2013 EBook Challenge

The 2013 Ebook Challenge. Encouraging readers to expand past just physical books to embrace ebooks in all forms, whether on Kindle, Kobo, computer, or any other reader.

Challenge Guidelines:

1. This challenge will run from Jan 1, 2013 – Dec 31, 2013.
2. Anyone can join, you don’t need to be a blogger. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to sign-up in the comments. You can post reviews to any book site (i.e. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Goodreads, etc).
3. Any genre or length of book counts, as long as it is in ebook format.
4. You can plan your books in advance or as you read them.
5. When you sign up in the linky, put the direct link to your post about joining the E-Book Reading Challenge.
6. You can move up levels, but no moving down.
7. Sign-ups will be open until Dec 15, 2013, so feel free to join at any time throughout the year.

Levels:

1. Floppy disk – 5 ebooks
2. CD – 10 ebooks
3. DVD – 25 ebooks
4. Memory stick – 50 ebooks
5. Hard drive – 75 ebooks
6. Server – 100 ebooks
7. Human brain – 150 ebooks

At the beginning of each month there will be a roundup post for you to add your reviews for that month. The linky will remain open for the remainder of the year, so if you forget, feel free go back and add them when you remember.

There will be a giveaway at the end of the year for eveyone who achieves their goal level (or higher). If you are an author or publisher and want to contribute to the prize, please contact me.

I got gifted a Kindle at the end of September last year and have been quickly filling it with all the freebie ebooks I find online at sites like the Kindle free 100 books of the day.  This challenge will be ideal to encorage me to get some of the ebooks read instead of just collecting them.

I challenge myself to : 

DVD – 25 ebooks

Would you like to participate.  If so this challenge is being hosted by Workaday Reads and you can sign up here.

Know Me Better - 12 Janurary 2013

"Know Me Better"

Each week I will pick 5 questions off of my author interview list to answers.

I invite you to share your answers to these questions as well.  You can share them as a comment on this post or share them on your own blog and link up to this post.

This Week's Questions:

Where is your favorite spot to read?
Are you a fast or slow reader? (you can test your reading speed here)
Fanfition - Love it or Hate it? Have your ever read/written it?
Summer or Winter?
Truth or Dare?

Know Me Better is a weekly meme hosted by I Am A Reader - Not A Writer.  To participate you can sign up here.

Where is your favourite spot to read?

I like to curl up with a good book on a chair in my lounge with the sun streaming in the window behind me during the day and with my reading lamp to see when it get darks at night time.

Are you a fast or slow reader? 

You read 479 words per minute.

That makes you 92% faster than the national average.

I think how fast you read often depends on what you are reading, the font size etc. I know they say that your reading speed can vary between reading on an e-reader to a paperback book.  I find that I can read a large sized print book alot quicker than I can the same small paper back book with small print.

Fanfiction - Love it or Hate it?  Have you ever read/written it?

I don't think I have every actually read a fanfiction and know much about them.  I have never attempted to write one.

Summer or Winter?

Much as the summers are really hot and the added humidity can be quite unbearable at times I prefer the summer over winter.  I find it can be alot harder to try and get warm and stay warm in the winter time if you are cold especially if your house doesn't have any type of heating.  With winter often comes lots of rainy and windy days which are great if you can be snug and warm inside and can curl up with a good book to read but not so great when you have to be out and about in the wet weather doing things like school drop off and pick ups.

Truth or Dare?

Truth.  Not really a dare and risk taking type of person so rather choose truth and not risk what I might be dared with.I think how fast you read often depends on what you are reading, the font size etc. I know they say that your reading speed can vary between reading on an e-reader to a paperback book.  I find that I can read a large sized print book alot quicker than I can the same small paper back book with small print.

Fanfiction - Love it or Hate it?  Have you ever read/written it?

I don't think I have every actually read a fanfiction and know much about them.  I have never attempted to write one.

Summer or Winter?

Much as the summers are really hot and the added humidity can be quite unbearable at times I prefer the summer over winter.  I find it can be alot harder to try and get warm and stay warm in the winter time if you are cold especially if your house doesn't have any type of heating.  With winter often comes lots of rainy and windy days which are great if you can be snug and warm inside and can curl up with a good book to read but not so great when you have to be out and about in the wet weather doing things like school drop off and pick ups.

Truth or Dare?

Truth.  Not really a dare and risk taking type of person so rather choose truth and not risk what I might be dared with.

2013 Amish Fiction Challenge

2013 Amish Fiction Challenge 

This challenge will begin on January 1st, 2013 and end December 31, 2013.    On January 1, 2014 I'll choose three lucky participants who will receive a special selection of Amish items from here in Ohio's Amish country.  This may include a new Amish novel,  cookbook, a jar of jam/jelly, and/or whatever else I may find on my various trips to Amish country!

Here are the challenge details: 

 1. This challenge will begin on January 1st, 2013 and end December 31, 2013. 

 2. Books for this challenge can be from any genre and may include print books as well as e-books and audio books.

Choose a Level:

• Inspired     6 books
• Smitten    12 books
• Devoted   24 books

 3. This challenge can cross-over to your other reading challenges.

 4. You do not need a blog to participate! If you are not a blogger, you can post your reviews at Goodreads, Shelfari, or LibraryThing and link them up on the monthly review posts or leave a comment with a link to your review.

 5. I will create a new post each month with a link-up for your reviews.

 6. To sign-up use the link below. If you are a blogger, create a sign-up post and link back to this post. If you don't have a blog you can just leave a comment for this post saying that you are joining.

Join the 2013 Amish Fiction Challenge!  The Amish Fiction Challenge is being hosted by Amish Fiction Reviews.  Be sure to sign up here.

I always enjoy reading Amish books so was excited to see this Amish Fiction Challenge and be able to sign up.

I will sign up for :

Smitten    12 books

I will see how I go and how many Amish books I am able to find and may have to increase this to Devoted as the year goes by.

Sew Deadly - Elizabeth Lynn Casey

SEW DEADLY - ELIZABETH LYNN CASEY

Title & Author :  Sew Deadly - Elizabeth Lynn Casey

Publisher :  Center Point Publishing

Genre :  Cozy Mystery

Series :  Southern Sewing Circle - Book 1

ISBN :  978-1-60285-597-7

Format :  Hardcover - Large Print - 351 pages

Source :  Library

BACK COVER SYNOPSIS :

The rules of South Carolina’s Sweet Briar Ladies Society Sewing Circle are hard and fast, and the new Yankee librarian, Tori Sinclair, has a lot of catching up to do.  She’ll also need a Northern-to-Southern dictionary -- and a way to clear her name of murder.

Ever since she moved to Sweet Briar, South Caroline, librarian Tori Sinclair has been the talk of the tiny town.  But she’s been so busy at work, winning over the sewing circle and trying to forget her cheating ex that she hasn’t even had time to baste together a pillow, let alone mind local gossip.  Then she finds the hometown sweetheart dead at her back door...

Everyone believes that police investigator, who’s just fixin’ to link Tori to the murder in a love triangle gone bad.  To clear her name, Tori will have to rely on her new sewing sisters and stitch together the truth -- or be darned.

The appealing women and Southern charm of the Sweet Briar Ladies Society Sewing Circle are sure to win the hearts of cozy mystery lovers.

MY THOUGHTS :

I hadn’t read a cosy mystery in a while and when I happened to come across this book it sounded intriguing so I thought I would check it out.

I always enjoy a story line that involves crafts like sewing, knitting, quilting, scrapbooking etc and as this book is themed around the Southern Sewing Circle ladies I thought it would make for a great read and I wasn’t disappointed.

Tori was the newcomer to Sweet Briar as she has just been appointed the towns new librarian.  She was looking forward to a new start but she had no idea just how challenging that was going to prove to be.  Moving to a new town where everyone has links to the town and have virtually lived there all their lives makes it harder for Tori to try and fit in and try and learn the ways of Sweet Briar.  She also didn’t realize that her new position of the town librarian meant that she had replaced one of the towns ladies and a member of the Southern Sewing Circle ladies that was none too happy about having her job taken away from her and appears to be quite bitter towards Tori.

As if Tori hasn’t got enough of a hard time trying her best to fit into her new job and life in Sweet Briar she then finds herself involved in a murder when she finds the towns beloved sweet heart dead outside the back of the library.  Being the newcomer and nothing quite as dramatic as a murder ever having happened at Sweet Briar, Tori is quickly considered to be the police investigators number one suspect.

Can Tori manage to solve who the murdereer is and also become a member of the Southern Sewing Circle ladies.  To find out the answers you will have to read the book.

Although this was a most enjoyable read if you are used to your typical solve the mystery at the end of the book with finding out who did it and what the motives where etc.. you might be somewhat disappointed at the end of this book that it doesn’t happen in that traditional way.  You do of course get to find out who did it but not what really what the motive for doing so was.

To find out more about Elizabeth Lynn Casey and her Southern Sewing Circle book series you can check them out her website....

http://elizabethlynncasey.com/blog/books/

and join her facebook page...

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Elizabeth-Lynn-Casey/286853572181?ref=ts&fref=ts

I have book two Death Threads in the series waiting in line to be read next so will have a review for that coming up next.

2013 Book to Movie Challege

2013 Book To Movie Challenge is being hosted by Doing Dewey.

Alright folks! Today we have another exciting new first for Doing Dewey! I will be hosting my first ever reading challenge, the 2013 Book to Movie Challenge. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to review books and the movies which they’ve been made into. It’s a tough job, but someone has to let us book lovers know which movies are going to fulfill our dreams of watching our favorite books come to life and which movies are going to ruthlessly shatter those dreams!

To enter, just click through to the linky at the bottom of this post and link to a post on your blog mentioning the challenge and the challenge level you’re attempting. You can change challenge levels at any time and the challenge levels are as follows:

Movie Fan - read 3 books and watch their movies

Movie Devotee - read 6 books and watch their movies

Movie Lover - read 9 books and watch their movies

Movie Aficionado - read 12 books and watch their movies

Click here to enter your link and view this Inlinkz list (feel free to type n/a instead of actually leaving your e-mail)…

I have a few books on my TBR list that I would like to read this year and then watch the movie.  

I am going to sign up for.....

Movie Fan - read 3 books and watch their movies

I will see how I go and may increase this is Movie Devotee later in the year.  

Top of my list as the movie Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks is due to be released in Australia on 14 February I will read the book first and then watch the movie.

2013 Nicholas Sparks Reading Challenge

Reading Challenge Details:

• Runs January 1, 2013 – December 31, 2013 (books read prior to 1/1/2013 do not count towards the challenge). You can join at anytime.  Sign up on The Book Vixen’s blog.
• The goal is to read or re-read as many Nicholas Sparks novels as you’d like. See the different levels below and pick the one that works best for you. You can move up a level as often as you’d like but no moving down.
• Books can be any format (bound, ebook, audio).
• You can list your books in advance or list them as you read them. It is not required that you review the books you read for this challenge but feel free to do so.
• Re-reads and crossovers from other reading challenges are allowed.
• Grab the reading challenge button and post this reading challenge on your blog to track your progress. Please include a link back to this sign-up post so others can join the reading challenge too. You do not have to be a book blogger to participate; you can track your progress on Goodreads or LibraryThing.

Levels:

     First Date – Read 1–4 Nicholas Sparks novels
     Going Steady – Read 5–8 Nicholas Sparks novels
     Engaged – Read 9–12 Nicholas Sparks novels
     Married – Read 13–16 Nicholas Sparks novels

List of Nicholas Sparks novels:

     The Notebook
     Message in a Bottle
     A Walk to Remember
     The Rescue
     A Bend in the Road
     Nights in Rodanthe
     The Wedding
     The Guardian
     Three Weeks With My Brother
     True Believer (read this before At First Sight)
     At First Sight (read this after True Believer)
     The Choice
     Dear John
     The Lucky One
     The Last Song
     Safe Haven
     The Best of Me

Have just been thinking about reading a couple of Nicholas Sparks books so this challenge will work in well with my TBR list.

With the Safe Haven movie due to be released in Australia on 14 February I might start with reading Safe Haven first.  I will also be able to include this in the Book To Movie challenge I have also signed up to participate in.

I am going to sign up for...

First Date – Read 1–4 Nicholas Sparks novels

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This weeks topic is Top Ten Bookish Goals for 2013.

I have quite a few reading goals I aim to achieve in 2012.

1  Maintain and post regularly to my book blogs.  I always have the best of intentions with blogging but don't always manage to keep it up.  Too busy spending any spare time trying to get the books I want to read, read instead of blogging about them.  Got to do better about keeping records of what I read.

2  Complete my 2013 goodreads reading challenge.  I have set myself a challenge of reading 125 books in  2013.  I seem to just manage to complete this challenge in the nick of time so will attempt it again this year and hopefully shouldn't have any trouble being able to complete it again.

3  Read books from my bookshelf and kindle.  I was lucky enough to be gifted with a kindle for my birthday in September and even though I mainly just download the freebie books they seem to be filling up my kindle rather quickly so instead of just collecting the books I really need to start reading some of them.  I also need to empty my bookshelves a little and pass on some of my books.

4  Join bookmooch.  I have been hearing about swapping books on bookmooch so I really should check it out and see about sharing the love and passing on some of my books that I have read so others can also enjoy reading them.

5  Participate in the monthly group reads and chat on the forums at goodreads.

I belong to several book groups on goodreads.  I try to read the monthly book that is selected to be read by the group but don't always manage it on time as I mainly rely on being able to borrow the books to read from my library but unfortunately my library doesn't always stock the books that are selected.  I do my best to read them when I can.  I also need to keep up with the chat on the group more.

6  Complete some of the book series I have started.  I aim to read and complete more of the books series that I have already started.  I am one that likes to read book series in order but that isn't always possible when the library doesn't stock all the books in the series so need to check my booklists and catch up on series I haven't as yet completed.

7  Read more books from different genres.  I tend to mainly read books in particular genres so I need to branch out and read a few more books from different genres for a change.

8  Introduce yet more new authors to my reading list.  I aim to continue adding new must read authors to my ever growing of favourite authors list that I simply must read each new book that they write.

9  Keep introducing new books to my mother and sister to read.  I encouranged my sister to sign up with goodreads so I can see what she is reading and be able to introduce new authors to her.  She hasn't posted in a while so need to encourage her to keep reading.

10  Read the book then see the movie.  I have a few books on my to be read list that I want to read and then see the movie.  Movies can vary so much to the book that I want to be able to read the book first before seeing the movie.

So what are your top ten reading goals for 2013?