Important Updates!

I have a few important updates to share...

New URL

I had to let my domain for this site go, so it has reverted back to this URL: https://gathertogetherread.blogspot.com/

If you have any of the buttons from this site on your blog, you will need to update the link to the above URL. That also goes for RSS feeds, etc. I apologize for the inconvenience.

1000 Books Project...Nicholas Nickleby read-along

I am once again behind on the reading. Oof. I'm hoping to be caught up in the next couple of days and will post the discussion soon. Thanks for bearing with me.

Stephen King Challenge participants...

It's almost time for Castle Macabre's Something Wicked Fall and we are once again going to be doing a read-along of a Stephen King book. I have a poll live for people to vote for which SK book they would like to read for the read-along. Vote here: https://forms.gle/pg97xSoV6TpyXbbZ6

Check out the Save the Date post for Something Wicked Fall at Castle Macabre here.

Here is the event graphic!

That's it for now. If you have any questions, leave me a comment below.

1000 Books Project: French Classics - Some read-along news

I have an update of sorts for our read-alongs. First, an explanation regarding my getting so behind on The Count of Monte Cristo. I've had a lot of health and personal issues in the past few months. In early April, and then again in May, I had two bouts of cellulitis. I was pretty sick. I also lost my grandmother in April which was another blow, and I couldn't go to the funeral because of my illness. Then, two weeks ago, I had to make the difficult decision to have my beautiful cat, Alice put to sleep. She was 14 years old. I'm still having a hard time. It has been a lot.

So, what does that mean for the 1000 Books Project? Well, I've decided to extend the Count of Monte Cristo read-along until the end of July. Then we will start Les Miserables in August and read it through December. There are five "volumes" in Les Miserables so one for each month. That's roughly 200 pages per month. I think we can manage it. I hope so. 

Stay tuned for the official reading schedule post for Les Miserables. I will have the final discussion post for The Count of Monte Cristo posted at the end of July.

Thank you for bearing with me. I really appreciate your understanding, and if you're still with me, I appreciate that too. 

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An update for the Gather Together and Read community

You may have heard that Feedburner's follow by email function is going to be discontinued next month. At first I was in panic mode, but soon found there were easy solutions to the problem. Thankfully! So, I decided to switch over to follow.it which is a free email subscription service. If you were already subscribed via Feedburner's service, you won't have to worry about missing any email updates from this blog. New visitors can now subscribe via email at any time so you won't miss any of my future posts. You can subscribe now by filling out the form below, or on the form in its regular home in the sidebar.

 

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1000 Books Project: The Count of Monte Cristo - Update

Yes, grossly behind at this point. I was sick earlier in April and then my grandmother passed. A lot going on, to say the least. I am finished with the March reading section, but it's the end of April so still haven't finished the April section. Will try to have the March and April discussion (combined) posted by mid May. 

So, discussion by mid May will be the following:

March: Read through page 457, through the end of Chapter LV
April: Read through page 603, through the end of Chapter LXXVI

Will try my hardest to have May's discussion up by end of May/the earliest of June. That section is:

May: Read through page 725, through the end of Chapter XCIII

Thank you for bearing with me.

 

1000 Books Project - An update

I've had to make the executive decision to change up our reading schedule for the project. Some of you may be aware of my move this August, if you follow at my readathon blog, Seasons of Reading. Yes, I'm moving house in August. We live in Nashville, Tennessee (my mom, my sons, and I) and have wanted to move back to my hometown (Midland, Michigan) for a while now since my sister and her family still live up there. We planned to move after both boys were graduated, but my younger son (17) started home school last year so we decided to move sooner. Plus, my older son (who just graduated) is going to Central Michigan University in the fall. We originally were planning on moving by the fourth week in August, as my son was starting school on August 31, but now with the pandemic, they have moved the start date to August 17 (as many colleges are doing), which means we have to move by August 10 to get him moved into the dorms before school starts. Needless to say, the remainder of June and the month of July are going to be very busy with packing, moving prep, etc. Yikes!

What does this mean for our read-alongs? I'm extending Sagas of Icelanders through August 31. In Cold Blood will be September (and into October, if needed). I wanted it to be a Banned Books Week read in September anyway. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee will still be in November (into December, if needed), in honor of National American Indian Heritage Month.

I have updated the official reading schedule post here. The Sagas of Icelanders schedule is also updated here. 

I hope you will still be able to join me for the read-alongs, and thanks for bearing with me. ❤

Update on 2018 Reading Challenges

I will be hosting my yearly challenges again in 2018. Those are ...

• the yearly challenge for the 13 Ways of Looking at the Lifetime Reading Plan perpetual challenge 
• the Read Your (Book) Shelf Challenge
• Book to Movie Challenge

I'm running behind because of the busy holiday season, but hopefully after I get packages mailed tomorrow and Christmas cards sent I will be able to sit down and work on posts for these challenges. I hope you'll bear with me. For details on any of the challenges, including my long term and perpetual challenges, you can check in the sidebar. 

If you're on Goodreads, my reading group, Lit Collective is being overhauled. You might be interested, as the book is sometimes considered a "project" book because of its length. 

Pardon our dust...and #SummerofIT update

This post will be cross-posted on all of my sites.

You may not have heard about Photobucket screwing over a ton of people with their new third party image hosting plan. (Read more here: http://nypost.com/2017/07/05/how-photobucket-is-now-shaking-down-its-users/) Basically, it means if you have a free account, you can no longer host your images without paying $400/year! So, all those clever grab codes I make for images and buttons...they have to be fixed with a new link from wherever the images are now being hosted. Luckily, I own two domains on GoDaddy so I get free image storage up to a certain amount and then I can pay extra if I need more (only $1.99/month). But with 7+ blogs/sites, it's going to take me a bit. I hope you will bear with me.

If you have any of my buttons on your site, I'm afraid you will have to delete and then come back by at a later date to grab the new code. There should not be any further problems in future. Fingers crossed.

I hope Photobucket crashes and burns for their underhanded tactics. I mean, I didn't even get an email notifying me!

Also, if you're looking for the first discussion post for the Summer of IT read-along, because of all this, plus some other personal issues, I'm behind. I'm hoping to have something ready by the end of the weekend...universe abiding! Thanks for bearing with me.