Bout of Books 12

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 5th and runs through Sunday, January 11th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 12 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I really enjoyed participating in Bout of Books 11 and so I look forward to taking part in Bout of Books 12. I think that a read-a-thon will be a great start to 2015 and to tackling mountain TBR.

Anybody else taking part?

2015 Goals and Resolutions

Weekly event hosted @ The Broke and the Bookish

BOOKISH
1. Read at least one book from my giant TBR pile a month. I currently have about 200 unread books on my physical bookshelves and just as much on my Kindle. I need to get reading!

2. No impulse book purchases and all planned purchases must be within £10 a month. University books do not count. This should help to stop my TBR from getting too much bigger.

3. Read a little everyday. To help with this, I will create a bedtime routine that includes at least 20 minutes of reading, so if I don't get any reading in during the day, I will still read something.

4. Only request ARCs that I really, really want to read. No more requesting books just because they have pretty covers or whatever.

BLOGGING

5. Write at least two discussion posts a month. I would like to post one every week, but I don't want to aim to high and fail, so 2 a month is good.

6. Reply to comments much sooner. No matter how busy I may get with school and life, I will reply to all comments as soon as possible.

7. Write reviews within a few days of finishing the book. I have a bad habit of leaving it far too long between reading the book and writing the review, and I end up having to skim the book to refresh my memory. No one has time for that!

8. Blog more consistently. Stop letting boring real life getting in the way of the way more fun blogging.

PERSONAL
9. Lose 14lbs. I Have way more than that to lose, but it is a good start.

10. Journal more regularly. I think I make this a resolution every year and each year I probably journal one day more than the last. So here's to journaling more in 2015 than in 2014, even if it's only by one day.

Anybody else have similar resolutions?

Whatever your resolutions are, good luck and have a fabulous and productive 2015

Discussion Challenge

Hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight

This time of year, there are tons of reading challenges starting up (which we LOVE!). But we wanted to challenge our fellow book bloggers to not only read more, but talk more too. That’s where the idea for this challenge was born!

So often book bloggers mean to post more discussions on our blogs, but we just don’t quite get around to it. Well, we wanted to give everyone a little motivation to keep the discussions going, plus give us a place to link up our discussions so that more people will see our precious words of wisdom (or … you know … our GIF-filled rants).

I hope you’ll join us for this challenge and pledge yourself to posting more discussions in this upcoming year. I promise we’ll have lots of fun talking together!

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 Here’s All You Have to Do:

• The 2015 Book Blog Discussion Challenge runs from January 1st until December 31st, 2014.
• Sign-ups will remain open until December 31st, 2015 at 11:59 p.m. Central
• You DO NOT have to have a book blog to join this challenge. If you don’t have a book blog, you may link up to discussions that you’ve started on Goodreads groups.
• Create a sign-up post announcing your intention to participate and link up below. If you do not have a blog, you can link up to your Goodreads profile. There is no need to say what your discussion posts will be about – just tell us that you’re joining and let us know what your goal is.
• Please link back to both challenge hosts and include the challenge button in your sign-up posts.
• Every month, we’ll update this 2015 Book Blog Challenge Page with the links to that month’s Challenge linky – so you’ll always know where to find the latest link-up!
• Share it! The more people we get to participate in this, the more awesome discussions we can all be a part of and the more fun it will be! So, invite your friends to join us!
• This challenge is to help get us discussing books and book blogging, so talk about whatever you want as long as it’s relevant to book blogging. Discussions can be book related or book blogging related (or generally blogging related – no discussions about things that are completely off-topic like travel or fashion, etc). Discussions can also be about you personally if it’s a get-to-know-you type post.
• There will be a kick-off post on January 1, 2015 on both Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts at Midnight where you’ll be able to leave your links for any January discussions. At the beginning of every month, a new post will go up  on both blogs for that month’s links.
• If you forgot to leave your discussion link in the challenge month in which you posted the discussion or the linky list closed before you had a chance to leave it, you can leave it in a future month. (No duplicates though.)
• There will also be monthly giveaways, so make sure you check in each month!
• Use the hashtag #LetsDiscuss2015 to share your progress and connect with other participants on Twitter.
• Have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments!

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 The Levels:

1-12 – Discussion Dabbler
13-24 – Creative Conversationalist
25-36 – Chatty Kathy
37-48 – Terrifically Talkative
49+ – Gift of the Gab

*Head on over to Feed Your Fiction Addiction or It Starts at Midnight for more information and to sign-up*

The level I am aiming for is Chatty Kathy. 

While I am hoping to post a discussion every week, I am allowing myself quite a bit of slack, just in case. 

Sound like a challenge you may need to join in 2015?

Weekly Wrap-Up (28/12/14)

The Sunday Post hosted @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. 

It's Monday! hosted @ Book Journey

THIS PAST WEEK ON MY BLOG:

Some of my Fave Books of 2015

2015 Bookish Resolutions Challenge Sign-Up Post

No Book Buying Challenge Sign-Up Post

Mountain TBR Challenge Sign-Up Post

Netgalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge Sign-Up Post

The Bookriot Read Harder Challenge Participation Post

SOME FABULOUS RECENT READS:

WHAT I AM READING NOW:

ADDITIONS TO MY TBR:
Stacking the Shevles hosted @ Tynga's Reviews





WHAT I BOUGHT: I had a birthday, so I bought a few books with my birthday money.

Physical:

Kindle:

Kindle Freebies: I didn't get any books for christmas, so I downloaded a bunch of freebies to make myself feel better.

FOR REVIEW:

NEXT WEEK ON MY BLOG:

2015 Discussion Challenge Sign-Up Post

2015 Goals and Resolutions 

Bout of Books 12 Read-A-Thon Sign-Up Post

Chatty Saturdays are Coming!

WHAT I PLAN TO READ NEXT:

IN REAL LIFE:

My sister had a baby, his name is Kian-Orion and he is an absolute joy.

Look at this cutie pie.

Other than a new baby in the house, nothing exciting has happened, except maybe the fact that it is winter break and I have no school for 24 whole days - that is pretty exciting.

I hope everybody had a fantastic Christmas and if you don't celebrate Christmas, then I hope your week was fab just the same. 

I wish you all a wonderful and fun-filled 2015.