Smugglivus 2010: An Introduction (& Week 1 Schedule)

Smugglivus is here (er, almost…)! Tomorrow, December 1st, we kick-start Smugglivus.

What the heck is Smugglivus?

For newer readers and those of you that are unfamiliar with the event, Smugglivus is our month-long (ok, technically it’s about five weeks long) end of the year celebration. Back in our first year of The Book Smugglers, we had the insane idea to host our own crazy holiday bonanza to celebrate our favorite books, authors, bloggers, etc of the past year. So, inspired by Seinfeld’s infamous Festivus, Smugglivus was born.

Each year, Smugglivus begins on December 1 and features guest posts and giveaways from our favorite people across the interwebs (with a healthy serving of our regular reviews, of course). The event then ends in with much fanfare and sparklies on January 7, our very own bloggiversary (2010 marks our third birthday! Huzzah!). (Ok, there isn’t really much fanfare. Or sparklies. But you get the picture.)

So, you may be asking yourself, what can you expect from Smugglivus 2010?

Awesome Guests:

For the duration of the event, every single day, we will be featuring at least one guest blogger – from authors to publishers to our favorite book bloggers. Our guests will talk about their favorite reads of 2010 and what they are looking forward to/have planned in 2011. This year, our genre-spanning author lineup includes Sarah Rees Brenan, Catherynne M. Valente, Mark Charan Newton, Michael Northrop, Nalini Singh, Dan Waters, Tim Akers, and Megan Whalen Turner. Of course, we’ll also have plenty of awesome bloggers over to play, including Lurv A La Mode’s Kenda, Angieville’s Angie, Dear Author’s Jane, A Dribble of Ink’s Aidan Moher, and many, many more. We’ll have a few of our favorite publishers over, too, talking about their 2011 pipelines.

Giveaways:

We have TONS of books to giveaway, some of them generously donated by some of our guests, some sponsored by publishers.

Feats of Strength:

What is Smugglivus without a little danger and death-defying challenge? The Feats of Strength are nothing more than our usual “dare” challenges – taken to the next level. We like to think of it as Dares on Crack. Both Smugglers will have to read and a book picked by the other – and these books are completely and utterly outside of the usual comfort zone (for example, Thea usually foists something sadistically cruel like Jacqueline Carey or Stephen King on Ana, whereas Ana maliciously forces Thea to read Eloisa James or Julie James).

Airing of Grievances:

The Airing of Grievances is one of our favorite Smugglivus rituals, in which we basically rant. Books, TV shows, movies, reading and…..maybe even, each other. *gasp* (All in good nature, of course. Most of the time.)

Ana and Thea’s Most Excellent Books of 2010:

When post our top 10 (ish) favorite books of the year, including notable mentions and favorite books published prior to 2010. We’ll also post about our favorite TV Shows, movies, etc in our Best of The Rest feature.

The Smugglies:

This year, we have a new addition to the Smugglivus Roster – The Smugglies!! These are our very own completely subjective awards (both good AND bad) which will be presented at the end of Smugglivus. You know you’re excited.

And that is Smugglivus in a nutshell! We will of course, continue with our regular schedule with reviews (although less than the usual 3-4 per week) but Radar posts will go on a break till January. Our usual Sunday stash will be mostly dedicated to the festivites as well.

We do hope you join us for the event and have as much fun as we had organizing it!

We leave you now with the line up for this first few days of Smugglivus:

This Week on Smugglivus:

As has become a Smugglivus tradition, our very first guest to kick off the festivities is Joel Sutherland, talking about his favorite books of the year and what he has planned for 2011, including a giveaway. Later, Jessica of the truly excellent Read React Review stops by with her own guest post.

On Thursday, YA author Sarah Rees Brennan stops over with a giveaway and a breakdown of her favorite books (yay!). Later in the day we have our very own Dude, Harry Markov of Temple Library Reviews, stop by with his favorites of the year.

On Friday, Thea reviews The Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne M. Valente – and later in the day, the author stops by with her own Smugglivus contribution!

Closing out the week on Saturday, we have wonderful author Zetta Elliott over with her own contribution, followed by Ari of Reading In Color.

Happy Smugglivus, everyone!