Weekly Geeks #9: Challenges

This is actually my first WG post! It's a good thing Dewey gave us two weeks for it, because it took me a while to get organized.

This week’s theme is Challenges.

1. If you participate in any challenges, get organized! Update your lists, post about any you haven’t mentioned, add links of reviews to your lists if you do that, go to the challenge blog if there is one and post there, etc.

2. If you don’t participate in any challenges, then join one! There’s a good selection of possibilities over on my right hand sidebar (scroll down) where I list those I participate in. There’s also A Novel Challenge, a blog that keeps track of all sorts of reading challenges.

3. Towards the end of the week, write a wrap-up post about getting your challenges organized OR if you’re joining your first challenge, post about that any time during the week. Once you have your post up, come back and sign Mr Linky with the link to the specific post, not just to your blog.

Here are the challenges I am currently participating in:

1% Well-Read Challenge - I finished my second book for this challenge (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) on the last day of June; the review is here.
Book Awards II Challenge - This one doesn't actually start until August, but I got a head start by updating my list; I found a bunch of books I wanted to read for the challenge at a library book sale.

A Midsummer Night's Challenge - This one ended last month. I finished both the books I read for it (Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Pratchett's Lords and Ladies) and wrote reviews for them (posted here). It feels really good to have one challenge completed and out of the way!

July Book Blowout - This challenge is a bit of a catch-all for the month of July. I like it because the goal is just to read books; you don't actually have to post a review. I've already finished three YA novels (Just Ella and two BSC books), and I'm currently reading Stitch 'N Bitch and The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Life Books Challenge - I just joined this challenge this week! I've already chosen and posted about my Life Books; now I just need to visit other participants and choose two books to read for the challenge.

For all of these, I linked the books I'm using either to BookCrossing or Powell's Books. I also made a sort of "challenge template" so that all of my challenge main pages look pretty much the same - after I read a book, I strike it out and post a link to the review of it, along with the date I completed it (except for the JBB Challenge - I'm not reviewing all of those, although I may change my mind and do it later, or on the BookCrossing page for the book).

Happy reading!