Introducing Dewey’s Books Reading Challenge

 

I made a comment in a recent book review of mine that it would be cool to have a “Dewey Challenge” in honor of Dewey fromThe Hidden Side of a Leaf who recently passed away, where participants would read books that she reviewed. I know my wishlist has grown tremendously as a result of her and I’ve loved every book that I’ve read that she’s recommended. Dewey was such a prolific reader and her reviews were honest, intriguing, and beautifully written. What better way to celebrate her wonderful life than by having a year long challenge in her name! 

When I commented about having the challenge, I didn’t think I’d actually do it :p But then Robin (that wonderful person!) emailed me and had already designed a button for it! And it’s quite beautiful. She’s offered to help in any way she can, and I just might take her up on that 😉 The original plan was that Robin was going to look up all of her 2003-2005 reads and I was going to do her 2006-2008 reads. I started going through Dewey’s archives and realized that my list would be close to 700 books long and no one would read through all that! I also realized that I was really enjoying my time over at Dewey’s blog, searching through all of her old posts. It was like visiting with an old friend. So instead of me giving you a list of books, I say we all go visit her again and pick out books that sound interesting to us. There are two ways to join this challenge:

1. Pick one book from each of the 6 years that Dewey has archives of. You can access her archives by clicking on the archive link in the sidebar of her website. It’s a dropdown menu. For instance, you would read one book that she reviewed in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 for a total of six books.

2. The other option is to read 5 books that Dewey reviewed. These can be from any year and I’m guessing that each of us has at least 5 books on our TBR list because of Dewey!

And the rules:

1. Choose either option 1 or 2 from above. 

2. Commit to read your books (either 5 or 6 depending on which option you choose) throughout 2009. The challenge will end on December 31, 2009 but we’ll go ahead and unofficially start it right away! We’ll officially start it on January 1st, 2009.

3. Check back to this page often as I’ll put up Mr. Linky’s for reviews and I’ll mention prize giveaways!

I’m hoping to do some prize giveaways that have a “Dewey Theme”. I have a couple of books in mind that she reviewed which I read and loved and of course there’s the ever so popular Chocolate Monkey that Dewey would give away! Anyone know where she got that from?

Finally, this is my first time EVER hosting a challenge and Robin’s as well, so please have patience with us, lol. If anyone would like to give me a nudge if I’m missing something or just totally screwing up, please do! It’ll be appreciated. And lastly, if anyone wants to donate prizes to the challenge, you’re more than welcomed to do that too! Don’t feel pressured to though, I’ll have some prizes of my own. 

Lastly, have fun!! And enjoy spending time with the books that our wonderful friend recommended to us. Please comment below if you’d like to join and I’ll add your name to a list. Also, feel free to take a button that Robin designed! We’ll have different sizes posted soon!

To sign up, leave a comment either here or on my blog, Stuff as Dreams are Made on, and I’ll add you to the blogroll. This page will be the main page for the challenge, though I’m sure Robin and I will cross post on our blogs!