First things first, I’d like to apologize for this taking so long. I mean, I knew it would take awhile to verify the list, but uh, I’ve also had the fucking flu. I know, right? The flu. Which followed closely on the heels of (men, you may want look away for these next couple of sentences) the worst motherfucking period I’ve ever had in my life. I called it Periodmageddon. I’ve been so fucked this month, I haven’t even made myself a birthday cake, and it’s been twenty-three days since my birthday.

This is what January has been like for me:

Blegh.

Most of what I have wanted to do for the past three weeks has been sleep. And sleep. And sleep some more. But I sucked it up,

and went forward, verifying the list of our contest winner. Which I might not have done totally right? Because, flu. But I did the best I could. I finally decided that I didn’t want to make her wait any longer, cos she’s probably all

(or, at least, I would be)

So, I’m declaring my job checking GOOD ENOUGH. Also cos, it really did all look legit and she’s 100% not shady at all.

Who is the winner of the 2012 End of the World Reading Challenge? Who out-read her competitors and snared herself a VICTORY?

(drumroll)

The winner is . . . . . .

JENN, from The Obsessive Bookworm!

Congratulations, Jenn! You have won a $35 gift card to the book retailer of your choice*. Please e-mail me and let me know which one!

*As long as I can purchase the gift card online. Or if for some reason, you want a gift card to a place in Columbus, Ohio.

Thanks to everyone who participated! It was a long ride, and y’all stuck it out, which is rad. We’re all winners for having read more books. (sniffle) (single tear)

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

SURPRISE. There is an EXTRA PRIZE that I have awarded randomly to one of the people who turned in a page count. The prize is a tote bag with any design from our Insatiable Booksluts Skreened shop. (The tote only comes in one color and style. Sorry, I didn’t have enough credit for an actual shirt.) The winner of the tote bag is . . . .

(man, I wish I knew your name but I only know what you comment as)

THREEGOODRATS of Three Good Rats! E-mail me to claim your prize!

Hello, fellow booksluttians,

Welcome to the new year! I’m glad to see that nobody seems to have disappeared due to the Mayan apocalypse, and that America hasn’t descended into chaos over the fiscal cliff hullabaloo. Whew, amirite? I hadn’t yet read all the books I wanted to read, so, I’m glad I’m not in heaven or whatever was supposed to happen when the world ended. (Because I would totally go to heaven. Mm-hmm.)

I want to apologize for the recent radio silence. I was in New Orleans for a week visiting my brother-in-law, and I’ve also just been taking a little mental break. I actually neglected to post our recommended reading for December … eeek …. so you’ll get a bonus recommended reading post this month. Something to use up your holiday gift cards on, I reckon!

Also, I’m turning 30 in two days. So there’s that. (Cough.)

Remember, if you’re participating in the EotW challenge, you’ve got until January 6 to get those lists together (see this post for even more details, in case you missed it). Um, let’s just use this post right here for posting your results; just post your final page count, and whoever has the highest, I will ask you for your list and a link to your reviews so I can go through the process of vetting your list (which may take time). Confession: I didn’t really have much of an exit plan for this challenge. It’s kind of difficult to keep up with something like this for a year! And I think I thought it would be less complicated. Learning experience.

I’ve kinda-sorta started the redesign of IB, but since I lost ALL of my resources and bookmarks when my laptop took a dump, it’s going to be a slow process of re-educating myself. Which I’m really looking forward to. Oh wait, I’d actually rather gouge out my eyes with rusty spoons. I’m going to forge ahead, though; I want the end result more than I want to be lazy, but it’s gonna take extra time. Sigh.

In happier news, I have started taking medication to combat this depression thing that I’ve been going through, and it actually seems to be helping; I only had one travel-related meltdown while we were on our trip to NOLA. It was kind of magical. So, 2013 might see a less angsty Susie. Don’t worry, I’ll probably still have plenty of things to rant about. I’m not that zonked out.

Happy New Year! Let’s make 2013 an awesome one.

Love,

Your faithful bookslut,

Susie

So, IB’s been up and running for over a year now, and I’ve been (as always) trying to figure out how we can make the blog better. One thing we’ve done is take on some badass new contributors, and we hosted a jam-packed blog event featuring Stephen King. I’ve got some other stuff in the works, but one thing I wanted to turn an eye to was our policies. Specifically, our review policy and our guest post policy.

The good news is that we’re now accepting guest posts! You can guest post a review of an independent-press literary work, a Reading Rage, a Death Match (Yes! A Death Match!), and all manner of bookish things. (If you want to use a format and you’re not sure how, just drop a tweet or an e-mail!) If you want to guest post, a few things to keep in mind:

• E-mailing me to run a post by me before writing may be the best course of action. I can tell you before you launch into a lot of work whether your post will fit our blog. (That doesn’t necessarily mean the final post will end up working for us, but it has a much better chance!)
• Write a couple of drafts before submitting. The number one thing we look for here is high-quality writing.
• Write your post in a readable style. Funny is a bonus. We love funny. But not mean-funny. Don’t be a dick.
• If writing a post that contains an argument, have sources for figures or non-”common knowledge” facts. Also, argue your points well. My head explodes when points are not argued well.
• Proofread!
• Have a bio ready to put at the end of your post. You don’t have to send it with your submission, but it’s always better to have it ready so I can schedule the post promptly.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Now, for the bad news. I really hope you guys don’t hate me for this, but um . . . I’ve decided that IB will no longer accept pitches for self-published work. I’m not making a judgment about all self-published work here; no, this is about the fact that, energy-wise, it’s really draining for me to sift through pitches because I don’t have a touchstone for self-published work. Is this or that book going to be good? I dunno. I have to put a lot of research into books to see if it’s worth it to try to read it, and most of them don’t make the cut, so that work is for naught. The energy sap makes me less good at blogging; in the mutually-beneficial blogger/book producer relationship, I want to be able to hold up my end for people that I choose to work with. So, I’ve decided to change the policy. One thing I’m really adamant about is that I don’t want to start hating book blogging. Anything that makes me kind of hate it is going to get tossed out.

Sorry, self-published authors. I’m doing this for me, not so much against you. We might still review self-published work here, if we come across something we want to read, but please, do not send us any pitches. If you have sent pitches already and you haven’t heard from us, it’s because your pitch hasn’t been processed yet.. and it won’t be. Again, I’m sorry. I wish I could be a super-blogger and do all of this stuff.

I’m also going to suspend our advertising/sponsorship program until after I finish redesigning the blog. Most of that is taking place behind the scenes for now, but once I start making changes, it’s possible that our site will undergo service disruptions. I wouldn’t want someone’s sponsorship to be disrupted and they not get their full value.

If you’re doing NaNoWriMo Team IB, I’m going to post an update for that really soon. This has just been a general bloggy-type update. Now, I need to go hole myself up in my castle and pull up the drawbridge before the mob comes after me with torches and pitchforks for changing our review policy. (I kid! Or do I? At any rate, I’ll be on the lookout. For the pitchforks.)

Am I going to keep going with this even if everyone guesses? YES I AM.

KITTY!

For cool points, what’s the kitty’s name?

What’s Secret Event Week? See yesterday’s post here for more details.

Here’s another piece of the puzzle!

Do you know? Did you guess? You won’t find out if you’re right until Sunday . . . :D

Do you remember, some time ago, when I put forth the call for new contributors? Well. The time to announce the new folks has finally arrived. Are you the most excited?!?!

I have been working with everyone to create a monthly feature, and I’m really excited about what’s to come. For now, I have a little get-to-know-you survey that I’d like to post from each of the new contributors; plus, I’m going to reveal their shiny contributor banners. (Except, I don’t have Mandy’s done yet? So hers will have to be a surprise. Sorry, Mandy!)

Please say hi, talk to ‘em on Twitter, and make them feel at home! (Which, erm, they probably already do because they totally all read this blog on a regular basis.) Without further ado, I present you with the new booksluts!

Name: sj

Website/blog: Snobbery http://booksnobbery.wordpress.com

Twitter handle (if you have one): @popqueenie

Favorite book(s): Erm, there are too many to list. At the moment, I’m most passionate about Lord of the Rings and A Scanner Darkly

One book that you’d recommend to anybody, and why: The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick, Vol. I: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford – I think there’s something in here for everyone. It doesn’t matter if sf isn’t normally your thing, this was before PKD started doing all the drugs, and there’s nothing TOO terribly weird in this volume, but it’s a nice place to start if you’re at all interested in reading his work.

Book character you’d most like to punch in the face, and why: Severus Snape. That’s why Meg and I use his name as an expletive. I still don’t buy his whole “Oh, I did it for Johnny!” line. Blergh.

Any hobbies that aren’t reading: Listening to/collecting music.

One thing you’d like for us know about you: I like red wine.

Name: Tony Bird

Website/blog: Your Friend Tony (yourfriendtony.wordpress.com)

Twitter handle (if you have one): @TheRealTonyBird

Favorite book(s): Oh, this is a tough one! It’s a toss-up between The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Tower series, and Harry Potter. A Song of Ice and Fire might get thrown in there too if the ending ever gets written and it doesn’t suck.

One book that you’d recommend to anybody, and why: The Old Man and the Sea. It’s short, it’s epic, and it’s brilliantly written.

Book character you’d most like to punch in the face, and why: I recently read Serpent’s Bite and the character Courtney pissed me off so much that I wanted to choke-slam her. She was such a heinous bitch, and all she cared about was getting her inheritance.

Any hobbies that aren’t reading: Aside from reading, writing, and blogging, I have a slew of unusual hobbies (http://yourfriendtony.wordpress.com/category/miscellaneous/unusual-hobbies/), some of which include community theater, foreign languages, and ukuleles.

One thing you’d like for us know about you: I’ve got a lot of kids.

Name: Laura Confer

Website/blog: The Two R’s http://www.thetwors.com

Twitter handle (if you have one): @_thetwors

Favorite book(s): Because I have so many, I do this High Fidelity style and make up lists. So I have a Best Books to read in the Car list (all the Xanth books by Piers Anthony), Books I Took to the Hospital When I Had a Baby (Little Earthquakes by Weiner, Up Island by Siddons), Books That Make Me Feel Good (No One Belongs Here More Than You by July, My Life in France by Child, O Pioneers! by Cather), and Books I Like to Read Again Every Year (Jane Eyre by Brontë, The Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood, The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by, um, Hemingway). The lists go on and on and are ridiculously complicated, but that’s the only way I can ever keep these things straight!

One book that you’d recommend to anybody, and why: Beloved by Toni Morrison is almost the perfect book; it’s literary in the sense that Morrison’s writing is tight, inventive, and skillful, but it also provides that kind of sensational emotional journey that formula book readers seek. That book just grabs on and demands you finish it immediately.

Book character you’d most like to punch in the face, and why: Victor Frankenstein gets me all riled up in Frankenstein. He is so self-obsessed that he totally ignores the Creature and THEN wonders why the hell the Creature with severe daddy issues is on a killing spree. His inattention makes the story happen, but there still would have been a story there without Victor’s self-centered tunnel vision.

Any hobbies that aren’t reading: On the side I photograph, knit cozy little things, write, cook, and ride my bike all over town.

One thing you’d like for us know about you: I have monkey feet. Seriously. I can pick up all kinds of stuff with my toes. It really should be on my resumé.

Name: Neal Call

Website/blogs: English Major versus the World: http://englishmajorversustheworld.blogspot.com/
Raised by my daughter: http://raisedbymydaughter.blogspot.com/

Twitter handle (if you have one): don’t have one

Favorite book(s): All the Pretty Horses, The Road, Moby-Dick, Never Let Me Go, Maniac Magee, The Giver, The Corrections

One book that you’d recommend to anybody, and why: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn. It’s perhaps not the most current, but it really opened my eyes to the realities of opinion and compromise and idiosyncrasy and damn stubbornness within scientific paradigms.

Book character you’d most like to punch in the face, and why: Katniss Everdeen. Because her endless inane internal monologues turned a passable story into an obnoxious chore. Also, maybe Howard Roark from The Fountainhead. Arrogant prick.

Any hobbies that aren’t reading: Hiking, art, obstacle courses, pranking my toddler

One thing you’d like for us know about you: I’ve never had a cavity

Mandy (Banner coming soon)

Name: Mandy

Website/blog: Adventures in Borkdom  http://borkadventures.com/

Twitter handle (if you have one): @borkadventures

Favorite book(s): IT by Stephen King, A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, and Bleak House by Charles Dickens

One book that you’d recommend to anybody, and why: 1984 by George Orwell: I’ve come to realize that this book has really shaped my thinking and has shown me how to look critically at society and the information/facts presented to me. I think it is hugely important to gain mastery of critical thinking, and this book is an important textbook in that kind of education. It also happens to be one of the best (if not the best) examples of Dystopian fiction, so any fans of The Hunger Games and/or Divergent should really check it out.

Book character you’d most like to punch in the face, and why: Daisy Buchanan. I hate her, I hate her friends, and The Great Gatsby is probably one of my least favorite books of all time (next to the works of Dan Brown and Dean Koontz). Daisy is a destructive twit, and I’d love to elbow her in the temple.

Any hobbies that aren’t reading: I also enjoy playing RPGs, fishing, hiking, camping, and watching really bad movies.

One thing you’d like for us know about you: I prefer the company of my 12-year-old students and their immaturity, over the politics and drama of my adult co-workers. What I mean to say is that I’m a very silly and immature girl-woman.

The new booksluts’ posts will start going up in September (mostly). Look for literary playlists, new book reviews and op-eds, posts about the classics, bookish comics (!), and other fun stuff! WOO!

Don’t forget to say hi in the comments!