Yay! May is the official(?) Utah Author Month! You can read more about the details here at Maw Books Blog, but in a nutshell: it's a celebration of Utah authors! I adore Utah authors, so you totally know I'm participating. Wondering who's a Utah author? Well, I compiled a short list of just some of Utah's awesome authors.

A.E. Cannon (Charlotte's Rose)
Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game)
Ally Condie (Matched)
Chris Crowe (Mississippi Trial 1955)
James Dashner (The Maze Runner)
Bree Despain (The Dark Divine)
Heather Dixon (Entwined)
Ann Dee Ellis (Everything is Fine)
Jessica Day George (Dragon Slippers, Princess of the Midnight Ball)
Shannon Hale (Books of Bayern, Princess Academy, Book of a Thousand Days, and more!)
Nathan Hale (Rapunzel's Revenge)
Mettie Ivie Harrison (The Princess and the Hound)
Kristen Landon (The Limit [MG])
Lisa Mangum (The Hourglass Door)
Brandon Mull (Fablehaven)
Sydney Salter (My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters)
Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn)
J. Scott Savage (Farworld [MG])
Emily Wing Smith (The Way He Lived, Back When You Were Easier to Love)
Wendy Toliver (Lifted)
Michael Tunnel (Wishing Moon)
Carol Lynch Williams (Glimpse, The Chosen One)
Sara Zarr (Story of a Girl, Once was Lost, Sweethearts)

I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet in terms of author interviews/giveaways. I'll definitely be doing SOMETHING, but not sure what. But I KNOW that I'll be reading a bunch of books by Utah authors and reviewing them. Here's my pile so far:

I'm going to read the Princess books by Mettie Ivie Harrison, The Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George, The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum, Posession by Elana Johnson, and I'm going to start re-reading the Bayern books and Book of a Thousand Days. I doubt I'll read all five Shan-books this month. But we'll see.

Even if you don't live in Utah, I would really encourage you to participate! If there are any books written by the authors listed above that you're dying to read, go for it! And claim it's for Utah author month! Win-win!

Today, tomorrow and Sunday is Bloggiesta! What is Bloggiesta?

In short, it’s a blogging marathon.  A opportunity to cross those nagging items off of your to-do list and improve your blog while in the good company of other awesome bloggers doing the same thing.

Here are my bloggiesta goals:

• Write reviews for next week
• Get the "upcoming release" posts scheduled for February
• Write a post on my personal standards in reviewing
• Contact at least 10 authors for interviews/guest posts
• Respond to all guest post requests
• Clean up tags
• Plan some future contests
• Make my bookmarks
• Talk with other bloggers about co-hosting something (anyone interested?)
• Plan read-a-thon
• Go through my Reader and delete blogs I never read.

Are you participating in bloggiesta? What are you doing?

I'm participating in the Debut Author Challenge hosted by The Story Siren. Here is where I'll keep track of the books I read for the challenge. Please note that these dates are the dates that I read/reviewed the book, not the month they were released.

Pre 2011
These are books that are 2011 reviews, but I read them pre-2011. They count toward winning prizes, but not toward my total.
The Iron Witch, Karen Mahoney
Angelfire, Courtney Allison Moulton
Vesper, Jeff Sampson
Unearthly, Cynthia Hand
Across the Universe, Beth Revis
Wither, Lauren DeStefano

 January
Entwined, Heather Dixon
The Water Wars, Cameron Stracher
Clarity, Kim Harrington

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

REMINDER: Today is the last day to nominate your favorite books of 2010. I still need a few more people in order to add another Amazon gift card. Click here for details.

I'm free! I had my last final this morning (Linear algebra at 7am, Ugh.) and it's smooth sailing from now until January 4th. Yee-haw! And that means:


I always have really lofty goals for Christmas reading, and I rarely meet them. I bet it'll be the same this year, but I'll still try! Here's my pile:



Here's the text-list:

Rot and Ruin, Jonathan Maberry (Goodreads | Amazon)
Plague, Michael Grant (Goodreads | Amazon)
Unearthly, Cynthia Hand (Goodreads | Amazon)
A Conspiracy of Kings, Megan Whalen Turner (Goodreads | Amazon)
Fire, Kristin Cashore (Goodreads | Amazon)
Generation Dead, Daniel Waters (Goodreads | Amazon)
Soulstice, Simon Holt (Goodreads | Amazon)
Need, Carrie Jones (Goodreads | Amazon)
Hearts at Stake, Alyxandra Harvey (Goodreads | Amazon)
City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare (Goodreads | Amazon)
City of Glass, Cassandra Clare (Goodreads | Amazon)
Clone Codes, McKissack & McKissack (Goodreads | Amazon)
Dark Life, Kat Falls (Goodreads | Amazon)

I'm starting with Rot & Ruin, since it's a library book. I need to get through at least 5 of them to meet my goal, and I'd really like to finish the Mortal Instruments series, but other than that I don't have any particular order planned. Have you read any of these? Did you like them? Is there one I just have to read?

Is Christmas a reading time for you?

Yay! It's time for the 2011 Debut Author Challenge!

I had NO idea what this was last year, so I didn't participate in the 2010DAC, but I certainly am this year!

The goal of this challenge is to get you to read at least 12 books by 2011 debut YA/MG authors. Want to know more? Click here.

Here's the list of books I KNOW I want to read as of right now. Some of them I will probably read before January 1st, but that's why I'm listing more than twelve. Also, I'll certainly add to this list as I learn of books.

Warped, Maurissa Guibord
Unearthly, Cynthia Hand
Across the Universe, Beth Revis
Vesper, Jeff Sampsen
The Water Wars, Cameron Stracher
The Trouble with Half a Moon, Danette Vigilante
Haven, Kristi Cook
Darkness Becomes Her, Kelly Keaton
The Iron Witch, Karen Mahoney
Clarity, Kim Harrington
Enclave, Ann Aguirre
Die for Me, Amy Plum
Divergent, Veronica Roth
Human .4, Mike Lancaster
Are YOU participating? Are any of these on your list?

The Twisted Fairy Tale Challenge ends at 11:59pm May 5th!
Post last minute reviews here:

http://squeakybooks.blogspot.com/2008/03/tft-reviews.html

Thanks to all who participated!

This is a sticky post, scroll down for more recent posts.

I have a couple seconds so I'll post this in regards to the TFT reading challenge.

Link to your review like this:

Squeaky Books (or your username if you prefer): Wildwood Dancing

Any questions? Feel free to ask. I may be a bit slow to answer.

I had a whim to host a reading challenge, so I'm going to. It's a fairly simple one and the rules are this:

Read 4 books about twisted fairy tales by May 5, 2008

And here are the exceptions:

You may read a book that is not directly based on a fairy tale, but has a very fairy-tale theme (i.e. Sarah Beth Durst's Into the Wild)

You may read more than 4 (duh)

And I think that's it...

I intend to read:

Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier
Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird, Vivian Van Velde
The Princess and the Hound, Mette Ivie Harrison
Beauty, Robin McKinley


If you would please sign up using the little sign up thing below (I hope it works).

In about two weeks I'll set up a new post for you to link to your reviews and such.



The End.