Bout of Books 9.0 Goals

So Bout of Books 9.0 starts in a bit over a week from now and I thought I'd get my goals / to-read list up early. If you don't know what Bout of Books is.. well sign up! You can find more details here :) It starts January 6th, which is also my first day back at school. I have a graduate admissions application due that week.. so it will be quite a busy week. I am going to try and get a good chunk of my readings done beforehand so I have a lot of time for the read-a-thon, but I cannot make any promises. This is my first read-a-thon ever, so I thought I would ease into it. So instead, I made some pretty easy and small goals that I think I can accomplish.

Goals for Bout of Books 9.0

• Read a minimum of 6 books. (My to-read list will be at the bottom of this post)
• Participate in at least one of the twitter chats. (I am in class during one and at work during the other)
• Participate in at least two of the challenges. (I think that is a reasonable number) 
• Make an update post everyday during the read-a-thon. 

My To-Read List

Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken
Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Outpost and Horde by Ann Aguirre
Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers 

I read The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken earlier this year and I really loved it, so I really want to read the sequel to that during this time. I also read Beautiful Creatures.. and I own the entire box set but I want to pace myself with this series cause I want to watch the movie as well, so I am going to include the next and second book in the series. I also want to finish up a dystopian trilogy I started during the summer and that is the Razorland series: Outpost and Horde. And lastly, I really want to start Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph after hearing a lot of good things about them. Clearly.. my to read list is mostly sequels/finishing up series/starting a series.. basically series related! 

I will also be reading some books for school during this time period, so I will include those in my daily updates as well if they happen to coincide. And if by some lucky chance I finish all of these books before the read-a-thon is over, I am going to leave it up to how I am feeling that certain day and time to pick my next read. 

And that is about it. Let me know in the comments what your goal is for Bout of Books 9.0 and if you are going to participate! :D 

2013 Reading Challenge Completed!

So I reached a pretty exciting milestone last night.. I reached my 2013 Reading Challenge. It is a challenge on goodreads where you set for yourself the amount of books you want to complete for the year. I originally wanted to do 120 books for the year and aim for 10 books each month.. but I decided to only try for 100 this year AND I just reached the goal last night. It is absolutely amazing and I am so proud of myself. A lot of it is from reading a book a week from school and homework, but that is okay, but also the larger chunk of it is simply from how much reading I got done this summer all on my own. (Well I did it so I could pick up my speed in reading considering how much reading needs to get done in grad school under time constraints).

2013 Reading Challenge

Christine has completed her goal of reading 100 books in 2013!

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100 of 100 (100%)

view books

I am now debating whether to raise my reading goals for 2014 or keep it the same. It feels awesome to have read so many books and slowly knock down my ever growing tbr pile.. (which is seriously growing by the day.. the amount of books I have accumulated within the past two days alone is a scary number). I think setting goals for the new year in terms of reading is an awesome idea.. and if you know that something comes up in life, well you can always adjust that number anytime throughout the year. I definitely recommend you give it a try. Let me know if you reached your reading goal for this year and what your reading goal for next year will be. :)

Project For Awesome 2013!

So Project for Awesome launched not too long ago. There are some seriously great perks this year. I really wanted the TFIOS one, but it sold out so quickly. But nerdfighters have no fear, there are other great perks related to John Green. Anyways, before I continue on my ramble even more, let me take a step back and explain what it is I am talking about.

Project for Awesome is a project started by the vlogbrothers, John & Hank Green which is to raise money to decrease world suck. Theres an indiegogo page with a lot of perks for donating (mostly donated by youtubers and authors). I highly recommend giving the indiegogo page a look located HERE! This will be my second year donating. I got a pdf file of short stories by John Green last year and it was emailed to me shortly after it ended, so if you are worried about how long it takes for perks to arrive, it is listed depending on each perk. I highly recommend you take a look because it is a great cause and it is the perfect time of the year to give back ;)

Let me know in the comments which perk you donated for!


Check out my books on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/profile/kurrsteeney

Bout of Books 9.0

Read-a-thons are pretty new to me and were only introduced to me through the world of booktube. I've decided to join one this year because a friend of mine is doing it, Alysia. And I was hesitant as to if I could keep up with it, but I think it will be more fun knowing someone in real life doing it as well. So I decided to do the Bout of Books 9.0 Read-A-Thon 1/6 to 1/12 this year. What is it you ask?

From the blog it states: The Bout of Books Read-a-Thon was created by Amanda @ On a Book Bender on a complete whim in August 2011*. It took on a life of its own and was such a hit that Amanda decided to do it again and turn it into a somewhat regular occurrence.

• Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, usually from 12:01am on a Monday through 11:59pm on a Sunday in whatever time zone you are in.
• It is low pressure, meaning participants are only asked to push themselves to read more than they normally would during any given week. There is no competition between readers.
• How much time a reader wants, and can commit, to read, tweet, or network with fellow bloggers is left to individual preference. All challenges and giveaways are optional.
• Networking with fellow bloggers is actively encouraged, though never required.
• Use Twitter to post updates throughout the read-a-thon. Everyone will be tweeting with the #boutofbooks hashtag.

I am super excited about this. I am going to post my reading list soon after I take a look through everything. School also starts up again that week that this starts, so I am going to make sure I get all of my school readings done beforehand so that the week is free for reading! :) Go over to the site here  and sign up today! :D

Check out my books on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/profile/kurrsteeney

Putting Audio books to the Vote!

So you are all probably wondering, where have I been? Well.. living life. If you classifying drowning in homework and work work living. I did not want to neglect the blog, but it happened sadly. But here I am again! And I want to talk about audio books today. I always knew there was audio books but never thought anything of it, because 1) I much prefer having an actual physical book, 2) audio books are expensive and 3) who has a cd-player lying around anymore to listen to them? (I surely don't). So yeah, to me they weren't anything special to begin with, that is, until I started driving. I drive to school and to work weekly and the commute adds up to like 5-6 hours a week, and I was getting pretty sick and tired of the same old boring radio music, so I thought why not get an audio book. I will also note here that the influence from various booktubers listening to audio books added to my interest.

I placed an order online and got Coraline by Neil Gaiman AND read by Neil Gaiman. (If you are looking for a good book, one of my favorites might I add, for a first audio book experience for a good price, I recommend chapters/indigo online). I had read Coraline countless times before and it is one of my favorite books. And let me say, having it read to me by Neil Gaiman himself was amazing. His voice is so animating that just really immerses the reader into that world. I loved it! And I finished it within 4 days of commuting. Since then, I have added a few more audio books to my collection. I like it when its a book and it has the author narrating it, it feels more personal. The commuting to places is a lot more enjoyable listening to a story rather than hearing wrecking ball on loop on all radio channels. 

So, am I converted now? An audio book lover? Yes and no. I like audio books for books that I have already read in physical form as a means of rereading it and I also prefer to have the author narrate it for a more personal experience. At the end of the day, I will always prefer a physical, tangible book. But it does not hurt to have an audio book here and there. I feel super productive "reading" while doing something that does not feel entirely productive like driving. So yeah, if you were hesitant about it, give it a try. Now is a good time to add that to your holiday wishlist! ;)