My first giveaway of the year has come to a close and ... drumroll, please ... Jenny (The Allgaiers) has won a copy of I Believe in Jesus Too by Mark S. Nielsen.  Congratulations!  It's a beautiful book and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.  If you would please send me your mailing address (blogginboutbooksATgmailDOTcom), I'll forward it on to Mark, who will be mailing out the book.

If you didn't win this time, don't despair.  I'll be hosting lots more giveaways throughout the year.  Stay tuned!

As much as I've always loved reading challenges, I sort of suck at them.  Does that stop me from signing up for some every year?  You'd think the answer would be yes, but it's actually a resounding NO.  They're fun for me, even if I never actually get around to actually completing them.  So, here are the three I'm going to do this year:

Dystopia 2013, hosted again this year by Bonnie over at Bookish Ardour.  Since I did not do well on this in 2012, I'm going to try again.  Because I rocked this challenge last year (oh wait ...), I'm signing up for the Contagion level.  It involves reading 15 dystopian books, which should be a cinch for me.  You don't have to make a list at all, but here are the books I'm hoping to read:

1.  Orleans by Sherri L. Smith
2.  Revolution 19 by Gregg Rosenblum
3.  1984 by George Orwell
4.  The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
5.  The Death Cure by James Dashner
6.  Crossed by Allie Condie
7.  Reached by Allie Condie
8.  Light by Michael Grant
9.  Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
10.  The Giver by Lois Lowry (re-read)
11.  Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
12.  Messenger by Lois Lowry
13.  Son by Lois Lowry
14.  Fragments by Dan Wells
15.  The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer

2013 50 States Challenge, hosted by Book Obsessed.  This challenge is one of my favorites because all I have to do is keep track of the states in which the books I read are set.  Easy and fun—totally a win-win for me!

Monthly Key Word Challenge -- This one is hosted by Bookmark to Blog, one of my favorite new book blogs.  It just looks like fun.  You're given a short list of key words each month and you have to read one book with that word (or a variation of it) during that month.

Here's what I plan to read:

January (key word:  freeze):  Frozen by Mary Casanova
February (key word:  family):  True Sisters by Sandra Dallas
March (key word:  gold):  Grace, Gold and Glory: My Leap of Faith by Gabrielle Douglas
April (key word:  light):  Enduring Light by Carla Kelly
May (key word:  shatter):  Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
June (key word:  island):  The Island by Victoria Hislop
July (key word:  dream):  Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
August (key word:  tree):  The Secret Tree by Natalie Standiford
September (key word:  shade):  The Shades of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer
October (key word:  inside):  Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder
November (key word:  number):  Revolution 19 by Gregg Rosenblum
December (key word:  ring):  The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

So, what do you think?  I should be able to do these, right?  Right?  How about you?  Do you love or loathe reading challenges?  Are you doing any this year?