Mar 132009
 

A Visit to Oz You’ve seen the movie, you’ve seen the musical– but have you read the book? And did you know there’s 13 other books, plus an additional 26 written by non-Baum authors? Not to mention all the apocrypha that’s been published.

If you’ve ever wanted to read the Oz books– any Oz books– but have been to intimidated or just never had a good reason, here’s your chance! Join the Visit to Oz Challenge and have some fun!

Okay, did that tempt you yet? Here’s some more details:

What sort of books count toward the challenge?
All of ‘em. Every book written about Oz, or about characters from Oz, count towards the challenge. This includes the books written by Gregory Maguire, or any of the Ruth Plumly Thompson books, and so on. I suppose non-fiction books could count too, like a biography about L. Frank Baum or somesuch.

Audiobooks and ebooks count as well.

How many books do I have to read?
A minimum of five books. Why five? Because there’s five countries in the land of Oz! Er, if you count the Emerald City area as a separate country, that is. Here’s a map. Of course there’s more countries outside the main Oz bit– but, er, moving on.

Of course you can read as many as you like after the first five. For those that read all the “canon” Oz books (40 of ‘em!), I’ll have a special prize for you at the end.

How long will the challenge last?
From March 31 to December 31! More than enough time to read at least five Oz books; they’re pretty short. Well, the original books are, at least– the apocryphal ones are normally longer.

I’d love to join! Sign me up!
Fantastic! Just leave a comment here with a permalink to your list/challenge post, and I’ll stick your name at the bottom of this post. If you don’t have a blog but would still like to participate, lemme know and I’ll very happily add you to the list as well.

And feel free to steal that image up there for your own posts. I made it; hope it isn’t too horrible!

Before you leave…!
I’ll have a discussion post up on around the 1st of each month, where we can catch up with other participants and talk about the books we’ve read so far. It’ll be fun (hopefully), and I hope that you’ll stop by then! (Idea borrowed from Becky’s It’s the End of the World II Challenge.)

If you have any questions or suggestions, please don’t be shy: leave me a comment or send me an email through my contact form located at the top of my blog there. I’ll get back to you ASAP.

A Visit to Oz Challenge Participants
Anastasia (that’s me!) @ Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog
Jeanette @ A Comfy Chair and a Good Book
Blondierocket @ Reading Comes From Writing
Meaghan @ Am I Who I Want to Be?
Penny @ Penny’s Pages
Shannan @ Shannan Loves Books
Whitney @ Bookworm Whit

Bookmark and Share

links for 2009-3-13

 Posted by Anastasia on March 13, 2009  No Responses »
Mar 132009
 
  • “But I must say, the idea of authors paying for reviews—from reviewers who are sometimes themselves paid—and then having them “posted” on dozens of sites, under what must be bogus names… well, it creeps me out.” What do you think about paid reviews being posted on free sites like Amazon or LibraryThing? Creepy and untrustworthy, or just another part of the business?
  • “DRM is Digital Rights Management, or, more appropriately, Driving Readers Mad. The security wrapped around ebooks that allegedly prevents me from sharing them really just prevents me from owning the actual book itself. Given the various types of formats and the varying degrees of security embedded within them, DRM means I’m being sold a format and not the actual book. Moreover, when something goes wrong, and with computers, something always does, the honest consumer is the one who gets screwed.” The Bitches break it down for those that may still not know what DRM is and how it affects them.
  • “It turns out we weren’t the only ones interested in being able to read books on handheld devices in advance of publication, and though it was acknowledged that NetGalley did have quite a few publishers already participating in its system, the PDFs they distribute are encrypted, so we wouldn’t be able to convert them into a Kindle-friendly format—and then there were the other e-book readers to consider, of course. (Who, we wondered, has the patience or endurance to read an entire book sitting at their desk?) Some publishers could offer exactly the sort of files we were looking for, but a more… ubiquitious approach to the situation would be helpful.” Wanna get in on the conversation? If you have a Twitter account you can use the hashtag #digiarcs, which’ll connect all the digital ARCs convos together, or you can also comment on this post at GalleyCat.