Half Year In Review + Giveaway Winner!

I had been finding it hard to believe the summer was already here, but the weather outside (humidex of 42C) is pleasantly reminding me that it is indeed here. This means I've been blogging about books for half a year now, and I've been enjoying it so much. I've met so many great book bloggers, read tons of books and added TONS of books to my to read list. I'm so glad that all of you are following along my reading journey and I hope that you've found some good reads through my blog.

At the beginning of the year I set some reading challenges for myself for the year, the first time I've done this. So now it's time to check in and see how I'm doing.

Challenge #1 - Read 100 books.

Well, I won't list them all but so far I've read 55 books so I'm on track with this one. I'm hoping the summer will mean even more reading for me, but so far that hasn't been the case.

Challenge #2 - A-Z Titles

So far I have D,E,J,K,Q,R,U,V, and Z left to read. But I do have books lined up for each letter so I should be good for this one. I did cheat a tiny bit with X though - The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund. I think that should be ok.

Challenge #3 - Read 20 Canadian Books

I have read 12 Canadian books so far and I have found some great books along the way. This challenge was much easier than I thought it would be (I hadn't read much Canadian literature before.) I have also signed up to do The Canadian Book Challenge 4 at The Book Mine Set, pledging to read 13 Canadian books by Canada Day next year!

Challenge #4 - Read 3 Classics and Challenge #5 - Read 5 books from the BBC Big Read

Well, I've combined these two challenges for here because so far I've only read one book that counts toward both lists - The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. But I also have some books lined up for both of these challenges so I should be able to achieve this by the end of the year.

And now we get to........

***The Giveaway Winner***

So after assigning numbers in the order of the comments and then using a random number generator, the winner of the Sins of the Mother giveaway is.......Joy! I will email you soon to get your information!

Comments

  1. Julie PJuly 5, 2010 at 6:15 PM

    Great progress on your challenges, Shan! Keep up the great work.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. DonnaJuly 5, 2010 at 11:58 PM

    Congratulations on your challenge progress. I'm sure you are encouraged by knowing that you're on track. I've seen "Sins of the Mother" but I'll have to reacquaint myself with the plot. Have a good week.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JessicaJuly 6, 2010 at 6:11 AM

    Thanks for the Canadian challenge info, might take that one up myself

    ReplyDelete
  4. ShanJuly 6, 2010 at 11:57 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ShanJuly 6, 2010 at 12:13 PM

    Julie - thanks for the encouragement!

    Donna - It's definitely encouraging, keeping a list has really helped me with my challenges.

    Jessica -it seems like a great challenge, and there is a list posted of all the books people read in last years challenge, I'm definitely going to have to go through that list.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Joy Tamsin DavidJuly 7, 2010 at 10:37 PM

    This is the first time I've won a blog giveaway! Thanks so much! :)

    ReplyDelete

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