Cat Thursday: Authors and their cats (28)

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! (share your post in the Mr. Linky below)

The second Cat Thursday of each month is Authors and their Cats Thursday. Each time I will feature an author and their cat(s).

In honor of Edgar Allan Poe's birthday this month (January 19), here he is with a kitty writing companion on his shoulder.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Easy-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.

2014 Reading Challenges and a new literary group, Lit Collective

 

I vowed to myself that I would sign up for less than 10 challenges this year and I did it! I ended up signing up for 9 and one of those is a long term challenge that I'm spreading over 4 years. Of course, I'm keeping track over at my challenge blog, but listed below are the challenge buttons for the ones I signed up for.

************************************************************

I also want to take a moment to officially announce my new book discussion community which I started with Heather at Between the Covers and Laura at Book Snob over at Goodreads. It's called Lit Collective: An Online Reading Retreat. We'll be having our "online retreats" twice a year. In March, we focus on books grouped around a theme. This March our theme is World World I. The books we're reading are:

4 Fiction
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
The Gendarme, Mark Mustian
The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman
The Sandcastle Girls, Chris Bohjalian

1 Non-Fiction
The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, Juliet Nicolson

Each week, we will focus our discussion on one book, with discussion of the non-fiction title being more of a side discussion in addition to the others. Discussions will take place predominantly in the group, but we will have a Twitter hashtag for any Twitter chats or parties we decide to have and for announcements and it is #litcollective.

I will have the schedule of what books will be discussed when and some advance discussion questions posted in the group soon. In August, the retreat will revolve around 3 or 4 selected works of a certain author. We will vote on this in the group. 

To find out all the details and to join the group, visit Lit Collective here. We'd love to have you!

Reminder: Sign ups are open for A Winter's Respite over at Seasons of Reading. Click HERE, or the image below, to sign up.

Classics Club Read-a-Thon: Starting Post #ccreadathon

Here we go!

Name and Blog:  Michelle at The True Book Addict
Snacks and Beverages of Choice: Probably just plenty of fluids since I've been sick
Where are you reading from today?: Nashville, Tennessee
What are your goals for the Readathon?: to make a dent in one of the books for our Lit Collective group which is also on my CC list
What book(s) are you planning on reading?: Dr. Zhivago...this has changed since I posted my participation post last night. I had forgotten that we're reading this for Lit Collective in March and I really need to get started.
Are you excited?: I'm always excited by read-a-thons!

2nd Annual Classics Club Read-a-Thon

 

Yes, I'm quite late in posting this. In fact, my official start time is 7:00am CST so that's only about 6 hours away. I've been sick all week and am finally on the mend due to visiting the doctor, but I must remind myself not to overdo which is what I kind of did yesterday. And so, I fell asleep right in the middle of Grimm and ended up waking at 11:30pm. HaHa! So now I'm wide awake! Of course, as soon as I take my prescription cough medicine, I'll be out again. Let's just hope I can wake up again at 7:00am. We shall see!

This read-a-thon is one of those 24 hour things that I'm not very good at so I decided to just focus on one book. I plugged in the 101 titles from my Classics Club list into Random.org and voila! The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne! Great selection, right!? This will totally show you that my illness has really effected my thought patterns. I have changed my selection to Dr. Zhivago. I forgot that I need to get started on it for my Lit Collective Group in March. Oops!

I'm going to attempt to go out tomorrow for a bit...if I feel up to it...but when I return I'll be ready to get my 24 (or a little less) hour read on!

Let me know if you're participating and what you'll be reading. And don't forget to sign up for my Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon, coming at the end of this month, HERE.

Happy reading!

Cat Thursday...It's a New Year!

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! (share your post in the Mr. Linky below)

Happy New Year, fellow Cat Thursday enthusiasts! Looking forward to another year of fun and friendship and cats, of course! I appreciate every last one of you who participates each week. Thank you for helping keep it alive. *heart*

Images source: 
lolcats   

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Easy-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.

Bout of Books 9.0 - Read-a-Thon

But, of course...I'm in! Will post goals in a few days. Will you be joining in?

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

Wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year!