Category: Site Announcements
Autumn: The City by David Moody
Today I’m guest posting over at 20four12 again, this time I’m reviewing the sequel to the first book I reviewed over there: Autumn: The City by David Moody. It’s a non-traditional zombie tale that never, ever uses the dreaded Z word. So how effective is David Moody at creating suspense? Well, let’s just say I’ve never been held in that much suspense since I read my first Stephen King novel. While you’re over at Caleb’s awesome blog, check out his other reviews. He’s read far more science fiction than I ever will!
Are You a Blogger?
No, sadly, this is not my usual Monday rant. Yes, I am currently ready to call a certain someone unprintable names, but I figure it’s best to ignore them as they obviously have the reading comprehension and manners of a five year old. Maybe I’ll get back to ranting after the Christmas spirit wears off.
Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. Here are some important announcements/questions for your reading pleasure:
1. Would you be interested in being interviewed by me?
If you’re a book blogger or an author that blogs about books and writing, I would love to interview you. Why? Because I like doing interviews and I want to give my fellow bloggers/author-bloggers some publicity. It also gives my readers a chance to discover other great blogs. So if you’re interested in being interviewed, tell me below in the comments and I’ll be happy to get in touch with you.
2. I’ve figured out the prize for completing The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge!
(A big thanks goes to James Kennedy who suggested this in the comments!) Here’s what I will be doing: when you complete your challenge and another blogger completes the challenge on the same level or close to you I will put you in touch with one another. You can then guest post for each other either about the challenge (what you learned from it, if you might do it next year) or just exchange reviews. But how the grand prize is going to work is as follows:
Everyone who achieves Mad Reviewer earns 4 entries, Crazy Reviewer earns 3 entries, Slightly Sane Reviewer earns 2 entries and Sane Reviewer earns 1 entry. I will put the names of the bloggers who have completed the challenge (and I have verified that they were honest) in a hat and draw one. I’ll even do it on video so there are no complaints about honesty. So what is the grand prize?
The grand prize will be a book blogger’s prize pack of a free book of your choice with the option of me to put my own annotations in it (some people like reading others’ annotations, but if you don’t like it, that’s cool too) and promotion on my blog. Yes, it’s not exactly a large prize pack, but what I will do that other contest holders won’t is ship anywhere in the world, not just North America. The promotion on my blog can be for either your blog or if you have a book out, I’ll promote that.
If more people enter next year’s challenge, I’ll likely up the prizes. But for this first year I’ll stick with a free book and some promotion.
3. Would you like to guest post for me?
Guest posting can be a drain on bloggers. Believe me, I would know. That’s why when someone guest posts for me, I always return the favour. It helps both of us because we both get exposed to new readers and our readers get to read someone else’s thoughts. I’ve had two amazing semi-regular guest posters, Caleb Flanagan and The Streetlight Reader, but a little variety is always nice. For more information about guest posting, please check out this post.
4. I will be posting a short story I wrote on Christmas.
I had intended on reviewing a Christmas-y book for Christmas, but I changed my mind. I’m going to post a short story I wrote a couple years ago that I think a lot of writers and conspiracy theorists will be able to relate to. It’s around 300 words and that’s all I’m going to say about it at this time. If you celebrate Christmas, think of it as my Christmas present to you. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, think of it either a special treat or torture, depending on whether you enjoy it or not.
My Teaching Experience
As you guys may know from my post on Saturday, I got to teach a few classes at the school on ancient Egypt. No, I have no teaching credentials; I am only an enthusiastic amateur. But I figured why not? Teaching taught me two things about myself:
1. I really don’t like kids in general.
2. My expectations of what a teenager in the ninth grade should know are obviously far too high.
But more on that later. Now that I’m done stressing it’s time for a break. Then I’ll be back to ranting on Friday when I’m coherent enough to post about reading and reading comprehension (or lack thereof).
The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge
Yes, it is very narcissistic to name a reading challenge after myself, but frankly all the good names were taken and I’m not one to plagiarize. So what’s my challenge for myself and for anyone who wants to participate? Well, here it is:
The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge is to read and review (either on Goodreads, Amazon or your own blog) 104 books in one year starting January 1, 2013 and ending December 31, 2013.
Yes, this is an insane amount of books and I know that not many people may be able to achieve it. That’s why there are different levels you can strive for:
1. Mad Reviewer: 104 books in one year. (2 books a week all year.)
2. Crazy Reviewer: 52 books in one year. (1 book a week all year.)
3. Slightly Sane Reviewer: 26 books in one year. (1 book every fortnight all year.)
4. Sane Reviewer: 12 books in one year. (1 book every month all year.)
Got that? So, of course, there are some rules to go along with it:
1. Self-published, independently published and traditionally published books are all completely acceptable. You can even read them on an e-reader.
2. No audiobooks. The point is to read books, not have someone reading to you.
3. I don’t have a sign-up form like many reading challenges, but if you have a blog you can copy and paste the code below into a text widget:
Goal: 104 books read and reviewed<br>
Current: 0<br>
<div style=”height:15px;background:#A9D0F5;border:solid;”>
<div style=”background:#3366FF;color:white;width:0;”><b>0</b>
</div>
</div>
(A huge thanks goes to Stacking Pennies for the initial format of the progress bar.)
This is the one I used, but you can of course modify it to fit your goal. Don’t have a blog? Don’t worry. Just keep track of all the books you read somewhere and comment on my year-end post on December 31. I’m trusting you guys to stay honest, but if I need to I’ll check out whether you actually posted reviews.
4. Everyone who achieves their goal will be entered into a draw for a grand prize, provided by me. What that prize is I’m not sure yet, but it will obviously be book related. If you have any suggestions for a possible prize, please let me know!
5. You can review your books on any site. Your own blog, Goodreads, someone else’s blog, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. The point is just to review the books you read!
So who wants to sign up? Just post your intentions in the comments below and what level you want to aim for. Personally, I’m going to go for ‘Mad Reviewer’ because I really should earn my name.
It would also be great if you could publicize this in any way possible because I want as many people in my draw as possible. Obviously being Freshly Pressed would be too much to hope for, but I can still dream, can’t I?
Taking a Break
Right now I really have nothing to say. I’ve been prepping for a class (only 2 periods, but still) I was asked to teach at the local school, so I obviously haven’t gotten any reading done. I’ll be back posting tomorrow but right now I’m too busy working and avoiding the internet and television.
In case any of you were wondering, I’ve been asked to come in for two classes and teach the kids a bit about ancient Egypt. It’s their current Social Studies unit and I’m the local ‘expert’ (read: enthusiastic amateur) on ancient Egypt. We’ll see how it turns out.