Read Together Challenge Wrap-up

This blog began in October 2009 when Dave and I, after twenty-seven years of marriage and thousands of books read individually, discovered the joy of reading together.  We were on a road trip with a broken cd player (so no audio books), wildly different tastes in radio stations, and one copy of a bestseller we both wanted to read.  So we began taking turns reading aloud while the other one drove - and we loved it!  We carried the habit into the house with the luggage and have been reading together ever since.  This blog is our way of sharing what we're reading and encouraging you to do the same.  In January 2010, we issued this challenge: 

Find someone special and read together. Take turns reading aloud, read to someone with a visual impairment, read a school-assigned book with your teen, volunteer to read to nursing home residents. If you aren't comfortable reading aloud, pass the book between you, with each of you individually reading a chapter or chosen number of pages at a time. However it works for you - the idea is to be involved in the story simultaneously. And then discuss what you're reading. Throw out your crazy theories for whodunit...debate the hero's next move...compare your reactions...giggle!

If, like me, you forgot about most of the challenges you entered, or even if you've never heard of this challenge before, there is still time.  The Bumbles, so far our only entry, shared The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and wrote their individual reviews, thus they are currently leading the race for the prize.  If you want to challenge them for the top spot (and the book of your choice - $25 or less - from Amazon.com) just leave a comment and let us know what books you've read together this year and with whom.  Each book = one entry.  The winners will be chosen in a random drawing.  No book club selections please, since reading together is a given in those groups.  Our goal is to get you to read "outside the box", encourage a non-reader, widen your reading-horizon by sharing a new genre.

Dave and I met our goal of twelve books, finishing #12 during our trip to Topeka last weekend, and we have one more in progess that may be finished by the end of the year since we have more Christmas traveling to do.  Here's our list:

Deeper Than the Dead by Tami Hoag
The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Golf in the Year 2000 by J. McCullough
The Spellman's Strike Again by Lisa Lutz
Blockade Billy by Stephen King
Postcard Killers by James Patterson
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suanne Collins
Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich
Witch and Wizard by James Patterson
In progress:  The Gift by James Patterson

For 2011 we are not sponsoring an official contest with entries and prizes and all, but we still encourage you to give the gift of books and a love of reading.