reading challenge

2020 Reading Challenge!

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2020 Reading Challenge: Color & 2020 Reading Challenge: Black & White

My mother is blasting her cassette tapes of ancient Christmas music, my father is wandering around in Seattle’s winter rain to plug in our holiday lights, and an elderly cat wearing a snowflake bowtie screams at me whenever I try to move him off my lap. All of these are sure signs that 2019 will be soon be over, and that the literary year of 2020 will soon begin!

I apologize for not updating this site very frequently (read: not at all) during the past few months. Alas, my entry into grad school life has left me unable to work on much of anything outside of my actual classwork, and this pattern is likely to continue. However, I will do my best to write as many updates as I can in 2020!

Unfortunately, grad school has also left me far short of completing 2019’s reading challenge categories, with only 47 out 75 (although I aim to get through a few more before New Year’s!). Successfully completing this year’s categories would certainly have been a satisfying victory. However, the actual purpose of the challenge is to push us out of our usual reading bubbles and make us consciously seek to expand the diversity of our reading material. And so, even if a reader only makes it through ten books, the challenge can still be a successful one, so long as those goals were achieved.

With that thought in mind, both Colleen and I are bound and determined to once again take on our own WSBC Reading Challenge in 2020—and we invite you to do so as well!

In the PDFs above which you can print out to track your progress, the reading challenge has been broken into three levels, so you can shoot for 25, 50, or 75 categories. Choose whatever level will be the best fit for you! Since the two of us live in the U.S., it is pretty U.S.-centric in a few categories, so feel free to adjust as necessary for all geographical needs. And lastly, if you feel that certain categories should have been included, please add them or swap them around for yourself! Sadly, we do have to cut many ideas we would like to include.

Happy reading!

Seattle Public Library Summer Book Bingo 2019

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Hello, all! I’ve been a little swamped ever since my last post in mid-August, which is why (as you might have already figured out) I haven’t written any posts since mid-August! The main event prompting this radio silence was my move from Seattle to Boston (via a very intense 5-day road trip), which was itself prompted by my starting grad school for two degrees: library science in youth services and writing for children and young adults. How exciting! And how exhausting.

Unfortunately, this event also coincided with the weeks usually occupied by my annual “race to the finish” for the Seattle Public Library/Seattle Arts and Lectures Summer Book Bingo. Tragically, my need to pack up my entire life demanded I put my bingo card aside this year and instead spend my time making elaborate packing lists, hunting online for furniture, shopping for all that random stuff you previously didn’t even think about needing until suddenly your entire life needs to be transported in a car, and, most importantly, spending as many hours as I could with my friends. And so my unbroken blackout record of the past three summers has come to an end—but at least I still got a few bingos!

Since I am now a busy grad student and you, dear reader, are no doubt a busy person yourself for your own unique reasons, I’m going to keep the rest of this post short. Each square I actually managed to check off on my bingo card gets one sentence.

Let’s go.

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Challenge Check-In: August 7th, 2019

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How’s your reading challenge going?  For the past 3 months I’ve been traveling non-stop around Europe (the British Isles, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy), so my checked-off categories continue to look pretty dismal compared to the full 75 which I’m still hoping to complete. Somehow Colleen’s list of checked-off categories is still in good form, despite her two very busy part-time jobs this summer leaving her hardly any free hours to read—which I suppose are the benefits of hitting those categories hard in the first few months of the year. Alas, we sometimes have to admit that living life to the fullest and reading dozens of fabulous books are goals which do not always align!

We’re hoping our category fillers will help you find some suitable candidates for your own reading challenge—and to that end, we’ve included a few quick reviews of our favorite reads. Hopefully you’ll find some winners of your own as you rack up categories over the next few months! Best wishes, and happy reading!

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2019 Reading Challenge Check-In: April 9th

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How’s your reading challenge going? Now that we’re three months into 2019, my friend Colleen and I have put together a quick look at where our reading challenges are at so far. Hers is most definitely in excellent form, while mine is rather dismal to behold. But there’s another nine months to go, and plenty of time to catch up for all of us!

We’re hoping our category fillers will help you find some suitable candidates for your own reading challenge—and to that end, we’ve included a few quick reviews of our favorite reads. Hopefully you’ll find some winners of your own as you rack up categories over the next few months! Best wishes, and happy reading!

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2019 Reading Challenge!

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2019 Reading Challenge: Color & 2019 Reading Challenge: Black & White

It’s that time of year again: the time to say, “You know what? I don’t think I’ve read enough books this year. Or if I have, I bet I could have been reading more books that I wouldn’t usually think to read!” At least, that’s what you might say if you’re a couple of huge nerds who recently decided their ultimate birthday celebration included a trip to the local bookstore. (We regret nothing!) But whether or not that sounds like you, we’d still be absolutely thrilled to have you join us for our 2019 Reading Challenge!

In the PDFs above that you can print out to track your progress, the reading challenge has been broken into three levels, so you can shoot for 25, 50, or 75 categories. Choose whatever level will be the best fit for you! Since the two of us live in the U.S., it is pretty U.S.-centric in a few categories, so feel free to adjust as necessary for all geographical needs. And lastly, if you feel that certain categories should have been included, please add them or swap them around for yourself! Sadly, we do have to cut many ideas we would like to include.

Happy reading!