Good day, and welcome to 2010! I hope that you’ve had a pleasant holiday week, and that your New Year is starting out with at least one day of relaxation and good cheer. Like all good Southern Californians, we’ll probably start the day with the Tournament of Roses Parade, but since Chris is hanging out with friends today, the rest of us will probably be spared the football games. Tomorrow morning he flies back to […]
I “borrowed” this first line meme from Kristen at BookNAround – it suggests that taking the first line of the first post of each month of the year will make an interesting portrait of your blogging year. I guess it depends on how you define “interesting,” but let me know if you can spot a theme here. I don’t see one, other than the fact that several of my “firsts” were Weekend Assignments. However, you […]
A few weeks ago, Jennifer at The Literate Housewife Review brought up the idea of “Reading Deliberately.” It’s a concept I find intriguing, and one that’s gotten a lot of other book bloggers thinking and talking too. Part of “reading deliberately” seems to be ceasing to accept review books, or becoming much more selective about the books we’ll accept. I started to cut back on review books several months ago, and haven’t regretted it – […]
Assorted Announcements This is officially my last Week-End Review of 2009! Although it seemed to get more reader response when I posted it on Saturdays, I’m still not sorry I moved it to Fridays. However, I won’t be posting one on Christmas Day – and I certainly hope you’ll have better things to do next Friday than look for it, anyway! I’m not certain yet whether I’ll be posting on January 1; I suspect that […]
If you rate books – when you review them on your blog, and/or on your LibraryThing or GoodReads account – what does it take for a book to earn your highest rating? At our recent SoCal book-blogger meet-up, Amy posed that question to me. She knows I use a 5-point rating scale, and questioned whether I’d given a 5 to any books I read this year. Since I didn’t, she wanted to know: How would […]
Two weeks from today, we’ll be waking up on Christmas morning! Guess we’d better get our tree up soon, hadn’t we? To those of you who will be lighting the menorah and starting your celebration tonight, Happy Chanukah! New Arrivals in my Google Reader Too Many Books, Too Little Time Baby Got Books Book Snob LaurieWrites I Have Things… Dispatches: Links of the Week Lots of holiday-themed links this week, but hopefully not an overdose […]
‘Tis the season for year-end wrap-ups. I’ve already participated in the Weekly Geeks‘ Book Bloggers’ Top 10 of 2009 preliminaries, and really need to find some time to think about my personal Books of the Year picks (can’t write a post about them till I decide what they are!). I expect those to differ a bit from the Top 10 list, since it’s based on books I read this year, regardless of when they were […]
Since I missed last Friday, I have LOTS of links to share this week, so let’s move right along… New Arrivals in my Google Reader Novelwhore’s Blog nomadreader My Books. My Life. Books Worth Reading The New Dork Review of Books Dispatches: Links of the (last 2) Week(s) Baking cookies every day ⇨ a daily cookie giveaway: a donation to a food pantry means food for them, and – maybe – cookies for you! When […]
Audience Participation: Blogger Input Requested! This is a new one: I’ve been contacted by the author of an in-progress book on blogging professionally who would like to include interviews with some book bloggers who have found business success with their blogs. She’s actually looking for book reviewers here, not people who’ve used a blog to promote their own books, and “success” can be defined as meeting whatever income and/or recognition objectives you’ve set (acknowledging that […]
Audience Participation: Blogger Input Requested! Two items – one regional, one worldwide: If you’re a Southern California book blogger or author, have you given your input on a new site to help build up our connections to each other? If you missed the post about that earlier this week, or just haven’t responded yet, please read all about it and take our very short survey! Become part of a very ambitious project to collect one […]
I should know better, and yet every now and then I attempt it anyway. I’m currently reading polygamously – I have three books going at once. Technically, it’s four books, since one of them is a special edition containing two novels, but I’ve finished one of the stories in it; however, I won’t review that one until I finish the book itself. (I’m being a stickler, despite the fact that it may mean I won’t […]
Happy Friday! Here’s what I have to share with y’all this week: seven new-to-me blogs a collection of links that are a bit more thought-provoking than usual (must be something about autumn – the cool weather and short days must make some of us more reflective) a timely Blogthings personality quiz, and a Customer of the Week (fortunately, not my customer!) Also, if you haven’t already told me your favorite cover songs and your thoughts […]
