Last night was a wow wow wow book club meeting at my house…. it was a discussion over the book Postmistress, and I read this last fall and found it to be an ok read, but not one I wanted to review again…. well… last nights discussion made me change my mind. Later this week I will share the food, the discussion… did I mention the food? 😀
The winner of yesterdays BBAW giveaway of The Night Circus is: (using random.org)
GAH!!! WOO HOO!!! Congratulations. Send me your address (no po boxes please) to journeythroughbooks@gmail.com
And now… another 24 hour giveaway of another smoking hot title that was released recently…
This beautiful new book is sitting on my kitchen table right now. I have two copies – and one is about to go to one of your homes!
To enter, leave a comment here telling me which book released (or yet to be released) in 2011 have you been most excited about. (You can get in on a second entry for this book by commenting on my BBAW Community post that will go up yet today. )
Today I am very excited to share with you my interview of the amazing Lu from Regular Rumination.
I admit I did not know Lu’s blog prior to her being linked to me for the interview exchanges but that is what is so great about this. I immediately started stalking her blog which is pretty cool, and you must check it out. 😀
With no further yammering from me, please give a warm welcome to Lu.
I’m Lu (short for Lulu), no that’s not my real name, but there are people in real life who have been calling me that since I was 7 or so. I’m a 20-something reader who wants to talk about her books with other people who think sleeping is overrated when compared to how many books you could read if sleeping was optional.
I started my blog so I could have a place to write and ramble about all the books I’m reading. I read pretty much anything and everything and if you tell me it’s good, I’m bound to give it a try. That doesn’t mean I like everything I read, because I definitely don’t. Reading and writing have been a passion of mine for a long time.
1. How long have you been blogging and what influenced you to start a blog?
I’ve been book blogging for almost three (three?!) years now! I started my blog back when I was in college, home from winter break, and totally bored out of my mind because I had nothing to read. I decided to go to the library, but was suddenly overwhelmed with choices! Oddly I wasn’t a library user really before that winter break, since I had a horrible habit of forgetting to bring the books back, especially since I didn’t have a car. But in college, I could walk to the library, so I started using it more and more. Anyway, that winter break I was googling book reviews and stumbled across a book blog. It was definite an “I have found my people” moment. I had had a little sad craft blog that hadn’t gone anywhere and I realized it was because I wasn’t as passionate about it as I thought I was. Reading, however, was my life love. Book blogging and I just were meant to be! So I commented on all those blogs, wrote my first few reviews, and the rest is history.
2. What is your favorite part about Book Blogging?
For me, I love to be able to practice my writing. I love to write and blogging is just another way to work on it. But I think the best thing about book blogging, and I think most people would agree with me here, are the relationships you form. I think it’s the most unexpected thing about book blogging. Suddenly you have all these people who you can call friends, despite never having met them in the “real world.” It’s a really remarkable thing.
Lu and Margaret Atwood
3. Name a book that you found out about by reading another blog that really turned out to be a fantastic read?
There are so many of these! I think Neil Gaiman is the one I always talk about, because I don’t know that I ever would have found out about Neil Gaiman if hadn’t been for blogging. That seems so silly and impossible now, but I remember having to look up who he was when everyone was participating in the Dream King challenge when I first started blogging! I also have gotten back into reading YA, after years of thinking I was too old for it. Ha! Right. I have loved getting back in touch with all the novels I loved as a teen and discovering so many more I wish I had read then.
4. What book do you wish you could jump into the pages of and travel right along the story line with the characters?<
When I was younger, it would make my heart ache that the worlds I read about weren’t real. I wanted so badly to travel the countryside with Ella in Ella Enchanted or various planets with Meg in A Wrinkle in Time. Who hasn’t wished they could live in the world of Harry Potter for one day? Forever? I know I do. Or, goodness, any of Charles de Lint’s novels? I used to dream about living in that world.
Lu with Tim O'Brien
5. Over the next year what is one thing you hope to either implement, improve on,or change about your current blog or blogging?
Oh, lots of things. My blog never has been and never will be perfect. I’m a lazy blogger. I often forget to write reviews or to update information. I’d like to do better with things like that. I also want to do better about finding new blogs. I feel like all the people I talk to regularly on my blog and on their blogs are people who I have been talking to for three years now. I love them, but I also wonder what I’m missing when I’m not looking for and reading new blogs. The book blogging community seems to have grown tenfold when I wasn’t looking, so I know there are great blogs out there that I haven’t found yet.<
6. What advice would you give to a brand new book blogger?
BE YOURSELF. Find your voice and use it. Practically every blog has reviews, so you should do something to make it special. Talk about yourself, make it a little bit personal. Also, don’t be afraid to comment. Sometimes I still find myself lurking on blogs. Everyone loves a comment, no matter how intimidating they seem! Also, if someone comments on your blog, show them some love and visit their blogs once in a while. I know it can be hard, and it’s something I still work hard at, but it’s really the bread and butter of this community. But most of all, have fun. It’s a hobby and if you’re not having fun, it’s not worth it. That’s why we’re all here, to be nerdy, passionate book lovers, so let that shine through on your blog!
Thank you Lu for hanging out here today. Readers, be sure to stop in and see Lu in her natural environment at Regular Rumination… and if you stop by her blog today and leave a comment on her interview with me, I will put you in for an extra entry for today’s giveaway book …. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
Three chances to enter :
1. My post this morning – leave a comment there
2. Leave a comment on the interview here with Lu
3. Go over to Lu’s blog and leave a comment on her interview with me
Oh I am so excited it is BBAW (Book Blogger Appreciation Week). I look forward to this each year as a time to celebrate those of us who blog about our love for books. I have to tell you, three years ago, I did not know Book Bloggers existed. When I blindly stumbled into this world… I have never looked back. My life changed that day for the better.
I wish I could put into words how much I enjoy my time chatting books with all of you. Each of you who stop in and visit, I enjoy your comments so much. As we carry on conversations and for those who have blogs that I read too, I get to know a bit of you and that is pretty cool.
This week I hope to celebrate with all of you our love for books. So this morning I am giving away one of the books I have been hanging on to for a while for just such an occasion….
a new (still in the gift wrap) copy of The Night Circus!!! SSQQUUUEEE!!!
I have not read this one yet but from the hype I have heard this is one not to miss! I hope to read my copy yet this week and I am excited to be able to share it with one of you!
To enter, please leave a comment on this post about what you enjoy most about book blogs. Also note – you can receive a second (and possibly a third) by commenting on my Blog swap interview also posted today. **Giveaway is open as well to international. 😀
**This is a one day giveaway…. tomorrow morning I will announce the winner. 😀
Today’s Topic Community While the awards are a fun part of BBAW, they can never accurately represent the depth and breadth of diversity in the book blogging community. Today you are encouraged to highlight a couple of bloggers that have made book blogging a unique experience for you. They can be your mentors, a blogger that encouraged you to try a different kind of book, opened your eyes to a new issue, made you laugh when you needed it, or left the first comment you ever got on your blog. Stay positive and give back to the people who make the community work for you!
This is a hard post for me to write as there are so many book bloggers out there I love to read, have picked up more than a book or two from their passionate reviews, or just hover around their blog because they are witty and fun to read.
I tried to narrow it down to a few bloggers who really have meant something to me over the last year and I came up with this:
A post on book bloggers who I appreciate would not be complete without me mentioning that crazy spirited teacher friend of mine, Reagan from Miss Remmers Reviews. If it wasn’t for Reagan, I probably would not have gone to BEA. If I had not gone to BEA, I would have missed a huge part of what I love most about book blogging – the community. Mental *high five* to you my friend! (The short version of this story is I wanted to go to BEA in 2010 but was nervous about not knowing anyone. I knew Reagan from her blog only but she was also from Minnesota and we started chatting about the possibilities… now she has been my BEA roommate the past two years).
Amanda from Ramblings (previously from The Zen Leaf). I think I first found Amanda over her love for all things Harry Potter. It was so nice to find someone who was as big a Potter geek as myself! 😛 When I started reading Amanda’s blog I really appreciated and enjoyed her reviews. Amanda made some changes this year and now has a new blog, it is not necessarily a book bog – but she talks books and that makes her a book blogger to me. 😀
Alison from Alison’s Book Marks was someone I connected with at BEA in 2010. I enjoyed talking to her and really started following her blog when I returned home. Amanda writes some incredible review and reads some pretty awesome books that have come to me through her recommendation.
And this post would not be complete without adding Alyce from At Home With Books. Alyce is just a sweet down to earth blogger who writes not only about books, but life, and happenings, and I just love that. When you read Alyce’s blog you feel like you have just been invited into her home for a cup of coffee and a little conversation.
That’s my list for this year – there are so many wonderful hard-working book bloggers out there and I adore you all. My sidebar list of blogs I follow (which needs a few more added to it) – that group I pretty much visit every time they write a post.
Happy BBAW everyone! Be sure to watch tomorrow morning for my first exciting giveaway!!!!
Hello and welcome to another fun addition of It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!
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. I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling me how many you visited. **You do not have to have a blog to participate! You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.
Yes, things look a bit different over here this week… I have been itching for some blog look changes and last night stayed up way later than I should working out a color scheme that I really like and learning how to put a texture background in. 😀
And yes… I did do a few other things this past week too such as:
Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (an awesome book for finding your natural strengths and how to utilize them at home, at work, and in life)
I need a Christmas/holiday read for a magazine review I am doing in October. Suggestions needed! 😀
I am planning a fun week for Banned Book Week which comes up the last week of September. I am looking for Book Bloggers to join me with Banned Book Posts and a fun giveaway. See here for details.
***A BIG note – as many of you know, this meme was short listed for Best Book Blog Meme (which is so exciting!), but what you may not know is that there was a glitch in the voting form and all votes were lost as of 9/9/11 and a new form has been submitted and all voted must be recast. I would love it if you would take moment and cast a vote for which Book Blog Meme you enjoy the most, there are some wonderful choices on the form. Click here to vote.
I would have liked to have read more this week but seems like my days got away from me… Wed, Thurs, Fri, and Sat I wound up with evening plans that left me tired and unfocused when I got home.
That said…here is what is on the “plan” this week:
Click on picture for synopsis
An unconventional girl in India… whats not interesting about this beginning to a trilogy? Next up for me on audio!
Click on picture for book synopsis
Yes yes yes… I am back with Patterson in apparently another murder story in New York. I know, I know.. but I can not help it. The man does great audio!
Reading for our Faith ‘N Fiction group and already behind on this one!
In other upcoming news…. this week kicks off BBAW (Book Blogger Appreciation Week) and I plan to participate full heartedly! Let me just say now to all of you that I love our book community – if you are bloggers or not, I enjoy reading your comments, chatting books, and just sharing in this together. Thank you each and every one of you for reading my rambles and spending time with me. YOU are what makes Book Blogging special to me.
Leave your link to your own Monday What Are You Reading and I will be by with coffee and scones to see what you are reading this week. 😀
See you on the blogesphere! 😀
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I have been itching to do some revamping of the site for a while now. It was tradition to do blog updates and face lifts during the Bloggiesta but with no Bloggiesta this year – I had to suck it up and make the changes on my own.
Working with CSS always makes me a bit nervous, but the very first time I messed with it, Natasha from Maw Books walked me through it step by step on Twitter. Now I am a bit braver, and this time even learned how to add a textured pattern to the background. (Note it did take me about three hours of messing around and tweaking but alas… I am happy with the results.)
Dont worry I am not one to continuously change my blog look… when other book bloggers do that often I get confused and unsure if I am on their blog, usually scrolling to the top to make sure whose blog I am on! 😛 Although… the occasional coat of paint gives a whole new look don’t you think?
My next task is to put some time into the sidebars… the books on them are outdated and I have had a few ideas I have wanted to implement for a while now but just have not done it.
And of course, today is 9-11. Ten years…. hard to believe isn’t it? Ten years ago I was working at Wal-Mart when I heard about the first plane… I remember wondering if I should go to the school and pick up my kids… it was a time where you really felt you should be with your family. I did stay at work, as we were encouraged to do so… but do you recall how quiet the skies were when they stopped all flights? ANd I recall how odd it was to hear that first plane in the air days after the tragedy.
Where were you ten years ago when you first heard?
Banned Book Week is a week I look forward to every year. If you are not familiar with this week, there was a time I was not either… but chances are – you have read a banned book. Here is a little taste of books that are on the list:
To Kill A Mockingbird
Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret
The Bible
Twilight
Hunger Games
The Color Purple
Farenheight 451
The Handmaid’s Tale
Blubber
The Lorax (yes, Dr. Suess)
All Harry Potter Books…
Last year I read and reviewed only banned books during the Banned Book week and it was a lot of fun and informative too!
This year, now that I am a seasoned banned book reader 😉 , I want to do more. I will be hosting some giveaways here and am asking for book bloggers to assist me, by either a) reading and reviewing a banned book during this week, and/or b) sharing your thoughts on a banned book you have already read. I need a minimum of seven participants – one for each day of Banned Books Week.
If you are interested, please fill out the form below and I will be in contact with you. This is going to be a lot of fun.
**Note update to this post on 9/20/11: I have filled the seven (turned out to be eight) blogger daily posts for the contest, however I would love to still have additional Banned Book related posts – such as book reviews, Banned Book Discussions, and giveaways. I have updated the form to show this. I would love to have YOU on the Banned Wagon. 😛
😀
You can find our more about Banned Book Week and the history behind it by visiting The American Library Association site.
Good morning and happy Saturday! Another gorgeous day here in Minnesota… we have had low 80’s the past few days and looks like the weekend will stay true to that as well so as you can imagine… I am smiling over here. 😀
A couple of evenings ago I went to my friend Cindy’s house in Motley with Sara and Heidi. We had this in the planning for a while, she has a beautiful piece of property and is always doing new and creative things with her yard so it is fun to go and get ideas.
Of course the day came for this to happen and it was all up in the air. I had a crazy day at work, we were all trying to coordinate car pooling (it’s about a 25 minute drive), what time we could all leave… suddenly it seemed like just “one more thing on the agenda”.
I told my hubby before I left that I wouldn’t be late, that I would rather just stay home but we had planned this so I was going. I had laundry I should be working on, the yard needed mowing, and honestly… I was just tired. 😯
I pick up Heidi and Sara and we chat our way to Motley… catching up on each others lives since our last get together and as we near Cindy’s I can almost feel the stress melt away.
Cindy's home
We sit around a fire and talk and laugh. We eat amazing food (thanks for grilling Jeff!) and we pick apples from her trees, tour her latest creative decorating in her home, eat some more, and stay until it is so dark we are just shadow people sitting around a fire…
Our fire at Cindy's
BUT we are all smiling.
As we drive back to Brainerd, we actually had this discussion in the car about life being busy and we have to remember while it can be one more thing on the agenda…. its a good thing. A really good thing.
My dinner!
Friends. Food. Life.
All good.
Beautiful grapevine growing over the bench
The moral of my story this morning (as I sit with COFFEE CUP at the kitchen table and count my blessings for having great friends) is that all of us need to make time for this kind of stuff. Hanging out with friends, and just being…. not doing. All that other life stuff…. can wait.
Have a super awesome day. I am running around today picking up the last-minute things I need for tomorrows annual tailgate party. We are having a fundraiser for a memorial for Fallen Minnesota Firemen and tieing that in with the memory of 9-11.
(Pictures are linked to Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot… which is a great weekly meme of the pictures of our lives…)
Mary Baxter lives in Providence, R.I.. After losing her five-year old daughter, Stella to meningitis, Mary struggles even getting out of bed. Her marriage to her husband Dylan seems to be crumbling as Mary’s depression makes it impossible to be there for him, let alone even smile. Her job as a writer for a local newspaper has become unbearable and she has bitter memories of her child hood and even adult life connects to her own mother who always has seemed distant and aloof and currently resides in Mexico.
Purl two…
At her mother’s urging, Mary joins a knitting circle and meets Alice who invites her to a weekly evening gathering of knitters which at first seems frightening to Mary, but then figures, what does she have to lose? Instead of loss…. Mary gains insight into the women, and occasionally a few men, who make up the knitting circle…
Knit Two, Purl Two…
Harriet, Scarlett, Lulu, Beth, and Ellen all slowly knit their way into Mary’s life. As Mary learns how tomake scarves and hats, and even socks… she also learns that every one has hurts and her own life becomes entwined – with theirs…
Sometimes a book or audio can come to your attention at just the right time. (Yes even in reading – timing does count! 😀 ) I had recently borrowed two audio from our local library that I thought were going to be fantastic, and turned out to not hold me at all. Going to the cabin last weekend, a 3 1/2 hour drive… I needed audio that would sustain me, so I grabbed this one and another one I had just received as well for back up.
The Knitting Circle appealed to me right from the start for several reasons.
The cover… soft and inviting, I want to go hang out there
Perhaps my inability to knit and my fascination with those who do was an attraction
But mostly… the books draw for me was the cultivating of women’s’ friendships, a topic that always draws me in. I think having a house full of boys really drew that out of me… knowing that I needed “girl time” to hang out with my girlfriends and talk about life and dreams and yes, even hurts.
I enjoyed the flow of this story it was very paced, never hurried, and somehow that fit into the theme of a books knitted around friendships. The message within the book for me (and I think for our author too, who had also lost a daughter), was the power of friendship. It’s easy to get drawn into thinking we are the only ones dealing with certain pain and tragedy and when we open our eyes and our hearts find that there is a whole world of hurting out there, and together – we are stronger.
Good morning. This morning, Coffee Cup and I are basking in a little morning “lounge time”. I did not realize what a crazy pace I was keeping this week until last night when after coming home from my friends camp fire, I promptly fell asleep in the recliner while reading blogs.
I have had a busy week at work and a big event this Sunday that I have been working on – a 9-11 Tailgate Event and donation for Fallen Minnesota Firemen. There is a lot of detail work that I am trying to make sure I have taken care of…
we have ordered a large inflatable slide and bounce house for kids, a cotton candy machine, I have food coming from Famous Dave’s and about 40 tailgate vehicles… today I need to go and meet with the guy who is bringing the road closure signs, and do a little last-minute preparation.
Anyway, doing this on top of my other duties, Wednesday meeting, and last nights hang out in Motley MN has suddenly wiped me out. 😛
I may just remain in the recliner for a little while longer this morning…. 😀
I hope going into your weekend is amazing….. I have a little bit of commitment each day but for the most part… I think I will be home working on a few projects and prepping for next Tuesdays book club meeting here over the book The Postmistress.
Oh… and completely random as that is the way I roll… found this Harry Potter clip…. yeah, still can’t let go.
Book Journey 