Note: Spring Reading Thing 2009 has begun! Visit the official launch post to sign up as a participant or to see what everyone is reading!

Spring Reading Thing 2009 starts in only one week! (Which also means that spring will be here in one week — a fact for which I am very grateful. As far as I’m concerned, winter can’t leave soon enough.)

I hope you’ve been working on your lists, deciding what books you plan to read this spring. Here’s a picture of where my list stands right now (spines/titles are a secret until next week, of course):

However, based on my reading speed so far in 2009, I will never get through all these books in only three months. I’m not sure whether I should cut a couple out or really challenge myself and just see how many of them I complete… I guess I’ll have to decide before next Friday.

I just have a few final details to share with you about Spring Reading Thing 2009.

Giveaways

I’m very excited about the books I’ll be giving away this spring. As in previous challenges, Bethany House is my primary sponsor, and is providing a giveaway book for each week of the reading challenge! In addition, I have a few books from Sourcebooks; two hot-off-the presses hardcover novels provided by Hachette Book Group (5 copies of each!); a couple blog tours I’ll be participating in, for which I also have giveaway copies; and possibly a few more that’ll come together at the last minute. By my calculations, I’ll be giving away almost thirty books during Spring Reading Thing 2009!

Here are some details about the giveaways:

• For the most part, I’ll be posting the giveaways every Thursday. There may be an occasional giveaway on a different day, but if you check in here any Thursday during Spring Reading Thing 2009, you’ll be sure to find at least one book up for grabs. (If I can manage to focus my geekiness, I’m also going to try to create some kind of nifty widget near the top of my blog, so you can easily see what giveaways are currently open… I won’t promise anything, but that’s one of my goals.)
• Book giveaways are open to everyone, even if you are not participating in Spring Reading Thing 2009. The only restriction I have is shipping; I can only ship to U.S. & Canada mailing addresses.

Prizes

In addition to the weekly book giveaways, there will be a couple prizes awarded at the end of the Spring Reading Thing.

1. A $15 gift certificate to Amazon.com
2. A $5 gift certificate to Amazon.com

To be eligible for these prizes, you must:

• Post your intitial Spring Reading Thing 2009 post (and enter it on the Mr. Linky on my blog) by midnight on March 23rd
• AND post a wrap-up post on your blog at the end of the challenge (and enter it on the Mr. Linky I’ll have up then) by midnight on June 23rd

That’s it. I’ll randomly draw the winners after June 23rd.

Miscellany

My plan right now is to put up the official Spring Reading Thing 2009 launch post at 9:00 a.m. (EST) on Friday, March 20th. If for any reason that time will change, I’ll let you know.

I will be putting up a post where you can link to any reviews you write of your Spring Reading Thing 2009 books, but probably won’t post it until March 23rd or so.

I think that just about covers things. If you are new to the Spring Reading Thing, you can read about the general idea HERE and find additional guidelines for participating HERE.

See you all in one week, ready to start reading!