The Queen's Vow Read-Along

July 7, 2012 - July 21, 2012

The Read Along at HF-Connection for July has been announced, and we welcome anyone with thoughts on the book to read along and comment on the posts when they get a chance.

The Schedule:

Kick off Reading day is July 7th, 2012

July 10: Page 128 (end of part I) First discussion post

July 14: Page 215 (end of part II) Second discussion post

July 17: Page 299 (end of part III) Third discussion post

July 21: Page 382 (end of part IV) Fourth discussion post

Wrap up post will follow shortly after, which is where readers can link up their reviews if they would like, and the giveaway winner will be announced.

The schedule follows the "parts" divided within the novel, and the discussion posts will post in the mornings of Tuesday and Saturday and you can discuss anything you would like from the novel up to those parts in the schedule, whenever you get to those parts.

There will be spoiler warnings in the post for those that have not reached the reading point in the schedule.
Feel free to invite your friends, and you may use the following image to link to if you would like to announce the read-along on your blog or just link to it in your sidebar.
This reading challenge/event is hosted by Historical Fiction Connection. For more information and to sign-up, please see this post.

Anna Karenina Read Along

July 1, 2012 - July 31, 2012

How It Works

This is summer, so we are keeping it fun and easy. There will not be any official questions, although I will post some each week if you would like to use them for conversation starters. We will each write up our thoughts on the book on the scheduled dates and link up. If you link up within a few days of the scheduled date, that is fine too.
You DO NOT have to be a blogger to participate. You can sign up by using a link to where you will be posting. ie: Goodreads, Amazon, Shelfari, etc.
We will use the hashtag #ReadingAnnaKarenina on Twitter.

Post and Reading Schedule

Start Up Post/Announcement Post – Now through July 1
1st Post for Parts 1 and 2 – July 7
2nd Post for Parts 3 and 4- July 14
3rd Post for Parts 5 and 6- July 21
4th For Parts 7 and 8- July 28
Final Review – July 31

This reading challenge/event is hosted by Five Alarm Book Reviews. For more information and to sign-up, please see this post.

High Summer Read-a-thon

July 16, 2012 – July 22, 2012

• books read must be novels or novellas, adult or young adult are fine, but no children's books.  Of course, non-fiction is fine too.
• You DO NOT have to participate the entire week.  Join in when you can, start in the middle, end early...whatever works best for your schedule.
• I will not be hosting any mini-challenges during the read-a-thon.  Trying to keep it more about the reading here by eliminating time spent completing mini-challenges.
• There will be a participant giveaway at the end of the read-a-thon for those who sign in at the starting line and complete a wrap-up post.  Number of winners will be determined by the number of prize donations I receive.
• Other participants may host their own mini-challenges/giveaways, but participation in these is entirely optional.
• You do not have to have a blog to participate. You can sign-up, sign-in, and wrap-up...all from Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads. You can also do updates from those locations, if you do not have a blog.
• we will be on Twitter during the read-a-thon, tweeting under#HSreadathon  We had some nice little reading sprints last time on Twitter.  No prizes, just bragging rights.  Fun!

This reading challenge/event is hosted by The True Book Addict. For more information and to sign-up, please see this post.

Carol Shields Month Reading Event

June 2, 2012 – July 16, 2012

Carol Shields is a favorite author of mine. She was born June 2, 1935, and died July 16, 2003. Between those dates of this year, I’d like to encourage readers to read at least one book by Carol Shields. Her writing is amazing, and  I would love to introduce you to her if you haven’t experienced her novels before. And if you have already, why not read more? My personal favorite is Unless.

Her novels include:

• Small Ceremonies, 1976 (winner of the Canadian Author’s Association Award)
• The Box Garden, 1977 (Later published in a joint edition with Small Ceremonies as Duet)
• Happenstance, 1980
• A Fairly Conventional Woman, 1982 (Later published as a joint edition with Happenstance as Happenstance.
• Swann: A Mystery, 1987 (UK title: Mary Swann)(Arthur Ellis Award for Best Canadian Mystery, 1988)
• A Celibate Season, 1991 (with Blanche Howard)
• The Republic of Love, 1992
• The Stone Diaries, 1993 (winner of the Governor General’s Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize)
• Larry’s Party, 1997 (winner of the Orange Prize, and the Prix de Livre)
• Unless, 2002 (winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, shortlisted in 2002 Man/Booker Prize and ScotiaBank/Giller Prize, and shortlisted in 2003 Orange Prize)

Short story collections:

• Words, 1985
• Various Miracles, 1985
• The Orange Fish, 1989
• Dressing Up for the Carnival, 2000
• Collected Stories, 2004.

Biography:

• Jane Austen, 2001

She’s also written poetry and plays but I won’t list them here. If you’d like more info about them or Carol Shields in general, you can visit her wikipedia page.

All you have to do to participate is read one or more books by Carol Shields. Then, come back here and post your review(s) in Mr. Linky or the comments. I will have an icon on the top right hand side of my blog so you can easily find this post again.

This reading challenge/event is hosted by 1 More Chapter. For more information and to sign-up, please see this post.

Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms Read-a-long

June 1, 2012 – June 30, 2012

June is here!  Welcome.  We’d like to invite participants and non-participants to join this month’s Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms read-a-long.

If you’d like to sign up to let us know you are participating, leave you name and blog (if you have one) in the comments below.

Questions will be posted each Friday at the end of the week’s reading.  Here’s the reading schedule:

Week 1 — June 1-8 Chapters 1-10

Week 2 — June 9-15 Chapters 11-20

Week 3 — June 16-22 Chapters 21-30

Week 4 — June 23-29 Chapters 31-41

The first round of questions and discussion will be on June 8.  See you next week!

This reading challenge/event is hosted by War Through the Generations. For more information and to sign-up, please see this post.