For those of you celebrating, best wishes for a Happy Motherās Day! Iāll be sharing my thoughts on the holiday tomorrow, but there are no particular plans for it around here. My gift to myself will be a clean house, which Iāll finish working on this morning; then weāre off to the movies to see Thor (the dadās pick, to be honest, but Iāve been warming up to it – and itās based on a […]
I know, I havenāt been around much lately, and my posting may continue to be erratic for the rest of May. The audit at work is winding down (yay!) and Iām done with physical therapy (also yay!), but Iāve got several reading-and-reviewing assignment deadlines coming up soon, and a couple of BEAs – actual and Armchair – to prepare for, so blogging time remains at a premium. That applies to my blog-reading as well as […]
Thereās more āreviewā this week-end than Iāve managed to gather up in quite a while – plus a little editorializing – so letās jump right in! Good News/Bad News, āBookstores I Have Knownā Department:Good news, via Shelf Awareness: āBuffalo Street Books, the Ithaca, N.Y., bookstore that closed last month and has reorganized as a coop (Shelf Awareness, March 7, 2011), is opening this coming Saturday, according to the Ithaca Journal. The store has more than […]
Last weekend, I set aside the book I was reading on my Kindle for this month’s Faith ‘n’ Fiction Roundtable in order to tackle some “fresh” reading for the 24-Hour Readathon. That went well; I started and finished two books that day. However, I still have not finished the FnFRt reading! However, I’ve read enough to participate in the group discussion of Philip Yancey’s What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That […]
The following recap of my week is brought to you by Friday Fill-Ins 1. For me, it was one busy week! Between work, physical-therapy appointments, preparing for the panel Iām moderating at the Book Blogger Convention next month (!), and making some necessary changes to my eating and exercise habits, Iāve gotten very little reading done since last weekendās Readathon and almost no blogging. You may have noticed. Or maybe not. But it may be […]
One thing that hasn’t been going on much during the last week is reading, I’m sorry to say. I had thought that my 4-day birthday weekend would afford me a nice amount of time for both reading and writing, but I got in sadly little of either. Combine that with an extra-busy time at work, and complicate that with shortened work days due to my physical-therapy appointments (now down to two times a week instead […]
I know, I celebrated a blogiversary and a birthday last month…and then I disappeared! It wasn’t intentional – in fact, it was a surprise to me too. I had plans to work on some post drafts and spend a good amount of time reading during my extended Birthday Weekend, but…well, you know how it goes with plans sometimes. I wound up using that time for some housecleaning and shopping instead, and once I returned to […]
As my participation in the book-blogging world has expanded to include more industry-oriented blogs and newsletters, Iāve become aware of the concept of āhandsellingā books, in which booksellers talk up book recommendations to customers. In some respects, when we promote books on our blogs with our favorable reviews, I suppose weāre doing a form of it ourselves. I am not a person who wants to be āsoldā to – in fact, Iāll actively avoid […]
Does anyone still read the Sunday papers? (We just cancelled ours.) I have news to share about some things they wouldn’t tell you there. After a successful inaugural year, the Independent Literary Awards are poised for growth in their 2011 edition with the addition of three new categories. The genres and panels for this yearās awards were announced a few days ago. Many of the 2010 panel members are returning to serve again, and the […]
Have you had Words with your Friends yet? A few weeks ago, my son told me heād downloaded the Words With Friends game for his iPhone, but since I didnāt have a smartphone of my own at the time, I was unable to do anything with that bit of information. That changed last Friday. Words With Friends was one of the first apps I got for my brand-new iPhone (free with ads, but thereās an […]
(…that’s a lot of F’in stuff, isn’t it?) Five From Me: I thought I wouldnāt have much to review with you at the end of this week, and debated whether it would be better to toss up a place-holder post or just take the day off. You may assess my choice differently than I did… This was my first week back at work thatās actually been spent at work every day. And itās been a […]
Hey, did you know that Read an E-Book Week starts today? Just when I was planning to take a break from e-books, which I have found much more comfortable to read while having only one usable arm; for those monitoring the situation and who missed Fridayās post, my right arm is OUT of the sling as of this weekend, and I start physical therapy for my shoulder tomorrow! Well, maybe just one more e-book after I […]
Five I found: Do you believe these dozen truths of social media? Are you “writing reviews,” or “sharing your thoughts” about the books you read? Also, this author says: a good review may not necessarily be the best review Got bookstores? Meganās call from the land of the bookshop-deprived: Donāt take them for granted! Meanwhile, Chris suggests that book-borrowing may have benefits for booksellers too. It never rains in SoCal: a native debunks that and […]
Weāre entering the ninth week of 2011, and Iāve read and reviewed nine books this year…a perfect book-a-week pace! Iām not projecting that itāll continue that way, but by my standards, itās not a bad start. However, I knew going into it that my reading for the first couple of months of the year would be somewhat regulated by commitments; I had books to read for the category I was evaluating in the Indie […]
Friday Fill-Ins 2011-8 1. Ooooh, I have just over a week left wearing the Ultrasling!. 2. The Academy Awards-related street-closure traffic jam around my office – I can’t stand it! 3. How the heck did I end up with so many books in TBR Purgatory? 4. The orthopedistās office is NOT one of my favorite places to visit. 5. I’m not a helpless one-armed invalid, I’m not! 6. If itās covered in chocolate it has […]
