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Hello fellow readers! Now that we have a member's folder, some kind of welcome/introduction thread is long overdue.

I am Liz, one of the currently reigning moderators of RwS. I have been participating in these challenges since the very very beginning -- I fell in love Sam's idea of rewarding the reading of "difficult" literature with translation, oldie, and canon points. I primarily use these challenges to help me work my way through the 1001-books-you-must read list and get all crankypants if there is a task in which I can't fit at least one 1001 book ;)

I grew up in MN and currently live in NYC where I work for a performing arts organization and spend too much time/money in the city's fabulous bookstores.

I am Elizabeth (Alaska), moderator. (The Alaska got added from another challenge so that the scorekeeper could tell one Elizabeth from another.)

I became an enthusiastic participant with the 2nd Reading with Style Challenge. The reading, planning, and discovery of new ways to look at books and authors fascinates me.

I lived in California for many years before moving to Ketchikan some 35 years ago. I am retired.

I am Kate, also a current moderator. I am an avid reader and love to find new authors and books to devour! I have been participating in Reading with Style for just over a year now and have used the challenge to expand my reading choices.

I currently live just outside Washington, DC and spend my days as playmate/jungle gym/caregiver to my toddler niece.

Hi, I'm Jenifer. I am new to the Reading with Style challenge (Summer 2012 will be my first). I've always loved reading and have historically preferred more literary forms and classics. But...over the past two years, I completed a Masters degree and found my recreational reading steering towards easier reading (i.e. romance, paranormal, etc) so, I'm looking forward to the RWS challenge to get me back into more serious reading. :)

I'm originally from Southern California but have also lived in San Franciso, Atlanta, and Phoenix. I currently live in Portland, OR. I have two kids, a nine year old who loves reading and an 11 yr old who is an advanced reader but hates to read (it breaks my reader's heart!).

I'm Jayme. I been in RWS since )c0tber of 2009 or there abouts. I really love these challenges. I been reading since I was six years old. I am always reading a book because I always have to wait for rides and etc and even when I don't, I love to read. I teach Special Education as a teacher's assistant and I help children read better. I live in the Chicagoland area.

I'm Karen and I have been participating for about two years now. I am an eclectic reader. I enjoy all sorts of genres, both classic and contemporary and I like to read with them all mixed up as I go! I am also a high school teacher-librarian and so I also love and appreciate YA literature. I especially like YA fantasy and adult and YA historical fiction, realistic fiction and dystopian genres. I love this challenge because it keeps me in touch with adult literature and it gives me a chance to champion good solid YA literature as well!

I live in Washington State and I have a great husband, two grown kids, a dog and 2 cats. I've been teaching for 34 years, first in elementary music and now in the library.

Good Morning! If you've been around a bit, you'd notice that I've changed my nick a few times on GR and lately settled on Tien (to suit my blog etc). Tien is derived from one half of my Chinese name which literally means 'sweet' :p

I can't quite remember how long I've been participating here, maybe around about a year now? And I've really enjoyed it because I loved being challenged to read outside of my comfort zone AND I usually get to complete the challenges which is a big incentive to participate :)

PS: The other half of my Chinese name translated to 'Jade' which the generational feminin name & English was not my 1st language

Aaah, forgot to mention that I'm in Sydney (AUS) :)

Hello, I'm Tobey and hail from Winnipeg Manitoba Canada! I've been a member of this group for about 1 year or so maybe and I've been an avid reader since I taught myself to read at the age of 4.

I'm a library assistant in a document delivery department of a local University and I'm married with 2 kids, 1 dog and 1 cat. Always looking forward to new challenges with this group!

Hello, I'm Rosemary and I live in Oxford, UK. I discovered this group about 6 months ago and I love it! I can usually fill most of the tasks from my TBR and I love the way that you can do tasks more than once so you can fit in most of whatever you want to read. At the same time it stretches me and prompts me to read a few books that I might not have picked up otherwise.

I studied literature when I was younger and probably OD'd on it so it's only in the last couple of years I have got back to 'serious' reading. Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ groups and friends have been a huge inspiration to me in that.

Hi all, Like Tobey I hail from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (and Tobey if you work at the UofW we may have run in to each other as I just graduated from there last May).

I am relatively new to the group and to goodreads in general, I joined last December after starting a job at the reference desk at the Winnipeg Public Library. I have since moved on to a new job as an education coordinator at a local museum but love that RwS has given me a reason to read. It also helps that I now spend an hour and fifteen minutes, twice a day, on the bus to get to and from my job.

I especially love that RwS is a "competition" as I am a competitive person and knowing that there is a "prize" to be won makes me want to read even more.

I have always loved reading; when I was a child I used to get in trouble for reading too much and not doing my chores and my homework. When I entered university the work load became too much and so I pretty much gave up reading anything that wasn't on my school reading list and the occasional fantasy novel for fun. Since joining this group my library card has seen considerable more use and my t.v. has gotten pretty lonely.

Thanks everyone who makes this group possible, and all the great members!

My t.v hasn't gotten lonely at all. I read and watch T.V.

It's a pleasure to get to know you all!

I'm Connie. I'm German, though a couple of years ago, I moved to Belgium and was delighted to find out that living here is as as it is .
I work as a graphic designer, and I do judge books by their cover :)

I found RwS at the start of the year, and it helps me tremendously to navigate the heap of e-books that's accumulated on my Kindle and the stack of books that's piling up on my shelves, while satisfying my competitive streak.

Connie wrote: "It's a pleasure to get to know you all!..."

Thanks to everyone that has popped in and said "hello"! It's fun learning new things about the old faces and lovely to see the newer faces.

How did I not know Tien is in Australia? And I suspected Rosemary might be in an earlier time zone, now confirmed as the UK. I am thrilled to see that so many members are from different places!

Hi everyone! My name is Carolyn and I am a New England transplant living in Savannah, Georgia. My husband is in the Army, which is what brought us to the deep south. We have a cat (Marley) and a parakeet (Roger).
I have been on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ for awhile and got into RwS over this past winter while my husband was away on training for five months. I am an obsessive book collector and, when suddenly faced with all that alone time, started to get overwhelmed by all the choices. RwS gave me some structure so that I could more easily decide what to read next!
My parents got me into reading at a very early age. Our local paper used to publish classics like Dickens and Shakespeare in serial format, and my Dad would cut each "chapter" out and read it to my brother and I on the weekends we were staying with him. He also introduced me to audiobooks. Jack London, Stephen King and Lillian Jackson Braun became our companions on long drives.
I would say I currently do a little more than half of my reading via audiobook. I love that it allows me to get reading time in when I would otherwise be wasting mental time... driving, doing housework, etc.
I love to write, though I am far from having anything published. I do keep a blog, in which I mostly write about the books I am reading and the craft projects I am currently working on.

Hi! My name is Kathleen (itpdx). I also live in Portland, OR (Hi! Jenifer). I am a native Oregonian.
As my careers (including mother) have wound down, I have found more time to devote to reading. I joined GoodReads about 5 years ago mostly to help me keep track of what I have read. I was always trying to remember the perfect to book to recommend or buy as a gift and couldn't dredge up the title or author. And then there was always the question of "have I read this before?"
I have taken part in other challenges but have found this one is the best fit for me. I started RwS last summer. Thank you mods for the interesting tasks and fun structure and all the work you do to make this run so well.
I belong to one face-to-face book group that reads non-fiction. The members are very interesting and thoughtful women (including one published author).
Both of my children are "published writers"--one scientific papers and the other has had some short stories published in online zines.

Hi everyone, I’m Leigh and I live in the VA suburbs of Washington, D.C. I’m currently a stay-at-home mom to two young boys. I started participating in the challenges last fall when I decided that I wanted to spend less time on facebook and more time with Real Books. The challenge has be really great way for me to really try all kinds of different books and has definitely encouraged me to read things that I probably would have put in my “To Read� list and then not read. Its amazing to me that a couple “points� are all the push I needed to go from reading status updates to Dickens. :)

Hello everyone. My name is Tanya and I live in Huntington Beach, CA. I have been a reader since pre-school which led me to become a high school English teacher. I really started cranking out the books when I was deployed as a member of the Army National Guard. There was a lot of downtime and I discovered bookcrossing and the many people who donate books to soldiers. I enjoy many genres and and have way too many books on my TBR shelves. I am always trying to find books to put into my students' hands so I have mainly been reading YA literature and have discovered many great reads.
I dabbled in the Spring Challenge, but I plan on completing all the tasks in the Summer Challenge. I have made lists, broken out the classics I have yet to read, and am ready to start Friday!

Hello everyone! I was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. For job and family reasons, my husband and I now live in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. We have four children -- my eldest is a nurse, and she got married last year (I want grandchildren!!!); and my youngest just graduated from high school. I have son studying at university in Germany (I love skype!!!). I also have a medically fragile son and I'm home full-time.

I was a big reader when I was in school (many years ago); then, after college when I got my first real job, I went from reading 15 books a month to maybe 10 books per year. Recently I've returned to 15 books (more or less) per month. Some of what I'm reading these days is re-reading books I first read in my teen years (War and Peace, Dune) to see if they were are as good as I remembered them (those two were). I looked at what I read one time and it breaks down: 1/3rd fantasy & science fiction; 1/3rd "literature" (Dickens, Booker Prize nominees); 1/3rd non-fiction (though lately that's been less than 1/3rd); and a sprinkling of what I call "waiting room books", straightforward lightweight novels like Aunt Dimity's Death or Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini.

I enjoy these challenges and give a big thank-you to the moderators for organizing them. :0)

Hey, all...it's so nice to meet you! I'm Anika (my mom loved Pippi Longstocking when she was little and was especially enamored with the name of Pippi's straitlaced neighbor, so I got stuck with it). While I technically "live" a bit outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, I'm a flight attendant for JetBlue so I'm not there often. Usually, you'll find me working a red-eye flight, reading on the back jumpseat :-) I have my degree in English, really wanted to become a librarian once upon a time but am a little addicted to my current line of work. I used to think I read a lot...until joining this group. MAN, you guys are both impressive and daunting. My competitive nature is pushing me to try to keep up, but I've come to realize that is a hopeless venture...but it sure is fun to try :-) I'm absolutely in love with RwS--I've been a member for 6 amazing months now--and love that it pushes me to read books that I wouldn't normally touch (Edgar award winner? What? SO not my style...but so excited to try something new), gets me to work through my library of TBR's (yep...I have a house, live alone, and one room is my dedicated library--floor-to-ceiling books, a day bed, and a lamp...), introduces me to books I've never heard of (thank you to everyone who leaves reviews!), and gives me a chance to be part of a book club! My schedule is too erratic to be in an actual face-to-face club and I miss it!

Thank you thank you thank you to the moderators...this is a monumental undertaking and I'm so grateful to you for doing it!

I apologize for my excessive use of exclamation points and emoticons. It's just..this group makes me that happy.

This is Kelli. I'm a healthcare attorney in Birmingham, Alabama, and I've been a member of the group for about 6 months. I started participating with RwS in December 2011 and there is no doubt that I've read more books in the last 6 months than I read in all of 2011. About 90% of my books are audiobooks because that mode of reading fits best into my lifestyle but I did buy a Kindle Fire this year and have discovered the joy of ebooks. I have always loved lists for reading (and for virtually any other part of my life like movies or music or restaurants) so each season of the challenge allows me to create a new list for reading. As many have discovered, the making of the list is often as enjoyable as working through the list. I, too, have expanded my reading interests due to RwS. Thanks to the dedication of the moderators. I'm way impressed with the well-read members of this group.

Hi all,
I live in Jersey City, NJ and I'm a middle school English teacher in Newark. I've been a lurker for the past two challenges, as school (both teaching and grad school -- I finally decided to go back to get a masters two years ago) interfered with my free time to manipulate spreadsheets! However, with summer approaching I'm excited to dive back in. I love the personalities in this group, and the great reviews. I have always read a LOT, hence the appropriateness of my current job, and right now I love well-written non-fiction, dystopian novels, and mysteries.

Hi y'all. I just joined this group this week. I live in Connecticut and work full-time as a RN Case Manager for elderly (mostly low income) citizens needing homecare services. Sadly, the non-profit I work for is in a budget crunch, so staff have moved on and our caseloads are climbing! Makes for a really demanding job.

I am married, and we have two rescued dogs. Thankfully, my retired husband loves to cook so all I have to do is fit the care of the dogs, attention to my husband's needs for company and cleaning around whatever reading time I get! I have to admit that the cleaning is what has to beg for attention 'cause reading is my escape from a stressful day.

I have been on SRC for 6 seasons - starting the seventh - and have found another love! I love to PLAN the books for tasks. So far I haven't finished a challenge but I am content.

Soooo....now to scoot and get some planning done for these challenges! Whoopee!!! Fun!

Bea wrote: "Hi y'all. I just joined this group this week..."

Hey, Bea!!! You just couldn't resist another challenge, can you? LOL - neither can I, especially one that challenges my reading zones which RwS definitely does!

Hey, Tien! Guess not but I do not seem to be alone in that affliction! LOL

Ssshhh!! don't say it too loudly! ;p

Hi everyone. I'm from NZ and living in Belgium.
Currently have no pets as we just moved into a house that is being rebuilt.
I'm studying social work, just finished my exams yesterday so I thought I'd join up
I've read through the fantasy section of my library and looking to find some new favourite authors/branch out my reading.

Hi Eleanor, I live like one city over from you!

Hi to all,
I'm Phoebe and I'm from Austria.
I completely missed this threat for the last months...
I'm currently finishing university and working in social psychology research.
The challenges in this group are really great and provide very interesting suggestions for further reading.
Greetings, Phoebe

Welcome, Phoebe. Enjoy the fun and good books!

Hey All, another Winnipeg girl here and looking to break out of my chick-lit rut. I'm in admin and work with numbers all day so always look forward to my downtime and picking up a new book.

Looking forward to the next challenge!

Hi! I'm Joanna. I'm currently living in mid-Missouri, where I work as an attorney defending the state, state employees, and state agencies. I'm new to Missouri and am enjoying being in the midwest after living in NYC for the ten years before I moved here.

I've been doing these challenges for a while, but I've just missed two seasons after the birth of my second child last February and a maternity leave that had me away from the computer and away from commuting. I listen to a lot of audiobooks as I drive to and from work and drive to work-related stuff around the state. I also read a mix of print books and ebooks.

I'm looking forward to being back in the fall challenge!

It's nice to see you back, Joanna, and welcome to Christine, Melody and Phoebe!

Hi all,
I'm Ismaa (rhymes with 'hiss', not 'is' ;) and I live in Karachi, Pakistan. I worked as Head of HR and then took early retirement to enjoy the other side of life. I'm a demented bookworm, devoted cat lover, eager traveler and a novice jewelry designer among other things. I have been on GR for a bit but this is the first time I'm attempting a challenge, and i hope to have tons of fun while doing it wooohooo!

A constant challenge for me is to find the books I want to read. I do not have access to a good Library and though there are a couple of nice book shops around, they are not as well stocked as I would like. So the search is eternal ... old book shops, Sunday market stalls, online ordering etc. etc. :)

I have eclectic reading habits and though I am particular to certain genres, I tend to read whatever catches my fancy and do like to try new things.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the tasks, the points, the rules and regulations but I'm really looking forward to it, so forgive me if I make mistakes. Don't know if I'll be able to complete RSC or not as there is a lot going on this fall, but I'm sure going to have fun trying :)

Ismaa,

Welcome! Yes, this challenge is rather convoluted, but aftert you've participated in a season it starts to make sense. Don't hesitate to ask questions -- the veteran participants are wonderfully nice & helpful!

Oooh, let me plug my favorite online source of books: . They get a lot of books from libraries and sometimes have items I can't find elsewhere. Plus free shipping worldwide.

Thanks Liz :)

I recently discovered Better World Books and also Abe Books both offering free shipping world wide, but I have yet to try them.

I'm sure I'm going to be asking a 'lot' of questions :) Thanks for the welcome Liz

Hi My name is Kim and I live in Huntsville Alabama. I love to read just about anything. Love to cook. Also playing with my cat and dog. I am looking forward for having fun and talking to yall.

Hello, my name is Mike and I just came across this challenge group. I have been reading through the rules and challenges and am very excited to jump on board. I will wait until the December 1st start date for the next round to begin, but I think this is exactly what I have been looking for on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. You seem to have a wonderful core of people participating and I hope I can make some positive contributions. I am a high school history teacher, and I enjoy reading novels and works of non-fiction.

Welcome Mike! I love this challenge, I'm sure you will too :)

Hi Mike,
Welcome to RwS. This is my first time with the challenge and I'm really having fun, I am sure you will too :)

Welcome, Mike! This challenge is great fun and has led me to many books I'd probably never have found on my own. I hope you enjoy too!

Mike wrote: "Hello, my name is Mike and I just came across this challenge group. I have been reading through the rules and challenges and am very excited to jump on board. I will wait until the December 1st s..."

I am glad you found us! Seriously, you don't have to wait until December. If you want get your feet wet & get used to the crazy-complicated scoring (don't worry, our veteran participants are wonderfully helpful), please do.

Yes, Mike, welcome. And to echo Liz, come and try out a few reads in the next month. Stick your toe in the water!

Thanks to all for the welcome. I will take your advice and dive in this month to see if I can figure out the point system before the new winter season. Looking forward to it!

Hi, my name is Sam. I'm in property management, and I live in Ottawa, Ontario with my boyfriend and my fat cat. I love reading, and I'll read pretty much anything depending on what my mood is. I'm a (just a bit!) addicted to reading challenges, and this one seems like lots of fun, so I can't wait to jump in on the December one!

I haven't quite figured out the scoring system yet (though I'm reading all of the guidelines and rules!) but I'm sure I'll figure it out. :)

Welcome, Sam! The scoring takes a bit of getting used to, so don't worry about making mistakes. All of us make them, but it's a friendly community who will notice when you've left something out.

Welcome Sam! I too have a fat cat (just got back from lugging her to the Vet - 14 pounds).

If you like, please feel free to use the Fall challenge as a test run -- you can post any books you have read since Sept. 1 -- that way you'll get used to the scoring/maximizing points so you can be better prepared for the Winter Challenge!

Liz M wrote: "Welcome Sam! I too have a fat cat (just got back from lugging her to the Vet - 14 pounds).

If you like, please feel free to use the Fall challenge as a test run -- you can post any books you ha..."

Thanks! I may try it out, just to get a feel for it.

My fat cat is also at the vet this morning. Though he has yours beat by a couple of pounds - he's a little over 16, haha.

Ha! Your cats are the size of my dog!

It's not his fault, he's big boned! :P

He'd lost some weight (he was 18lbs in August!) but we had to switch his food due to health issues and he's put a bit of the weight back on.

Hello everyone! My name is Joy and I am from Arizona, but recently moved to the Chicago area. I just finished my M.A. in Library Science (literally two days ago) so I am looking forward to reading more for pleasure, and thought this would be a good way to try something new. I am excited to join this group and try out the various challenges.