2016 Bookish Resolutions Challenge

It’s time for a brand new challenge for the New Year: 2016 Bookish Resolutions Challenge hosted by Laura @ trips down imagination road and Michelle @Because Reading. 

See more by clicking on the links above.

Check ins at the end of each month.

I wasn't going to do this challenge but decided I would, setting goals that are more 'me' than the last year's one.

Reading

• make headway with the J. D. Robb series so that I am almost caught up by the end of the year. At present I have completed #25, so by end of 2016 would like to be at somewhere around #38-40.
• Complete the reading challenges I have signed up for in the 2016 year.
• Read ten books by New Zealand authors. Ten books - not ten authors! Review the books I read for this.

Blogging

• take part in the April A - Z blogging challenge with my WordPress blog, Discovering Daisies. The sign up for that is 25th Jan. I also plan to have my posts prepared for the most before April.
• learn a little more html and css via Lorelle's WordPress and the links she suggests. Study something each month and make adjustments to either my WordPress or Blogger blog as appropriate.
• Visit reviews/posts linked to the reading challenges I host on Book Date blog.

Personal

• make one quilt from beginning to end - a Quatre Foil Quilt, that I already have the material for. It will only be the second quilt ever, but larger than the first one I made.
• participate in the Fitreaders challenge again and meet my goal set for weekly steps - at this point 55 000.
• Initiate some home updates e.g. painting interior - curtains - possibly kitchen too. I won't be doing the painting though, but need to see the process through.

January:

Reading

Read Wolfskin Juliet Marillier    NZ author born and educated, now lives in Australia. = 10% of goal.

Read Strangers in Death J. D. Robb

Read Salvation in Death J. D. Robb

Have pretty much made a start on all reading challenges.

Blogging

Have signed up for the April A-Z challenge. Need to get some posts ready in Feb and March so they are almost done by April.

Have been learning some html code at Codecademy when I got stuck on assignment from Lorelle's Wordpress. Finding Codecademy really helpful and structured. Have used what I have been learning to make some tables in my month in review post.

Have been visiting challenge reviews of challenges I host and sometimes leave a comment. 

Personal

Looked at material for quilt and watched video. Too much else going on to do anything more.

Have made my goal steps most weeks in January or exercised in other ways.

Biggie was having kitchen/dining and lounge painted. It is almost done! Thank you to my brother-in-law. Helped see the process through so far!

February Update.

Women's Fiction Link ups July to December

We are now moving into the second half of the year for this challenge. Thanks to everyone who is participating. Hope your challenge is going well. I have been picking up ideas for more books to read. (Rolls eyes) Like I need that!

Congratulations to Betty who was the winner for the first half of the year. 

Here is the link up for reviews for July to December.  Again there is a $12 Amazon gift voucher or book to that value from the Book Depository if you are in the free postage area of the world and most are.

At the end of the year.

There will be a final link up post at the end for those who complete their challenge.  All those who complete the challenge will go into the draw for a $25 prize to be in the form of a book from the Book Depository or voucher for U.S. Amazon store.  A Gone Reading voucher is also an option.

#Fitreaders' Check In 24th January 2015

#FitReaders is hosted by The Geeky Blogger and That's What I'm Talking About. 

I am happy with my week past.  

On Monday I took a rest day as I was feeling tired, and I think I will aim to take one rest day a week.

Every other day I walked 40 - 45 minutes.

I have gone just a little over my goal of 52 500 steps for a week - so on target!  Just been to buy some more tank tops, warm walking!!

Today I finished listening to Dark Witch by Nora Roberts and my next listen is going to be Ten Tiny Breaths by K. A. Tucker.  Heard so much about this book and the narration has been given the thumbs up so I am looking forward to it.

Women's Fiction Reading Challenge Reviews 2015

This is a place where you can link up reviews during the year.  There will be two link ups during the year.  One from January to June and the other from July to December.

At the end of each link up there will be a $12 draw for either a Book Depository book choice or Amazon gift voucher.

Reviews are not mandatory but this is one link up where I will be really looking forward to reading the reviews.  Not that I need to add to my groaning shelves but I am a bookaholic!

An InLinkz Link-up

2015 Book Blog Discussions

As you can see on the banner above this is hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight.

This time its not so much about reading as writing discussion posts and adding your twopence to discussions going on.  Now first of all I love the banner, so cute. So I have gone back and forth for a number of days considering this as I don't know if I have any 'discussion' topics much in me.  However I would like to get my little toes slightly wet on this one.  Head over to Feed Your Fiction Addiction blog to get the details.  Discussions are in regard to books or book blogging - no off topic discussions.

I am going in at Level 1 - Discussion Dabbler.  1 - 12 discussions.  Surely I can manage one, but if I achieve say 4 or 5 I'd be very delighted.

1. To Challenge or Not to Challenge - that is the question!

2. How Fussy are You When it Comes to Library Books?

2015 Women's Fiction Reading Challenge

This challenge is for those who enjoy reading women's fiction.  How might you define this type of book?  I define it as any book that is mainly written for women (although that doesn't stop men reading them),  they may contain elements of romance but the book mainly centres around the development of women or a woman throughout the book.  Women centered books, that might focus on the issues relating to women, it may be a mainstream novel, slightly less or slightly more.  This website probably best describes what I am thinking of Women Fiction Writers.  

The Romance Writers of America organization defines women's fiction as, "a commercial novel about a woman on the brink of life change and personal growth. Her journey details emotional reflection and action that transforms her and her relationships with others, and includes a hopeful/upbeat ending with regard to her romantic relationship."

Take whichever definition suits you - both of the ones linked above or write your own definition  in your challenge post and then join in.

Levels

• Motivated 1- 5
• Savvy     6 - 10
• Classy    11- 20
• Go-getter  20 -30
• Fearless  30+

Books may overlap with other challenges. Any format of book is fine.  Choose your level and write a commitment post or set aside a Goodreads shelf for this challenge, if you don't have a blog or would prefer to work that way.

There will be a link for reviews although reviews are not a condition of completing the challenge, they are just an extra:
January to June   now closed. Even if read in this time just link to the one below.

July to December

All those who complete the challenge will go into the draw for a $25 prize to be in the form of a book from the Book Depository or voucher for U.S. Amazon store.  A Gone Reading voucher is also an option.

Completion of Reading Challenge Link up

Sign ups are open until mid October 2015
The challenge goes from 1st January 2015 to December 31st 2015
Completion Link is open until the 2nd of January

Full House May Link Ups.

So we are into the month of May, hope everyone is still enjoying the challenge and making their way through it.

There will be a $10 Amazon voucher or up to $10 choice at the Book Depository for one book review, that will be drawn at the end of May. Winner to be announced at beginning of June. The winner has 48 hours to reply before another person is chosen.

The winner of the April link up is Ellie over at Book Addicted Blond.  

Arabella

Publisher: Sourcebooks 2009              TBR Challenge
First Published: Heinemann 1949
Pages:  312
Format:  Paperback
Genre: Historical Romance - Regency.
Summary from Goodreads.

Arabella, daughter of a modest country clergyman is on her way to London, when her carriage breaks down outside the hunting lodge of the wealthy Mr. Robert Beaumaris. Her pride stung when she overhears a remark of her host, Arabella pretends to be an heiress, a pretense that amuses the jaded Beaumaris. To counter her lie, launches her into high society and thereby subjects her to all kinds of fortune hunters and other embarrassments.

When compassionate Arabella rescues a mistreated chimney sweep and an ill treated dog, she foists them on Beaumaris.....

My thoughts:
This month the challenge option was to choose a classic from our book shelves.  A few years ago I picked up a few Georgette Heyer books at a book fair, out of nostalgia really.  I hadn't read Georgette Heyer since my teen years - when romance novels were scarce and I read whatever I could lay my hands on. I have no idea which ones they were!  I have figured that these are about the most classic books adorning my shelves!

I'm not a big regency historical reader but I did enjoy this book.  Some of the words I met were strange and are no longer used - or they mean something different now.  I found the story a little slow to begin with, but once Arabella was on the road the pace picked up.  I enjoyed Arabella's fresh country approach to the affected ways of the city people, and her outrage at some of the injustices she met.

Mr. Robert Beaumaris was a little too controlling for my liking, however that's the way the characters and plot worked back then and as such characters go, to be honest he was rather likeable and really all said and done Arabella actually had him tied around her little finger.

Witty and dramatic in many ways.  I began to picture this story as a TV drama or even a well dramatised audiobook.  I have decided that in the future I will listen to another of the Heyer audiobooks on Audible and find out whether it lives up to my hopes.

Summer On Blossom Street.

 

                                                             TBR Challenge.
Title: Summer on Blossom Street.  (Blossom St. #6)
Author: Debbie Macomber
Published: Harlequin: Mira
First published: 2009. This edition 2011.

Summary.
This book continues the lives and stories of many of the Blossom Street characters from previous books.  In my opinion this book is best read after the  others have been read.  However it could be read as a one off if one wished. 

Lydia, the owner of the wool shop decides to start a group - Knit to Quit.  Joining it is Alix who is trying to overcome her smoking addiction, she wants to start a family with Jordan but firstly she needs to beat her addiction. There are two new characters - Phoebe who is getting over a relationship gone wrong, and Hutch who is taking up knitting on the advice of his Doctor as knitting is a way to de stress! He is the owner of a chocolate factory and is being sued by a woman because the chocolates made her fat!

Anne Marie (book shop owner) and her adopted daughter Ellen also feature in this book, Ellen has as one of her twenty wishes wanted to get to know her unknown father.  There is a number of twists and turns to this and it makes for an interesting addition to the book.

Lydia and her family also feature strongly in this book.  Lydia and Brad are wanting to adopt a baby.  Instead they are asked to foster for awhile a twelve year old girl - Casey.  There son Cody is none too pleased with this and so there is tension in the household.

My thoughts.
I enjoyed this Summer on Blossom Street, I have liked all the Blossom Street books so far and was nudged into reading the remainder of the series when a new one was published this year.  I have them all lined up on the shelf ready to go!  I have listened to the audio of the previous ones, however this one received so many poor narrator reviews I decided to buy the actual paperback.

It is a story that explores such issues as stress, addiction, infidelity, adoption, foster care and ageing.  These issues are all set in the context of family, friends and community.  The characters face down challenges that are thrown at them and they make decisions and grow - or not, as the case may be.

One of the issues - that of foster care touched by heart.  Into Lydia's family comes Casey, well used to the foster care system - being passed on from one family to the next, never belonging anywhere.  It reminded me of a superb book I read earlier in the year, One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, ( a Middle Grade book.)  This book explored in depth the experience that Casey has in Summer on Blossom Street. Each book ends differently, yet both explore the same depth of relationships in family and the response to an outsider entering over the threshold.

I liked the quotes at the beginning of some chapters, most by actual people with urls given to reach their websites.  Obviously Debbie Macomber loves knitting.  I liked the first quote in the book because it referred to New Zealand yarn!  ( I live in New Zealand).  I have been able to knit since I was a child and still do, so this book hasn't set me off on a big "I want to learn to knit," splurge as a quilting book might, however it did awaken old interests.  I also liked that there is a pattern given for  a scarf at the beginning of the book.

To finish - a cosy read, something to take my mind off the daily challenges of my own life!

I read this book as part of Wendy's TBR challenge - this month's challenge was to read a book by an author that you have more than one book of theirs in your TBR pile.

TBR Book Challenge

This year I am going to take part in the TBR book pile challenge. What reader doesn't have a huge TBR pile? Mine got a lot larger when I joined the Susan Elizabeth Phillips Board some years ago, and the Seppies had so many book recommendations I was soon in trouble!  So this challenge will help me focus a little, and besides it doesn't sound too onerous.

Here it is - through the enthusiasm of Wendy the Super Librarian.

Monthly Review Dates And Theme Suggestions

January 16 - We Love Short Shorts! (Short stories, Novellas, category romance)
February 20 - Recommended Read (something recommended by a fellow reader)
March 20 - Series Catch-Up (pick a book from a series you're behind on)
April 17 - New-To-You Author
May 15 - More Than One (An author who has more than one book in your TBR pile).
June 19 - Lovely RITA (RWA RITA nominees OR winners.  Past winners can be found here.  Googling "past rita nominees" turns up several options from previous years).
July 17 - The Classics (Something classic within the romance genre - an author, a specific book, a trope/theme - I'm open to wide interpretations here!)
August 21 - Steamy reads (Erotic romance, erotica, something spicy!)
September 18 - Western (Contemporary or historical)
October 16 - Paranormal or romantic suspense
November 20 - All About The Hype (a book that created such chatter that it was inescapable).
December 18 - Holiday themes (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, it's all good!)

An InLinkz Link-up

Starting Up.

I have started up a new blog.  I want to use it only for reading and books, while I do track what I read at Goodreads, a book blog is something that I can use for the purpose of tracking challenges and interacting with other readers.

I tend to read what I like, and I know that what I like is not what someone else might like.  I may give 3 stars to a book that someone else gives 5 stars.  For me it is about personal taste.  If the book takes me away from the present into the book's world and I don't want to come back from it, then I am likely to give it 5 stars.  A book that has a great plot, engaging characters, is well written, and makes me think about my life and others, usually gets a big tick.

Recently on Amazon I gave one star to a book that 23 others had given 5 stars. The plot was good but the writing was pedestrian.  I skim read it.  That's the trouble with a Kindle, I buy more books that are likely to not be to my taste.  I must put the brake on and be a little more discerning.  Not get fooled by a lot of top stars in one place, note to self check it out elsewhere first.

I have heaps of books in my TBR pile, eek - sometimes I have bought a book twice unknowingly. One in on my Kindle and in paperback. I hate that. Because I have a large TBR pile I am going to begin 2013 by taking part in a challenge directed to whittling down the TBR pile. Really? I guess there won't be any whittling down, because while I am reading from it, I am adding to it.

An InLinkz Link-up