January Prize Draw - Captivity: Debbie Lee Wesselmann

It's time for our first prize draw here at 'The Year of Readers', yehaw. I decided to hold monthly draws with prizes that will encourage all participants in their reading. John F Blair is the first publisher who has generously donated a free book to give one lucky participant something new to read. Check out short blurb of 'Captivity' by Debbie Lee Wessemann below:

"Dana Armstrong is no ordinary primatologist. In the 1970s, she was the little blond girl with a chimpanzee for a sister, a participant in her father's psychology experiment that sought to narrow the divide between species. Now, decades later, the black-and-white clips of Dana bathing, learning sign language, and throwing tantrums with her "sister" still flicker in classrooms across the country. Dana wants nothing more than to forget about them, but as director of a chimpanzee sanctuary in the woods of South Carolina, she cannot escape.

Dana arrives at work one morning to discover that the worst has happened: someone has vandalized the buildings and opened the cages, setting loose a group of particularly dangerous chimpanzees. She mobilizes her staff to capture the missing chimps before they can injure local citizens or be killed themselves. The sanctuary is already on precarious ground, and if it fails, the chimps--some infected with HIV, some survivors of experimental surgeries, some rescued from roadside zoos--have nowhere to go. The sanctuary is all they--and Dana--have left."

If you would like to win this book and a small assortment of craft goodies from various Etsy sponsors just comment on this post telling me what your favourite book about nature is by January 31st. (PS you will also receive an e-mail detailing the terms and conditions of this giveaway once I get back to my work computer- only official participants of this challenge who have signed up using Mr Linky are eligible to enter for this prize).

What I'm Reading

I'm a bit strapped for time so I thought I'd just do some quick twitterish reviews of read the books I've read so far here. You'll be able to see full reviews later at a variety of locations and I'll be back with links soon. For now:

Dooley Takes the Fall - Norah McClintock

An interesting variation n the YA genre with a noir/crime theme. Dooley is just trying to keep out of trouble, on schedule and away from temptation but he finds himself at the scene of a classmates death at the begining of this book. With a criminal record, a bad reputation and a known altercation with the deceased boy Dooley needs to clear his name fast.

I loved that Dooley had such a well crafted, genuine voice. The book had a fast pace and held my attention through nights filled with 'just one more chapter' before bed. The ending was a little confusing, I couldn't quite work out how two things combined to result in murder for a while. I would like to see some of the long term secondary characters like Dooley's uncle develop more in the next book in the trilogy (which I am super excited about reading) but overall a really satisfying book.

Temeraire - Naomi Novik

Dragons, battles, slash fiction elements, history, unrespectable behaviour and deceit...what's not to love! Captain Laurence and his crew capture a French frigate only to find a dragon egg aboard. The egg is about to hatch so a handler must be found to imprint the dragon before it goes feral and becomes useless to the British AirCorps (the air force but with dragons instead of planes). The dragon rejects the handler chosen and responds to Laurence forcing him into a life away from the navy and respectable society. He and his dragon Temeraire begin to train for a life defending the country from Napoleon.

I love alternate history. Chuck in talking dragons that bond with humans and I am sold. To understand a lot of exactly what I loved about it check out this review by Nic at Eve's Alexandria.

Jazz - Toni Morrisson

Toni Morrisson's earlier work is stunning. She takes a strange occurence and winds a story that makes it effortless to fall into the lives of the characters. I loved the forward to this book where the author said she wanted to write a book that felt and sounded like the launguage and music of the jazz age not a book peppered with historical facts that where static parts of the book.

Violet's husband shoots his sweetheart Dorcas and at the funeral Violet tries to difigure the corpse with a knife. The book is full of the characters histories which entwine with the history of the black civil rights movement and the issue of gradiations in skin colour.

The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen

A lovely romance novel mixed with some magical realism. You can see some of my quick thoughts at Beautiful and Fabulous this week.

So what have you read, what are you reading? How are the challenges going (I know you're all doing them, don't try and hide it)?

Mr Linky

Ok so I'm not paniced quite yet as the Mr Linky device has disappeared and come back before. However I did just see someone at another blog say their Mr Linky has disappeared for good. It's not a big deal for readers as if you signed up with a blog your name is listed in the sidebar, but it's a bit annoying for anyone new who wants to sign up.

So if you're arriving here eager to sign up and start raising funds please just leave a comment with your e-mail address/active website or blog either on this post or on the original post at the top. That way I can get in contact with you.

Hope everyone is finding some great books. I haven't found a bad one so far this year which I think comes from listening to closely to blog recommendations. Remember to link us to your reviews or repost them here.

(Edited to say yes it did pop right up after I posted this just to make me look like a fool but I'm still very glad it's back).

Start Your Reading

'The Year of Readers' officially begins today. Today we've begun to help some charities and by the end of the year we will all have contributed to making the world just a little better. I'm so excited that over thirty people felt passionately about taking part in this challenge. I hope we get even more people joining up throughout the year.

Feel free to post/cross post from your own blog about great books you read here so others can find great book recommendations. If you have any questions you can contact me at bakerjodie at googlemail dot com .

Happy reading!

Last Minute Details

I'm just reposting this for those participants who didn't leave an e-mail address. Everyone else should have received this by e-mail:

Thanks so much for your help with publicising the event, it always make me smile to see a new blog post about our charity efforts. I just need your help with a little housekeeping before we start, and I also want to pass on some last minute information.

Housekeeping

If you know which charity you'll be supporting in 2009, but haven't declared it yet can you please send me an e-mail. If you could just include the name that you signed up with, the charity/ies you will be raising money for, and a link to their website that would be great.

I plan to send out three short newsletters throughout the year for you to pass on to your sponsors just so that they don't forget about what's going on. If you don't want to send newsletters on then please send an e-mail saying NO NEWSLETTER.

If anyone has not received an invite to contribute to the blog or has not received their sponsorship form please let me know by e-mail.

Extra Info

Each month I'll be holding a motivational prize draw with prizes designed to inspire you to read more. At the moment I've collected prizes like new books donated by publishing houses, signed copies, crafty items and Bookmooch points. I hope the chance to win goodies will make 'The Year of Reading' fun! If anyone wants to donate an extra prize just e-mail me.

I don't want to bug you guys too much throughout the year but every month I will be sending you a short e-mail letting you know when the monthly prize draw (see above) has opened. This e-mail will also ask for your book total for the month, and I'd really appreciate if you could send in your totals each month.

Some people have asked if they should collect all their sponsors money in to send it to their charity or if sponsors can send individual checks. Either way is fine but if your sponsors send their money individually please make sure you keep track of what they send so you can send me an accurate total of all the money you've raised at the end of 2009.

If you know of any other worth reading challenges/events to raise money for reading charities taking place next year (I know there are some people reading for The American Heart Association in Feb) let me know about them. I'm hoping to add a list of events to the blog.

That's about it. I hope you find some fantastic books (and feel free to talk about them at the blog) and raise lots of money for your worthy charities.

First Book of the Year?

Hi there,

I'm Rob, aka Trebro, the person behind The Book Stew (for books) and Panel Patter (for comics). I will be personally hitting myself up for 10 cents for every book and trade I finish this year, which should work out to about 100 books and 200 or so comics, based on past years of reading.

I've always loved books from a very young age, and am looking forward to helping others share in the fun I've always had by helping out Reader to Reader.

So now that we're approaching January First, I thought I'd ask what other people are planning to read for their first book of the new year. In my case, I've selected "Lincoln's Youth" by Louis Austin Warren. 2009 is Lincoln's birth year bicentennial, so I am going to try and read 1 Lincoln book every moth this year. I got this book a few years ago when vacationing in Indianapolis, where their historical center has a Lincoln wing. It's about, well, I guess you can figure that from the title! I figured that's a great place to start my Lincoln reading.

What are you planning for your first book of the year?

The Campaign for the Book

Vulpes Libris (the book foxes) have a recent post introducing 'The Campaign for the Book'. This is a campaign organised by Alan Gibbons, a childrens author, who beliefs libraries are of extreme importance to our culture.

The campaign has a charter which outlines what those involved have deicated themselve to:

We, the signatories of this Charter commit ourselves to campaigning for the following:

1. The central place of reading for pleasure in society.

2. A proper balance of book provision and Information Technology in public and school libraries. We welcome the integration of new technologies but believe that they must not erode the key place of books and the need for a healthy and expanding book stock.

3. The defence of public libraries and librarians from attempts to cut spending in a ‘soft’ area.

4. An extension of the role of the school librarian and a recognition of the school library as a key engine of learning. All staff employed in school libraries to have access to appropriate and adequate support and training.

5. The recruitment of more school librarians. It is a national scandal that less than a third of secondary schools has a trained librarian.

6. The defence of the professional status of the public and school librarian. We oppose downgrading. In some places this has reduced librarians’ salaries by up to half.

7. A higher profile for reading for pleasure in schools, including shadowing book awards, inviting authors and illustrators to visit, developing school creative writing magazines.

8. To support the sustainability and future development of Schools Library Service provision nationally.

9. To promote a more positive reading culture in school, in which the reading of whole books is preferred to studying extracts alone

All of this is pretty important stuff. If you love reading chances are you've had a positive encounter with a library. One of my favourite childhood memories is finding the hardback copy of Philip Pullman's 'Northern Lights' in Dudley library. It was the first cover design edition, the one featuring the detailed version of the altheiometer and I loved it. I read it three times before buying my own copy but I never found a copy with that exact cover. This was just one of many wonderful encounters I have had with books in my local libraries.

In my area (West Midlands UK) there are several libraries which are well run but which would certainly benefit from increased funding. If you haven't yet picked your reading charity for next year I urge you to think about reading for your local library in 2009.