Welcome to another year of the Roll-Your-Own Reading challenge! Last year's RYO was nothing short of amazing and we have reason to believe that this year's will be even better.  Why?  Well, it looks like we've got most everyone back from last year already and you guys and gals are already coming up with some great new challenge themes.  And, of course, most of the crop of challenges from last year are back for another go 'round.  And let's not forget the handful of challenges that are continuing from last year as well.  It's never too late to join in those too.

But you all know us well enough to know that we're not just going to run the same RYO over again without some improvements.  Unfortunately we're still wrapping up the new features - the flu season kicked our asses and we're still trying to recover.  But rest assured you're going to like the new features when they come - and don't worry about waiting for us to catch up.  Join in the challenges that float your boat as you will.  The new stuff will dovetail right in seamlessly and give you some new options to modify your challenge schedule.

If you are a challenge host be sure to create a discussion thread for your challenge participants to congregate in.  We had some pretty good threads last year with folks planning strategies, discussing books, finding recommendations and ultimately exercising their bragging rights to finished challenges.  We hope we can up the participation this year and there's those new features mentioned above to add fuel to the fire.

If this is your first chance to try the RYO there are lots of experienced folks around here to answer your questions and advise you.  You'll note right away the "gaming" that goes on with challenge participants hunting down those books that will meet requirements for multiple challenges.  I seem to recall one WWEnder finding a single book that counted for 7 challenges!  It's great fun and allows you to dip into more challenges than you would think possible.  We had several members who jumped into over a dozen different challenges last year and this year will be much the same.  There are just so many compelling themes to pick from, how can you choose just one?

Lastly, I want to take a minute to offer our sincerest thanks to everyone who participated last year and made it such a joy to organize.  So much enthusiasm and effort went into the reading and reviews that we were just blown away and we really appreciated the camaraderie and support everyone shared.  It certainly helped us build a better community here and we hope that will just continue to grow and grow.  There are some great people here and you might just find some new friends to talk genre fiction - even if they're on the other side of the planet!

Thanks everyone and Read On!

10,789!