Every Saturday Sherry over at Semicolon provides a forum called the Saturday Review of Books for bloggers to post a link to their book reviews for the week. It is an opportunity for bloggers to see what others have been reading as well as perhaps garner some extra attention to one's own blog.
Sherry had the great idea of creating a challenge to encourage contributors on her blog to read some of the books that other bloggers had read and reviewed. Participants were to read six books from the year long list of books that had linked reviews on the site. The challenge was aptly called The Saturday Review of Books Challenge.
I did my best with this one and just could not pull through in the end. I managed to read four of the six books I planned to read.
My Saturday Review of Books Challenge List
1. Persuasion by Jane Austen
2. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (unread)
4. Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos
5. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (unread)
6. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
I enjoyed each of the books I read for this challenge quite a bit, but Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos wins first prize. I loved everything about the book: the writing, the story, the characters, and the setting.
I still plan to read the two on the list I did not get to, The Road and A Thousand Splendid Suns, but that will be for another day.
A special thanks to Sherry for hosting The Saturday Review of Books Challenge. I hope you will consider doing it again sometime!
I really did try to get through Persuasion but with the holidays and all it couldn't keep my attention.
ReplyDeleteI think you have done pretty well with those reading challenges, Wendy, considering you have participated in several of them! I have a few that I haven't even completed, and that reminds me I need to post about the wrap ups soon.
ReplyDeleteJen - Hopefully you'll be able to get into it when things slow down. It sometimes takes a while to step into Austen's world, I've found. :-) And Persuasion gets off to a bit of a slow start.
ReplyDeleteMelody - Thanks, Melody. I wish I had been able to complete this one, but I think I did the best I could under the circumstances. I'm not letting myself think of it as a failure, just a good attempt. :-)
I think you've done really well with your various challenges too. You can't complete them all! Or at least that's been my motto for this year. ;P
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to reading some Austen next year and I plan to read The Road next year too.
I'm glad you posted about Sherry's Saturday Review. I've been meaning to add my reviews, but keep forgetting. I just put a post-it note on my screen to remind me.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on reading 2/3 of your list. Four is better than zero, right?! I'm adding Broken for You to my TBR list. Thanks for the suggestion.
Tanabata - Thanks. Seeing that other people didn't quite complete all their challenged eased my anxiety about it tremendously. I hate starting something I can't finish, but I'm learning that it is sometimes okay, especially when it comes to the challenges. :-)
ReplyDeleteBooklogged - I really like how Sherry has the Saturday Review set up. I've gotten in the habit of stopping over there every weekend to check in.
And thank you! Yes, four is definitely better than zero. And it's more than half! I'm trying to think of it that way. :-)
I'm due to read A Thousand Splendid Suns in December 2008 with Bookfest. I'll be looking forward to your review of it, assuming it will come much sooner than 12-08! ;)
ReplyDeleteCarrie - I am hoping to read it by then. I've really been looking forward to that book.
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