If you are not a member of our secret organization, hello there. This is a blank audiobook which you shouldn’t listen to. ~ as seen on the back of the audio jacket
Lemony Snicket is in the town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea but his stay is not a quiet one. In thirteen separate incidents he is called upon to assist in cracking a mystery. Kidnappings, vandalism, food theft, and even potential ghosts, Lemony, along with the help of the reader, solves each case.
13 Suspicious Incidents is divided into thirteen short stories read by different narrators. Kudos to John Scieszka, Terry Gross, Sarah Vowell, Libba Bray, Ira Glass, Sophie Blackall, Jon Klassen, Chris Kluwe, Holly Black, Sook-Yin Lee, Rachel Maddow, Stephin Merritt, and Wesley Stace.
Each story is a mystery that Lemony files and then moves on to the next case. At the end of the thirteen stories, each story is quickly revisited and explains the solution. What a fun may for a middle grade student to try to solve these mysteries before they hear the answers!
I personally found the stories fun and enjoyed the different narrations. I have to admit… some of the cases had me stumped and I had to wait to the end to figure it out. 🙂
This audio is right around 3 hours long. This would be great for a car ride with kids.
Good morning from….. Minnesota! Yes, I am back. I landed in Minneapolis yesterday evening and had a treacherous drive home through the storms and extreme rain. Twice I pulled over because it was raining so hard I could not see the road. There were cars pulled over everywhere. Talk about your EXTREME driving.
Now I sit in the comforts of my own home chilling with my COFFEE and feel up and thinking about my day of catching up on some household things but mostly…. lying low. I am wiped out but not as wiped out as I have been in the past which is nice. My feet do not hurt from all the walking around the expo and the streets of New York however I do think my shoe of choice today will be “flip-flop”. 😀
As you can see, Sammy is not about to let me get away any time soon. 😉
My agenda at least for part of the day – coffee, planning my agenda for the week, and back into my book The Three!
Throughout this next week I will be posting Book Expo recaps so stay tuned 🙂 I am also still adding posts to Armchair BEA. This afternoon I plan to be giving Book Journey a bit of a facelift… I came up with some ideas at the expo and am excited to get started. I am not sure all what I will be doing, but my hope is that the final look will be fresh and professional looking. Feel free to peek 😉
Good morning from New York! I have not dropped off the face of the earth, I have just been running from morning to night at the Book Expo in New York.
I have MANY things to share with you once I come home about the expo, the books, the people, the events… but for now… just a funny little story and a couple of pics for Saturday Snapshot. 🙂
So… on Wednesday at the Blogger Convention, author Maureen Johnson was the keynote speaker. At the beginning of her talk she mentions the book 50 Shades Of Gray. Alison from Alison’s Book Marks and I have a joke about that book so I put on Twitter “20 minutes in and already a mention of 50 Shades Of Gray” and tagged Alison. (I did not realize due to poor internet reception that this tweet did not post but went into drafts instead.)
Anyhoo…. flash forward to yesterday morning and Alison and I are at the Children’s breakfast which was AMAZING with moderator, Jason Segel. (Yes! That Jason Segel!) I put on Twitter that I am at the Children’s Breakfast at the book expo. Then Twitter pops up on my phone and says
“you have drafts to send would you like to send them now?”
I click yes… and before I know it, following my “I am at the Children’s Breakfast at the book Expo” tweet is…
“20 minutes in and already a mention of 50 Shades Of Gray”
Right????
LOL
Anyhoo… today is my last day at the expo. I am heading that way in about an hour to wrap up a few things but for my Saturday Snapshot post I thought I would send a couple of pics your way…. also, please see my posts at Armchair BEA where I have interviewed a couple of authors and publishing houses. 😀
Outside… across form our hotel? Should I be worried? Is there where watching The Walking Dead pays off?
The Harper Collins Blogger Party… from the left: Dorothy Benton Frank, me, Adriana Trigiani, and Stephanie Evanovich. Made my night!
Streets of New York
Walking back to our hotel – with (center) Alison from Alison’s Book Marks and (right) Candace from Beth Fish Reads
Hello from NEW YORK! Egads Tuesday was A LONG TRAVEL DAY. I left my home in Brainerd at 4:11 am and was at the hotel in New York at 6:45 pm. GAH. We had a bonus two hour lay over in Chicago due to poor weather.
My dinner consisted of a chicken black bean burrito that I grabbed from Laguardia airport before I caught my cab. I want to complain about it but it was actually good…LOL and I am in New York so the “tude” needs to go away. 🙂
Anyhoo…. this morning I am on my way to the Book Blogger Convention where I will hang out and chat it up with other BOOK LOVERS and listen to the speakers, and take noted for posts when I get home and posts for Armchair BEA…. and then, I get to speak on the last panel of the day….
Engaging Your Readers: Take Your Writing to the Next Level
This all-intensive writing workshop will discuss how to create meaningful and engaging content outside of the classic book review and will take a closer look at ways to format and edit your blog posts.
Takeaways:
How to captivate your readers with clever blog posts and improve your writing style
New ways to format your review and best practices for editing
Using social media such as Storify and Instagram as source material for blog posts
Good morning! I am currently sitting at the Minneapolis airport with COFFEE and hanging out for the next hour before my flight leaves for Chicago… then off to New York. Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness will be in this same airport , leaving about 30 minutes after me this morning.
Lets recap my morning so far:
1. up at 3:30 am. An ungodly hour in case you have never seen it. 😀
2. Ready and car loaded I pull out of driveway by 4:11 am
3. Drive in hard rain most of the way to the cities which makes for TENSE driving conditions when it is pitch black out. Listening to the audio Delicious by Ruth Reichl and that made it pleasant. 🙂
4. Park in airport parking but have trouble at the ticket station for parking and it does not give me a ticket…. go into parking lot ticket free, hoping my credit card swipe took care of all other “things that make me go STRESS” 😉
5. check bag. Pretty much hitch free.
6. Talk to people in security line, a group of them are going on a tour…. kind of cool.
7. Find gate and look at it.
8. Stroll to nearest Caribou Coffee and “Sheila is here”
So……
BEA! It seems so long ago when Candace and I were chatting back in December about going and rooming together. I believe she said she is taking a train today. How cool is that?
I was digging around looking at some old videos I made recently I found this one I made after returning from the book expo in 2011:
It still cracks me up and yes it is a little embarrassing that I did that… but really is sums up the excitement. If you listen closely you can hear me pause towards the end where I am trying hard not to laugh. I hope the neighbors didn’t think I was nuts. 😀
So today’s agenda is pretty much just get there. I land around 4:11 pm, then I need to make my way to our hotel which if all goes well I hope to be there by 5 – 5:30. I have no plan for tonight so I may catch dinner, a show – or I may just stay in and prep for Wednesday which is a HUGE day.
I will be making posts as I can here, but definitely watch for my posts at Armchair BEA where I will be reporting on events at the expo as well as interviews with publishers, authors, and hopefully a few bloggers.
Yesterday at Armchair BEA they kicked off with an introduction meme and I was too crazy busy to participate but let me give you a small version now:
My name is Sheila and I have been blogging here at Book Journey for 5 years on June 9th. I love many genres of books so this blog has been a fun outlet for sharing my diverse tastes with fellow readers. One of the BEST things about writing reviews and bookish posts is that I get to connect with ALL OF YOU. Some of you I have had the pleasure of meeting thanks to the Book Expo.
I will be at the Expo this week, but as mentioned above I will be chatting about it here, and on Armchair BEA. You can still register to be a part of the arm chair…. I highly recommend it 😀
Most of you know me from my pic above, but since my hair has been cut since that pic – I will give you this one I took yesterday so those attending the expo hopefully recognize me and will say hi. Seriously, say hi – it would be awesome to meet you in person and I am really tunnel visioned while at the expo so feel free to trip me to get my attention.
Summer has arrived and 15-year-old Francesca “Frankie” Schell has no big plans. Four years ago while on the beach with her family, Francesca’s little brother Simon drowned while Francesca was supposed to be watching him. Even now, Francesca’s mother is distant towards her and her father seems to be spending a little too much time at the single ladies house across the street. Francesca’s best friend is always busy with her super cute boyfriend Bradley who Francesca wishes was her own.
With her home life a mess, Francesca goes to the local country club where she meets a darling 4-year-old boy named ironically Frankie and has a striking resemblance to Simon. As more and more coincidences starts to come up, Francesca starts to wonder if there is such a thing as reincarnation or if this is some sort of cosmic alignment trying to help Francesca to move forward from the tragedy that has held her in place for so long.
The Summer Of Letting Go is an engaging summer read that brings you right into the world that Francesca lives in. A powerful read of loss and moving on from the perspective of a teenage girl who not only has lived the pain of loss first hand, but also sees how if affects others around her.
I was surprised how engaged I became in this book. Well written, I had at least two moments where I caught my breath.. Gae Polisner does a fine job of bringing you right to that teenage level of “emotion amplified” and I didn’t want the book to end.
If you do audio, I recommend listening to this one. The narration of Tara Sands was excellent. Tara handled the different characters flawlessly.
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!
Crazy busy week with our office moving. We finalized that today. Here is what I did post this week:
Since I am leaving for the book expo on Tuesday morning it will be hard for me to plan a schedule of what I will be reading. I have audio I will listen to on my way to the airport and I will take my e reader and one book but I have not decided what yet 🙂
So this week I would love to know, if you are not going to the expo, are you checking out Armchair BEA (I hope you are!) and of course, what are you reading? Add your link to your what are you reading post below where it says click here:
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Recently while reading a review, the writer had mentioned a surprising twist towards the end of the read that changed their thoughts on the book. I am certain that in my review of this same book, I too mentioned a twist towards the end that really threw me for a loop. It had been a discussion on Twitter that saying there is a “twist”, is sort of a spoiler to the reader of the review who has not yet read the book.
I am reminded of Season Two Downton Abby. For those who may not know, this is a British tv show on PBS that has caught the attention of many… addicting for sure… and that is not a spoiler… I don’t think. 😉 Anyway, a friend of mine who had finished the second season before I had, eluded to a big SHOCK that would be devastating once I knew it. I remember from that point on each episode I watched I was waiting for it…. wondering, is that the big shock? Is that? When will it happen? Who will it involve? It may be safe to say that knowing something big was coming did take a way a bit of the experience as I was waiting for the BIG THING.
I can see how saying there is a shock, or a twist can lead to the reader waiting for that moment to happen – but I think it also builds up the read. When I mention that a book shocked me or a twist really impressed me as I had no clue, to me, that builds value in the read. If a reviewer I enjoy says something like this, it draws me closer to the book… the mention of a surprise makes me want to know… “Wow, what happens?”
So the question before us is… is it? Is it a spoiler to a book if we discuss that there is a twist at the end, or a change that happens that totally changed the way we felt about the book.
Also… how do you define what a SPOILER is? As Grace from Books Without Any Pictures recently (and brilliantly) said in a historical fiction review, “is it a spoiler if it actually happened?”
Premma James has lived in New York since she was twelve years old. But Premma did not move from another state or another country to New York.
She moved from another time. The year 2090. The future.
In Premma’s time the world is in shambles due to a mosquito-born virus that killed millions. For Premma, and those like her who have escaped to the past to live better lives, they are under strict rules:
1. Never reveal where you are from
2. Never interfere with history
3. Never be intimate with someone outside their community
And that works just fine. Until Premma meets Ethan Jarves.
YA with an environmental flavor! ~Sheila
The Here And Now is A fairly quick paced YA read. Premma makes for a wonderful environmentally conscious protagonist. Her personal goals of trying to help prevent the future from happening as she knows it currently stands is admirable.
I enjoyed the read for the most part. The way things fall together is a little convenient, however my enjoyment of world building books allowed that fact to lapse into the overall enjoyment of the book.
Fun Fact: Ann Brashares is also the author of The Traveling Pants books, which was also a fun movie. If you are familiar with that story you know what style of writer Ann is. Her characters are relational and three-dimensional which makes for good reading!
Good morning! Happy Sunday! I had an AMAZING Saturday! We went motorcycling with friends for the entire day, we left the house around 10 am and returned around 6:30pm. It was GORGEOUS out!
Left: Our friends Key and Dan fueling up their motorcycles. Right: My hubby Al fueling up ours. (No, I do not drive my own. Yet. 😉 )One of our stops on a restaurant by a lake.
After we came home we sat and talked on our back deck until about 8:30 pm. If you know Al and I, we have very few days like this where Al (hubby) and I just get to hang out together. It was nice.
I am getting ready now for move day today. I will be directing the office move from our current space and my partner in crime co-worker will be at the new building directing as it comes in. Should be an exciting afternoon!
After that I have some shopping to do for New York, some planning for Al’s dinners while I am away and doing as much of all that today so tomorrow I can relax and do final prep for “go time!” on Tuesday. 😀
Book Journey 