Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Summer Reading Challenge & A Giveaway


I've been kind of bored with my reading lately- instead of using the time I have to pursue my own interests, I feel like I've just been completing assignments. Don't get me wrong- I enjoy taking review requests, and getting free books, and reading things I wouldn't otherwise read. The problem is, I haven't been reading the things I would otherwise read. So I'm going to give myself a modest goal of reading five books that I've tagged want-to-read in my LibraryThing catalog- five books that I just want to read. Nothing necessarily current, nothing that I'm obligated to read. Just stuff I want to read.
The books:

Tiare in Bloom, by Celestine Vaite.
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros.
Oscar and Lucinda, by Peter Carey.
Marie Antoinette: The Journey, by Antonia Fraser.
The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean.



So that's the challenge. On to the giveaway. The first person to leave a comment with the name of the beach pictured in my logo will win a paperback advance review copy of When We Get To Surf City, journalist Bob Greene's memoir of touring with fun-in-the-sun band-from-the-60s Jan and Dean.

The book came out May 13 so it's not brand-spanking-new. But it's a fun summer book and I will send it to you if you guess the beach correctly. If no one gets the beach by midnight Saturday, June 1, I'll take the one that comes closest.
Here's the pic again:
Good luck!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your idea of *choosing* a few of the books you read this summer, instead of only reading ARCs and book group picks. I may make a short list myself (5 choice books in addition to the rest of the summer reading; should be do-able!).
As far as your beautiful beach; I must be vacation-deprived... I'm going to take a random wild guess ... Castaway Cay the Disney Cruise Line Island in the Bahamas(I'll check back to see if I'm close!)

Marie Cloutier said...

sheistoofondofbooks- no, but thanks for participating! :-)

LisaMM said...

Well I know which beach it's NOT.. it doesn't look anything like our beaches in Southern California. I'll guess Maui?

Terri said...

Waikiki?

Marie Cloutier said...

LisaMM, Terri- nope :-)

Candy Schultz said...

I have read the Marie Antoinette book and it reads like a novel. Very good. Might I also suggest a couple of books I reviewed on my blog recently: The Lost King of France (would be a good follow up to Marie Antoinette); The Black Tower which comes out in August, by Louis Bayard. This one is a novel.

I just ordered Michael Gruber's new book and if you haven't read The Book of Air and Shadows it is like a far more literate DaVinci Code.

Lenore Appelhans said...

I like your summer reading challenge idea. I'm not good at identifying beaches since I don't frequent them. But it looks tropical. Maldives!

Marie Cloutier said...

Lenore, feel free to use the logo if you want to. I don't think I have the energy to run a real blog challenge right now but still. :-) (and sorry, no, it's not the Maldives but it is tropical. I'm beginning to think it's too difficult a question!)

Anonymous said...

How about Puerto Vallarta?

Rebecca said...

I don't know what beach it is, but is it in New Zealand, or somewhere around there? It is a pretty difficult question though, with so many beaches in the world, I guess it just depends on what kind of plant and animal life it has.

Elizabeth said...

Well, I don't really have any idea, but it looks like some of the coastline we saw in St. Lucia, so that will be my guess. Wish I was there, wherever it is!

Tim V said...

Alright, my guess is Aruba...