Month: January 2015

Oh, hello! This is Sue from Book by Book.  Sheila asked me to help blog-sit while she is enjoying her vacation in Australia, so I just stopped by to water her plants and feed her cat errr…. dogs.

While I’m here, I might as well check out her books – don’t you just love looking at other people’s bookshelves? Oooh…Sheila has an amazing collection, with so much variety! Let’s see…read it, read it, read it, oh, want it!

Ah, here’s one that’s a favorite at our house: The Passage by Justin Cronin. My husband and I both read it a few years ago, but I just gave it to my father for Christmas and my 20-year old son finally took our advice and started reading it this week – I know they will both love it. Despite its big splash when first published, this is a book that stands up over time.

I just re-read Sheila’s review (one of many that made me want to read the book), and I agree with everything she’s said here.

If you are one of the few – like my son – who hasn’t read it yet, here’s a quick overview. The Passage is an epic post-apocalyptic thriller, covering over 100 years and several generations of people. You may have heard that it’s about vampires, but I’m not normally a fan of vampire books, and I loved it. The creatures in the novel are not traditional vampires of fictional lore but more a government experiment to create super-soldiers with a virus that went terribly wrong. Here’s my review, from 2011.

I see that Sheila also read and reviewed The Twelve, the sequel to The Passage. I agree with her review – that The Twelve is a good follow-up but is a lot more complicated and well, more everything. Here’s my review, too (no spoilers in any of our reviews).

So, if you are looking for some high-octane post-apocalyptic action, check out this unique and thrilling trilogy. Book 3, The City of Mirrors, is due out sometime this year – can’t wait! And word is that there is a movie adaptation of The Passage in the works – wow, that will be something to see.

I just know that my son and father will both love this book. Thanks to Sheila for reigniting my interest in it!

Well, I better let myself out now and lock up. See you soon!

Good morning all!  This is Laura from iRead Book Tours hanging out at Book Journey.  Going through Sheila’s review archive brought me back to the beginnings of my book blogging days. You see, Sheila and I started blogging around the same time, around 2008, I think it was? I had just published my novel Daughter of Mine and was getting to know more about book blogging. When I requested book reviews on Book Blogs, Sheila contacted me through that community and she reviewed my book!

So began my relationship with Sheila. I then visited Sheila’s blog more often and enjoyed her reviews and read many of the same books she did. Thank you, Sheila! One of them was Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. She read it in 2010 and her review sparked my interest to the point where this became one of my book club choices and I read it in 2011, almost a year after she did.

Sheila said in her review of Fahrenheit 451, “I really was impressed by this reading and was surprised really how much I enjoyed the story line. I have never been one for sci-fi or futuristic reads but have to make an exception in this case. For as old as this book is (originally published as The Fireman in 1951), it is almost spooky how it speaks of censorship.”

I too am not one for sci-fi or futuristic reads, so I thought if she liked this classic, I should give it a try.

I’m so glad I did because it developed in me a love for dystopian books that had been tainted by 1984, a book I had once read in school and had not liked. When Sheila hosted the Read Dystopia Challenge 2012, I eagerly signed up.

Books like Fahrenheit 451 sparked my taste for different genres and for reading banned books. Sheila helped me discover new books through Book Journey and she is also responsible for my growing love of audio books. It quickly became clear that Sheila was a mover and a shaker, my kind of gal. Since she’s Christian, I can also rely on her mentioning content in her book reviews which I always appreciate.

So I’m going to continue to snoop around Sheila’s review archive (which reminds me I have to update mine!) while Sheila is off with her hubby enjoying her Australian adventure. I’m sure I’ll come across a few more books I read in the past, which will have me reminiscing again, and reminding me why I love book blogging and the work that I do.

So that’s what I’d love to chat about today – Do you read nonfiction? What are some of your favorite recommendations? Can I help recommend a great nonfiction read?

Kid’s Books Are Not Just For Kids

Charlotte’s Web:
A children’s book for “kids” of all ages, as are so many books in the KidLit world. 🙂

Hi everyone!  It’s me, Donna from Writer’s Side Up!  Having borrowed Charlotte’s Web from our local library, the only time I read it was nearly 5 decades ago. Yes, that long! I was a young child. I remember enjoying it and whenever I heard mention of it, a warm spot lit in my heart even though, as time marched on, the details of the story had withered away like an unattended web. Only a few vague images remained, the few “strings” that clung to a barn’s doorway: a girl, a pig, a spider, a web, a fair.

In the years (about 20 now) since I began to actively focus on pursuing children’s literature as an author/illustrator, I’ve heard this classic book referred to many times, as I’m sure you can well imagine! During that time, I’ve also been building my personal library, including some of the classics I hadn’t yet owned, Charlotte’s Web being one of the first I purchased. As you and I are well aware, we book lovers tend to have very long “to be read” lists, whether they are books lining our own shelves or those at bookstores and libraries. For a long time now, Charlotte and Wilbur have been waiting very patiently for me to pay them their due attention. Whenever I’d glance their way, catching a glimpse of their spine, they’d in turn catch my eye—beckoning—knowing I was wistful to revisit them. “I don’t know when, you two, but I will. I will…”

Then, as Sheila has a tendency to do, she dangles an irresistible carrot in front of my face. Well, no, not a carrot ‘cause I could easily resist one of those. She dangles Dove milk chocolate! Sheila being the kind of person who, if she asks a favor, if at all possible you want to oblige, so it was very easy saying “yes” in her quest for guest bloggers. (Actually, I was shocked and honored! “Yes!” was a no-brainer 😉 ) Now, being the blog pro she is, Sheila suggested a wide array of possible topics and approaches, one of which could relate to a book she had in her impressive archives. I was working my way down her list and Charlotte’s Web was the first to flash neon, but far from the only one. If you haven’t already, take a look at Sheila’s archive and you’ll see what I mean! Oh, my, how to decide…

Considering Sheila had already bewitched me with the reread of the whole Harry Potter series (TOtally enjoying it, by the way!), PLUS participation in her “First Book of 2015” meme, in order for me to read a book and write a guest post before her “bon voyage” Down Under, just as with my “first book” selection, this had to be a short one. That’s what helped tremendously in narrowing down my choice. Now, I can tell you—trust me on this—when I tilted this book out from between the other “ladies in waiting,” it twitched beneath my fingertips. Then, as I lifted it from the shelf, the din that rose from the ruckus within its pages was almost deafening. There was an explosion of oinks, moos, honks and every other barnyard sound that could be mustered. It was as if a plank fell from its fence and all the animals were set free! “I know, I know,” I said, “I’m so sorry it’s taken this long, but now that I’m finally here, I can’t wait to hang with you in the barn again—regardless of the smell of manure.”

I wish I could tell you I recall how I felt as a young child while reading this. Whether I laughed—or cried. Had I consciously recognized the character’s characters and the significance of its theme? I’m sure I did—in a child’s way. Would I have picked up on the overall message about the preciousness of every individual’s life—how each serves a purpose? Would I have taken in the point that you don’t discard something—or someone—because, at first, they don’t seem to serve a purpose? Did I truly understand the miracle as the doctor so clearly explained it, about the ability of a spider to spin a web instinctively? I’m sure I enjoyed the many characters, each so clearly depicted through simple yet perfect description, largely through their actions and dialogue, but did I appreciate their distinct personalities? In reading it now, they were evident right away: Wilbur’s sweet innocence, sensitivity and humble nature, easily wearing his heart on his sleeve; Charlotte’s intellect, wisdom, kindness and selflessness with her innate gift of leadership; Templeton, the rat’s self-serving ways, though he’s not all bad. The idiosyncratic* dialogue of each animal is spot on. The humor throughout the book actually made me chuckle at times, largely through the quick-witted remarks by Charlotte. And the true friendship between Wilbur and Charlotte was tied with heartstrings as strong as her web strings, so much so that I didn’t just choke up, I teared up when the inevitable happened, but especially due to the heartache—and joy—that followed.

E. B. White spun a tale so well-constructed, it has caught many a reader in its fine web. Having just read this delightful, poignant story—as an adult—I can easily see why it is so well-deserving of its “classic” classification. It is more than a shame that this treasure made its way onto the list of banned books. When Sheila first reviewed this, she mentioned the reasons why. I also recently spoke out about the banning of books. I sincerely hope, although Charlotte’s Web is not available through school libraries, that it is finding its way into children’s hands as it did into mine. And I encourage you, especially if you haven’t read this book since you were a child or possibly haven’t read it at all—to read it now. To read it again. Read it yourself and share it with the children in your life. Share and experience its richness.

With that said, thank you, Sheila, for the honor of being a guest on your esteemed blog. So glad I found you, and I “think” that was by having followed an “It’s Monday” trail 🙂

* “Idiosyncratic” was one of several “big” words used in this book, never talking down to kids or being overly cautious about levels of vocabulary.

Good morning!  It’s me, Lori From Escape With Dollycas.  I “met” Sheila a few years ago when she took over the It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? meme. I absolutely love her blog and she is a fantastic person. She is always busy doing something for the local library or running a race or biking somewhere. She is like the energizer bunny. I am amazed she even finds time to read a book let alone review them. But she does! And she does it so well!

Now that she and her hubby are off on a well-deserved vacation she has asked several bloggers to fill in for her Morning Meanderings. I am thrilled to be one of those asked.

I decided to talk about the book Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. This book came out on June 5, 2012. Sheila reviewed it July 27, 2012. I saw everyone was reading it and after Sheila’s review I ordered it. When it arrived I put it on the top of my TO-BE-READ stack where my oldest daughter saw and took it home with her. She kept it for a few months, failing to tell me it had made the rounds with her co-workers. She then passed it along to her sister who shared it with a couple of her friends too. It really didn’t faze me that the book was missing because I have a huge supply of books to read. Then one day I saw the movie trailer and realized I still had not read the book. I asked the girls where it was and my youngest daughter said, “It’s on my keeper shelf.” I told her since it was my book that maybe I should be able to read it before it took up residence on her shelf. She then brought me the book.

Thankfully the hard cover book was still in very good condition after all its travels. So I finally was able to read and review this book last September. You can read my review here but I had the same feelings Sheila did only she wrote it much better:

“WHAT?”
“Noooooo….”
“That can’t be, ri… oh. It is.”
“NO WAY!”
“That’s crazy!”
“That’s brilliant!”
“Oh no he didn’t!”
“OH NO, she didnt!”

Then at the end I wanted to throw this book at the wall.

I needed to talk this through with someone so I called up my daughters and we had quite a discussion. This is not a book where you get to the end and feel the mystery is all tied up in a neat little bow. It is a book that left me feeling ‘WHAT” or as the younger generation says “WTF”! When the movie came out both daughters wanted to go and maybe they did and haven’t told me. I was too upset to go see it. I am sure the actors are wonderful but I probably would have been yelling at the screen. Very bad etiquette for a person my age 😛 I do see the movie comes out on DVD January 13. I may have to purchase it so I can yell at the screen in the privacy of my own home. Maybe I can call my daughters and we can have a movie night together. Watch out there will probably be popcorn flying. I will be sure to share it on my own blog if it happens!

Thank you Sheila for letting me blog sit today! I hope you are having a fabulous time.

Lori/Dollycas

Hi!  I am Ryan from Wordsmithonia.  It seems like I’ve known Sheila for forever.  She wasn’t the blogger that got me hooked on the idea of blogging itself, but she was the first new blogger I met, and she couldn’t have been kinder.  I’m pretty sure it was actually through the Ning Book Blogs site that I met her.  I had just started blogging, back in the summer of 2009, and I was trying to check out as many resources as I could.  I came across a group for Minnesota book bloggers, and while I don’t live there now, it is my home state, and ended up talking with Sheila.  She was more than gracious to this newbie, and she was there, willing to answer any questions I had, and give as much encouragement as she had the time for.  She was a godsend back then, and I couldn’t have been more grateful to her.  I’ve cherished our blogging relationship ever since then, and I know it will be a relationship I can look forward to for years to come.  I guess I’m using all these words as a way to say how frickin excited I was that Sheila asked me to pop on in, and do some blog sitting for her.

One of the things I’ve always adored about Sheila is her ability to get me, and others, to read books we wouldn’t have read on our own.   There have been many over the years, but when I put on my excavating gear, and actually started to nose around in her archives, I quickly realized two things; how much she really did influence my own reading habits, and how many books we had in common.

Now we all know how many books she has reviewed over the years, so I wasn’t about to head into her archives unprepared, or by myself.  It took me a few day to assemble my team, get the equipment gathered, and psych myself up for such a awesome journey.  I knew I needed the legendary explorer, Professor Von Hardwigg to spearhead the expedition.  Anyone who has been to the center of the Earth, was more than prepared for the daunting task that laid before us.  I also knew that I wanted to have Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris on the team.  The work they did on the Hypnerotomachia impressed the hell out of me. They were essential to my plan to excavate any rare and valuable tomes that we came across, and I wouldn’t have been able to undertake such a journey without them.  I rounded out the team by inviting Professor Karen Holloway.  I had been impressed with the way she handled the whole Houses of Stone incident, and I knew she could be counted on to help explore Sheila’s Archives just as easily.

It must have been towards the end of day three, that we started to look for somewhere to set up base camp.  We needed to find a good centralized location from which we could develop a good strategy, and come up with an overall map of the place.  For a second, I considered using the 2 bedroom, brownstone apartment that the Wendt’s had used, but I remembered the issues they had with it, and I wasn’t wanting to deal with the same thing.  I thought about using the Mississippi home of Silas Jones, but figured that he and his brother were still needing space to fix their relationship.  I even considered setting up near the Borgo Pass, but didn’t want to deal with the temperamental Count who lives near by.  When none of the other suggestions made a lick of sense, I racked my brain for hours, trying to come up with an alternate solution.  Then it hit me, why not use a location that Sheila herself introduced me to.  Why I didn’t think of that secluded, secret garden before was a mystery to me, but I knew it would be the perfect spot.

Sheila had actually organized this huge party a few years ago, introducing many of us to this magical place.  Though it had been a few years, I still knew the general location in the archives, and figured it would be a good, central location from which to continue our explorations.  Once we had indeed found it, and started to settle in, we experienced a sense of contentment and peace, something that we were woefully lacking after such an arduous first leg of the trip.  We were made to feel at home by the three lovely children who regularly visited the garden, and they graciously provided us with hours of entertainment.  I wasn’t expecting to have the same emotional reaction to the garden as I did the first time around, but I couldn’t help but feel as if I had come home once again.  The history behind the garden, the stories that developed around it, and the way it had influenced the lives of the children, made this particular garden a peaceful haven.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I was reluctant to even visit the garden the first time around.  I had always viewed garden parties as something of a more “feminine” past time.  I even remember writing in my journal of my initial hesitation, and the eventual transformation I went through once I shrugged off my hesitancy and allowed myself to enjoy my stay there. I had no such doubt in my mind this time around.  I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the garden would make a lovely headquarters as my team continued to explore Sheila’s Archives.  Maybe, someday, I’ll even let you guys in on some of our findings.

Hi!  Good morning!  This is Kathryn from The Book Date.  Well by now you all know that Sheila is away at the moment, actually she is visiting us Down Under. I was delighted to hear she was coming to Australia and even more delighted when she revealed that she is visiting my own country New Zealand.  Hope you are loving both countries Sheila.  Australian beaches are the best!  And a little shopping in Sydney – not to be dismissed. Remember folks its summer here, so Sheila is escaping your winter for a little while.

I first heard of Sheila before I “met” her. I used to have a teacher blog and joined Jen at Teach Mentor Texts where she ran the children’s and YA version of the meme It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?  She always acknowledged Sheila at Book Journey and I wondered who this person was!  I never really ventured in to find out.  It wasn’t until I began my own reading blog for myself that I eventually discovered Sheila at Book Journey.

I love Book Journey because it oozes energy, fun and variety and a great love of books.  Now I link up to her meme It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?  It has been where I have discovered all kinds of reading blogs and readers.  I love it.  I also love her 1st book of the year meme and the challenges she hosts.

Anyway while Sheila is away I’ve been taking a little book journey through her archives.  I was excited to find a post that had my name on it! It jogged a memory button. Its from July 2009 and the book she was talking about is Beach Girls by Luanne Rice.  I enjoyed The Lemon Orchard by this same author in 2013 but haven’t read any more since. It’s true about that adage – “give old posts a little love”, and I’m loving this post from back in 2009.

I have this ‘real’ book on my TBR  shelf. I keep passing over it, not even choosing it for challenges I’m doing to clear my TBR in 2015.  Now I’ve read Sheila’s review of Beach Girls I am thinking, “ why have I been avoiding it?” It sounds like a great read.  Friendship, a strong female and what sounds to me like some emotional angst. Hey this is my type of book!  And.. what’s more Sheila mentions there is a follow up, Last Kiss.  And I did mention its summer down here, perfect read.  It is going on my “must read” list for this summer.

Thanks, Sheila from a very happy Kiwi.

Good Morning!  Laurel here from, well… many blogs. 🙂  While Sheila is away with her hubby enjoying some well-deserved playtime, I am going to chat with you about how I first connected with her…and also talk about a favorite topic of mine: books that have found a home on the Big Screen.
It was 2009, and my first blog, Creations by Laurel-Rain Snow (now Story Corner) had been around for a year, but I hadn’t done much with it. We connected on a site called Book Blogs, and when I first visited her blog, I discovered that I had to grab a cup of coffee so I could be in the groove for the Morning Meanderings.

I enjoyed the idea of bloggers connecting regularly around coffee and chatting, which was what Morning Meanderings was all about. I discovered Sheila’s love of Gilmore Girls, and have since become a binge-viewer of the entire series (on Netflix).
So grab some coffee, and let’s talk about books that have been made into movies.
Do you love seeing film adaptations of some of your favorite books? Some of my favorites in 2014 were If I Stay, The Fault in Our Stars, and Gone Girl. I had read all of these books before seeing the movies…and I am glad I did.
In the New Year, there are going to be several book-into-movie productions, and one of them will be John Green’s Paper Towns, coming in June 2015. I haven’t yet read it, but I have the e-book on Sparky. Here is Sheila’s review of Paper Towns.

Paper Towns by John Green

On the heels of The Fault in Our Stars’ success comes the next John Green adaptation of Paper Towns. The movie stars Cara Delevingne as Margo Roth Speigelman and Nat Wolf as Quentin Jacobsen in the story that brings two sort of friends together via a mystery. Filming has begun for the movie, which is slated to be released June 19, 2015.

Do you find that you enjoy the books more than the movies, or vice versa? I have had mixed reactions…but in the case of If I Stay, I loved the movie more because of the music. Yes, you can read about music, but actually hearing it comes through best in a film, IMO.
Gone Girl was another book that really translated well into film. The intensity between the characters was brought out successfully through the wonderful performances of Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck. I was gripping the edge of my seat throughout, and then said “wow” several times as I left the theater.
What are you looking forward to in the New Year? What exciting books and movies are on your list?