Double-Stacked Bookshelves

This will be my second time participating in the Beat the Heat Read-a-Thon hosted by Novel Heartbeat and Phantasmic Reads and I'm super excited for another successful three weeks of reading!  The Rules The Beat the Heat Readathon runs from August 24th at 12:00 AM to September 6th at 11:59 PM. What does this readathon entail, you ask? Well, read as much or as little as you want – the main point is to READ! You set your own goal, and for three weeks you read as many books as you can/want to reach your goal! There will be mini-challenges throughout the Readathon for participants, along with a grand prize giveaway at the end! Sign up here at Novel Heartbeat or over at  Phantasmic Reads . You may join whenever you like, but to be eligible for our grand prize giveaway, you must sign up by August 28th. To join, all you have to do is make a sign-up post – even if it’s just a “Let’s do this!” thing – and add your post URL to the linky below! You can put your goals and pro...

This week's prompt for the Writer's Workshop is:  10 Things That Make Me Happy...   A Strong Cup of Coffee.  I like to taste my coffee and have it kick me gently in the face.  Mmmm. Rain.  The sound.  The smell.  The feel.  The atmosphere.  The...taste, I guess.  Being from the PNW allows me to experience the beauty of rain a lot.  However, we've had an unusually dry Winter/Spring...and going in to Summer, so I haven't been able to enjoy my delightful rain as much as I would love to. Hoppy Beer.  I am also thankful that I live in a region that produces seriously outstanding beers (You go, Oregon!).  As my preferences have changed over the years, I have become increasingly drawn to IPAs and the like.  The hoppier, the better in my opinion! A Plethora of Books.  I feel completely lost without a book on my person at all times.  What if I have to wait somewhere?  What if I get sto...

Teaser Tuesday:  An Unnecessary Woman Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading . Here are the rules: grab whatever you're reading, open to a random page, select no more than two sentence (NO SPOILERS), share the title and author, and GO! Here's today's teaser: "I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word.  Literature is my sandbox.  In it I play, build my forts and castles, and spend glorious time.  It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble." --page 5           ----- An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine Loving this book so far!!! Happy reading!

Today's teaser comes from Alexander McCall Smith's The World According to Bertie : "Some books, of course, were destined not to be read, largely because of their unintelligibility to all except a very small number of people" (171). I think we can all come up with a few books that would fit this description.  Happy Tuesday!

Utopia I've always meant to read Thomas More's Utopia ...pretty much since I watch Ever After starring Drew Barrymore and Anjelica Huston (I love that movie despite Barrymore's atrocious British accent and the fact that everyone has a British accent yet it's set in France).  Recently I found an extremely inexpensive copy of the book and am bound and determined to start is soon.  Here's hoping it's sooner rather than later. Take a peak at the trailer for the movie...good stuff.  Have a terrific day everyone!

I am not, by nature, an emotional person.  I don't cry when I get upset.  I don't cry when I get hurt.  Honestly, I don't cry...at least it's a rare occasion if I do.  In fact, several friends have described me as having a heart of stone because I never cry (jokingly, of course).  However, there are a few things that get me every time:  Selena , The Notebook (film version), The Family Stone and some other films.  But for the most part, I'm a stone wall.  Now that all changes when it comes to certain books.  There are a few books that I will cherish forever despite the fact that they make me cry.  For that reason, they belong in the Why I Love...Tear Jerkers category.  First, and foremost:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows This was the only installation in the boy wizard series where I cried.  It's not that I wasn't upset about things that occurred in the previous books (Cedric's death, Sirius' death, Dumbledore's ...

I'm notorious for believing that books are far superior to their TV and movie counterparts.  This is a known fact and, undoubtedly, true in nearly every single instance.  However, there are those rare occasions when TV shows and movies do a damn fine job at portraying the original print version; that's why this post is dedicated to my favorite show from a book and my favorite movie from a book (I couldn't pick just one). TV SHOWS It seems that there is a definite trend in today's newly developed shows.  That trend is taking popular books (mainly those geared toward young adults) and creating popular television shows from them.  Case in point:  The Vampire Diaries , Gossip Girl , Pretty Little Liars , and so on.  I can honestly say that I have heard great things about all of these shows, but I have yet to watch a single episode of any or read a single book.  On the other hand, there are three shows developed from books that I absolutely love (in desc...

This past weekend was the annual Friends of the Albany Library book sale at the fairgrounds and I picked all of these lovely, wonderful, heartwarming books up for a mere 23 bucks!  I love this sale and always mark it in my calendar.  Also, I could have bought a lot more and spent even longer perusing the tables, but my Powell's tote was full :(  Next year I'm bringing two bags!  Now I just have to wait for the Friends of the Corvallis Library sale to add to my continually growing selection.

With the new development of gadgets that allow you to access books with the simple touch of a button, the entire way that we read has shifted.  We now have the ability to carry around thousands of books in one single device.  While I like the convenience of this trend, I just can't jump on board.  For that reason, this edition of "Why I Love" is dedicated to the paperback book, otherwise known as my favorite book form/format . I am probably one of the few "literary-driven" people left who does not own an e-reader of any kind.  My sister (who doesn't read nearly as much as I do) got one for Christmas and, while I did enjoy playing around on it, I was so much more excited to receive an actual book.  One that I could grasp, physically flip through, and smell.  These are all traits that I cherish when I think about books or reading. I like to hold onto books (I carry one with me at all times and normally read multiple books at a time) and feel the weight t...

"A snowball to the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship." The Book Thief Most people have no idea who Liesel Meminger is, but those who have read Markus Zusak's The Book Thief   would probably rate her among one of the best characters in the book, if not most books.  For that reason alone, she is my Favorite Character . Liesel...how do I even describe her?!  She lives in a time and place that most of us would shudder at...Nazi Germany.  After her younger brother's death, her mother sends her to a small town in Germany in order to keep her safe.  She is fostered by Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who happen to live, fittingly, on Himmel Strasse (Heaven Street).  We come to see Liesel and how she interacts with her foster parents and the other citizens in the area.  She even becomes friends with a fist-fighting Jew who hides in her basement.  It is during her time in this town that Liesel develops, or hones, her knack of stealing...

It took me quite a while to finish this book.  I don't know if it was the style, the language, or the story in general that kept me from getting settled and engaged.  DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little was the 2003 winner of the Man Booker Prize , the award for the very best literature written for that year.  Somehow I don't think I agree with this decision.  Yes, the book is good, but I did not think that it was great.  There were so many great novels published in 2003, and, forgive me, but Pierre's isn't the best.  The novel centers around Vernon Gregory Little and the aftermath of a school shooting, of which he is accused of participating, in small Martirio, Texas.  The reader is taken on a journey encompassing Vernon's thought process, attempted escapes, border crossings, and eventual incarceration.  All of these segments are separated into five acts that chronicle the events leading up to the conclusion of the story...the trial and it's conseq...

I've recently finished reading Percy Walker's The Moviegoer for my scattered book club from Scotland and I have to say that it left me wanting...a lot. I can't put my finger on what I didn't like about this book; perhaps it was my lack of interest in any of the characters or the writing style that disappointed, despite the fact that it won the National Book Award for Fiction. I had such high hopes for this read for many reason. 1) I will soon be heading to Biloxi and New Orleans to meet up with the above mentioned book club, 2) I tend to like novels set in the South, and 3) the synopsis sounded intriguing. Alas, I was let down. As a breakdown to why I didn't enjoy this read I offer the following: the characters bored my to death...and I wish it had done so to Kate! I feel that the major failing in this work rests in the complete lack of kinship the reader feels with any of the characters presented, much like Flaubert's characters in A Sentimental Edu...

My good friend Mandy recently sent me a link to a wonderful book challenge run by The Thoughts of a Book Junky ! blog and I've decided that I'm going to participate for several reasons: 1) because I love to read, 2) because I've set a goal to read 100 books this year, and 3) because it seems like a fun way to bust through the very long list of books to read that I continually add to. So, without further ado, I present my list: A-"Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea"--Chelsea Handler B-"Bianca's Vineyard"--Teresa Neumann C-"Catching Fire"--Suzanne Collins D-"Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?  A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir"--Steven Tyler E-"Espresso Tales"--Alexander McCall Smith F-"1st to Die"--James Patterson G-"Gutsy Women: Travel Tips and Wisdom for the Road"--Marybeth Bond H-"The Hunger Games"--Suzanne Collins I-"Interview with the Vampire"--Anne Rice J-...