Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Last night I went to (spoiler alert) Augustus’s funeral. Again. 😯 I went opening night with my friend Amy, but a few of our book club wanted to go as we had just read the book as a group this past month. It’s such a great story line and between book and movie I pick up a little more each time.
So… I have a funny story.
“No way Sheila! Something funny? YOU? Really?
Yes. And stop it. 😉
Quite a few years ago, I started using a product that is a skin softener with sesame oil. A friend of mine told me about it, I tried it and love to use it after I shower. It has a light scent to it that I love as well. About 4 years ago while up at our cabin hiking, I discovered a happy side affect to the product. While my friends were complaining about black flies (if you are unfamiliar they are NASTY buggers and bite), while I was not being bothered by them. I started noticing in other situations that bugs did not seem to bother me as much as others. It had to be the sesame oil.
Ahhhh….. miracle cure
I started recommending this to my friends who go camping, even buying it as a gift for people. I have been recommending it for years.
Then…
I told my friend Kate who I run with about it a month ago. She did not want to go on the trail because of all the bugs. I gave my sesame oil talk about the benefits I have noticed and that you can pick it up in any drug store in the lotion aisle.
A week later while on the trail with Kate I asked her how the sesame oil was going. “It’s wonderful!” she raved, “but the kids complain because it smells like skunk.”
I was confused. The scent is pleasant, not sharp or stinky at all. I told her as much. “You bought the same one I am using right?”, I asked. “In the lotion aisle, tall bottle, clear golden color?”
Kate looked at me. “Lotion aisle? No… I picked it up in the cooking aisles.”
I laughed so hard. Apparently Kate has been wearing this, and cooking with it. “The other night I made sesame chicken, there was some of the oil on me, and on the chicken.” Even her husband has been using it and they swear it keeps the bugs away.
It’s true.
Kate and I this last weekend looked it up online and sesame oil is a bug repellant. It is considered a natural mosquito repellant.
That’s it for this morning. Work.. meeting tonight… might start mowing the lawn again which means audio 🙂
What do you use for bug repellant? Any awesome secrets that work?
Audio book month continues and so do the narrator posts and audiobooks and of course, the giveaway that goes along with it. Please welcome narrator Patrick Lawlor. I did not have a lot of time to chat with him in New York but now he will share his narrating life with us:
My name is Patrick Lawlor and I have been narrating audiobooks since 2001. Full-time since 2004. This is what I do, this is my job. How lucky am I that I have a job that combines two of my favorite things, reading and talking?!
I have recorded over 325 books. in every genre. Some of my favorites include Merle’s Door, Lessons From a Free Thinking Dog, by Ted Kerasote, Adam Canfield of the Slash, by Michael Winerip, Timecasters by Joe Kimball (J.A. Konrath), The Troubleshooters series by Suzanne Brockmann, The Darwin Awards series by Wendy Northcutt and the controversial Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.
I was very lucky to get into audiobooks at a time when there were a lot fewer people trying to do this for a living. The Audio Publishers’ Association held a yearly job market, which was, in essence, a chance for prospective narrators to audition for a bunch of publishers at once, and then have several opportunities to socialize with them and start to get to know them. I was able to make several lasting relationships and got my first gig halfway through the day!
I completed 5 books my first year, 9 my second year, and about 12 my third. Since then, I average between 25 and 30 books a year. This has become my full-time job and I couldn’t be happier about it. I still do theatre when I can, that’s where my roots are, and that was my primary focus before audiobooks, but mainly I record. I have a studio in my home, and these days, record most of my work there. This is probably the biggest change in the industry since I began. There is a huge movement toward narrators recording themselves at home. Digital technology has made it relatively easy to get professional-quality results at home for relatively little money. The internet and things like ISDN and ftp sites, make remote recording and moving around sound files quite do-able. There is a certain, undeniable convenience about recording at home, to be sure, but I do miss going into the studio and working with a director and an engineer. I am, after all, a performer, and I enjoy having others around. Books DO still get done in studios, and I go in every chance I get, but the market being what it is, and the sheer number of narrators entering the business each year, means I need every advantage I can get, and home recording is a big one.
This is probably the biggest change in the industry since I began. There is a huge movement toward narrators recording themselves at home.
Through the years, as I have been exposed to more and various material, I have gone through a process of discovery. For the most part, I have been making this up as I’ve gone along. I have had some wonderful directors who have guided me in the right direction, but I am definitely a work in progress. I have matured, certainly, and learned many techniques that have made me a better story-teller. I generally read slower and more clearly. There was a tendency in earlier books to speed up. My voice also had a tendency to get a little high-pitched when excited. I have much more control these days. At the same time, I am getting older, and so is my voice. I like to think it’s getting better, richer, but those female characters are certainly having to evolve a bit! Altogether, I think I’ve remained pretty consistent, though along the way, I have experimented quite a bit with how to narrate a book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Sometimes REALLY…not. It has been a challenging and thoroughly enjoyable ride!
My first audiobook recording gig will always be one of my more fun memories, no matter how many books I record. I was attending the APA Job Market in New York, in early 2001, and I had just auditioned for a room of publishers and producers, when one of them, a producer named John McElroy, caught me in the hall and said he had a short project I would be perfect for. Was I interested? “Of course”, I said and he promised to get me the script by the end of the day. It would require extending my stay in NYC by a day, so I would basically break even, but I was getting my start! And in New York City! (I lived in Los Angeles at the time.) I was ecstatic! I continued the day on a cloud.
When I read the script later in my hotel room, however, that cloud did that little “poof” disappearing thing you see in cartoons. What I had was a chapter from a book of erotica. It resembled nothing so much as a 30 minute Letter to Penthouse. I am certainly not prudish in the least, and I have nothing against erotica, and this wasn’t especially hardcore or anything, but I DID start to wonder about the ease with which I got this gig. And what, exactly in my audition made John consider me ‘perfect” for this? Well, maybe this was normal. What did I know? I had never done a book before.
The next day I went downtown to “the studio.” When I arrived at the address, it was a small, unmarked door between a Bodega and a nail place. I went up to the 3rd floor and entered what seemed to be a travel agency, where Russian seemed to be the primary language and a lot of big, swarthy gentlemen looked dully uninterested in my arrival. I had flashes of that scene in the movie FAME, where the girl goes to her first on-screen gig.. A good quart of flop-sweat released itself into the sleeves of my shirt. After ten minutes or so of trying to get the receptionist to understand what I was looking for (words like “recording,” “audiobook” and “studio” were not among the dozen or so words of English she knew, and that angered her), I decided to call the studio. Outside. At a pay phone. It turns out I had transposed two numbers in the address, and the beautiful, professional studio was across the street!
I had a nice conversation with the director John. In the end John said very nice things about my work and handed me a check and that was that. I was a paid audiobook narrator! I had done my first project! As it turns out, the first of many to come. And no, they have not all been like that.
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts, like this one. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
Hey there! Welcome to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading!
I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. Fair warning… this meme tends to add to your reading list!
It has been a great week of narrator posts, a couple of reviews and yeah the BIG 3,000. I have had a pretty productive weekend, worked inside and outside the house, seen some friends and had dinner tonight with my oldest son and his best friend who is practically like a son.
(*and remember each comment on an audiobook related post puts you into the June drawing)
Yup. A productive week. Here is what I am working on this week:
For My Ears
Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin?
Do you simultaneously feel overworked and underutilized?
Are you often busy but not productive?
Do you feel like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas?
If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the Way of the Essentialist.
The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done. It is not a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.
By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy – instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.
Essentialism is not one more thing – it’s a whole new way of doing everything. It’s about doing less, but better, in every area of our lives.
Summer, 1926. Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley, take refuge from the blazing heat of Paris in a villa in the south of France. They swim and play bridge, and drink gin with abandon. But wherever they go they are accompanied by the glamorous and irrepressible Fife. Fife is Hadley’s best friend. She is also Ernest’s lover. Hadley is the first Mrs. Hemingway, but neither she nor Fife will be the last. Each Mrs. Hemingway thought their love would last forever; each one was wrong.
Narrated by Hemingway’s four wives – Hadley, Fife, Martha, and Mary – and peopled with members of the fabled “Lost Generation” – including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald – Mrs. Hemingway paints a complex portrait of the man behind the legend and the women behind the man, a riveting tale of passion, love, and heartbreak.
For My Eyes
After a mysterious Sickness wipes out the rest of the population, the young survivors assemble into tightly run tribes. Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he’s secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when another tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure to the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip to save humankind.
The tribe exchanges gunfire with enemy gangs, escapes cults and militias, braves the wilds of the subway and Central Park…and discovers truths they could never have imagined.
That’s it for the big plan. How about you? What are you reading this week? What did you read last night? Any audio going on? Please add your link to your It’s Monday! What Are You Reading below where it says click here:
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For those of you who read mainly children and middle grade books, please also feel free to add your link here:
Well holy smokes! This is my 3,000 post. Is that not just crazy? Certainly a monumental post like this can not go by without some sort of hoopla…. you know how I like to celebrate! 🙂
This post actually falls into a spot I was planning to chat about on-line book relationships vs. face to face (ie. Book Clubs. reading groups, book studies…) and I am going to go ahead with it as I think it is a very worthy discussion for our friend, “Post 3000”.
Credit for the idea behind this post goes to Rita of My Home Of Books. She recently wrote a post about book clubs and within her post she asked the question
If you have a solid on line presence with a large network surrounding your book related topics, do you find it necessary to also be in a book club?
This is the question that started me thinking, as I love my online discussions about books but I also love love my face to face book club and I personally would not want to give either up. Them’s fightin’ words.
But… that’s me.
What started me thinking was if an online presence around books can replace that face to face feeling. I personally would hope that it would not need to, but as I have heard from many of you through the years, finding a face to face book group is not always easy to do.
If you are reading book blogs and reading books suggested, or have already read a book that is being discussed, do you then join in the discussion?
I think if you are participating in active commenting on bookish topics you are simulating a “book discussion” and if that is all that is available to you for numerous reasons –
no book clubs available
inability to join a group do to work, kids, family, commitments
existing book club/group never seems to discuss the book
Then certainly – get your book on that way and YAY that you do! There are a smorgasbord of book sites out there for everyone’s tastes and many times you can find your favorite publishing houses on Twitter and FACEBOOK (by all means Friend them – they have great conversations and many times they have giveaways too!)
However…. (and this is where the discussion could get interesting 😉 ) I personally feel that face to face book relationships can stimulate a deeper connection to people and to books. Let me explain:
While it can certainly be AWESOME to discuss a book on-line either gush worthy or “hated it!” It is hard to get the real emotion that went into the read to come out in an online discussion. Sure, I can say a book made me cry – but how does that replace sitting in a room together and hearing my voice crack when I say ” __________________’s break up with __________________ made my sob as though it was happening to me.”
Also, on-line it is hard to keep the conversation flowing at a rate that is satisfying to either party. Sure I (or anyone) can write a review and you can comment. Then at some point later I many read your comment and respond, and sometime later yet you may (or maybe you don’t) come back, see my response and then you comment again. It’s a bumpy conversation.
On line conversations can be a bit bumpy….
Obviously I love on-line book conversations or this post 3,000 (echo when you say it – its cool….. 3,000, 3,000, 3,000…) would not be happening. And I love visiting other blogger book sites and chatting books with them too. I also love face to face book encounters and would like to give suggestions of how you can make that happen or find a fit that works for you:
The one I love the most is join a book club. If you do not know of any, check your local library. They may either know book clubs in the area, or they may be offering them at the library (ours offers children, middle grade, family and adult book clubs). *In the event that you can not find a book club and your library does not know of any groups… start one.
Look for local author events (check book stores, library, newspaper, look on-line). Listening to an author can be a wonderful experience. I love to get to know the person behind the book. Grab a friend… go go go!!!
If there is a great read out and you and a couple of people you know have read it, invite them over to discuss it over drinks on the deck, or meet up at a coffee shop or restaurant. It does not have to be a “book club”, but even taking time to talk with others about a book you enjoyed is stimulating conversation.
Please – I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.
Do you think that on-line book relationships can replace face to face ones?
Do you feel some can effectively do it all – discuss on-line books topics well and face to face encounters too? Should they?
Do you have other suggestions for finding face to face book discussions for people looking?
Is this just a crazy discussion and post #3,000 is a weak attempt to engage people in book chats? 😉
Please share your thoughts – I did mention a giveaway – Leave a relevant comment here on this post between now and Thursday June 26th and I will enter you into a giveaway for a $10 Barnes and Noble or Amazon gift card – winners choice. One entry per comment. If you “Tweet” about this giveaway and post and put the tweet link in a comment space I will give you two additional entries.
(just click the “Tweet” button at the bottom of the post.)
Greetings children of earth! And of course any Shadow Hunters, Vampires, Werewolves, Wizards, Witches, Warriors, Fairies, Elves, Pixies…. I really am an equal opportunity blogger 🙂
And apparently… need more coffee if I am going to be this goofy in the morning. 🙂
Ok… the number. That number is the number of posts I have written since Book Journey began. It’s interesting… I did not notice when post 1,000 and 2,000 went by. Yet, awhile ago I notices I was about 100 posts away from 3,000. Since then I have been trying to keep an eye on it so I could do something for 3,000 (after all… it will take a while to get to 4,000!) I was going to do a super cool countdown (or count up) and not tell you what I was counting…but of course, life was busy… I forgot to count.. and suddenly yesterday I realized, like a baby that is due… 3,000 was arriving this weekend if I was ready or not. 🙂
I already had a discussion question I have been tossing around to post today so please stop in later and meet 3,000, join in the discussion, and a special giveaway because it is 3,000 posts.
3000 posts.
Holy smokes right?
Moving on…
In bookish arrivals… here is what came into my home this week:
I am hoping to work on a couple outdoor projects today but right now our sky is “iffy” if not outdoors, then I will be working on a spare room today prepping auction items for Wine and Words. 🙂
Also – we are still rocking Audiobook Month here with giveaway:
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
I have heard Simon Vance narrate before and I am well aware of how others have gushed over his narration. While in the past I found him good, I had not found him exceptional… until now. Simon Vance’s narration of The Other Story totally turned me into a Vance fan! ~ Sheila
Best selling author Nicolas Duhamel (Kolt) is staying at a beautiful Tuscan Island Resort with his girlfriend, working on his second novel highly anticipated by his huge fan following and his editor. His debut book, The Envelope, stemmed from his finding out something about his father’s past and the book just flowed….
now..
he doesn’t have crap.
Lying to his editor, his girlfriend, and his many fans who all assume he is on the island fiercely tapping out something amazing, Nicolas instead is spending his time on Facebook posting pictures and watching the “likes” work their magic into the hundreds. He is hanging on Twitter basking in the attention he receives by typing in anything into that 140 character slot what he is eating, profound (so he thinks) thoughts on anything… and watching people… especially the beautiful girls who find him a temptation as a famous author.
And now, years later, as Nicolas feels on the brink of self-destruction, he discovers that there is more to his family history then he had even uncovered… and within that… is,
the other story.
I listened to this book on audio because 1) I have enjoyed Tatiana De Rosney in the past, 2) it’s the story of a best-selling author and 3) Simon Vance narrating is something I did not want to pass up.
My thoughts…
Nicolas Duhamel is an ASS. He is a walking ego having lived off the success of his first book and then making himself a social media icon. HIs ego is so big that it overpowers the book. On Facebook and Twitter he can be a God… when in real life he is a life sucking worm (my words) who leaves destruction in every life he touches.
*whew*
*Dusts off pants.* *stretches*
Ok. Now that I got that out-of-the-way. Never underestimate the power of writing a story about an author… or a book store…. or a book lover… or a book thief :). Many of us readers… LOVE the literary topics. And, as I mentioned above, that was one of the draws to this book.
Narrator Simon Vance ROCKED this audio. He was so engaging, as he discussed the puketastic (my word) Nicolas that I became quite engaged in the story line… probably mostly because I wanted to know
what would happen?
would he write another book?
what would it be about?
My gosh… am I so infatuated with authors that I will forgive them anything? No. In fact, if I would have went the book route with this one, I probably would have given up on it. While beautifully written and descriptive, it felt L O N G. There is a whole lot of story…. and I did not feel a decisive plot. Is the plot the writer’s block? Or something else? Even as the book closed I found myself questioning if there was a set plot.. .or was the whole book a plot?
If I say it enough.. the word plot loses all meaning. And that sounds about right.
There are some good qualities to the read, I would rate it a 3 out of 5, and certain do not rely on my opinion alone on this one.
*Note – this book has some crude, highly sexual chapters that may not be appealing to some readers (including this one)
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts, like this one. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
This morning,I was going to go a completely different direction with Saturday Snapshot. As I walked my yard, I was taking pictures of trees… I love trees and we have quite the variety, silver maples, apple, cherry, plum, oak, and even walnut. But – that one will have to wait. As I looked around the yard I love so much, I went somewhere else.
Last Friday June 13th marked the 13th anniversary of the tornado that destroyed most of our property, Al (hubby’s) business, and not only changed our lives forever – but those of our neighbors too. This morning as I walked the yard I started taking pictures of the “now” and then came in the house and took pictures of the pictures I have in an album of the “then”.
On June 13th, 2001, I had come home from work around 5:30. I remember all of this because I documented the day, and the days and weeks to follow, in a journal. The sky that night, I need no journal to remind me of. It was a thick sort of green and looked cartoonish. In fact, I thought it was so unique that I went outside and took pictures of the sky with my camera at the time. The pictures never did the sky justice, but one of the pictures I took from our back deck was this one of our neighbors farm:
The picture is much better in my album, but as you can make out this is a large farm.The next morning – I stood in the same spot on my deck and took a picture of their farm, or what was left of it, again.
So what went down?
Al had just left to go and do a bid for a guy on the south end of town. I was on the couch reading after dinner and the boys ( at the time they were 10 and 12) were watching tv. The tv came through with a tornado warning in the area. This is common for June in this area and I barely even flinched. Then, Al came running in the house telling us to all get in the basement. He had been driving and seen the wall of the tornado south of us, turned around and raced home.
We all went to the basement, us and our two dogs. We sat under the stairs and we could hear the wind pick up. The house started to shake and dirt from between the floor boards above our head started to fall. I remember I was sitting cross-legged and then thought better of it thinking if we did become trapped in the house how uncomfortable that would be to be stuck that way.
After a while – it just went quiet.
Al decided to go upstairs and look around. I was envisioning that scene out of Twister where the dad opens the door to the cellar and is whisked away. Upstairs I could hear him walking around saying “Oh no, no…” I told the boys to stay put and I joined Al upstairs. We had no electricity then – in fact we did not have electricity, or running water for the four days following. Through the flashes of lightning we could see our home, plants turned over, our bedroom door was ripped off the hinges and was now in the living room, our windows had exploded and shards of glass had embedded itself in the walls across from the windows. Outside we could see trees down everywhere and large chunks of our yard torn up.
I kept repeating, “We were hit. We were hit.”
Even as I type this I kind of tear up because it was a scary time for us. Al had just finished putting up his 40 x 80 building for his business out behind our yard, and the electricity had just been put in the week before. It was gone.
Here are some pictures from that night… to this morning.
Left – our home this morning. Right – that morning after the tornado. The tree that is down was a large crab tree, really the center focus of the front yard. It broke my heart to see that tree split and dying.
Left: The back of the house this morning. Right: The back of the house the morning after the tornado. The large tree still in today’s picture split in half and landed on our roof. This tree is the reason we did not lose our home entirely, the weight of the tree still attached to the deep roots help our roof on. The front of the houses roof lifted 5 inches, but never came off. LOVE that tree. 🙂
Left – the garage area this morning. Right – where our garage had stood before the tornado. At the time the garage was not attached to the house (perhaps a good thing) and the tornado completely took it. The red jeep and the white truck were parked in front of the garage as you see them here. My jeep was untouched and Al’s truck had a hairline crack in the windshield. The garage must have went straight in the air and left the yard intact. The remains from it was found across the road behind a neighbors back yard.
Left: A tree in our back yard this morning. Right: That same tree the day after the tornado. What is wrapped around it is the roof from Al’s shop. What is crazy is that if the roof had not been stopped by becoming caught on this tree, it would have hit our house at a speed of over 100 miles per hour. Al wanted to cut this tree down after the tornado but I said no. Then all the branches off the backside of it had been seared off, but today it is healthy and whole again.
This is a shot of our back yard after the tornado. The plastic white things are to put calves in from our neighbors farm. We pretty much had all of their damage in our yard and the neighbors across the street had all of ours.
More of the yard. We lost about 40 trees after all was said and done.
Friends who came to help with the clean up.
It is the pictures of the friends who came to help afterwards that brings the tears back to my eyes but this time with a smile. We worked for days afterwards, cutting up the trees, hauling away debris, repairing the house. It took over a year to bring the house and yard back to some sort of normalcy.
Here is what happened during the tornado:
all windows on the back side of the house were blown out
the back and sides of the house had the wood siding ripped off
we lost our garage entirely
Al lost his shop entirely
40 trees lost
garden was destroyed
another garage on the property was bowed in back like a “C”
Basement flooded the day after the tornado
bedroom (along back side of house) was destroyed
When all was said and done we resided the house with an aluminum steel siding. We replaced the large bay window in the bedroom with a smaller one. We saved the tree on the deck, he is half the tree he used to be but that is ok. 🙂 We have since remodeled the basement (2004) to now be a second level to our home – family room, a bedroom, storage and laundry. Al rebuilt his business with the insurance money and is now thriving. Our home has been remodeled, we built a new garage to go on the house, and our yard – while not as many trees as I would like…. has sort of a park look to it now and I like it.
The back yard this morning.This morning, I had to look hard to find it, but I did. This is a piece of metal that was driven into this tree in our yard during the tornado. It is a good 6 inches into the tree and will never come out. A reminder of what was….
This final picture was taken last night. I love my back yard. And if you look way out you can see the trucks of Al’s business, 13 years later doing well, rebuilt after that night that rocked our world forever.
I recently had the opportunity to meet Karen White at a narrator luncheon. We sat right across from each other and I suddenly had 20,000 questions I did not know I had until we were there chatting. 🙂 Thankfully, she gracefully and patiently answered all my questions… and now she is about to answer some more. Please welcome to Book Journey, Karen White. ~ Sheila
Hi I am Karen White and I started narrating books in 1999. Some of the books I have narrated would be:
Although the industry conventional wisdom is that it takes 2 hours in the studio to record what we call a “finished hour” (an hour after the recording has been edited and readied for release), for me it’s really closer to 2.5 or 3, depending on the complexity of the writing. I am pretty meticulous and I try to avoid recording many “pickups” (re-recording bits where mistakes were made). Not including breaks, I spend about five hours recording, about five days a week. I usually fill in the rest of my workday with preparing upcoming books, engaging in social media, and looking for work.
When I am not narrating,
I have two kids, a husband and a dog, so much of my time is spent hanging out with and doing things with them. I go to my girls’ soccer and softball games (and try not to yell too loudly so as to save my voice but am not always successful!). My husband and I like to cook and give dinner parties. He’s great with the grill and various fancy French recipes, I’m a pretty good baker and try to be creative with the veggies. We all like to make pasta together!
a fruit galette (one of my favorite things to bake)a beautiful evening at the softball field
We live near the beach in NC, so in the summer we make trips to the water. There’s an island across the inter-coastal waterway only reachable by boat – it has a gorgeous, uncrowded beach – and we are slowly learning the ins and outs of getting there (you need TWO anchors to make sure your boat doesn’t float away while you’re swimming, you need flips flops to get across the island unless you want 2nd degree burns on the bottoms of your feet, etc.)
Both my girls on the boat heading out to the island
When looking for good audio when traveling, we are huge fans of the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series, narrated by Katherine Kellgren. It is hilarious and unique and kept us awake driving across the country last summer.
Favorite movie and movie snack?
I am definitely a popcorn and a coke kind of gal. No butter.I just saw THE FAULT IN OUR STARS and that’s my favorite (I have a short-lived memory). I love movies that make me feel a LOT, whether I’m laughing or crying – and this had both. Besides all the obvious great moments, my girls and I really loved the casting and original song by the guy who led the support group – what is that guys name? See I already forgot. He was spot on, I remember that.
Elsa!
Bonus question – a funny narration happening
This is a little embarrassing, but I burp a lot when I am recording. I’ve directed other people quite a bit, and while everybody inevitably has interesting stomach noises, usually before and after lunch, I think I am the most prodigious belcher. I think it’s a combination of the fact that I drink a lot of Xiao’s Blend tea which has peppermint, which I learned relaxes the esophageal sphincter and the fact that when I’m reading, my diaphragm is just jumping up and down on my stomach as I’m breathing! I self edit as I go now, but I used to feel bad for the poor editor who had to hear all my loud burps. Now I just yell at my body in between takes when it burps too much or makes weird stomach noises (“Seriously!? Shut UP!”), often in the middle of a really good take… 😉
Prepping a book by reading it on my IPAD
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts, like this one. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
Rachel Witshire’s life is going better than she could have imagined. She has a wonderful group of friends including an attentive boyfriend, and she has been accepted into the college she had hoped for. Then, right before she leaves for college a terrifying accident changes everything.
Five years later Rachel still wears the scars of that day, both on the outside and the inside. When she returns to her hometown for her best friends wedding she is filled with uncertainty of what it will be like to encounter the old friends that were part of that overpowering and sad memory. Then a fall puts Rachel in the hospital and when she is able to leave she discovers things are not as they were… her scars are gone, her job is different, and the guy she loves….
but is this a case of amnesia? Head trauma? Or is this a reality that Rachel can cling to, no longer knowing what is truth and what is fiction… and not sure which reality she really wants to hold on to.
In a word… powerful. I have read several books over the past year with the “amnesia theme” but this one takes a little different path. At one point I thought the book felt predictable, and in some ways it was. Then the air was literally forced out of my lungs as I became fully engrossed as the book reached a conclusion that literally made me say “no way,” with a sense of awe and appreciation.
I listened to Then and Always on audio. Narrator Susan Duerden was well-chosen for this book. Thoroughly enjoyable at 8 hours and 45 minutes, a perfect length for a summer listen.
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts, like this one. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
It’s raining this morning. Hard. And that’s ok. I just finished mowing our yard yesterday evening and I was afraid that the lawn was too dry. I am in the office all day so this puts no damper on my plans of typing and filing and working on the annual report.
What I wanted to talk about this morning is blogging. It amazes me that about a year ago I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue on and that kind of scared me. Last June I felt in an entirely different place. I felt too busy to keep up on book reviews and book chats and I posted maybe once or twice a week. Maybe. I usually missed writing a Morning Meandering. I was hardly reading a thing so there was nothing to talk about there, and for a while I took a real look at wondering if my season had passed.
Since my time in blogging, a lot of great bloggers have come and gone. A few that really inspired me in the beginning of this crazy chatting about books, are hard to find now…. occasionally popping up on Twitter or on Facebook… but nothing on their site – if the site is even still there. All that time – typing, talking books, chatting, sharing…
gone.
And I had started to think I was too.
So what did happen?
I fought for it. I wasn’t ready to let go of my love of talking books, or my chats with all of you. I accepted that it was ok to step back and do life and not completely let go. So that is what I did and slowly throughout late fall and winter I came back…
but really it was the book expo this year in New York that sealed the deal for me.
I love the expo. I love my bookish relationships that I have made here talking to book lovers on this screen, and then meeting them in real life, and still chatting books with them. I LOVE talking to authors, and publishers, and the heads of publishing houses about what makes them tick. When at the expo, my mind flows with blog post ideas…
topics of publishing houses
connecting with narrators
audiobook week
blogiversary
meeting bloggers (I actually don’t like that word) meeting like-minded Book lovers
events
amazing books coming soon
author events
I literally started making a list of ideas on the plane home.
Soon I will be reaching a mile stone post. I see it coming and I am excited about it because it is crazy to think that for the past 5 years I have chatted books and life to you and I am as energized now as I was when I started. How crazy cool is that?
I can’t imagine going anywhere any time soon. This post was to hopefully inspire any of you out there that are on the edge of deciding, “do I go on?”…. its ok to take breaks. This is supposed to be fun – not a chore.
And I….
am having fun.
If you are a book reviewer/lover/chatter… ok ok, blogger, how long have you been doing this? If you have been doing it for a while are you surprised how long you have been doing it?
What energizes you to keep going?
Oh yeah – and don’t forget – it is audiobook month (I wont let you forget!) GIveaway here for a $25 gift card. An entry for ever comment you have on an Audiobook related post that I have up this month. To help you out… here is what they are:
Book Journey 