family reading this book, but you people can do whatever...
But alas.
ANYWAY — To celebrate the fact that the US doesn't actually ban books, even if some local and school libraries do remove them, and to celebrate the fact that we can read, we can read whatever we want and that the internet allows anyone to find pretty much any book at anytime, I'd like to give away a book today.:)

I will give away either an ARC of Perfect by Ellen Hopkins (who herself has been banned... True story really happened) OR a book of your choice that has been banned or challenged, or even — called too 'dark' and 'lurid' and 'dangerous'. Gotta give a chance to all those newer books out there, who just plain haven't had much chance to get their feet wet...
The ARC will only be shipping to the US, but anyone can enter. If The Book Depository ships to you, enter away!:)
To enter — Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite banned or challenged book (or books) are. AND I'm gonna be a meany and tell you that you cannot use Harry Potter. (If you absolutely have to include the awesomeness that is Harry Potter, you must also include another title.)

Also, please leave me a way to contact you, or make SURE that your email is also linked to the profile you commented with. You can't win if I can't find you...

If you have a favorite book that you know could be pretty controversial, but aren't sure it's been officially challenged or not, that works too.:)

The giveaway will run from now, until Oct 1, as per the linky/hop rules. Comment away and enjoyed reading those banned books!:)

ALSO — Be sure to check out I Read Banned Books and I Am a Reader, Not a Writer, the lovely ladies who coordinated this hop. You can check out their blogs for the full list of blogs participating! Also, stop by the rest of the week! I'm really hoping to have lots of reviews and posts talking about banned books, why I love them and some very definite recommended reading lists.:)

The last two weeks Jackie invited people to share their 10 favorite books published in 2009...and many bloggers took on the challenge of selecting their favorites. Today Jackie started compiling the votes...We'll let you know when the polling booth is up and then make sure you check in with her at Literary Escapism to vote for the final results.

I spent some time browsing the lists (32 bloggers weighed in) and there is a wide array of books mentioned from all genres including children's literature, women's fiction, YA, historical fiction, literary fiction, fantasy, and everything in between. I found many books on these lists I had not yet been aware of (oh no, watch out TBR pile!!).

I can't wait to see our final list of top 10 books published in 2009!

When I saw How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines

I knew it was a book I wanted to read for many reasons. I'm a college student who writes papers constantly, so any hint into a professor's mind is welcomed. This blog is geared towards other college students (although my readership is actually quite mixed which I think is excellent!), so I thought it would be helpful to give a review of a book such as this. And I'm also just interested in literary theory (shocker) so I thought this book would give me so helpful insight. I was mostly right about this book, although I was a little disappointed.

While I love to read critical analysis, I was frustrated by the amount of analysis for books that I had never read (and in some cases, never heard of) before. Two good things did come out of this though: I decided I must read the Bible and I must read D. H. Lawrence because every description about him sounds fabulous. That being said, I'm not sure if the amount of literary analysis was necessary for Foster to make each of his points. I think he could have done less analysis for each topic and stuffed more topics, perhaps more obscure ones, into the book.

Which leads me to the set up of the book. I thought the book was really going to be more of a guide to reading passages, but it is actually just a list of topics that might come up within literature and then Foster's analysis of passages. Topics covered include quests, eating, vampires, sonnets, Shakespeare, the Bible, folklore, myths, and so on and so forth. There are 26 topics covered and a test case at the end of the book where you can see how much you have learned from the book. I have noticed that since reading this I am more aware of the presence of a few things, such as myths and Christ figures, but other things I really don't think I needed to read ten pages about... such as sexuality which I always find fairly easily. Must have been all that Sex and the City I watched in high school.

I wish the book would have included more concise lists for topics, which Foster does to for Christ figures. I love lists, and while a list is never truly complete it did help me to see things in list form rather than through his analysis because then I could get a better understanding of what he was trying to say even if I wasn't familiar with the piece he was talking about.

There was some beauty in the book though. I particularly liked his passage about how all literature is a continuation of One Story, "One story. Everywhere. Always. Wherever anyone puts pen to paper or hands to keyboard or fingers to lute string or quill to papyrus. That all take from and in return give to the same story..." (186).

This book earned a B.

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Bridget Jones's Diary

is one of the few instances where I've seen the movie before I read the book, and I've seen the movie what seems like one hundred times. I really didn't even have any desire to read the book until I saw that Nick Hornby had called Helen Fielding hilarious. I got the book from Bookmooch and it had me laughing out loud the whole time I was reading it. Bridget Jones is 30, slightly chubby, a bit of an alcoholic, and totally obsessed with her boss who is not interested in her (or at least she thinks it's that way). Her mother is constantly trying to set her up with suitable men even though her mother isn't happy in her own marriage and has gone running around with some new man, leaving Bridget's dad alone and quite sad. On top of everything else, she's just got bad luck it seems. Always saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, burning this, ruining that, and tripping over herself. In short, Bridget Jones is every woman everywhere, or at least she was me. I felt, and that's what made me keep reading.

This is set up in a series of diary entries and I think Fielding did a good job of making the entries fairly believable but still moving the story along. There are times when Bridget goes several days without writing and then days where she writes ten pages. Any time I've kept a diary this has generally been my pattern too, so I found that easy to believe. The only thing that is hard to believe is how funny Bridget is in her diary, but I'll forgive that since it's what made the book so charming. At the beginning of each entry Bridget lists her weight and pounds lost, her number cigarettes so she can measure trying to quit, and the number of calories she's had. There are other things she lists throughout the book, such as alcohol units and number of times looked at her boss, Daniel Cleaver, but these depend on what existential crisis she is dealing with at the time. I could relate to her weight gain and loss since I have spent my whole life basically trying to lose weight, although I did think that her weight was a little low to be obsessing over. Of course, I'm six feet tall so I think anything under 150 pounds is pretty low weight.

I enjoyed how the whole book wasn't entirely focused on men even though that was a huge part of it. One of the things I found really interesting was how Bridget's middle-aged mother was trying to live a new life since she thought no one really needed her anymore and she had spent her whole life taking care of her family. I've experienced this with my own mother and also saw it in Tales of a Female Nomad, which I recently finished. It seems like it's common for middle-aged women to search for something new in their lives, almost as if they've been disappointed with what they've ended up with. It's rather sinister, but it made me wonder if Bridget would be happy with her decisions in the long run or not. At the same time, Bridget isn't all that happy with her decisions in the present of the book, she changes a lot of of things but one thing that always stays the same is her friends. It was nice to see a woman who relied on her friends more than anything else instead of just a boyfriend or crush.

I give Bridget Jones's Diary an A.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

This past Monday, the American Library Association announced their awards. Some you've probably heard of: Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, etc. Some you might not be as familiar with: Geisel, Sibert, Batchelder, Odyssey, Schneider, etc.

This week you can do any one of these activities:

• Write a follow-up post discussing your thoughts on who won. Which winning books have you read? Which winning books do you want to read? Where there any surprises or shockers? Are you happy with this year's selections? (Include honor books, of course!)
• Choose an award (like the Printz and Newbery) and look at the list of previous winners/honors. Which books have you read and enjoyed? Are there any that you hated? Share a few 'favorites' with your readers. (If you haven't read any lately, maybe you might want to write up a post listing a few you'd be interested in reading soon.)
• Review a new-to-you award-winning book this week.
• Write a post discussing why awards matter, or don't matter. Are you influenced by awards and best lists? Do you seek out award winners? Or avoid them? Do you think award-winning books should be timeless? That they should always stay in print? Do you think time is a better judge of quality than an award committee?

I decided not to take a writing course this semester because last semester's was productive, but kind of a pain in the ass. I felt like I needed to take a break from writing. I told myself, like everyone does, that I would write even when I thought I wasn't in a class. I have written zero since winter break. And I'll be honest with you, I haven't really missed it until recently. The only thing I've managed to write are lists, which takes me back to high school when lists were the main thing I wrote. I kind of considered myself to be a list essayist. Now I consider myself to be a... writing school dropout?

Last night was the first time I'd written in forever, and it felt so good. It felt way better than it did all last semester, when I was forcing myself to write about ridiculous things that I cared nothing about. I know they say practice, practice, practice and write, write, write. But I hate that feeling of being told to write. I can write shitty stuff on my own thank you. I do it most of the time.

But part of me kind of feels like a failure for not continuing writing. I probably won't take another writing class in college, at least I don't know when I would. I'm pursuing other interests. But does that mean I'm quitting? I'll be honest, I've quit a lot of things. In fact, most things I've started in life I've quit. Band. Choir. Speech. Journalism. Driving (although this is kind of a circumstantial thing). Basketball. Golf. Frisbee. Bass guitar. Okay, this is just getting depressing. And all of those things I regret, at some point, quitting. But honestly, I don't miss any of them. Maybe I don't really know what I'm saying right now. But what I think I'm trying to say is I'm afraid that not taking a writing class means I'm quitting writing. And I don't like that. It makes me feel weird.

This is a guest post by Jackie of Literary Escapism who has graciously offered to organize the Book Blogger Top 10 again this year.

For the second year in a row, we're asking book bloggers to help put together a top 10 list of books published in 2009. I want to thank the Weekly Geek staff for helping put this together again. It was such a blast (forgetting the headaches) to do last year that I had hope they would let me work on it this year as well.

Before I lay out what I am even talking about, I have to mention something that came to me while I was writing this. It's been a full year since the book blogging community lost Dewey. It doesn't seem like it's been that long and yet, her presence is still very much felt around the blogosphere. The 24 Hour Readathon just celebrated another day of reading in October; Weekly Geeks has been amazing with the weekly topics and keeping everything organized; and the Bookworms Carnival is still going strong. Dewey has definitely left a legacy in our community and I'm sure her loss is still felt by many around this time of the year.

I don't want to ramble, but I'll be honest, the reason this hit home with me right now was because I was in the middle of working on this same project with Dewey last year when I heard the news. For the second year running, welcome to the Weekly Geeks Book Bloggers Top 10 of 2009.

You always see these “Top Whatever” lists that the newspapers/publishers put out and, for a second year in a row, we the book bloggers are going to put out our own Top 10 list. This week, the Weekly Geeks team and I are asking you to come up with your own Top 10 Books that were published in 2009 (books that were reprinted or re-released are not eligible, sorry).

Now, the idea is to only choose books that were published in 2009, regardless of what country you live in. If a book was released in the US in 2008, but released in your country in 2009, that's okay. I know there is still a month in a half left of 2009, but if you know there is a book coming out between now and Dec. 31st, then it’s still eligible.

This year, I am also asking for something a little more specific. When you submit your novels, you must include the genre it is from as well. Last year, when I was trying to categorize everything, I had to guess on a lot of novels and I know there were some people who disagreed with my choice. If there are any contradictions in genres (say if a book was selected for two genres), then the Weekly Geek Staff will vote on where it goes (please?).

If you see a Top 10 list somewhere else, add it to the Mr. Linky, even if they aren’t a part of Weekly Geeks. We're trying to gather as many lists as we can, so we can come up with a nice comprehensive list. You'll have two weeks to come up with your list before I begin compiling the voting booths. Then we'll put it to a vote. Last year, we ended up with over 1300 individual voters and I know we can make it just as big this year.

So what are your top 10 books of 2009?

** Please post your list and link it to Mr. Linky by December 4, 2009. Jackie will put together the voting book after then, then we’ll write a post to let you know it’s ready. Thanks!

I know that in a previous Memory Monday Post, I talked about Willo Davis Roberts, and the impact she had on me as an author. (in my blog to read it. It's hysterically funny.) But, I talked about her writing in very general terms. Today, I want to talk about one book in particular that was a big deal for me.

I've always been super nerdy when it comes to books. I love making my own book lists, reading books from specific award lists, etc. So, when I learned in 4th grade (I think) that there was a contest of sorts where you were to write in with the number of mystery books you had read to 'win' I signed up! I kicked myself for days after sending in my list because I kept thinking of more and more that I had read and forgotten to put down, but I guess 9 is still a lot for a 4th grader because I won! I won a certificate along with my very first signed book, Twisted Summer by Willo Davis Roberts.

I cannot even begin to describe what it felt like to look down at that book and see that signature, knowing that the woman who wrote this book, whose books I had been reading and loving for years had TOUCHED MY BOOK. Seriously. Whoa.

I was going to take a picture, because I still have both the book and the certificate, but I can't find my camera. Perhaps another time.

But honestly, for a 4th grader who has loved books her whole life, that was the greatest, most amazing moment. I wish I had been more careful with the book, but it was one of my favorites of hers and I read it over and over. It's not in awesome shape anymore, but it is definitely a book I will keep and treasure forever.

(I mean, seriously!! 4th grader getting a SIGNED book from their favorite author?! AMAZING!!)

Last week Becky asked for posts about the book award winners -- predictions, analysis, lists, or reviewing award winning books.

Sherry looked ahead and tried to predict the winners of the Printz Prize (a literary award for YA literature). Similarly, Jen did some predictions for many of the ALA Youth Media Awards.

Puss Reboots shared that she's a Cybils Award judge for the graphic novels (can I tell you how jealous I am?). She couldn't tell us winners just yet, but she did show the book she's getting to consider.

Laura, a new participant in Weekly Geeks, looked at award winners from her childhood.

Becky got into things, by posting lists of all the major winners on Monday with some of her own impression of the picks. Keeping with the YA themes, Suey looked at winners for both the Newbery Award and Printz Prize, plus pointed out some on-going challenges for both awards.

Bookwormans did a spotlight on previous Newbery Award winning books including a couple of my favorites, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Number the Stars. KT also highlighted some of her favorite Newbery Award winners including and The Westing Game and Julie of the Wolves.

It's here!! Today marks the official start of the Award Winning Reads Challenge hosted by myself along with Jacinda from The Reading Housewives! Thank you for joining us!:)

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I think this challenge is going to be a lot of fun, and I cannot wait to see what everyone ends up reading and how they feel about the books they select!

For a recap of the rules, see this post here: Award Winning Reads Challenge

For additional information about the giveaways, (that also includes the list of my personal favorites you can read for a special giveaway) go here: Award Winning Reads Challenge Giveaway/Prize Information

I am going to try and get as many books from the two lists read as possible this summer. My personal owned TBR is getting completely out of control, and many of those books come from these two lists. So, while not all of the books I'm aiming to read are books I own, a great many of them are.

This is also a very tentative list for me. I can already guarantee that I will not read every book on this list and I will read some books that didn't make it onto this list. That's just how I seem to do things. But, it's nice to have a little guideline to give me an idea of where I'm going. I'll update as I go as well, either here, in additional posts, or on the Challenge page (that will soon be created).

Newbery:

After the Rain by Norma Fox Mazer
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (reread)
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (reread)
King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska
Dobry by Monica Shannon
Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan

Printz:

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (reread)
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (reread)
Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going
Postcards from No Man's Land by Aiden Chambers
Monster by Walter Dean Meyers (reread)
Stolen by Lucy Christopher

So, leave us a comment with a link to your starting line post (if you have one) or just let us know in the comments some of the books you are hoping to get read this summer!

As always, if you have any questions or comments, or just need some great book recommendations, let me know! I'm always happy to help!:)

I'm warning you right now — this is going to be a bit of a long post. But I promise it will be well worth it!

For all of those participating in the Award Winning Reads Challenge hosted by myself and Jacinda at The Reading Housewives, or any of you thinking you might want to participate but haven't decided yet, this post is for you.

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In our intro post to the Challenge, both Jacinda and I made promises for lots of great prizes and giveaways for participants. This post is just to offer a little more detail and explanation for how each giveaway will work.

To start — The most basic:

For each level of participation, there will be a specific giveaway. So those who sign up to read three books will have a drawing independent of those who sign up to read nine. Each of the four levels will have one winner.

Jacinda and I both have a selection of books that we are going to donate, with titles from both the Newbery and the Printz list. Some are brand new, some look brand new, and some are gently used. This forms our prize pool. A full list will be provided at a later date.

To be chosen as the winner from your reading level, you must complete your goal. You can read more than your challenge level, but you must at least reach it. This will earn you one entry.

For every book you read past your reading goal, you will gain an additional entry.

For every review you post a Newbery or Printz honor or award, you will gain an additional entry.

To encourage people to sign up for the reading level they think they are capable of, and not just sign up for level one and then read 100 books, the number of books you can win increases with each level increase.

The winner from Level one will receive 2 books from the prize pack.
Level two will receive 3.
Level three will receive 4.
And Level four will receive 5.

We are also going to have a giveaway for one random participant, whether you complete your level or not. Everyone who signs up and agrees to participate will be eligible for this prize, although if you win the prize pack for your reading level, you will not be able to win this one.

The final giveaway that is for sure going to happen is a special giveaway, just from me. Jacinda and I are on the same page with the whole challenge, and are working very well together, but I wanted to include this giveaway, because I am a book pusher. I like the idea that other people are reading my favorite books, and that authors I find especially gifted are getting extra love.

So, I decided to offer the participants of this challenge a special incentive for reading my favorite books. Below, I have compiled a list of 10 (ish) books each from both the Newbery and the Printz award lists. I've included a Goodreads and Amazon link to each title for your convenience. If you want more information about a book, or if you want to know why I seriously think you should read it, just ask! Comment, email, tweet, whatever!:) I love talking up my favorite books!

Anyone who reads any of these books will be entered in to win a special drawing. Reviewing the book will gain you an additional entry as well. (Note — if you don't have a blog, that's totally okay! Posting a review anywhere will count! Goodreads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books A Million etc etc etc. As long as it's a review, it's online and you can link me, it counts!)

The number of winners and the prizes to be won for this giveaway are yet to be determined. Part of this is going to depend on the number of participants, some will depend on how my pocket book is feeling come September, and some will depend on how excited I am that (hopefully) so many people are reading my favorites. At this point, it's likely to include at the very least a book of your choice from the complete awards lists, but I might also include some of my own personal favorites in there as well. Suggestions and preferences are welcomed. And now:

THE LIST: Printz: * Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (amazon; goodreads) (2009 Award) * The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (amazon; goodreads) (2009 Honor) * The Book Thief (amazon; goodreads) / I am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak (amazon; goodreads) (2007 Honor/ 2006 honor, respectively) * Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (amazon; goodreads) (2000 Honor) * Monster by Walter Dean Meyers (amazon; goodreads) (2000 Award) * The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (amazon; goodreads) (2003 Honor) * Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger (amazon; goodreads) (2000 Honor) * Going Boving by Libba Bray (amazon; goodreads) (2010 Award)
* how i live now by Meg Rosoff (amazon; goodreads) (2005 Award)
* The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci (amazon; goodreads) (2001 Honor)

Newbery: * When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (amazon; goodreads) (2010 Award) * Rules by Cynthia Lord (amazon; goodreads) (2007 Honor) * The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Spear (amazon; goodreads) (1959 Award) * Dicey's Song (amazon; goodreads) / A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt (amazon; goodreads) (Books 2 and 3 of the Tillerman Saga) (1983 Award/ 1984 Honor, respectively) * Walk Two Moons (amazon; goodreads) / The Wanderer by Sharon Creech (amazon; goodreads) (1995 Award/ 2001 Honor, respectively) * Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff (amazon; goodreads) (2003 Honor) *Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl (amazon; goodreads) (1971 Honor) * The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (amazon; goodreads) (2008 Honor) * The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (amazon; goodreads) (1991 Honor) * The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (amazon; goodreads) (2009 Award)
I can't wait to see what everyone plans to read! Stop by here or over at The Reading Housewives tomorrow for our kick off posts. I'll be including links to previous Newbery/Printz reviews here on the blog and giving you a peek at my tentative reading pile. I believe we will also have a linky with the post, so feel free to link up your starting post!
Tomorrows the day! Happy reading!
*Ashley and Jacinda reserve the right to change the number of prizes for each level. We will keep you informed of any and all decisions regarding prizes. Three months is a long time. I can't guarantee that everything in this post is going to remain exactly the same. But take heart. This also means we can give you more books!:)

Awesome Essays has returned, and with a graphic essay! Today I'm going to talk about Alison Bechdel's graphic essay Compulsory Reading. I think a lot of you will like this essay because you are readers. She starts the essay talking about how she hasn't read a novel for enjoyment in a long time and how she feels guilty about it, but then moves onto her early reading and how she felt she had to read a lot of classic novels because her dad told her to. She ends the essay on a different note, which is hilarious and true. You can read the whole thing on her website, Dykes to Watch Out For. Here is a funny bit from the beginning of the essay to start you off.

I obviously really like the subject of this essay as a reader and someone who believes that reading for enjoyment should be exactly that, enjoyment, and not an attempt to complete some lists of books "everyone has to read." I love the way Bechdel portrays the frantic search for a book after she realizes how long it's been since she read one. It seems like she is chased by a reading guilt ghost (don't we all have one of those?) and she can't escape the ghost until she finds the perfect book and finishes it. Of course, it's not enough to just pick one book, she has to make a stack of books to finish in order to assure herself she will not go this long without reading again.

There are a couple of questions this essay raises for me. Firstly, do any of you have a "reading guilt ghost" too? When you know you haven't read enough or feel like you haven't been reading the "right" books does it make you sweat a bit? How do you deal with that? Secondly, I've tried to show essays that take the idea of the essay to a different medium. This is obviously a graphic essay and I've also done posts about video essays before. Have some of you been surprised by how many forms essays come in?

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