Am I being ambitious for even thinking about signing up for challenges? I basically stopped actively trying to work on them in 2020 and still managed to squeak out a few additions in the second half of the year by pure coincidence or luck. However, there is something about a fresh slate of challenges and goals that really motivate me. I know turning the calendar to 2021 won’t magically fix the world’s problems but I am finally feeling hopeful about things. That includes my reading life! This is a pretty straightforward challenge, hosted HERE. You basically aim to read books that begin with each letter of the alphabet. They also have mini challenges for each month: JANUARY – A book you purchased in 2020 but didn’t readFEBRUARY – A book with non-romantic love (siblings, parent-child, friendships)MARCH – A book written by a person of a different race than youAPRIL – A book with an Autistic main character (April is Autism Awareness)MAY – A book about a nurse (Nat. Nurses Week 2021 is May 6-12)JUNE – A co-written book (2 authors)JULY – A Christmas book (Christmas in July!)AUGUST – A book by an Indie author (self-published or independent)SEPTEMBER – A memoir/biographyOCTOBER – A book written by a new-to-you authorNOVEMBER – A book outside your normal genreDECEMBER – A backlist title (published BEFORE Jan 1, 2021) I’d like to meet most of these but I’m not 100% sure I will focus on them. It definitely depends on if my reading year looks more like 2020 versus 2019 haha. I’ve done this one for at least three […]

As you saw in my sign-up post, I’m joining the OWLS readathon! I’ve decided to become a Hogwarts Professor focusing on Muggle Studies. This career choice allowed me the most flexibility with the prompts, as you’ll see below. Career Choice / Prompts Courses for my career I chose the Hogwarts Professor of Muggle Studies for my career. With this choice, I need to take seven classes total. Defense Against the Dark Arts and the course for my chosen subject (Muggle Studies) are the required classes, and then I can take five more of my choosing! Like I said, this allowed for the most flexibility for me in my reading choices and TBR. We’ll see if I can get all twelve done though! For NEWTS later in the year, I will need to get an O in the subject I’m teaching (Muggle Studies), E in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and at least two A’s in secondary subjects of my choosing. All of the options and TBR Here’s a reminder of the list of potential courses to take and the book-related prompts for them. I’m also including the books I chose as POSSIBLE TBR options for them. As always with my mood reading, this is subject to change!   Ancient Runes // Heart rune: heart on the cover or in the title // The Honey-Don’t List Arithmancy // Magical qualities of number two: balance/opposites – read something outside your favorite genre // Deck of Omens Astronomy // Night classes: read majority of this […]

What is the Pondathon? The Pondathon is a co-operative and story-driven readathon hosted and run by CW from The Quiet Pond. The aim of the Pondathon is to read books and collect points to protect the friends over at The Quiet Pond from the encroaching malevolent forces that threaten our friends in the forest. Have fun participating in the Pondathon readathon by joining one of five teams, each with a unique way to collect points and signing up! You can also follow the story of the Pondathon as it unfolds, and participants can also complete ‘side quests’ during the readathon to collect extra points. The readathon takes place from January 24th 2020 to March 7th 2020. More information about the readathon can be found here. Information about Joining the Pondathon To join the Pondathon, simply sign up anytime between January 18th 2020 to March 5th 2020. Choose a team, create your own animal character for the Pondathon and create a character card! Create a blog post, bookstagram post, booktube video, Twitter thread, or whatever medium you wish, with ‘#Pondathon’ in the title or your tweet. Share the character you have created and your character card! Link back to this post so that others can find this readathon and join in. Share your updates on your blog/bookstagram/booktube and social media. You are more than welcome to tag @thequietpond or @artfromafriend on Twitter or Instagram in all your updates! We’d love to see all of the beautiful and awesome characters that you […]

Just when you (probably) thought ya girl was done with challenges, yet another popped up for me to overanalyze and create TBRs for! 😉 You can learn all about Romanceopoly HERE but I’ll be discussing the general idea and plan of attack below. This is just such a fun and unique challenge that will help me read a bit more widely under the romance genre and beyond. The Basics The hosts have created a Monopoly-like game board with different prompts for each space. You can play a few different ways, including just going around the board in order or actually rolling dice to move around the board. You can pick between the SUN and MOON prompt packs as well, so you can technically complete the board twice if you wanted to. My Plan I decided to add this challenge to my life this year because it just seems like something fun I can do whenever I’m in the mood for romance or for something random off my TBR. Not all of the prompts are romance though! I decided to roll a few dice in a row so I have an idea of my next couple of books, and then decide when to read them. I know most people strive to complete the game board but I’m not 100% sure if I will or not. Unlike other challenges, I won’t be tracking it as closely in terms of completion percentage or goals. I’ve picked the moon pack for this because I […]

I’ve been doing these resolutions for the past couple of years and found that it’s a really nice way to keep track of some goals for the upcoming year. I’ll be honest when I say that generally “resolutions” or the “clean slate of a new year” isn’t my shtick, but sometimes the marking of a new year just helps when setting new goals. It’s an easy marker of time and that’s about it. You can find 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 resolutions as well. Continue to not feel pressured to read and enjoy other hobbies | As usual, this stays on my list for the next year! I always want to make sure I balance out my days/weeks with reading, audiobooks, podcasts, YouTube, other TV shows, and spending quality time with Chris. My goal of 120 books was super manageable last year because, as usual, I got a little ahead during certain months and it balanced out for later months with less reading. Read 50% or less contemporary novels | Yet again, can I make this one work?! I really hope the challenges below help me read more mysteries and other genres. I got VERY close in 2019 with reading other genres. Curate a monthly TBR with a lot of variety | I’m planning a post for this in the new year as an update to last year’s Anatomy of a TBR Post. I want to do a better job of really adding variety, including backlist titles and other genre requirements, to make my […]

Welcome to the kickoff for the All I Want For Christmas is You Readalong that I’m co-hosting with Forever Romance! Like last year’s read of Jenny Hale’s Christmassy book, we’ll be reading and sharing thoughts on Twitter and Instagram. I wanted to take a minute to remind you all that we are starting TODAY and hopefully you’d like to join us! Schedule 🎄December 9: Chapter 1-5 🎄December 10: Chapter 6-10 🎄December 11: Chapter 11-15 🎄December 12: Chapter 16-20 🎄December 13: Chapter 21-Epilogue Interview with Miranda Liasson What was your inspiration for the Angel Falls setting? What are some of your favorite restaurants or establishments to write about in the small town? There’s a village about an hour away from where I live in Northeast Ohio called Chagrin Falls. I  got to know it a little better a few years ago when I had to drive my kids there for SAT prep classes. I would drop them off and then take my laptop to the local coffee shop and hang out there while they did their thing. In the process, I got to explore the Main Street, see the pretty old homes, and check out the falls which are in the middle of the downtown. There is a beautiful park next to the river where they hold art shows and other events. It’s probably the prettiest small town I’ve ever seen, and it’s filled with theater, arts, activities, etc.—very vibrant. I was excited that my editor let me locate a small town in […]

I know that I usually talk about my upcoming year-long challenges in one big post, but I’m inventing this one for myself and wanted to give my idea a full post! Inspired by the following lovely bookish people: RAINBOW READING: Chelsea @ Chelsea Dolling Reads has been doing a rainbow challenge each month, where she spends a week reading books off of her shelves from a specific color family. It’s way for her to read from her physical TBR and get some focused reading time in. TRY A CHAPTER: I originally saw the idea for a “try a chapter” tag or unahul at Bekka @ Lock and Rose. There’s also a Bustle article about linking the original creator (Book Paradise, who appears to be inactive on their YouTube channel). This “try a chapter” thing is a way to read the first chapter of a book on your shelves. If it doesn’t grab you right away, you unhaul the book and move on. For 2020, I’ll be combining some of the ideas above into my own unhaul / reading from my shelves challenge. The idea is that each month I will have a specific color that I use to pull books from my shelves. Once the books are pulled, I will read the first chapter in each one and decide if I want to keep it or unhaul it. The idea is that if the chapter DOES pull me in, I will continue reading that book immediately. I can’t just decide I want […]