Announcing the Stream of Suggestions Reading Challenge

April 1, 2010, to April 30, 2011

Some of you may remember that I announced a reading challenge last month (which I called by a different name). Since a couple of you expressed an interest in this challenge, I thought I’d make it official, with a new name (thanks Mr. B!), a button* (my first!) and a Linky tool.

I often read nonfiction books in which the author mentions other books that sound interesting, but I rarely seek out those books. So the idea behind the Stream of Suggestions Reading Challenge is to read books based on author suggestions, starting with one book and following the “stream of suggestions” to see where it will take you...

Rules

1. Pick a book to start with (it can be any book, but nonfiction is probably easiest). This can be a book you’ve already read in April.
   
2. The author of the next book must be mentioned in the previous book, either in the text itself or in the bibliography. (You don’t have to read the book mentioned; you can pick another book by the same author if you want.)
   
3. If you get stuck (no authors are mentioned or you can’t find their books easily or none of the ones mentioned is of any interest to you), you can go back one or two books and start again with a different author.
4. In my case, I’m going to try to give priority to books I already own or that are available through my library system, but this is optional.
5. You can read as many books as you want (and you don’t need to decide in advance how many books you will read), but you need to read and review at least 4 books to qualify for the giveaway.
   

Everyone who reads and reviews at least 4 books will qualify for the giveaway. The prize will be the next book on your list, as long as it is available from the Book Depository and is under $20 CAN. (The giveaway is therefore open internationally, as long as the Book Depository will ship to where you live.)

My start-off book is Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro, which I will be reviewing soon. My next book will either be Will Yoga & Meditation Really Change My Life?: Personal Stories from 25 of North America’s Leading Teachers edited by Stephen Cope (which I took out of the library) or Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope, which was the book Shapiro mentioned in Devotion (and which I recently bought at a library book sale).

If you decide to join me in this challenge, feel free to grab the button I made!

Edited to add:
This challenge has been “rebooted” and now runs until December 30, 2011. To join the challenge, please sign up here.

*The image is a picture of a stream near the Gabes Mountain trailhead in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. This picture was taken by Brian Stansberry and is under Creative Commons license.