Reading Challenges: a help or a hurt? Do you find that the reading challenges keep you organized and goal-oriented? Or, do you find that as you near the end of a challenge that you’ve failed because you fell short of your original goals? As a result of some reading challenges, I’ve picked up books that I would have otherwise never heard of or picked up; that, frankly, I have loved. Have you experienced the same with challenges? If so, which ones? Do you have favorite reading challenges?
I really liked Caribousmom‘s questions for herself in this meme so I used them as well.
Do I feel stressed if I cannot finish a challenge?
A little. I like to complete what I start, but I’ve started to relax a bit more in this area.
Why do I like reading challenges?
I love challenges. They push me to read books that have long been on my tbr list as well as books I may never have read on my own.
What are my favorite challenges?
My favorite challenge for 2007 was the By the Decade Challenge because I read 18 books from 18 consecutive decades. I was very pleased with that accomplishment. I had really wanted to read some of the classics and I was definitely able to do that in 2007.
In 2008, my favorite challenge was the Canadian I Challenge hosted by John at The Book Mine Set. With all the Atwood, Shields, and other fantastic women Canadian novelists’ books I want to read, I foresee doing this challenge every year for quite a while.
“And where would we be in a world without the old Botswana morality? It would not work, in Mma Romatswe’s view, because it would mean that people could do as they wished without regard for what others thought. That would be a receipe for selfishness, a recipe as clear as if it were written out in a cookery book: Take one country, with all that the country means, with its kind people, and their smiles, and their habits of helping one another; ignore all this; shake about; add modern ideas; bake until ruined.”
It is clear from this series that Alexander McCall Smith loves Botswana and the people in it. His respect is such that with each book that I read, he makes me want to visit Botswana someday all the more.
In this installment, we have an advice columnist, a cook, a hornbill, high blood pressure, uncomfortable chairs, and questions about being ‘traditionally built’ and feminism. Good fun as always!
One of my favorite challenges is the Once Upon a Time Challenge, hosted by Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings. This is the third year, and I enjoyed all three years tremendously. Carl had a number of ways to participate in the challenge, and I chose ‘Quest the First,” where I chose 5 books from the fantasy, folklore, fairy tales, or mythology genres.
The books I read:
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (review to come)
I must confess that I read this book to kill three birds with one stone. I needed a ‘Y’ title, a Canadian book, and a fantasy book so I could fit it into three challenges. I had always wanted to read de Lint anyway, so it seemed like a good fit. But, it really wasn’t. This was my first foray into urban fantasy and while I’m not giving up on it yet, I don’t know if I really like the genre.
Cat Midhir is an isolated Canadian fantasy writer who finds inspiration through her dreams. Suddenly, though, she has a severe writer’s block and cannot find the reason for it. She confides in Peter, a bookshop owner, and the two become friends. Peter helps her to open up and even thinks he can fix her up with his friend Ben. Meanwhile, Cat soon realizes she is being stalked and is afraid to go to her own home at night. Afraid of being alone, she begins spending more and more time with Peter.
This story actually reminded me a bit of Lisey’s Story by Stephen King. I was uncomfortable with aspects of that story, and was even more so with this one. Yarrow was much too gritty for my taste, but I’m usually in the minority on that score. On the positive side, de Lint knows how to build characters. I really, really liked the ‘good guys’ in this and really hated the bad ones. I probably will try at least one more of de Lint’s books before I make a final judgment. Any suggestions?
The Bloggiesta was a great idea for an event, and I’m really looking forward to the next one because I know it’ll be a lot less stressful. Thanks, Natasha, for all your hard work! Thanks also to those who hosted mini-challenges as well.
Yes, I managed to stay up all night last night for the Bloggiesta! Unintentionally, of course. If you haven’t heard, here’s the post about how I lost 7 months of my blog. How’s that for an anchor post?! (I couldn’t resist some middle of the night humor.)
These lemons are a bit bitter, so I decided to make lemonade! I’ve found out a few tips for you if you ever lose your blog:
Go to your google feedreader and go as far back as you can for your own blog (hopefully you subscribe to it yourself). I couldn’t believe it when I got to the end of mine and it was the DAY BEFORE the posts that got cut off. I almost cried to have them all there.
Then, start copying and pasting in your oldest posts, because if you start with the most recent, you’ll cut off the older ones because your feed can only hold so much memory.
If you’re like me and have backdated reviews (a bad idea I’ve learned), go to google and enter in your blog name and the book title. You may get lucky if the results show your link. But don’t click on it, just click on the ‘cache’ underneath it. It should come up with your post. Yay — I got VERY lucky. All five of the reviews I wanted were there!
I decided that since I basically lost all my categories, I was going to put most of those in the tags instead. Then, I’ll set up a redirection for the categories to point to the tags. Tags are much easier to enter when I put in ‘s’ title, ‘r’ author, 5 stars, 2000s, and 0-199pp. I just started reorganizing how I’m going to do that. I’ll put setting and original language in the tags as well. Then, when I get finished re-entering all my posts, I’ll have a really nice tag cloud for my blog. I really like the 3-D tag clouds.
I then went to my gmail trash and found all the comments for my blog that were still there. It only went back to early May, but it’s something. I’ll logout of my account and re-enter the comments as they were entered by the commenter.
So, all is not lost. A lot of it is, but I’m grateful for what I can recover! Also during the weekend, I did a few other Bloggiesta activities:
Updated the Book Awards Challenge site sidebars to reflect the most recent winners and put links up to show where the lists were in wikipedia or other sites. (About 1.5 hours)
Helped a friend find and tweak a new theme. (About 2 hours)
Had an avocado and a couple of burritos with hot sauce during the weekend, but sadly, no beer or margaritas to go with them. (About .5 hours)
Time spent finding out the reasons for the omissions and recovering a few posts (At least 12 hours)
Although I was heartbroken over losing part of my blog, I’m kind of looking forward to the changes I’m going to make to my site. And hopefully, my experience will help others not suffer the same catastrophe and/or know a little bit of what to do if it does occur.
"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27, ESV)
This week’s Weekly Geeks is inspired by Sheri at A Novel Menagerie:
