Winner of Mini-Challenge #1 is. . .

Dawn at She is Too Fond of Books! Dawn is the winner of Away by Amy Bloom. Congrats, Dawn!

Care at Enjoy Life, Love the Journey is the winner of Keri Smith's How To be An Explorer of the World. Congrats!

Dewey's Books February Mini-Challenge #1

There's not much about Dewey that I can say that has not been said already. Dewey, with her eclectic taste in books, was the ultimate book blogger. Almost daily on her site there was a new post: a discussion about an article or book, a meme, or a funny video to watch. Dewey wrote about books who subjects range from politics to feminism. She read graphic novels and award-winning books, young adult reads and poetry. Reading The Hidden Side of a Leaf left the reader with an even larger TBR pile then before you clicked on to her site.

Just the other day I visited her site for a quick couple of books to read for her challenge and left with pages of book titles. Her posts were honest, funny, and made writing look so easy.

Dewey embodied the spirit of blogging and helped bring our community closer together. She started Weekly's Geeks, the 24-Hour Read-a-thon, and the Bookworms Carnival. She always had something nice to say. encouraging comments that helped many of us continue blogging.

Dewey wasn't one to hoard books. (Unlike myself.) Usually when she finished reading a book, if it didn't belong to someone or she wasn't going to read it again, she held a giveaway. The frequency of her giveaways amazed me. She was so generous and winning a book from her made my day several times.

In the spirit of Dewey's generosity I've decided to give away eight books throughout the month of February. Two books every weekend starting on the 7Th. To be eligible read a book that Dewey reviewed. After reading it and writing a post, leave a link at the challenge's review site and on my mini-challenge posts. Remember to let me know your first and second preferences. Every Saturday I will use random.org to pick the two winners and every Sunday I will let you know the winners and the next two books. Remember only books read in February count.

This week's books are:

How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. You can read my review here. It's a pretty good book for journal writers, about how to find more ways to be present in your life and at the same time give you ideas to fill your journal up with. This book is a paperback that's been read only once.


Away by Amy Bloom. To be honest I haven't had the time to read this epic story but everywhere I've looked there has not been a bad or mediocre review to be found. I know many bloggers have read this book and loved it. So I would rather give this book to a blogger who can give it a chance then let it sit any longer on my bookshelves. Away is a hardcover that's gently used.

Sunday Salon: The Too Many Books Post

Good morning! The sun is just starting to come up here in Southern California. While the rest of the country was expecting Arctic weather, in SoCal the weather was in the late 80s. Then last week the rain came and it felt so good! Now it's the right atmosphere for winter reading.

My week has been really hectic. My oldest son's asthma has been acting up so his father, my mother, and I have been going back and forth, staying at home to take care of him this week. I got very little studying done, but I got some great reading in.

I read:
1. The Shiniest Jewel -Marian Henley. In their shoes & Graphic Novel challenges
2. Tuesday - David Weisner. Young readers challenge
3. How to be an explorer of the world - Keri Smith
4. Don't let the pigeon stay up late - Mo Willems. Young readers
5. A River of words - Jen Bryant. Young readers
6. The Man in the Picture - Susan Hill. NaJuReMoNoMo
7. The Book That Changed my Life. Dewey and Essay Reading Challenge
8. The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle - Jim Butcher. Graphic Novels Challenge

My favorite reads were The Shiniest Jewel, the suspenseful The Man in the Picture, and Welcome to the Jungle. If you're participating in my memoir challenge, In Their Shoes, I'm giving away The Shiniest Jewel. So enter to win it.

This post is entitled "Too many books" because I received some great books this week and bought too many. One of my book-related resolutions this year was to only buy a certain amount of books. I already went way over that, so to compromise I gave a lot of my unread books to my local library and giving more away by hosting a mini-challenge all of February for everyone participating in the Dewey's Books challenge.

With school and a lot of homework to catch up on this week, I plan to read only short stories and poetry for the next two weeks.

What are you reading this week?

Dewey's Books

Just yesterday I wrote the I wouldn't be joining that many challenges next year, but this one I could not resist. Chris and Robin are hosting the Dewey's Books challenge.

The rules are:

1. 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!

To join pick either option one or two. The challenge officially starts January 1st, but you can start now and ends December 31, 2009.

This is such a great idea. Dewey had great taste in books from award-winners to graphic novels to young adults. This is a challenge that has something for everybody. I'm going to do option one. I'm staying flexible, so I won't be making a list.