Get Read-y for 2012 - Fourth Check-in

It's time for my fourth Get Read-y for 2012 check-in! I'm nearly done my reading list. Since last's week's check-in, I've finished The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, read The End, and started Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

So far I'm really enjoying Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. I just started it yesterday and I'm already 100 pages in, so I should have this done by New Year's no problem!

My to-read list for January is getting enormous, though. I just got another surprise book in the mail! It's one I requested a while back: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. I'm really looking forward to it!

If you're trying to get some stuff done before New Year's, how's that working out for you? Let me know in the comments!

Get Read-y for 2012 - Third Check-in

It's time for my third Get Read-y for 2012 check-in! I've made great progress on my reading list this week! Since last's week's check-in, I've had my biggest accomplishment of all: I finished Star Trek and Philosophy!! This is a huge deal! This book has taken me many months to get through. I may have to start a Victory Garden like Jennifer at The Beauty of Eclecticism for this one!

Additionally, I wasn't in the mood for any more non-fiction (especially non-fiction about the Winter Solstice, which I've had plenty of for one holiday season!), so I found a book to replace The Solstice Evergreen so I could still reach the level I set out for in the Yule Spirit Reading Challenge: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum! I've read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and loved it, so this seemed like a safe choice. I've already started reading it, and will probably be done by tomorrow, which means...

I have over a week in which to read the last two books on my reading list! And after this Friday I'm off work until after New Year's, which means lots of reading time for me! (In between all the sleeping and opening presents, that is...)

If you're trying to get some stuff done before New Year's, how's that working out for you? Let me know in the comments!

Get Read-y for 2012 - Second Check-in

It's time for my second Get Read-y for 2012 check-in! I've made a bit more progress on my reading list this week. Since last's week's check-in, I've finished The Winter Solstice by John Matthews and read The Solstice Cup by Rachel Dunstan Muller.

I've decided to save Pagan Christmas for next year, since it looks pretty similar to another book I just read, which means my list is down to 4 books, one of which I'm half done already! So, with 17 days left to read 3.5 books, that gives me 4.5(ish) days per book. That would seem daunting (none of the books I have left are especially small), but I have the week between Christmas and New Year's off! That's right! No work and all read for a week! I'm confident that that will let me catch up should I need it.

If you're trying to get some stuff done before New Year's, how's that working out for you? Let me know in the comments!

Get Read-y for 2012 - First Check-in

It's time for my first Get Read-y for 2012 check-in! A couple of days ago I posted my reading list, and I haven't made a whole lot of progress on it so far. The book I'm reading right now (The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas) is huge. However, it is better than most non-fiction, since it's divided into nice little sections with lots of pictures.

Yesterday I picked up the last 2 library books I had on hold, so I now have my pile all ready to go. I flipped through Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide, and it looked a lot like the one I'm reading now, so I might end up leaving that one for next Yule. That would make my goal way more achievable!

So, if I leave out that new library book, that leaves 6 books on my list, two of which I'm about halfway through, with 24 days to go in 2011. Totally doable! I hope...

Also, a big accomplishment I had this week was catching up on my reviews! I had fallen a wee bit behind when I read a few short books, and also did a read-a-thon. But I sat down and hammered them out and now I'm all caught up. Yay!

Get Read-y for 2012 - My reading list

Since this month is time to Get Read-y for 2012, it's time to set some goals for what I want to accomplish this month, as our lovely host has done. So, here's my (perhaps unrealistic) list of books I'd like to have read before the new year.

• The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas by John Matthews (library book) (already about 1/3 done)
• The Solstice Evergreen by Sheryl Ann Karas (library book)
• Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide by Christian Rätsch (library book)
• The Solstice Cup by Rachel Dunstan Muller (library book) 
• Star Trek and Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant by various authors (I've been reading it off and on for months and don't like things stretching into the next year)
• The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events #13)
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (new book)

If I somehow manage to finish all these, I will complete the 2012 Yule Spirit Reading Challenge (the first 4 books on the list), have all my library books read and returned (the first 4 books on the list), have finally completed Star Trek and Philosophy, and will be caught up with my recently purchased books (the last book on the list). This will give me a nice clean slate for 2012, so I will be free to read the books I get for Christmas/Yule. :)

The first five are my top priorities, and I'm already part of the way through two of them, so I do have some hope! There's going to be an update on Get Read-y for 2012 every Wednesday, so I'll keep you updated on how my goals are going. What do you want to read before the new year?

Get Read-y for 2012! (and, therefore, a read-a-thon)

The Get Read-y for 2012 challenge (or theme, or whatever) will run for the entire month of December 2011. The goal is to get your tbr pile down to a small, manageable pile. My reaction to that is the same as Bev's from My Reader's Block: maniacal laughter.

My tbr pile will not be small and manageable for years, if not decades. I've come to accept that. So, my goal for the month will be to make sure that as of the New Year, I have no library books out waiting to be read, and I have no NetGalley books, etc., waiting to be read or reviewed. So, my tbr pile will still be huge, but it will all be read-at-my-leisure type stuff, not omg-I-need-to-read-this-by-Tuesday! type stuff.

Accordingly, this weekend I will be participating in a Belated Readathon. I actually did the last Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon, but I'm gonna do this one anyway because I had so much fun and don't want to wait until April to do it again. :) I may or may not stay up the whole time this time, though. But in any case, it will help me get a few books out of the way before the end of the year.

The readathon starts on December 3rd at 6:00am if you're on Central Time (ie. you live in Winnipeg, Austin, Chicago, Mexico City, Birmingham, or one of a whole bunch of other cities).

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to do one big post that I update throughout the day, or a bunch of separate update posts, but in any case I'll only do updates every 2 hours or so, so you won't have 24 posts from me in 24 hours flooding your feed reader. :)

This is a really small read-a-thon compared to Dewey's, so it's important that we support each other, because silence sucks when you're staying up all night! So if you're participating, let me know so we can cheer each other on!