Reading in September: A Round Up and AWB Reading Challenge

Another month has gone, another round-up of events here in GatheringBooks. Here is a summary of what we’ve been up to in the past month.

I thought I might as well begin with Cybils, as I am thrilled to be one of the 2nd Round Panel Judges for the Fiction Picture Book Category! Woohoo! Nominations are currently ongoing for your favorite books at the Cybils Official Website. Make sure you drop by and visit.

Book Hunting Expeditions

We love our Book Hunting Expedition posts as it serves the double function of keeping track of books we have already purchased or borrowed from the library. Plus, it gives us an excuse to splurge on books!

• BHE (16): Breaking the Diet
• BHE (17): Book Hunting Expedition in Helsinki, Finland
• BHE (18): Launch of Bimonthly theme – Books about Books and the River of Words
• BHE (19): Singapore Library Warehouse Sale 2012
• BHE (20): The Day I Went to Book Off and All Hell Broke Loot

Photo Journal

We enjoy taking pictures and matching them with favorite quotations from well-loved authors. Here are a few of our Photo Journal posts woven into several photography challenges in the blogosphere.

Frizztext hosts a weekly A-Z Photo Challenge every Tuesday which we join regularly. We also post a few of our own photos, just because. Here are a few of what we shared so far this month:

• J is for Journey
• K is for Koala Kingdom in Brisbane Australia
• L is for Lands’ End, San Francisco
• M is for Magic
• N is for Nautical

Other Weekly Photo Challenges

There are also other weekly challenges that we join such as the one hosted by The Daily WordPress and Ailsa from Where’s My Backpack?

• Weekly Photo Challenge: Near and Far
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary
• Travel Theme: Red
• Travel Theme: Texture
• Travel Theme: White
• Travel Theme: Foliage

Academic Nook: Benjamin Farr

We are privileged to have Benjamin Farr, Librarian from Tanglin Trust School, as our Featured Academic/Librarian for our recently-concluded Dusty Bookshelves and Library Loot Bimonthly theme.

Benjamin Farr’s Book Week and the Power of Make Believe

Meet the Storyteller: Cyan Abad-Jugo

It was lovely to know more about Cyan and her literary journeys, not to mention her romance with New Wave – for our Meet the Storyteller in Behind the Books.

Cyan Abad-Jugo’s Musical and Literary Journeys

Miscellany

Aside from writing [often lengthy] book reviews and posting photos, we also include a few other miscellany stuff and announcements here, bookish/artsy events, as well as updates about my Book Club, Gathering Readers, which is held at the Jurong West Public Library. Here are a few of our miscellany posts:

Gathering Readers Virtual Discussion 2: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Featured Guests in GatheringBooks: An anthropologist, a photographer, a singer-songwriter and children’s book illustrator

Bimonthly Theme and Kidlitosphere Meme

We were at the tail-end of our bimonthly theme sometime before the middle of September. Here are some of the books we have reviewed for our Dusty Bookshelves theme.

A Boston Public Garden Special with Make Way for Ducklings

New Wave and the Edsa Celebration: Salingkit, a 1986 Diary by Cyan Abad-Jugo

Criminal Families and Curse Workers: Red Glove by Holly Black

The Library by Sarah Stewart and David Small

The Lonely Book by Kate Bernheimer and Chris Sheban

Beyond the Pages of We are in a Book! By Mo Willems

Buddhism and a Cat: The Cat who went to Heaven – for the Newbery Medal Challenge

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead – for the Newbery Medal Challenge

We have just recently joined this Monday meme and we are enjoying ourselves immensely so far. We usually interweave our posts with Nonfiction Monday as well, if we can. Here are a few of our posts:

A Caldecott Medal Book Binge

Feast of Caldecott Honor Titles

Marcus, Juster, Steinberg, Willems

Books about Books

A Sinister Tale about Flattery: The Spider and the Fly by Tony Diterlizzi

Some e.e. cummings for Poetry Friday

Pablo Neruda = Love

Delicious Feast for Two (or three… or four..)

Reading Challenge Update

365 Reading Challenge. We continue with our tradition of documenting the books we have read for the year and making sure that collectively, the three of us should be able to read 365 books this 2012. Admittedly, it’s a bit slow for us this year. We’re hoping that the numbers would pick up as soon as Fats finds the time to update her reading list. Here are the books we have read for January/February,March/April, May/June, July/August of this year. So far, here are the numbers:

• January – 30
• February – 33
• March – 46
  
• April – 34
• May – 13
• June – 13
• July – 22
• August – 27 
• September
  • Myra –  18 books
  • Iphigene –  5 books
  • Total for August: 23 books

• Grand Total: 241

We need to read 124 more books til end of December to complete our own personal challenge – we need to read roughly 42 books per month (for the next three months) as a team to make sure we reach our goal. I comfort myself with the knowledge that Fats has not updated her reading list yet, so the numbers will pick up soon.

Here’s our running update for the other reading challenges we joined this year:

• Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: 31 out of targeted 12 – completed
• Picture Book Challenge: 106 of 120
• AWB Reading Challenge:  97 of 35 – completed
• Caldecott Challenge: 23 of 24 
• Newbery Medal Challenge: 4 of 12 
• Reading the World Challenge: 6 of 7
• Persons-of-Color Reading Challenge: 31 of 25 – completed
• Novels in Verse Reading Challenge: 7 of 10 – {no progress this month}
• Immigrant Stories Challenge: 15 of 6 – completed

August Winner for the Award-Winning-Books Reading Challenge

Congratulations TBM for your review of Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi!

If you have the time, do check out TBM’s amazing blog as TBM takes on the challenge of visiting 192 countries, reading 1,001 books, and watching the top 100 movies – with the many travel photos to boot, you’re bound never to get bored.

Please send us your postal details so that Pansing Books can send your book prize over to you.

How about you, dear friends, what have you been up to this September?