Goodbye 2008

Now that the hustle and bustle of the holidays are over, I'm finally getting around to cleaning up the blog a little bit. Over the next few days, I'll be posting wrap-ups of the last 2 challenges I was able to finish in 2008--the From the Stacks Challenge and What's in a Name Challenge.

With these 2 challenges finished, I completed a total of 22 challenges in 2008. One biggie I didn't finish was the 888 challenge. But I did read 37 out of 56 books for the challenge and those 37 all came from my TBR pile, so I'm happy about that.

I'll also start signing up for 2009 challenges soon. Most of them have already started. And learning a lesson from the 888 in 2008, I have decided to leave many of my 2009 challenges more open to my reading whims. In other words, for challenges that don't require a list up front I will probably just add to my list as I find and read books that fit the challenge. I was feeling a little tied down with all my reading prescribed ahead of time last year.

Here are a few of the list-less challenges I'm planning to join for 2009:

The 2009 Pub Challenge -- Read 9 books newly published in 2009

The 2009 Support Your Local Library Challenge -- My goal is 25 library books

The 2009 100+ Reading Challenge -- I read 87 books in 2008. I'm hoping to get to the 100 mark in 2009.

The Read Your Own Books Challenge -- My goal is to read at least 50 of my own books. I need to whittle down my TBR mountain somehow!

The 2009 New Author Challenge -- My goal is to read 25 new-to-me authors.

Pages Read Challenge -- My goal is to read at least 30,000 pages in 2009.

I will start a new blog post to list books for these challenges when I finish the first one.

I also intend to sign up for:

The 2009 Romance Challenge -- read 5 romance books in 2009.

The 2009 Themed Challenge -- read 4 to 6 books linked by one to three themes - starts in February.

The Casual Classics Challenge -- read 4 classics in 2009.

The 2009 Chunkster Challenge -- read books over 450 pages long.

The Fourth Annual Just Read More Novels Month -- I'm shooting for 10 books read in January.

The 999 Challenge -- Read 9 books in 9 categories in 2009. Yes, I know, I didn't finish the 888, but that won't stop me from trying again ;o).

And there will probably be more, but, for now, I'm going to get off the computer and start making a dent in some of these challenges!