Bloggiesta Spring 2015 #Bloggiesta

SEE WRAP-UP AT END OF POST

Bloggiesta is here again! I will have to see how this goes. I have a bunch of stuff I need to get done, but it's going to depend on work (last week of the month and all). Here's what I'm hoping to accomplish:

• create button and post sign-up for my Sit Down and Read writing challenge (April 1-15)
• create button and post sign-up for the Spring into Horror Read-a-Thon (April 20 - 29)
• update Seasons of Reading blog to Spring (header and background) created new header and blog design/layout  Check it out here
• add images back to past posts they were removed from (due to my purging images on Google on my phone - yes, they're connected)
• change blog background on this blog (maybe)  New design/layout...what do you think?
• finish going through reading challenges in the Novel Challenge folder (email)
• complete my TBR jar
• clear out my email (if I told you how many I have backed up, you would be truly appalled. lol)

Wish me luck!

Wrap-Up:

Well, I was able to cross a few things off the list. I'm happy with what I accomplished, as I had a busy week and was dealing with tooth pain. lol

The Classics Club Spin 7 - Let's try this again, shall we?

My lucky Classics Club spin - #17 it is! All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

The Classics Club spin...it's time again. Since they started doing this, I've only managed to succeed once with Wide Sargasso Sea on spin 5. We're supposed to challenge ourselves by choosing a mix of titles like 'books I can't wait to read, books I'm dreading, etc.' but since I have so much reading on my plate already for August and September, I'm just going to choose a list of 20 shorter books. We will see how this goes...

1. The Lambs of London, Peter Ackroyd
2. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
3. Moravagine, Blaise Cendrars
4. The Devil and Miss Prym, Paulo Coelho
5. The Collector, John Fowles
6. The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
7. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
8. What Maisie Knew, Henry James
9. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
10. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
11. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
12. Orlando, Virginia Woolf
13. The Plague, Albert Camus
14. Howard's End, E.M. Forster
15. The Sylph, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
16. She, H. Rider Haggard
17. All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
18. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plateh
19. Perfume, Patrick Suskind
20. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

What's on your Classics Spin list?

Mini-Bloggiesta July 2014

It's that time again. Not sure how much I'll get done because I'm supposed to be writing too, but we'll see. Here's my tentative list...

• Is cleaning out your email a Bloggiesta task? If most of the emails are blogging related, I would say yes! This is my number one goal.
• I need to do a mini-challenge contest post for my Stephen King Challenge.
• I need to set up a Wheel of Fortune spin for The Fantasy Project
• I'm thinking of creating another long term reading challenge. Hint: it surrounds my favorite author. A virtual cupcake if you can guess who and leave me a comment. *wink*
• I wonder if I'll get around to finally listing my books read from the past two years here on the blog? Maybe this time.
• I'd like to work on my library blog, but this may have to wait until the full blown Bloggiesta in the Fall.
• Starting post for High Summer Read-a-Thon.
• ....
• ....

(Some blanks in case I want to add anything. Yeah, I'm crazy!)

What are your Bloggiesta plans? Not signed up, you can do so here.

Bloggiesta: Wrap-Up

Well, I didn't manage to get everything done on my list, but I added one thing (completed) and completed the top task on my list. Below is my original list with completed items crossed off and notes in red (if applicable).

• Get the super secret group up over at Goodreads that only myself and a few others know about (you know who you are). Stay tuned for the exciting news! The super secret group is not a secret anymore! The name of it is Lit Collective: An Online Reading Retreat and you can check it out here on Goodreads!
• Finally update my progress on reading challenges over at my challenge blog. It's has been 8 months and I think I might have updated them twice. Pitiful!
• Get my books read tabs updated with books I've read. I'm almost a year and a half behind!
• I'll try to make at least one of the Twitter chats and I'm going to look into some of the mini-challenges to see if there's anything I want to do. Just did not have time. =O(
• Make buttons for Kai's blog event

Did you Bloggiesta? How did you do?

Mini-Bloggiesta: Goals and Updates

It's the start of Mini-Bloggiesta and I have been waiting for this...I actually have some tasks that need to be tended to so this comes at the perfect time. Why not join in on the fun. Check it out at the Bloggiesta blog.

My goals (in order of priority):

1. I recently changed my two main blogs to two column (one sidebar) layouts so I need to make sure everything is arranged correctly in the sidebars. That is here on this blog and at my sister blog, Castle Macabre.
2. Here on The True Book Addict I want to create a page (tab) for my favorite blogs' buttons so as to de-clutter the sidebar even more.
3. Plan out and execute the details and announcement of the revamp of my Fantasy Reading Challenge.

If I have time, I might...

• Finish updating my 2012 and 2013 'books read' lists here on the blog
• Start adding my cataloged fiction books (from my home library...2000+ books) to my library blog, A Library, Collected.

Not sure about mini-challenges, as I'm concentrating on very specific tasks, but I will check them out. I'm also hoping to participate in the Twitter chat. 

The Classics Spin! UPDATE

Our wonderful club/challenge, The Classics Club, is hosting The Classics Spin.

Full details, as outlined on TCC blog:

It’s easy. At your blog, by next Monday, Feb 18, list your choice of any twenty books you’ve left to read from your Classics Club list – in a separate post.

This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books in February & March. (Details follow.) So, try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)

Next Monday, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List, by April 1. We’ll have a check in or something in April, to see who made it the whole way and finished the spin book.

My spin list (view my entire Classics Club list HERE):

Five I'm dreading (sort of):
1.  Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens
2.  The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
3.  The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
4.  A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
5.  Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Five I can't wait to read:

6.  The Plague by Albert Camus

7.  Queen Margot by Alexandre Dumas
8.  Howard's End by E.M. Forster
9.  Perfume by Patrick Suskind
10. The Once and Future King by T.H. White

I'm neutral:

11. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
12. Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars
13. The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
*14. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons*
15. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Five free choices--rereads/favorite authors:

16. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
17. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
18. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
19. The World According to Garp by John Irving
20. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

What's on your spin list?

My Spin selection is Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

What was yours?

Review Copy Clean-Up 2/1 - 2/28

Hosted by Books, Biscuits, and Tea and Nyx Book Reviews

I'm hoping to read 3-4 review books, plus a book tour book.

The Arrow Chest by Robert Parry
Four Sisters, All Queens by Sherry Jones
The Taker by Alma Katsu
other title
A Tainted Dawn by B.N. Peacock--book tour with HFVBT

You can check out my entire monster pile of review copies HERE.  I have an awful backlog. =O(

Sign up for Review Copy Clean-Up by February 15 HERE (or click the button above).

Announcing...Write-a-Thon Dates!

I have the dates and the button! I'm hosting at my writing blog, The Story Inside Me.  

Full details and sign-ups will be posted over THERE in the next couple of days.  

Hope you will join me!

Announcing...A Non-Fiction Adventure

Taking the lead from the awesome creators of the Fill in the Gaps: 100 Project and The Classics Club, I have decided to create a similar challenge focusing on non-fiction books.  The fruition of this idea came to me yesterday as I was looking at my shelves of non-fiction books.  In my library of 3000+ books, non-fiction makes up about 1000+ of that total.  I focus so heavily on fiction I never take the time to squeeze in some non-fiction reads which I do love to read.  So I thought, why not follow the lead of those I mentioned above and create this challenge for the non-fiction genre.

I have created a dedicated blog for this challenge.  You can read all the details and sign-up for A Non-Fiction Adventure HERE.

My list is going to be 50 books over five years.  Now I just have to sit down and compile my list.  I should have that done by Wednesday at the latest.

I hope you will join me on this adventure!

Happy Reading!

New Challenge Announcement

The True Book Addict is proud to announce The Michener Challenge.  I have created a new blog especially for the challenge.  Click here to go to the new blog to learn the details and for sign up.  I hope you will join me in reading the works of this great American author!




Happy Reading!