This year the Historical Reading Challenge is being Hosted by Royal Reviews.

Here are the rules:

• Read 3 historical fiction books in 3 months from 1st Jan 09 – 31st March 09.
  
• Historical fiction will be counted as anything set or written prior to World War II. This will include classic novels, time travel novels or anything you feel fits the genre.

Here are the 3 books I plan to read for the challenge:

1. Stealing Athena by Karen Essex
2. The Kingmaking by Helen Hollick
3. Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly

Note: My books are subject to change.

Thanks to Kim for hosting the 2009 Blog Improvement Project!

This is how Kim explains what this project is about:

The 2009 Blog Improvement Project is a year-long challenge that will consist of twice-monthly activities to improve your blog. Every first and third Monday of the month I’ll post an activity here at Sophisticated Dorkiness that will related in some way to making your blog better. Each participant should spend the next two weeks focusing on that aspect of their blog. Possible topics include goals setting, writing better content, building community with readers, getting more readers, and blog layout and design.

If you choose to participate in this project, there is no obligation to participate in every challenge, and you can customize each challenge so it makes sense for your particular blog and goals. Think of the design as similar to Weekly Geeks — participate when it makes sense for you. This is a group effort, because getting better is always easier when you have a support system, but the ultimate commitment remains with you — how do you want your blog to be better by the time we get to December 31, 2009?

A word of note — I am not a blogging expert. I’m just a beginning book blogger myself. I read a lot of blogs about blogging and am interested in social media, but I am by no means any better at blogging than anyone else. One of the reasons I am hosting this project is because I want to spend time improving this blog. I believe in support systems, and think this will be a fun way to get better together.

2009 Blog Improvement Project Topics

January 5: Setting Goals — What Is Your Blog For?
January 19:
February 2:
February 16:
March 2:
March 16:
April 6:
April 20:
May 4:
May 18:
June 1:
June 15:
July 6:
July 20:
August 3:
August 17
September 7:
September 21:
October 5:
October 19:
November 2:
November 16:
December 7:
December 21: