Question of the Week: Is Facebook becoming the new AOL? I have a pretty limited Facebook presence, but I know plenty of people spend nearly all of their online time there, and it seems to be getting easier to do that. Your friends and family are there, so you can keep in touch with each other via status updates, and comments on those updates can lead to actual conversation (of a sort). You can keep […]
It’s been almost four years since Tall Paul and I visited the monthly Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena, but since we didn’t have the kids this past weekend, we decided we’d go if I wasn’t too beat after the Readathon on Saturday. I wasn’t, so we hopped into the car on Sunday morning. We’re definitely not hard-core about these things – by conventional wisdom, our arrival at nearly 10 AM could have very well […]
Author Christopher Moore doesn’t read at his readings, unless it’s from the voluminous notes he brings to the podium and ends up deciding not to use. He claims not to sign books at his signings, either, although he did at this one – actually, he said he’d sign whatever anyone brought up, so I hope no one brought anything except books. What he does do is a form of standup comedy with some audience participation. […]
Disclosure: I purchased this book for my personal library. Purchasing links included in this post generate referrals through my Amazon Affiliates account. Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask Jancee Dunn Villard (2009), Paperback original (ISBN 0345501926 / 9780345501929) Essay/memoir, 224 pages Opening Lines: “Last Thanksgiving, right about the time that our family had finished scraping up the last of our triple fleet of pies […]
24-Hour Readathon Final Report: I clocked in for the 24-Hour Readathon just a few minutes after its official start on Saturday, which was 5 AM local time. I read for the better part of two hours, then had an almost five-hour time-out for breakfast with my sister and my Saturday-morning errands. I was back to reading by 12:30 PM, and finished the book I’d had in progress around mid-afternoon. I spent the next two hours […]
By the time I finish writing this update, it will be just past midnight Pacific time, and I’m declaring my participation in this Readathon OVER. I’ve updated on Twitter a few times since I last posted here 9 hours ago, but here’s a summary of what I’ve done since then: Cheerleading/commenting: 2 hours, comments left on 30 blogs Time spent reading: 6 hours Books read start to finish: Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo? […]
It’s just about 10 hours into the Readathon, and I don’t think I’ve read for more than about 4 of them all together. I spent about 2 hours this morning between 5 and 7:30 AM, and then went out for awhile – I didn’t get back to my reading until just after noon. I have completed reading In the Land of Believers: An Outsider’s Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church by Gina […]
I got to bed relatively late on Friday night (after 10:30 – hey, I’m a fortysomething!), didn’t sleep too well (woke up a lot), and woke up to my alarm at 4:30 on a day I’m not going to work – but it’s all for the 24-Hour Readathon! I plan to spend a couple of hours reading this morning, then break for a couple more – I’m meeting my sister for breakfast, and then doing […]
Question of the Week: How much attention do you give to your blog stats – and do you talk about them? Earlier this week, book bloggers were invited to participate (anonymously!) in a survey concerning blogger/publisher relations that asks some questions about blog statistics – not just about your numbers, but about your willingness to divulge them. From what I’ve seen, some of us will provide them only on request, and some of us will […]
I was listening to a story on NPR the other day about managing President Obama’s “brand,” and the whole concept annoyed me. Granted, as a blogger, I’m a bit overexposed to “brand” talk anyway – brand/blogger relationships, product-driven content, FTC disclosures, and so on – but I think it was the context that got under my skin. Does everything come down to marketing these days? Does everything we do have to be calculated for image […]
Disclosure: I purchased both of these books for my own personal reading. *Purchasing links in this review are connected to my Amazon Affiliates account and will generate a small referral fee for me if they’re used. Undercover Beth Kephart HarperCollins, 2009, paperback (ISBN 9780061238956 / 0061238953) Fiction (young adult), 304 pages Opening lines: “One day I saw a vixen and a dog fox dancing. It was on the other side of the cul-de-sac, past the […]
I considered taking today off, actually. I haven’t had much time to write during the past few days – we were out of town for Easter weekend, and things have just been busy. Still, “Tangents” exist for those random things that don’t justify writing a full post of their own, especially on Tuesdays – but just so you know, I may be skipping some days posting here and there during the next few weeks, because […]
