It's here! The official sign up for A Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon! It's just a month away on January 21 - 27! It will start at 12:00am Monday and end at 11:59pm on Sunday. Times are central standard time so adjust your times accordingly. Of course, like most read-a-thons, the books read must be novels or novellas, adult or young adult are fine, and you can read children's books too (as long as you do read some novels too). You DO NOT have to participate the entire week. Join in when you can, start in the middle, end early...whatever works best for your schedule. As long as you sign in at the sign-in post and do some kind of wrap up post, you're in for the big giveaway at the end. As with my previous read-a-thons, it will be a week of relaxed reading during which we can personally challenge ourselves and whittle away those ever looming TBR piles/shelves/libraries. I hope you will join me! I will not be hosting any mini-challenges, as we learned from my last two read-a-thons, focusing on the reading rocks. However, if anyone else would like to host a mini-challenge, you are more than welcome. We will have a few scheduled Twitter chats again (and perhaps some more reading sprints). Our twitter hashtag is #WintersRespiteSign up in the linky below. You do not have to do a post now, unless you want to help spread the word (hint, hint...) If you don't have a blog, use Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads. Having a blog is not required. Be sure to grab the button at the top of this post. (Don't forget that this is just the sign-up linky. There will be starting line sign-in and wrap-up linkies during the read-a-thon and doing both is required to be eligible for the giveaway).

I've already done the Bout of Books readathon to kick off 2013, but you know I have to join this one. Second year in a row!

My goals:

Read 5 books
Review all books read
Read Part IV of Persuasion (online readalong)
Read Long Way Gone (January book club selection)
Read an average of 2 hours a day

My TBR pile (I like lots of options):

Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (book club selection)
Persuasion by Jane Austen (week 4 -- iPad)
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (iPad)
The Wedding Gift by Lucy Kevin (iPad)
Lost by Gregory Maguire (iPad)
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson (iPad)
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (iPad)
Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire (iPad)
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
Matched by Ally Condie
Crossed by Ally Condie
One Day by David Nicholls
Velveteen by Daniel Marks
Terror by Night by Ambrose Bierce
A Foreign Affair by Caro Peacock
Thomas Paine by Craig Nelson
One Day by David Nicholls

Last Year's Totals (Let's see if I can beat them):

Total Books Read: 8
Total Pages Read: 2003
Total Time Read: 13 hours 26 minutes