Book Stuff – Page 87 – Book Journey

Morning Meanderings and BBAW – Lots To Do!

Published on August 6, 2009August 18, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

This morning with Coffee Cup… I have my printed out BBAW (Book Bloggers Appreciation Week) nomination sheets beside me as I have had for the past week. The categories are wonderful and there are so many! There are also so many WONDERFUL Book Blogs out there that this is really in some cases, tough decisions. I am loving it all!

At the BBAW website they have a few questions for those who participated last year, and a few for those who are new to the BBAW. I fall into the later category and am more than happy to participate.

What has been one of the highlights of blogging for you?

I actually have book blogged for over a year – however I did not actually start “Book Blogging” the way you see it now, until this past June. I guess you could say I book journaled. I am a little embarrassed to say that I did not know this community – at this level – existed. (I cant tell you how glad I am to find that it does!)

I created a blog to record my reading … just for record keeping. It was in June of this year that someone commented on a post I had put up (that was rare too, maybe 2 hits a week.) and when I looked to see where they came from I seen they were a member of Book Blogs. I had no idea what that was, but going to that website was like Alice going through the rabbit hole – a whole new world for me and I have never turned back!

So – after all the babbling, the answer to this question is – community! I had no idea this existed, let alone at this level. And most Book Bloggers are incredible! I love reading their book related topics, I have added so much to my wish list! I love connecting with authors and publishers (also new to me!) My husband laughs and says this is what I was wired for. LOL

What blogger has helped you out with your blog by answering questions, linking to you, or inspiring you?

This is a tough question as many Book Bloggers have been so nice to me when I ask my questions…. and I have asked questions! There are many I am thankful for – from helping to create sidebar widgets, explaining Twitter lanquage, and more!

To answer I have to say that when Natasha at Maw Books started the Blogiesta, I was still so new. The Blogiesta was so helpful and I just loved it! That weekend I took every mini challenge (thank you to each of those who hosted these!) and I learned something new at every one! I wish I would have a picture of what my blog looked like before because I can not remember but it was nothing like what you see today. I put so many hours into the challenge trying to learn and the timing was perfect! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 🙂

One more blog I want to mention here would be Michael’s, A Few Minutes With Michael. He created my Morning Meanderings Meme and I just love it. I seen his creative work on another blog, went to his blog and asked him if he would consider creating one for me. After about a week of sharing what I liked and what I was thinking…. there it was. I love that there are Book Bloggers out there that share their knowledge and talent!!!

What one question do you have about BBAW that someone who participated last year could answer?

I think my only questions would be as this is year two and I was not around for year one… what is being done different this year? I look at all the categories and I am curious if this is the same as last years or did you add more?

I am enjoying all of this – the relationships, community, talking books…I have met wonderful authors who email me or call me. Publishers who contact me when something new is coming up….. I am having such a great time! Book Blogging for me? I am like a kid in a candy store.

Final words – print out your BBAW nomination list today if you have not already. All nominations must be in by August 15! If you Blog or not, you are all welcome to vote. This is a great way to appreciate all those great Book Bloggers out there!

During BBAW Week I will have great appreciation giveaways going on here. Be sure to stop back often! The coffee is always on! 🙂

Morning Meandering….

Published on August 5, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

Wow… seems like it has been quite a few days since I have grabbed Coffee Cup and just had time to meander in the morning. The craziness of summer… I feel like I am always on the go!

The book I am seeing pop up again and again, even yesterday when I presented the question, What is your favorite read so far this year?

One of the books that has seemed to come up on this list time and again is The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

Synopsis

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

Sound good? Check out these reviews from some of my friends around the blogosphere and see what they had to say about this read:

Laura at Laura’s Reviews talks about this book opening her eyes and something about a caramel cake…. caramel cake??? Oh yum!

Alyce at At Home With Books said that this felt like walking right into Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960’s!

Eve at Between the Bookendz (who I had featured last week for another incredible read of hers) says this is one of the best books she has read this year!

Both Laura and Alyce had added this book to my post yesterday as a best read for the first half of the year s as well. I am more than sold out for this book. I am hoping to pick it up today and read it hopefully over the upcoming weekend.

Stop by and see Laura, Alyce, and Eve at their beautiful blog spots and read three great reviews on this book!

It’s Tuesday…. Where Are You?

Published on August 4, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)Leave a comment

This is hosted by An Adventure in Reading

I am currently in Portand, Oregon with Kay trying hard to get to the bottom of who is sending the letters that are an assault on the church. We are entering a meeting now with the people who have developed the software that the site is managed from. While I know Rick is involved with this mess – Kay, who has befriended him… does not.

End of Grace by K Thomas Murphy

Review coming soon!!!

Sunday….errr…. Monday Week in Review

Published on August 3, 2009August 3, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)18 Comments

What a week! You ever have one of those weeks where you think you didn’t do all that much until you

look back over it. Well, this is mine. 🙂 I just had a crazy busy week but reviewing my blog posts from the last 7 days, I actually did a lot more than I thought I did. Actually, in the blogesphere, I had a pretty great week:

Last Monday was when I met Eve at Between the Bookendz during my Morning Meandering and loved her review on The Sweetness at the Bottom of the pie

I also presented the question during the Monday Mind Games as to what people look for in a good book blog and loved the great answers!

My first ever Blog Tour took place on Tuesday as I hopped on the bus and traveled a while with Kim Smith and her short sweet read of A Will to Love.

On The Tuesday Where Are You post I was battling in England alongside Pope Joan and loving it…. still am – absolutely everyone look up this book!!!

Wednesday, Coffee Cup and I Morning Meandered over and met Monique and the Mango Rains (love this title!) at Julie’s Jewel’s My Favorite Things

On Wednesday I closed my reading on Pope Joan and literally sat in silence for about 30 minutes reviewing it all in my head and now sure how to put those worlds on paper. I did. GREAT READ.

On Wednesday I also had a Morning Meandering Confession as to how I can get lost in the blogesphere just reading great reviews and chatting it up with amazing bloggers.

On Thursday I reviewed a Friendship Award from Regan at Miss Remmer’s Reviews. GREAT BLOG!

I also posted my Guest Blogger/Author Interview on Thurday with the amazing Rachel Stolzan and we discussed her new book, The Sign for Drowning. Excellent time with Rachel!

On Friday I caved in and signed up for The Random Reading Challenge hosted by Carabousmom.

On Friday I drew the winner for the Power of a Praying Wife book and our winner was RITA!!!

Friday was also my second Blog Tour (yup – two this week!) for Tricia Goyer’s book Blue Like Play Dough. A fun read I really enjoyed.

Then my Morning Meandering on this day brought me to Bermudaonion’s weblog and a great (tasty even) read called Looking for Salvation at The Dairy Queen.

Friday afternoon I offered up the weekly Freebie Friday which really was “free bee” as the book currently up for grabs is The Secret Life of Bees. (you have until this Friday to enter!!!)

On Saturday I took part in my first Faith in Fiction Saturday meme and enjoyed a great discussion on diversity in Christian Fiction.

Sunday I posted the giveaway for Tales of Pruit Almus, this looks like a great read – true story, about a place for homeless children. Cant wait to sink into this one and I have one to giveaway as well! (Love the comments that are coming in – some made me tear up a little!)

Early Sunday I posted my review for Suzanne’s Diary For Nicholas. A total random read…. hmmmm…. I bet this qualifies for my random reading Challenge! 🙂 Anyway – great read…. quick read.

Then I finished out what looks like a busy week by posting about my book shelves, following a discussion going around about how our books that we choose (read or unread) say something about who we are.

Here are the books that came in throughout the week:

Top right are the two giveaway books for The Sign For Drowning – this giveaway is going on currently!

Stand The Storm, and The Accountants Story all all books I won as well as the cute little orangish one in the front that came all the way from Scotland!

Also on the right the pink and white checkered one is A Better View of Paradise which is a blog tour for later this week by Randy Sue Coburn

The Enclave and Off World are new TBR’s from Bethany – my first review books from them.

The Thirteen Days of Halloween is for a fun 31 day blog tour taking place in October – one tour spot per day… watch for that one it sounds like spooky fun!

The rest of the books are the copies for Sarah Lindberg’s Giveway coming up later this month. if you have not checked out my interview with her I would recommend it. Not only is she a wonderful author, but also a personal friend of mine and we will be hearing more from her in the future!

That’s my week! In between all the book stuff I put out payroll, had a family reunion at my home and a Sundae Sunday event where I helped serve ice cream to about 60 people. Today I meet with a young man (seriously – he is 14!) by the name of Brian who I am going to help set up a blog and get him going on YA Reviews. Brian is years ahead in his reading and writing skills and his parents are encouraging him to do this. If anyone has any advice for me – I would appreciate it. I am looking for connections to YA reads that are age appropriate as well as a way to conenct him to a couple ARC’s.

Thanks everyone for stopping in and hanging with me this morning! I hope you come back througout the week as I have a lot of fun book related stuff coming up! ~ Sheila

About the Book Shelves….

Published on August 2, 2009August 3, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)36 Comments

Anyone who knows me at all knows one of my favorite topics is books. I think I am hard wired that way because that has pretty much been true all my life (in 2nd grade I won the class Bookworm award).

I read an interesting post at KyusiReader this weekend. Here is what he has to say,

“I’m a firm believer that the books you have are a reflection of your personality. Never mind that you don’t get to read them, just the fact that you bought them and keep them in your bookshelf say a lot about who you are (or who you want to be).” ~KyusiReader

Hmmmm…. so like a palm reading…. this would be a book shelf reading? 😉

Well – basically what this has amounted to is fellow book bloggers showing their book shelves and I think that is pretty awesome! So far I have seen the “not so” shelves at J Kaye’s Book Blog, and the book shelves at For The Love of All That is Written.

So here is my reading space and the books that dwell within. Come on in everyone! You all are welcome and you know the coffee is on!

So come on in! The reading is fine! First let me explain this great space I have in my home for reading that I fondly call the Reading Room. Up until late last summer we had our business office in our home. This is actually the house I grew up in and once Al and I moved here after the passing of my parents, we remodeled what once was two bedrooms (one of them was mine) into the office.

Last summer, Al moved the office out to the business that is also on our property. As I stood in this large empty space I thought what ever will I do with this room now? Then it hit me like a ton of books (literally!) – this would be where I could gather the books I had everywhere, all in one space. This is where I could read.

(I probably said something after that thought like “Yippy!!!!)

And here it is… my favorite place to be. This room calms me. When I am not running around or working, you can find me here.

This is the other side of the Reading Room.

Maybe more to the point, I should say that when I am in this room you will find me here. Feet up, laptop on my lap, notebook to my left, books to my right.

This fun little file unit I found at Wal-Mart. The drawers are deep and made of a sturdy cloth. This is where I keep all the books that come in during the current week. On Sundays I pull them out and take their picture for my Week In Review post. Then they are filed to the TBR shelves.

This great book gadget was a find in St Cloud, Minnesota. I believe it was meant for magazines, of course I use it for my current reading and next in line to be read books.

These are odds and end books… a mix of everything

Many of the books kept here are from this Summers Library sale. Most of these are not yet read.

This is my Christian/Christian Fiction reads. The “keepers”. Most of these books when I am done reading I donate to our church library.

These are the shelves that hold most of what I have read with a mix of a few yet to be read. Many of these are just books I love and I may never get to read them again, but I am happy just to share the house with them and the memories of reading them.

More of the same as above right. Some people collect angels or figurines… I collect books. Lots of big (and small) beautiful books.

…and yet more of the same category.

↓ Close ups here ↓

Probably more than you ever needed (or wanted) to know about my passion for books yet you get me going and I have trouble hitting the breaks on this topic.

If anyone else out there chooses to feature their shelves and reading space(s), please leave a link to your post below so others can stop and see the shelves that hold your reading treasures! Take time to check out the original post at KyusiReader as well as any of the other links here to great book shelves and spaces!

As always, from one reader to another – Happy Reading! 🙂

Morning Meandering

Published on July 31, 2009July 31, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)6 Comments

Looks like it will be a nice day out there today and that is sooooo good! I have a family gathering at our home tomorrow and have many tasks to do prior to that event – indoor and outdoors. 🙂

This morning, after a late night of reading… I grabbed Coffee Cup and we set out on a casual stroll through the blogesphere. My meandering this morning took me over to Bermudaonion’s Weblog where I read a wonderful review for the book, Looking For Salvation at The Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore .

I have heard of this book, but Kathy’s review is the first I have read on it. This sounds like a fun read from a new author. Quoting Kathy,

This is the wonderful debut novel of Susan Gregg Gilmore. (It’s hard for me to believe this is her first book!) There is so much more to this book than appears on the surface.

Stop in today to Bermudaonions Weblog and read the full review and wander around her great blog while you are there, she has many reviews and can give you ideas on your next read….

Have a great day everyone! I am off to many tasks and taking advantage of the first fully sunny day we have had this week!

Friendship Award

Published on July 30, 2009July 30, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

Reagan at Miss Remmer’s Review gave me the Lets Be friends award tonight! How sweet is that? This award if for bloggers who has really extended a hand of friendship by befriending others bloggers, being helpful, and a commenter.

I shall display it proudly! Thank you Reagan, if you have not been over to see Miss Remmer’s Review (and even if you have) go back again and again. her reviews are full of great information and I love that she is striving to find book reviews for Young Adults to encourage reading. If you have reviewed a great YA book, be sure to connect with her for her Guest Reviews.

I am pretty tired tonight, but in the next few days I will pass this award on to a few of the bloggers that come to mind that have really been friendly and helpful to me along this crazy journey through books and blogging. 🙂

Morning Meanderings

Published on July 28, 2009July 28, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)7 Comments

Another cloudy morning in central Minnesota and I am a bit bummed as I was hoping to go biking a bit after work this afternoon… well, I can always read.

Yesterday, Coffee Cup and I found a book on Julie’s Jewels, My Favorite Things that I keep thinking about and have already added it to my wish list tab. Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway not only has a title that rolls musically off the tongue, but the book sounds like a wonderful read set in West Africa as Kris Holloway (the author) is part of the Peace Corp. This is her story and I dont want to say too much here because I really would like you to link on over to Julie’s Jewels and read this review for yourself.

It’s Tuesday – Where Are You?

Published on July 28, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)4 Comments

I love this meme! This is hosted by An Adventure in Reading

I am in Rome battling fiercely beside John Anglicus (aka Pope Joan) and helping him…. err…. her…. stay clear of the handsome Gerold. At this point I have just discovered I have been unsuccessful.

~ Pope Joan by Donna Woolfork Cross

Morning Meanderings

Published on July 27, 2009July 27, 2009 by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments

Coming off a great weekend and new memories with my friends. I did some blog hopping last night as a little catch up session from my time away. While doing this I stopped over at Between The Bookendz and found a review on The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

Its interesting that this book, with a rather plain cover and a description that may or may not have caused me to read, captured my attention because of the review. The way Eve at Between the Bookendz describes the book by first saying that the character Flavia De Luce is “one of the the best character names she has ever run across” and then going on to saying she adored the book…. that is what peaked my interest.

As book reviewers I thing we get a feel for what we like in a book, what makes us want to turn the pages. When we read I review, at least for me, how the reviewer expresses their thoughts on the book can speak to me. Eve’s delight in this book made me take a second look at it and now I think it would be a fun mystery – which, as Coffee Cup and I look out my window at a drizzly cloudy Minnesota morning, makes me think this is a book that would be a perfect read for today.

Stop by Between the Bookendz and say hi to Eve. She has many more great reviews and as I explored her site I found other books that i felt I would enjoy as well.