#Readtheworldathon Challenge

So I’ve joined the #Readtheworldathon challenge and I’m super excited about taking part as this will really help me with my “Read Around the World” goal.

*To get the full rules, you can find them at A Novel Haul

Now, this is an excellent card and so I was so torn on where to start and what route to take – I eventually settled on starting at Asia and then working my way down. I’m taking a slight detour for the Middle East, simply because I already had a book on my TBR for it and because it’s much easier than trying to find a book from a small country.

My TBR:

Asia – One Hundred Shadows by Hwang Jungeun (South Korea)

Globetrotter – A Russian Doll & Other Stories by Adolfo Bioy Casares (Argentina)

Celebrate WOC – Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (Jamaica/Canada)

Middle East – Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (Iraq)

Indigenous – Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (Native American)

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Are you taking part? If so, any suggestions for any of the other squares? Have you read any of my TBR list? Let me know!

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2017 Update

Right! We’re halfway through the year so it’s time for an update on the #ReadHarder challenge!

First, let’s have a reminder of what the list is!

The List:

1. Read a book about sports.
2. Read a debut novel.
3. Read a book about books.
4. Read a book set in Central or South America, written by a Central or South American author.
5. Read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative.
6. Read an all-ages comic.
7. Read a book published between 1900 and 1950.
8. Read a travel memoir.
9. Read a book you’ve read before.
10. Read a book that is set within 100 miles of your location.
11. Read a book that is set more than 5000 miles from your location.
12. Read a fantasy novel.
13. Read a nonfiction book about technology.
14. Read a book about war.
15. Read a YA or middle grade novel by an author who identifies as LGBTQ+.
16. Read a book that has been banned or frequently challenged in your country.
17. Read a classic by an author of color.
18. Read a superhero comic with a female lead.
19. Read a book in which a character of color goes on a spiritual journey (From Daniel José Older, author of Salsa Nocturna, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, and YA novel Shadowshaper)
20. Read an LGBTQ+ romance novel (From Sarah MacLean, author of ten bestselling historical romance novels)
21. Read a book published by a micropress. (From Roxane Gay, bestselling author of Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, Marvel’s World of Wakanda, and the forthcoming Hunger and Difficult Women)
22. Read a collection of stories by a woman. (From Celeste Ng, author Everything I Never Told You and the forthcoming Little Fires Everywhere)
23. Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love. (From Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of the Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty mystery series, including The Unquiet Dead, The Language of Secrets, and the forthcoming Among the Ruins)
24. Read a book wherein all point-of-view characters are people of color. (From Jacqueline Koyanagi, author of sci-fi novel Ascension)

Update:

As you can see, I’ve completed 14 books so far. Not all of them have reviews so might add some for those. A couple of the ones not completed yet may actually already be done but I’ll need to double check for 7 and 16. I’m pretty pleased with my progress so far and some of the other ones won’t be too difficult (such as 23 and 18). I’d been neglecting this recently for the Fantasy Bingo but I think this month I might aim to cross another four books off this list. One is to re-read a book so that should be easy enough and gives me a reason to re-read a book to review it.

Are you taking part in the #ReadHarder challenge too? How’s your progress going? Any books you’d recommend for some of my remaining goals?

Reading Challenge – /r/Fantasy Bingo 2017

So, for those that don’t know, Fantasy is my favourite genre. I’ve not been reading as much Fantasy lately as I’ve been trying to read more genres, although as you may have noticed the majority of my list posts always focus on SFF (I just happen to have been reading more Sci-Fi recently)

I missed the 2016 Bingo as I discovered it too late, but I’m very excited about taking part in this one. It runs from the 1st of April 2017 to the 31st March 2018 and the squares are all excellent as they’ll definitely help me read more and as a lot of them are very specific I can see myself having a lot of fun hunting down books that fulfill each category. I’m also planning on making recommendation posts for a couple of the squares so if you’re also planning on taking part, then keep an eye out for them!

My plan is to make an update post for this every three months to discuss my progress and what my plans are.

Currently, I’m reading a collection of short stories that will be perfect for the short stories square but I haven’t decided my approach for the rest of it yet as I’m a very big mood-reader so I know if I plan on reading X,Y and Z that I’ll probably end up reading A, B and C instead.

Are you taking part in this too? Let me know! What squares do you think will be the most challenging for you? What squares are you most looking forward to completing?

Book Riot’s 2017 Read Harder Challenge

This is my first time taking part in the Book Riot challenge, but I decided that it would be an excellent way to really get me out of my comfort zone and read books I wouldn’t otherwise have chosen. Some in particular I’m really excited about,  and I’m looking forward to having fun finding books for each category!

The List:

1. Read a book about sports.
2. Read a debut novel.
3. Read a book about books.
4. Read a book set in Central or South America, written by a Central or South American author.
5. Read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative.
6. Read an all-ages comic.
7. Read a book published between 1900 and 1950.
8. Read a travel memoir.
9. Read a book you’ve read before.
10. Read a book that is set within 100 miles of your location.
11. Read a book that is set more than 5000 miles from your location.
12. Read a fantasy novel.
13. Read a nonfiction book about technology.
14. Read a book about war.
15. Read a YA or middle grade novel by an author who identifies as LGBTQ+.
16. Read a book that has been banned or frequently challenged in your country.
17. Read a classic by an author of color.
18. Read a superhero comic with a female lead.
19. Read a book in which a character of color goes on a spiritual journey (From Daniel José Older, author of Salsa Nocturna, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, and YA novel Shadowshaper)
20. Read an LGBTQ+ romance novel (From Sarah MacLean, author of ten bestselling historical romance novels)
21. Read a book published by a micropress. (From Roxane Gay, bestselling author of Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, Marvel’s World of Wakanda, and the forthcoming Hunger and Difficult Women)
22. Read a collection of stories by a woman. (From Celeste Ng, author Everything I Never Told You and the forthcoming Little Fires Everywhere)
23. Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love. (From Ausma Zehanat Khan, author of the Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty mystery series, including The Unquiet Dead, The Language of Secrets, and the forthcoming Among the Ruins)
24. Read a book wherein all point-of-view characters are people of color. (From Jacqueline Koyanagi, author of sci-fi novel Ascension)

The Plan:

As there are 24 books, I plan on trying to read 2 books a month towards this challenge. I’m also going to make sure to write a review for each book in this challenge that I read so that it can help others find books for each category.

 

Mini Bloggiesta!

So I’ve just found out about this and think it’s a fantastic idea! The idea is to create a to-do list and spend the weekend doing blog maintenance. As my blog is very new, it definitely needs a lot of work done and so this is the perfect way to do it!

The List:

• Write at least two reviews
• Finish blogging about the challenges I’m doing and update challenge posts
• Write recommendation post I’m planning
• Create my “About Me” page
• Try and pick a good theme
• Hopefully create a site banner (or get somebody to do it for me)  
• Look through my old blog and see if there’s any material I can salvage for this one.
• Participate in the Twitter chat and meet other Bloggers!
• Add categories to all my posts

 

The Plan:

First off, the most important thing for me is to meet other Bloggers via the Twitter chat. I’m quite new to this and so the more blogs I can follow and read, the more I can learn!

Secondly, I have several reviews I’d like to write while the books are still fresh in my mind. I read a lot and so I know I can’t review everything so I also need to try and decide which books I want to review.

The about me page is something I’ve been putting off because I dislike writing about myself, but I know I don’t need to do too much and so if I at least have something there then that’ll be enough.

I’m planning on doing weekly “recommendations” posts and have picked my first theme but kept putting it off because there’s a book I think would be perfect for it that I haven’t read yet so I need to either read it, or just go ahead and make the post and do a separate “Book I haven’t read yet but want to” recommendation post.

The site theme and banner are very important as first impressions count, although I’m horrible at art and creating pretty things so I think I’m going to have to get help with that. For now though, I feel this is the least important as if I don’t have any content, I won’t have any visitors and so I can worry about making it look nice once I’ve got things to actually draw people to my site!

POC Reading Challenge

I was wanting to diversify my reading anyway and so when I found this challenge I knew it would be perfect for me.

The rules of the challenge are:

1. Any book (by any author) with a main character that is a person of color qualifies for this reading challenge, as well as any book written by an author of color. The goal is to encourage readers to have a more diverse reading experience and to support diversity in the publishing industry by reading and reviewing books by or about persons of color.

2. The challenge will run from January 1, 2017 – December 31, 2017 (books read prior to 1/1/2017 do not count towards the challenge). You can join anytime before 12/1/2017. Sign up here at Sistahs&Satire

3. Books can be any format (print, ebook, audio).

4. Novellas, Short story collections, Poetry, Graphic novels/manga, Children Books, and all genres are allowed.

5. Books can be of any publication date.  ARC are allowed as well.

6. You can choose your books as you go or create a list in advance. Re-reads and crossovers from other reading challenges are allowed.

Challenge Level:

I have chosen to aim for “Stack 5” which is 25+ books and I think I want to make sure that at least half of them are written by POC.

 

MARCH 2017 UPDATE –

Due to the very large amount of books I read by Black Authors for Black History Month, I have now completed this challenge and so will not be updating the post any further. Many of the books I read during February can be found under the “Black History Month” category and this alone counted towards over half of the challenge.

As I expect I will be reading many more books by/about POC, I also feel that keeping an updated list will be very time consuming however at the end of the year, I will make a post focusing on my top 25 for the year.

2017 Reading Challenge(s)

Last year I read 114 books for my 100-book reading challenge. However, at no point in this challenge did I ever feel particularly challenged and indeed at several times I had quite large gaps between books and still didn’t fall behind.

This year, I really want to challenge myself. I want to read more, I want to read wider and I want to read more diverse novels. As such, on top of my general reading challenge, I have set myself a number of mini-challenges.

My main goal is 150 books. I have managed to achieve this goal before while at University so I am fairly confident in my ability to manage it now.

Of those books, I wish at least one third of them to be by women. Ideally I’d like a 50/50 split but I feel that would limit me too much on some of my other challenges.

I wish at least 10 of these books to be non-fiction. Most non-fiction I read is about history, particularly classical and medieaval European history, and so I’m going to try and be more diverse and read about other countries and other time periods.

I haven’t read many new releases lately due to focusing on trying to clear out my tbr shelf, and so I have also decided that I want to read 12 new releases in 2017 – one each month.

The final mini challenge for myself I picked was to read at least 10 classics. I deliberately set this number quite low as this is going to be very easy to achieve both due to the large pile of classics on my shelf, and the fact I have a bunch of Little Black Classics from Penguin to read. I felt that managing to complete one “mini-challenge” early would be a great boost and I can always increase it later if I feel I’ve read too much.

I do have several other goals revolving around reading X amount of books from various lists (or other challenges I’ve seen online) but I’ll be blogging about those separately.