January 1 2015 – December 21st 2015
From the website that brings you the weekly meme, What Are You Reading, it seem only appropriate that I continue to host the WHERE Are You Reading Challenge. I started hosting this challenge in 2010 and have enjoyed marking off the states every year 🙂
How do you decide what state a book is categorized under?
1. In a fiction read it would be the State or Country that the book spends the most time in. (Ie. If your main character is from Wisconsin but the book is all about his/her time in college in California – the books should categorize under California….)
2. Non fiction reads categorize in whatever State or Country it is about (Ie…. a book about fly fishing in Colorado is a Colorado point, and a book about women in Afghanistan is an Afghanistan point.
3. If the book goes from one state to another… go with the state that most of the time is spent.
How to get started
Grab the challenge button (above) here for your posts and sidebar.
Set up a page to capture your states, countries, etc… however you want to do it. Here is mine for a sample.
Additionally, some like to add their books to a Google Map which can be fun to put all the book titles on a map and watch it fill up but of course this is completely optional.
Questions?
Do you have to have a blog to participate? No. You can do everything on an excel spreadsheet or in a notebook without linking the book to a review.
Do I have to have my post up by January 1st, 2015? No, but I would think you would want to get started right away at the beginning of the year. However, you will be able to sign up throughout January as well.
Do audio books count? ABSOLUTELY!
Once you are ready and have your list and/or map set up please create a blog post (those who have blogs) using the meme picture I provided above as well as link to this post so others may join in. Then come back and link that post here to Mr Linky (below) so I as well as other participants know that you are participating and we can pop in throughout the year and see how we are all doing.
This is actually a fun and easy challenge as all books you read qualify and it will be fun to see where you generally read books as well as searching out books to fill in areas that you need.
For those who have covered the 50 states by the end of 2015, they will go into a drawing for a $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble or to Amazon. ** All other areas beyond the 50 states are bonus points and we will have a drawing ($10 Amazon or B and N gift card) using random.org for those who read 10 or more books throughout 2015 in that category.
That’s it! Here is a link to tips on how to do it. Any other questions – please leave them in the comments section below.
I can’t wait to see WHERE You Are Reading!
Ready to sign up?
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Book Journey 
What about if the book is set in a fictional country? 😛
Great question! I always have a little grouping I call “unknown”. 🙂 I really hate that as I like to have a place, but of course… there are books that do not have a place.
It’s a really interesting challenge. I mean do you consider Hogwarts as being in Scotland as that’s where it’s nominally located, but in fact it doesn’t actually exist, more’s the pity!
Good example. For HP books I would go with the setting of Britain so I would go with that. 🙂
On my list I put fictional countries with other countries (alphabetically), but mark them as fictional by put (fic) after the listing. I do that for fictional towns in my state list also. You can see how I did last year’s list here:
http://susans2014books.blogspot.com/p/where-are-you-reading.html
While I learned a lot about blogging I am not sure I know enough or want to take the time. I would be interested to know the locations on the books I read.
http://idahobluebird50.wordpress.com
I have this written more complicated then it needs to be… I really need to update the post… the map info really does not have to be in here, a list of where you read is perfect. 😀
Every thing I read is being put on my blog.
I love reading around the world so this is perfect. I have never tried something like this on Google maps, is it fairly straight forward to figure out?
The maps are fairly easy – I figured it out and I am no computer wiz. You can add pointers to where you read on the map and add the book title. The first year I did this I went overboard and linked the book cover on the map and if you clicked on it you went to me review. HA…. that is not happening this year. I am just going with a written list on the blog 🙂
It sounds like a fun challenge and you can count me in. However, I will be keeping track of mine in a notebook. I’ll just list each state and keep track that way, as well as other countries the book may be in.
That works!
Is there a URL for the image? I am having difficulty putting it into my sidebar.
https://bookjourney.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/4a.jpg?w=450&h=395
I did this in 2014 and really enjoyed it. I didn’t realize how many books take place in California and New York! And now I know a lot of my books take place in the UK. Thanks for hosting!
Isnt that funny? I discovered that too! I would get disgruntled about it… another one in New York???? And I found myself asking friends who were talking about a good book, “Where is it located at?” 😆
I’m actually hosting something like this on my blog but only with the 50 states. Oops… I’ll have to see what you are reading throughout the year so I can get some ideas on what to read for my challenge. Good luck!
No worries, it is easy to double up on challenges and then discover someone else is doing something similar. I have hosted this one the past 5 years. 😀 Good luck to you as well 🙂
Thank you for hosting this one again, Sheila. I never get to all 50 states, but I love this one. I didn’t do a map last year and I’m not sure I will do the map this year, but I’m signing up and will keep track on my blog.
Hiya! Would it be cool if I wrote a review & a tracklist in wordpad & upload that file & link it? (: Love this idea, it’s been a while since I’ve done a reading challenge…
Sure 😉
I would enjoy being a part of this challenge. I couldn’t figure out how to sign up if you don’t have a blog.
I love this challenge – have done it for the last three years and will do it again this year. This is the link for this year’s challenge on my blog:
http://susans2015readingblog.blogspot.com/p/where-are-you-reading.html
Last year’s is here if you want to see how I did it. Didn’t make all the states – will be trying harder this year. I found that a large number of mine took place in California and Texas.
http://susans2014books.blogspot.com/p/where-are-you-reading.html
Sign me up!!
I’m doing this again, although I was 7 states short in 2014. I have a lot of fun wandering into strange genres to get the hard to find books. I also get cranky when the authors play coy with the setting — sometimes I’m pouring over Google Maps trying to figure out where exactly these people are — they mentioned this lake, so maybe…
I like using world66’s maps, and seeing the colors shift as I get more states in.
I changed some stuff on my blog and so I redid my submittal for the linky but I don’t know how to delete the first one.