Monday Reading Merriment

This is a weekly meme inspired by one started by J. Kaye's Book Blog. Each week on Monday we tell what we read the previous week and what we plan to read in the upcoming week. I like to put a spin on it to also look at various other reading events happening this week.


Hey all - I'm back at work Boy is it hard to go back after almost two weeks off!  What can make a Monday better?  Why reading and books of course!

What I read last week.  Check my final update on the New Year's Read-a-Thon and Holiday Break Reading Challenge to get the answer to that question!

What I'm reading this week.  I'm starting the book my Secret Santa sent me! The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein.  This book sounds like such an interesting premise, and I can't wait to see how it's done. 

From Goodreads:
ZACK, HIS DAD, and new stepmother have just moved back to his father’s hometown, not knowing that their new house has a dark history. Fifty years ago, a crazed killer caused an accident at the nearby crossroads that took 40 innocent lives. He died when his car hit a tree in a fiery crash, and his malevolent spirit has inhabited the tree ever since. During a huge storm, lightning hits the tree, releasing the spirit, who decides his evil spree isn’t over . . . and Zack is directly in his sights.




Things happening on the blog this week:

Tuesday:  Winners announced
Thursday: 2010 books I'm really looking forward to
Friday: Review of Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers
Review of: Intertwined and The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Contests:
I only want to focus on one because I can also tell you about an awesome cause.

Monica at The Bibliophilic Book Blog is having a contest for an ereader of your choice! The ereader is being donated by a family who wants to thank her for all she's done for soldiers who are deployed.

Monica is doing waaaaay more than just giving away Ereaders. A friend of hers was deployed to Iraq, and she is trying to collect as many book related donations as she can.  Here's what she says:

She (her friend deployed) LOVES to read and go to book signings, we talk online all the time about which ones we go to and where, and the ones we wish we could go to. I care for her dearly...I want to treat her to the moment of her life upon her return from the desert. I want to collect as many signed books, signed book plates and signed book marks as I possibly can...I mean I want to fill a room with this stuff. So, when she comes home, she knows that there are so many people who care for her and so many who support what she sacrifices.

Isn't that great??? I know I have some extra swag and even a signed copy of Ballad I can send.  How about you? To learn more about the whole project click here. 

To enter the contest yourself click here.  Make sure to say I sent you so we both get some extra entries :)