In which the Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-Thon begins and goals are set

Not only am I participating in Random House of Canada's Olympic Readathon, I also signed up for the Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-Thon which begins today. Summer Wrap-Up Read-a-Thon, or #SWUR as it goes by in the Twitterverse, is hosted by Jennifer at Some Like It Paranormal and Jude at In Between. They say, “It will provide some motivation to finish up all the reading you were hoping to get done over the summer. You can read whatever you want and as much or little as you want.”

I like this. A no-pressure week with a focus on reading, but a number of fun activities and challenges for those who want to play along. And the part of a Read-a-Thon that most appeals to me is the camaraderie among a bunch of readers who are sharing what—and why— they are reading. I'm sharing posts here on the blog as well as the occasional tweet. Of course, I'm reading the tweets that others are posting and following links to blog posts.

I suppose I need to come up with another set of "goals" for this week's event. Fortunately, the only goal I set for #OlympicReadathon was a total page count and posting regularly to the blog. That's going to be easy to overlap with any goals specific to #SWUR.

So with the theme of finishing up what I was hoping to read during the summer, one major goal for this week is to read A Call to Arms by Alan Dean Foster. A Call to Arms is the first book of a trilogy which Foster published in the early 1990s. I've had books 2 and 3 on my shelf for a long time, but had never gotten around to finding a copy of the first book. When I saw it on my sister-in-law's shelves, I asked to borrow it. That was eighteen months ago. With the first stop on our vacation to be her house, I think it might be a good idea to return the book, so I need to buckle down and get it read before the 12th of August. (Interesting how the end of #SWUR corresponds with the day we are to arrive at my sister-in-law's house.)

I don't know how many other books I can complete during this week. I'll be attending a conference during the day and hope to have some of my evenings free for reading. But you never can tell what will happen during the week. There are some people attending whom I haven't seen in at least six months, so we'll be catching up with each other. And that will very likely entail a shared dinner or two. And, of course, there is that on-going distraction of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games!

So, I guess my goals are very simple. Read as much as I can. Finish A Call to Arms. Post regularly to this blog. And I will aim to participate in at least two of the challenges—I don't know which two yet, but I'll pick two that look like fun.