Today, as part of Literary Love 2014, I’d like to share some of the upcoming bookish events I’m looking forward to, as well as some of the recurring events I’ve loved in the past.

I always love read-a-thons. They’re both a great way to interact with other bloggers and a little push to read instead of watching TV in the evenings. The Love For Books Read-a-thon this weekend will include at least one mini-challenge and a giveaway. I’m excited to get started! I’d also like to mention Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon which is a ton of fun and takes place every April and October. There’s also an Ides of March read-a-thon coming up that I plan to jump into.

I also really love read-alongs. One of the best parts of blogging is getting to discuss books you’ve read with other people and a read-along is a great way to find other people reading the same book. Cornethia of The CORN-versation is currently running a The House Girl read-along which I’d love to get caught up on if I have the time this week. A great place to find read-alongs is the Book Buddies group started by Anya at On Starships and Dragonwings.

Finally, there are random, fun themed events that I’m looking forward to or have enjoyed in the past. In April, Cayce of Fighting Dreamer will be running a month long LGBT reading event, which I might join. Although I’m trying to read more LGBT books, I’m not sure if I’ll be reading enough for a month long event! I’m also looking forward to reading at least one book by Stephen King as part of an event that Rory at Fourth Street Review and Wendy at Wensend have in the works. In the past, I’ve also enjoyed Non-Fiction November, hosted by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness and of course, Bloggiesta.

What are some of your favorite bookish blogging events? Anything fun coming up? Feel free to share your answer or other bookish love related posts below in the #LiteraryLove14 link-up!

The post Literary Love 2014 – Bookish Blogging Events I Love appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Covers On the Silver Screen: Monuments Men Read-a-long – January

Covers On the Silver Screen is an event created by Jennifer at Bookalicious Mama. Throughout the year, she’ll be hosting read-a-longs of books being turned into movies. Since I’m co-hosting the Book to Movie Challenge, I was very excited about this event and asked Jennifer if I could help co-host this event. She graciously agreed. So over the four weeks of January, we’ll be taking turns hosting discussion posts as we read through Monuments Men before it hits the screen. If you’re interested, you can sign-up using (Doing Dewey’s first ever embedded) linky below: 

Bout of Books Read-a-thon 9.0 – Jan 6th-12th

Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon that occurs three times every year. It includes challenges, twitter chats, and giveaways. It’s a great read-a-thon for a busy time of year, since the goal is simply to read a little more than you would otherwise. Sign-ups are here. I will be joining in and hosting a challenge

Way of Kings Read-a-long – Jan 1st-March 5th

Hosted by Anya at On Starships and Dragon Wings and  Nrlymrtl at Dab of Darkness, this read-a-long includes many discussion posts and finishes up with a great giveaway. Although I won’t be reading along on schedule since I’ve already started The Way of Kings audiobook, I will be joining for the discussions. Sign-ups are here.

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Today I would like to give a very belated thank you to Deanna at The Book Lover’s Attic for thinking of me for the Shine On award. About a month ago, I was certain I would have this post up any day, but this month has been unusually busy and so here we are. As I recently received the WordPress Family award which allowed me to recognize some friendly wordpress bloggers, I’ll be using this award to recognize some non-wordpress bloggers who have also been incredible about making me feel welcome in the blogging community

THE SHINE ON AWARD
Here are the rules of the award:
1. Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Acknowledge that blogger on your blog, and link back.
3. Share seven random, interesting things about yourself.
4. Nominate up to 15 bloggers for the Shine On Award, provide a link to their blogs in your post, and notify them on their blogs.

First, my seven random things:

1. I recently got to see Maggie Stiefvater at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY!
2. I’m currently taking a very  interesting class on general linear models but it is largely responsible for my recent reduced posting rate.
3. I’m very excited for blogging events this month, including Non-fiction November and the Orange is the New Black read-a-long.
4. Raisinets are my motivational snack of choice for making myself write.
5. I love challenges and am already thinking about which ones I’ll be doing next year.
6. I’m watching all of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes for the first time and I think they’re a lot of fun.
7. Ebooks are really growing on me, which could be bad for my self-restraint when it comes to requesting ARCs.

And now to pass on the award! My nominees are:

Jenn at The Relentless Reader
Allison at The Book Wheel
Rebecca at Love At First Book
Asti at A Bookish Heart
Kelly at The Well-Read Redhead
Jessica at The Quirky Bookworm
Aylee at Recovering Potter Addict
Suey at It’s All About Books
Anya at On Starships and Dragonwings
Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness
Charlene at Bookish Whimsy
Birana and Krysta at Pages Unbound

It’s possible I’ll think of more to round out my 15 but for now, that’s the list. Thanks for being so awesome you guys!

The post Shine On Award appeared first on Doing Dewey.

You guys! Today is the first day of bloggiesta and I’m so excited to get started! I don’t think I’ll get much done today since there’s work during the day and I’m having friends over tonight, but this weekend I’m going to get os much done. I do wish I’d been able to host a challenge but for some reason I wasn’t following The Bloggiesta blog (which you should definitely do!), but next time I will and it will be epic Here’s my current to-do list which I’ll update here as I go. Wish me luck and go have lots of fun with Bloggiesta!

To Do

• get caught up on cross-listing posts to Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Cannonball Read V
• work on re-categorizing posts
• participate in Saturday and Sunday twitter chats
• do at least six mini-challenges
• write reviews for the six books I’ve read but not reviewed

The post Bloggiesta Starting Line! appeared first on Doing Dewey.

The Monster Reviewathon
Aug 26th-Sept 1st 
I only found out about The Monster Reviewathon today, but I think it’s exactly what I needed! I’ve been ahead on reading and behind on writing a review for a while, a problem that the recent read-a-thon only increased. So for the next week, I will have to keep reading for some scheduled reviews coming up, but I’m going to try to do a lot of catching up on reviews. (Goal: review 10 books).

Classics Retold
September

As I discussed in my Monday Musing, I love re-tellings, so I was incredibly excited to find the Classics Retold event going on this September. Each blogger picks a classic from one of five categories and reads both the original and three modern adaptations. I’m doing The Count of Monte Cristo and I can’t wait to get started! I’ve always loved the movie and I’m sure the book will be even better.
September Read-a-Longs

I haven’t ever done a read-a-long before because I’ve been dubious about the idea of reading a book on a schedule. I’m not sure I’ll like not being able to just keep going once I get started! However, I’ve really gotten into the social aspects of blogging lately and two read-a-longs were happening for books I’ve been interested in, so I decided to give it a go. The first is a read-a-long of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead hosted by Allison at The Book Wheel. The second is a read-a-long of The Book Thief hosted by Suey at It’s All About Books. Let me know if you’re joining in!

The post Bookish Blogging Events appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Monday:
Number of pages read: 49
Books I read from: MWF Seeking BFF
Number of books finished: 0

Tuesday
Number of pages read: 505
Books I read from: MWF Seeking BFF, The Dashwood Sisters’ Secrets of Love
Number of books finished: 2

Wednesday
Number of pages read: 25 + 2 hours of movie
Books I read from: The Sports Gene
Movies watched: Sense and Sensibility
Number of books finished: 0

Thursday

Number of pages read: 57
Books I read from: The Sports Gene
Number of books finished: 0

Friday

Number of pages read: 270
Books I read from: The Sports Gene
Number of books finished: 1

Saturday

Number of pages read: 14
Books I read from: The Portrait of Dorian Gray
Number of books finished: 0

Sunday

Number of pages read: 218
Books I read from: The Portrait of Dorian Gray
Number of books finished: 1

Total

Total number of pages read: 1138
Total number of books I’ve read: 4

The post Bout of Books Check-Up appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Last week I was in Austin for a plant pathology conference, and while some of it was amazing (great talks, meeting some professors I really admire) parts of it were less great (being the only one from lab was lonely and wow was the conference exhausting). So especially given how tired I was, it was just the nicest pick-me-up to check my blog and find out that kepagewriter had nominated me for the versatile blogger award :) Below are the rules for those who receive the award, my 7 interesting things about me, and my 15 bloggers to whom I’m passing on the award. I’d love to write a lot about each of them, but since there are 15, I’ll just highlight a few of my favorite parts of each blog.

The Award Rules

1. Display the Award Certificate on your blog.
2. Announce your win with a post. Make sure to post a link back to the blogger who nominated you.
3. Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers.
4. Drop them a comment to tip them off after you have linked them in the post.
5. Post 7 interesting things about yourself.

7 Interesting Things

1. I’ve just signed up for two pen pal exchanges, including one run by Book.Blog.Bake for which I’m paired with Kelly at The Well-Read Redhead.
2. The other pen pal exchange is run by The Nectar Collective and I’ve been paired with Laura at The Pink Herbivore.
3. I’d love to get better at nature photography, so any recommendations for tutorials would be awesome.
4. I love pancakes. But really, who doesn’t?
5. Lately magical realism has been one of my favorite genres.
6. I’m going to grad school because I love teaching college students.
7. I’m currently going through one of those phases where it’s hard to focus on the book I’m reading because I have so many good books on my TBR pile!

The 15 Nominees!

1. Recovering Potter Addict - I love her helpful, thoughtful YA reviews
2. Girl XoXo - great reviews from varied genres, helpful list features, awesome link-ups
3. The Book Garden - features non-fiction, finds fun bookish crafts, writes discussion posts that make me think
4. Good Books and Good Wine - runs a great 15-question discussion meme, helps me find new/indie fantasy and sci-fi, uses gifs judiciously
5. Paper Sanctuary - I cannot get enough of her rants that say exactly what I’m thinking (recent favorites include one about “strong” female protagonists who do nothing and one about self-sacrificing characters)
6. Unabridged Chick - great historical fiction reviews and pretty much the most helpful review format ever
7. Always With a Book - her reviews are always just the right length and have exactly the info I want about a book
8. A Little Blog of Books and Other Stuff - some of the best written reviews I’ve read, a great place for reviews of literary books
9. Book Paper Cut - another blog that has reviews that are exactly what I look for in length and content, mostly YA
10. Quirky Bookworm - great reviews of cozy mysteries and historical fiction, does a great job encouraging discussion
11. Year in Books - awesome source of indie book recommendations,
12. The Indiscriminate Critic - another blog with some exceptional writing and a great place for audiobook reviews
13. Bitches With Books - very fun, lots of great features, of her Harry Potter spoofs are some of my favorites
14. Write Meg – friendly and personable, exactly what I look for in reviews, plus some spectacular photography
15. The Blog of Litwits - extremely well written reviews of literary fiction and classics, does a great job encouraging discussion

So go check these blogs out! They’re all wonderful and really deserve the recognition.

The post Versatile Blogger Award! Woo! appeared first on Doing Dewey.

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Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

This week I’m musing about my experience with mini bloggiesta, a shorter version of the twice yearly bloggiesta. Both events are all about improving your blog while interacting with other awesome bloggers who are doing the same with theirs.

I definitely didn’t complete all my goals for the bloggiesta during the weekend, but I did have a great time chatting with other bloggers. I didn’t do any of the specific things mentioned as part of the commenting and networking challenge, but many of them were things I couldn’t do (like adding CommentLuv to wordpress.com blog). However, I did do a lot of talking to other bloggers on twitter and made a special effort to comment on the blog posts I read, so I’m going to count that one as a success.

I also made a lot of progress adding my reviews to outside sites, so hopefully I’ll be able to finish that up this week. That just leaves actually writing more posts and reviews, which I would like to do a lot more of. As far ahead as I am on reading right now, I should really be able to get my posts up further in advance. Hopefully by the end of next weekend, I’ll have a week or two of reviews scheduled so I can forget about reviews next time I get too busy to keep up. Overall, this was a lot of fun, I met a lot of great bloggers, and I think I’ll use the to-do list until I get it finished. Yea! I’m looking forward to the next bloggiesta already

The post Monday Musings and Mini Bloggiesta Wrap-Up appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Today is the first day of a mini Bloggiesta! This a shorter version of the twice yearly bloggiesta and is all about sprucing up your blog while interacting with other awesome bloggers. I’ve got lots of things I want to get done this weekend and can’t wait to get started Here’s my current to-do list:

• add all book reviews to goodreads and librarything
• get reviews from Doing Dewey posted to Cannonball Read V  (done through end of July)
• add completed reviews to challenge link-ups
• comment on reviews for book-to-movie challenge
• participate in commenting and networking bloggeista mini-challenge
• get one monday musing and three review posts scheduled
• revisit old posts and make sure I’m hosting my own pics and that they are categorized correctly

Probably overly ambitious, but at least it gives me a lot of things to choose from! Are you participating in Bloggeista? And is this the first time you have?

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