Guardian Challenge: August Reviews

Leave your links to Guardian Challenge reviews for August below!

Guardian Challenge June and July Reviews

I'm sorry I never got the June post up, so here's a one post for June and July. Happy Reading!

Guardian May Reviews

Link to your May reviews for the Guardian Challenge below:



(photo taken by me in Manchester, 2009. I used to live in that corner house.)

Guardian April Reviews

Leave your April Reviews for the Guardian Challenge below!

Guardian Challenge 2.0

Even though I didn't finish it, I had a lot of fun with my Guardian Challenge last year, so I'm doing it again. I hope you'll join me! There are also a few changes...

So, for those who didn't play along last year, the British newspaper, The Guardian, came up with a list of 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read Before They Die. (In case they take that link down, I've also posted the list here.)



UPDATE: I forgot to give the dates! Whoops! It's running March 1, 2010 to March 1, 2011.

There are 3 levels:

1. (This is the same as last year's challenge)

Read 10 books. You must read one book from each of the 7 categories. If possible, at least 1 title should be a book you hadn't heard of before seeing it on the list.



2.

Read 7 books, one from each category.


3.

Read any 5 books from the list.

Every month I'll have a round-up post for you to leave your links. There will probably be prizes of some sort, but I don't have any trips scheduled to England this year (I don't go for 6 years and then went back twice in a year! It was crazy. CRAZY AWESOME.) So they might not be British.

ALSO I STILL OWE PEOPLE PRIZES FROM LAST YEAR'S CHALLENGE. I haven't forgotten, I'm just still thinking.

Anyway, grab a button if you want, spread the word, sign up below and have fun!

My Guardian Wrap Up Post

Oh, this is hard to admit, but I think I failed at my own challenge. Ah well.

I came really close and read a lot of books I wouldn't have otherwise read, so not all is lost. I'm excited to try again next month!

Here's what I did get done:

Comedy Books:
Bottle Factory Outing
Cold Comfort Farm
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Crime:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Family and Self:
Ballet Shoes

Love:
The End of the Affair

Scifi/Fantasy
Wintersmith (for Discworld)
The Golden Compass (for His Dark Materials)

I'm half way through Cranford, which is one of the books for State of the Nation. I didn't do anything for War and Travel, but I have a lot of Tintin checked out from the library.

Overall, 8.5 books. Not too shabby. Not like I was eligible for any of the prizes anyway!

Guardian Challenge Finish Line

Well, it's February 1st, and then end of the Guardian Challenge (you have until midnight your time) so, leave your link to your wrap-up post below! If you've already given your wrap-up post because you finished early, don't worry about it, but feel free to add it again.

There will be prizes drawn for those who finished!

Also, I had a lot of fun with this challenge and WILL be doing it again, but it won't start up again until March. There will be a few changes, but stay tuned! I hope you'll join me for Guardian 2.0.

Guardian January Reviews

I apologize for the lateness of this roundup post. We're coming to the end of the challenge. Many of you have already linked to your wrap-up posts, and if you haven't, I'll have a final post in February for the finish line. (If you've already given me yours, no worries!) There will be more prizes, but not straight from England this time.

I had a great time with this challenge and am thinking about doing it again (with a few tweaks) next year? Is anyone else up for another round? Please let me know! In the meantime, leave your January links below!

Guardian Challenge!

Leave your December reviews below!:

Guardian Challenge!

First off, some prizes! Yay! I entered all the May-October reviews (into a random number generator to get...)



A Paddington Bookmark and button (from Paddington Station) goes to Becky for her October Review of Of Mice and Men

Another Paddington bookmark and button go to Steven for his June review of The Mandarins. STEVEN! Blogger can't find your blog! Where'd you go?!



A Winnie-the-Pooh bookmark goes to Madeleine for her August review of Ingenious Pain.



And, a Wallace and Gromit bookmark goes to Rebecca from Sequestered Nooks for her July Review of Smilla's Sense of Snow.

So, if you won, email me at kidsilkhaze at yahoo dot com with your mailing info so I can get those in the mail.

If you didn't win, don't fret, there will probably be more to come! Leave your November links below!

Two of my OWN challenges

So, for my China Challenge, if you're doing the Silk Road Trek level, you have to do 3 out of 10 China-related tasks. I've done 2!

One involves making a Chinese recipe that you've never made before. Done and Done. I highly recommend the Green Tea Steamed Shrimp Dumplings from Ying Chang Compestine's new book, A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts: A Collection of Deliciously Frightening Tales.

Another one is to listen to some lessons on Chinese Pod and learn some Mandarin. I actually spent my birthday money this year to buy a subscription to this site because I haven't kept my Mandarin up at all and that makes me sad. When I signed up, they had a sale, so I was upgraded to the guided level, which means I have a teacher who tells me which lessons to study and the calls me once a week from Shanghai! This level is so great because that means I HAVE to study.

It's funny though, because one thing I've realized is that I remember weird idiomatic things, but not how to say the days of the week. It's interesting what sticks and what doesn't...

And look! I actually read a book for my Guardian Challenge!

The Golden Compass Philip Pullman

Can you believe I hadn't read this yet?! There's a reason I put it on my gaps list.

For those you don't know (which I certainly didn't. All I knew was that there was a talking polar bear, a girl named Lyra, an evil monkey, and everyone had these animal spirit things)

Lyra has been raised by the scholars of Jordan College, part of Oxford University. She pretty much has her run of the place and the town. Her uncle comes to visit and Lyra saves him from being poisoned. Kids start disappearing up and down the countryside and Lyra goes to live with the beautiful Mrs. Coulter. Lyra then discovers Mrs. Coulter is behind the disappearing kids AND she's the one holding Lyra's uncle prisoner. So, with a band of gyptians, she goes to Lapland to save the day.

Pretty good adventure story. Plus, there's lot of stuff about Dust and the role of the daemon (the animal spirit thing that everyone has.) I know Pullman wrote this as an atheist Narnia and I don't mind that one bit. But... when he starts trying to criticize the Church (because it's obviously based on the Catholic Church) that's where the story got weak and I got annoyed. Just like I get annoyed when authors impart LARGE MORAL LESSONS into their works, it annoyed me. Luckily, there wasn't *too* much of it. And usually, the Church bits read a bit like a Dan Brown conspiracy, which I happen to really enjoy. But, at the same time, if you really wanted to criticize the Church, reading a bit like a Dan Brown conspiracy while great for my reading tastes doesn't say much about your criticism.

I'm torn on whether or not to read the next two books. Someone I really respect told me not to and where I really liked this, I wasn't compelled to run over and get the next ones right away, probably because the bit at the back of the book where it tells you to read the next two says that it takes place in a different universe. That makes total sense in relation to the book, but lessens my desire to read further, for some reason I can't fully put my finger on. THAT'S JUST ME. I AM WEIRD.

But, I am really, really glad I read this. And while the Guardian list has "His Dark Materials" on its list, I'm thinking that I don't have to read this whole series, just this.

Book Provided by... my library

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Guardian Challenge, October Reviews

Get your October links in down below!

*ALSO! THERE WILL BE A PRIZE DRAWING AT THE BEGINNING OF NOVEMBER!*
I picked up some prizes when I was in London last month, so I'll be drawing for those! There will be 4 prizes, two of which will be drawn from all reviews since the challenge opened, and two of which will be drawn from reviews posted since the last prize draw (so May-October). Every review you post gets you an entry, so get reading!

Guardian Challenge

Now that Mr. Linky and I are friends again, enter your September reviews below.

ALSO! I'm going back to England next weekend, so there will be another round of random Britishness to be given away! Every review gets you an entry!

Guardian Challenge!

Leave your links for your August reviews below.

As a sweetener, I'll be headed back to England in September and will pick up some more goodies for all reviews posted May-September. Every review gets you an entry, so get to it! I'll also be in Paris on my way to London, so there might be French stuff involved. YOU NEVER KNOW!

There's news on the Mr. Linky front, but I don't have time to wade through it to get it to work. So, I haven't updated July's review post yet, because I'm hoping that me and Mr. Linky will be friends again by tomorrow night. Just leave your comments and I'll Linky you up when I figure it out!

UPDATE Mr. Linky is back! If you've left me comment, then you're good to go.

Guardian Challenge

How's your Guardian Challenge Reading going?

Leave a link too all of your reviews of the books you read in July down in the comments. I'll add them to the post probably when I do the August review-links post.

And, just for your enjoyment, I've made some more buttons for y'all to use.

Happy reading!

Guardian Challenge

Hey folks! Time to update your June reviews!

BUT! Mr. Linky is having some issues and disabled my favorite widget, so... leave me a comment and I'll update this post with your reviews. Or add them to Mr. Linky when they get their issues resolved.

Anna read Rebecca

Steven read The Pickwick Papers.
He also read The Mandarins.
AND! He also read Naked Lunch.

Becky read Barchester Towers.
She also read Middlemarch.

Guardian Challenge

Finally! Here's your place for your May Reviews! Sorry for the delay! Also, below are the prizes and winners for February-April reviews...

It looks like Mr. Linky isn't behaving at the moment. Hopefully that's a temporary thing.






And... for the prizes that come all the way from England, we have...


First up, two magnets of London, both from the Tower of London. One is of some phone boxes and the other is of the a London Underground sign. goes to Semi Professional Muse for Hire's review in March of Tales of the City.

Next up are two book marks, also from the Tower of London. One is Lace and the other is a Warhol-ized version of Henry VIII. These are off to FleurFisher for the April review of South Riding.

And finally, we have a lined notebook with an image of classic Penguin spines, from Foley's Bookshop in London. It goes to A Hazra's April review of Catcher in the Rye.

If everyone who won could email me mailing addresses in the next week, that'd be great!

Keep reading, more prizes will be coming at some point!

April Reviews!

Well, it's another month, so leave all of your April reviews for the Guardian 1000 books challenge in Mr. Linky down below.

Also, just a friendly reminder that all reviews for February, March, and April will be entered into a drawing for very special prize (or prizes) that will be purchased on my upcoming trip to England (10 more days! Woot!) and maybe something from the Belgium portion of the trip as well. Now, every review is eligible, so if you've read and reviewed more than one book for the challenge during this time span, you get multiple entries!

Also, if you haven't signed up yet, go right ahead. Sign ups don't close until the end of the challenge!

So, get your read on!

March Reviews!

Well, it's month 2 of the Guardian Challenge. People are still signing up and there's lots of time if you still want to participate!

And here's a sweetner to get you reading. I'm off to England next month for vacation. As The Guardian is a British paper, I thought it fitting that the first random prize would be something that I pick up over there. I don't know what it will be, or how many there will be (depends on what all I find.) BUT! Anyone who has entered a review in February, March, or April will be eligible. One entry for each review! (If you don't Mr. Linky your review, but let me know about it, I will Mr. Linky it for you, unless you tell me not to.)

If you review a book in March, leave the link below and don't worry... there will be more prizes to come...

February New Classics

Hi all! Well, the Guardian Novels Challenge has started!

If you read and review something this month, leave your link below!