So, I was just wondering…

I love books, I really do. I have them all over my house. Before I started blogging I was always picking up a book here and there from used book sales. My public library has a small bookcase that is stocked with used books that they sell. Although they have a huge sale every summer I know I can go to those shelves any time throughout the year and possibly find some goodies.

I keep my own books all neat and tidy in my bedroom on a wooden bookcase that had previously belonged to my children. When they outgrew it I packed up their books and filled it with mine. (Note to shelf – remove those old Pokemon stickers) When that was full I put some on the shelf in my nightstand next to my library books, and then piled more next to the nightstand and then piled more next to that pile.

Now that I get books to review my own books seem to get neglected. I don’t get to those or my library books as often as I would like. With more books I’ve needed more space. We have floor to ceiling shelves in our family room that contain special books – reference books, sets of books we bought the kids (Time Life, etc.), cookbooks, the family bible. When a friend was moving he gave my mom a set of wooden shelves and she gave one of them to me. I put them next to our fireplace and that was a lifesaver! Of course I filled that baby right up. There is a method to my madness.  I keep the books to be reviewed on the closest shelf and they are in order of how they arrived. Books that are autographed are on the top shelf and books that I plan to review but aren’t committed to are two rows deep on the other shelves. I also have a row of books that I’m reading (kind of) on our big, square coffee table. And sometimes there’s a few under it too… To everyone else it just looks like I have books piled everywhere but I really do have a system. Really.

So I was just wondering, where do you keep your books and how do you organize them?  Do you have shelves, boxes, bins, baskets or something else to contain them in? Please tell me you have books piled up somewhere too! I can’t be the only one who has them in every room of the house…

Giveaway: Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein

On impulse, Jenna Rosen leaves the party she and her real estate developer husband, Robert, are attending in Seattle, takes his BMW and drives north to Bellingham. Again on impulse, she hops on the ferry to the Alaskan town where her Tlingit Indian grandmother lived and died. But there's more than impulse at work here: Jenna and Robert's 5-year-old son, Bobby, drowned in Alaska just two years ago, and something is drawing Jenna back to the scene. On the ferry, she's given a carved silver charm of a Tlingit spirit called a kushtaka, a stealer of souls. "Tlingits don't have good and evil," a local shaman explains, telling the story of how the spirit known as Raven gave the world the sun, moon, and stars by stealing them from someone else. As Jenna learns more about the kushtakas, helped by this very sophisticated shaman and an understanding fisherman, she begins to believe that her son's soul is being held captive by these spirits, as revenge for her husband's greed. Garth Stein's persuasive prose draws us into a book that mixes fantasy with tragedy and the natural human desire for closure.

My recent review

Thanks to Terra Communications I have one copy of this book to give away.

Rules:
- Simply fill out the form to enter.
- US and Canada only, no PO boxes

Extra entries:
+1 new followers
+2 old followers
+2 promote the contest and leave a link

*Extended - Contest ends 4/13/10 at 11:59 p.m.

CLOSED

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading and asks you to :

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page
3 . Share 2 "teaser" sentences also citing the title of the book and the author and in that way people can have great recommendations if they like the "teaser".
4. Please avoid spoilers!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The trouble with a close family is that it suffers closely, too. I stood with my two sons in the cold and put my arms around them, feeling the shoulders of men.

~page 33
Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday at The Printed Page is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

I haven't done this in a few weeks so I have some catching up to do. I hope you've had lots of goodies delivered to your mailboxes too!

I Am Ozzy
by Ozzy Osbourne

Won from Bookin' With Bingo


Once Dead, Twice Shy
by Kim Harrison

Traded with Holly from Writer's Block Reviews


Jumping Off Swings
by Jo Knowles

Traded with Holly


Meredian
by Amber Kizer

Traded with Holly


City of Glass
by Cassandra Clare

Traded with Holly


The Bride Collector
by Ted Dekker

For tour and review from Hatchette Books


Milk Glass Moon
by Adriana Trigiani

Used Book Sale at my library


Dead Witch Walking
by Kim Harrison

From Paperback Swap


The Crazy School
by Corneila Read

Won from Bookin' With Bingo

Stephanie Plum movie

I'm a little behind with the news since this was announced in February but I still had to post it here. Janet Evanovich's first book in the Stephanie Plum series One For The Money, is finally going to be a movie! According to this article from NYDailyNews.com it's been in the works since 1994 but didn't come about sooner because of casting issues. Supposedly Reese Witherspoon was to be the original Stephanie Plum character but Katherine Heigl (from Grey's Anatomy) has been signed for the part. That's not who I had pictured (Sandra Bullock maybe?) but according to the blurb in my local paper the author was happy with the choice. The books make me laugh and I hope the movie does too. Who would you choose for the lead role?

Changes

I'm back!!!! Kind of anyway. Thanks you for your kind words about my health issues. I've had problems with chronic back and pelvic pain for several years and I have good days and bad. Winters are especially hard and this one was no exception. I had some procedures done in the last few months with needles and stuff and it often makes things worse before it gets better. It's been hard to sit at the computer, or anywhere else for that matter, and I wasn't really feeling up to it anyway. I've missed you all so very much but it was also a nice break for me too. The pressure was off for a while and my blog most likely suffered for it but I needed the time away.

Now I'm doing my spring cleaning, in my home (kind of) and on my blog. It was time for some changes and I was looking for ways to try something different and crafty. When I read a post about creating headers from photos I started my new project. It's been so frustrating but lots of fun too and I've learned so much!

It started with some photos that I had taken around the house during all four seasons last year. I took them from the same locations so I could compare them eventually. My favorites were from our front porch with a view of the flag and yard. I decided to try to put them side by side in a new header and the post I found showed me how. I started with the idea from Sneaky Momma Blog Designs (she has the best tips and explains them so well!) which led to an easy tutorial from Clover Lane. They introduced me to Picasa for my photos. It's free and I love it! I found my background at Hot Bliggity Blog and used some digital scrapbook pages from Shabby Princess. It took a lot of struggle but hopefully it will be easier next time and I learned so much. There's still some tweaking to do but this is it. So, what do you think? Is it "springy" enough?
Thanks for hanging in there with me and I look forward to hearing from you and visiting your blogs. I hope your Spring is off to a wonderful start. Stay tuned for reviews, contests and more. I'm still a bit slow but I'm getting there. Tomorrow I am fortunate enough to be able to park my butt on the bleachers for my son's first high school baseball game of the season. I'm hoping for sunshine!

*(Happy 17th birthday to my baby boy! You finally have that night license. I love you!!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Time out

I haven't been around much (not at all) due to illness (it's knocked me flat) but I'll return eventually (you've been warned). I have some spring cleaning to do (in my home and on my blog) and other goodies too (contests anyone?). I hope all is well with you and yours!

Review: Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein

Only a shaman can rescue a soul.
Only a shaman.

On impulse, Jenna Rosen leaves the party she and her real estate developer husband, Robert, are attending in Seattle, takes his BMW and drives north to Bellingham. Again on impulse, she hops on the ferry to the Alaskan town where her Tlingit Indian grandmother lived and died. But there's more than impulse at work here: Jenna and Robert's 5-year-old son, Bobby, drowned in Alaska just two years ago, and something is drawing Jenna back to the scene. On the ferry, she's given a carved silver charm of a Tlingit spirit called a kushtaka, a stealer of souls. "Tlingits don't have good and evil," a local shaman explains, telling the story of how the spirit known as Raven gave the world the sun, moon, and stars by stealing them from someone else. As Jenna learns more about the kushtakas, helped by this very sophisticated shaman and an understanding fisherman, she begins to believe that her son's soul is being held captive by these spirits, as revenge for her husband's greed. Garth Stein's persuasive prose draws us into a book that mixes fantasy with tragedy and the natural human desire for closure.

I adored Garth Stein's book The Art of Racing in the Rain so I was eager to review this book as well. I have to admit that I wasn't sure if I would like it as much after I read the synopsis but when I began to leaf through it I was hooked. As a horror story this is a very different type of book but Stein is an excellent writer and storyteller. He brings all of his characters to life and creates a beautiful setting in the Alaskan wilderness.

Jenna is haunted be the loss of her son and is pain is palpable. She is in self destruct mode and risks losing everything when she returns to Alaska but she is searching for closure. With the help of a Shaman she is immersed in the culture and beliefs of the Tlingits. The fantasy was a bit confusing for me but the folklore was truly fascinating. The suspense kept me reading and longing for Jenna to be successful in her quest to rescue her son's soul. It was an emotional roller coaster but an amazing ride. I look forward to even more books by this author.

www.garthstein.com
www.terracommunications.biz
www.harpercollins.com

Thank you to Terra Communications for sending this book in exchange for a honest review.

Publisher: Harper Collins
Rerelease date: 3/9/10
Pages: 445
Price/format: $14.99/paperback
Type: fiction

So, I was just wondering…

Here it is, late at night and I’m where I usually am at this hour. I’ve got my heating pad, the remote control and my laptop. The house is quiet and the pages load a lot faster now so this is a good time to catch up. I’m a night owl anyway and my kids can keep some late hours so I’m not going to bed for awhile. Unfortunately I don’t get work done as fast as I should and the minutes turn into hours before I know it.

I don’t have a strict routine, I just do what I can do when I can do it. We use to fight for the computer but my kids can use high speed internet everywhere but here so they don’t use it as much as I do. We’re still holding out hope that we’ll get that access here someday but I know it’s not likely when we live on an unpaved road in the boonies. But that’s a topic for another Wednesday…

Shortly after I get up in the morning I do like to check my email and the news to see what the early risers have to say. If I get the chance I head to blog land to see what else is happening. When I’m really lucky and I actually have a car of my own to drive that day (again, another story for another day) I load up my son’s laptop (mine’s still broken) and trek off to our lovely library to cozy up in a wonderful upholstered chair in front of the French doors and use the wifi. On the one hand, the pages load in a heartbeat so I should be able to get a lot accomplished on my blog but I also spend time visiting sites I don’t get to otherwise visit and watch videos, book trailers, and other things that I don’t otherwise get to watch and, well, you see where this is going don’t ya?

So, I was just wondering what kind of schedule do you keep when you’re using the computer? Do you even have one at all or do you just go wherever the links take you? I guess I don’t have much of a schedule myself, it’s more of a routine or just my habits. Where do you like to work – at home, at the office, at the nearest internet cafe? Go ahead and share. I promise I’m not going to tell your boss that you’re writing reviews and looking at YouTube while you’re on the clock!

Technorati Tags: So I was just wondering

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading and asks you to :

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page
3 . Share 2 "teaser" sentences also citing the title of the book and the author and in that way people can have great recommendations if they like the "teaser".
4. Please avoid spoilers!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Behind the counter, I slouched on my stool in the sun and sucked in the summer as if I could hold every drop in it inside of me. As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.

~page 8
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Review: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

They say that just before you die
your life flashes before your eyes,
but that's not how it happened for me.

What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life? Samantha Kingston has it all—looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12th should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it’s her last. The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. In fact, she re-lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she had ever imagined.

I read the author's introduction for the First Look Club at Barnes & Noble where she mentioned that she intended for her audience to dislike the characters in the early chapters. She did her job well because I didn't care for Sam and her friends in the beginning. In fact there were members of the club who considered not continuing the book because of the girls' very bad behavior. But I could not put it down. Lauren Oliver did exactly what she had intended in that first chapter. She introduced us to Sam and her friends Elody, Ally and their "leader" Lindsay, senior girls at Thomas Jefferson High School. They are popular, pretty and selfish snobs who get away with anything and everything.

Sam tells her story from the moment she wakes up on Friday, February 12th. She shares all of the details of her day in school, the afternoon at Ally's house and the evening at a party. Since it's Cupid's Day, an early Valentine celebration, emotions are running high and Sam mentions a variety of interactions that occur that day. She and her friends are quite entertained when other students have hurt feelings and are more concerned with what they will be wearing to the party. Not all goes as planned and their irresponsible behavior leads to a tragedy. As Sam herself reveals in the first sentence of the prologue she is killed in that accident. And she wakes up the next morning to repeat February 12 all over again.

Sam is aware that it's the same day but it doesn't appear that anyone else is. Through her shock and confusion she muddles through the day and attempts to prevent her death. Some things can be changed but as the days go by she starts to realize that she may be focusing on the wrong things and the wrong people. Sam begins to see how her actions have affected and often hurt others. She tries to make changes throughout the day but it doesn't go as planned.

Lauren Oliver takes the reader on a journey of self-discovery and transformation. I was fascinated with her insight and attention to detail. With each chapter Sam's changes had a ripple affect on others and the results would show up all throughout the book. A mention of something that appeared insignificant would often come to have great meaning later on. I would leaf back through the pages to find out how something had happened on a previous day so I could compare. It was like solving a puzzle, searching for clues. The characters were interesting and well developed. I was curious to know more about them and what led them to this day. In the first chapter it was easy to categorize everyone as the typical cliches - popular, jock, nerd, wallflower, but the first impressions were very deceiving. As the pages went by more layers were revealed.

It's likely you will think about the way you treat people after you finish the story. What mistakes would you correct if given the chance? This is a book that I will definitely be reading again. Congratulations to Lauren Oliver for what is sure to be a very successful debut novel.

Thank you to Barnes & Noble First Look Club for a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

www.myspace.com/laurenoliverbooks.com
www.harperteen.com

Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: 3/2/10
Pages: 480
Price/format: $17.99/hardcover
Type: YA fiction
Ages: 14 up

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday at The Printed Page is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.



Horns
by Joe Hill

For review

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache, and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic. But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside.

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. It's time the devil had his due.

White Cat
by Holly Black

For review

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love -- or death -- and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Why are you making me so crazy? I know you can't miss the hamper every time!
2. I want you to take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd... Sorry, I got carried away. My son's baseball season starts next week.
3. Come to my house, then it will be on my terms.
4. Just give it a try and see what happens.
5. I could use a drink but I'll settle for chocolate.
6. Winter seems to last forever and then spring arrives sometime around June or July. (Well it sure feels like it!)
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to dinner with my hubby, tomorrow my plans include cheering on the school basketball team and Sunday, I want to be lazy, lazy, lazy!

Review: The Lineup by Otto Penzler

The most venerated and bestselling authors in the mystery world reveal how they created their most beloved characters.

A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and thriller world really come from?

What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Jack Reacher a drifter? How did a brief encounter in Botswana inspire Alexander McCall Smith to create Precious Ramotswe? In THE LINEUP, some of the top mystery writers in the world tell about the genesis of their most beloved characters--or, in some cases, let their creations do the talking.

I'm always fascinated by how an author comes up with a story so this was just the book for me. Perhaps the most interesting information was in the Introduction where Otto Penzler explains how this book came about. In searching for a way to bring income to his sinking bookstore he hired authors to write essays and stories that he sold in limited editions. Since they were extremely successful he decided to combine them into one book and make them available to everyone. I'm so glad he did!

I'm not familiar with all of these twenty-two authors' work but I have read many of them. These stories are filled with creative and interesting tidbits about themselves and their characters. I'm always curious to hear more about Lee Childs, Jeffrey Deaver, Jonathan Kellerman and Laura Lippman among others.

My hubby was thrilled to hear that David Morrell, the author of First Blood, was inspired to write his story about John Rambo the Vietnam war vet, after teaching at Penn State University in the 70s. Although the story isn't set in Pennsylvania, a small town near the university is the model for the town in the book. Since my hubby is from that small town he was thrilled to hear the news! He had to watch the movie, and it's two sequels, all over again and he was convinced that in the opening scene he saw the bridge that he rode his bike across as a kid. Well, he didn't really believe it since I pointed it out to him time and time again that the movie setting was only inspired by the town but hey, a guy can dream. And what a cool story!

If you're a fan of mysteries you might be interested in this collection too. And if you're lucky, you may just find your own brush with fame within the pages.

Thank you to Hatchette Books for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Release date: 11/10/09
Pages: 320
Price/format: $25.99/hardcover
Type: Mystery

Winners - Black Hills and Drood

Congratulations!

Black Hills:
Linda Bentzen
Sandra K321
Emily Lehman
Indigo
Bcteagirl

Drood:
Sheila
Deb Mancano
Diane
Donna S.
The Kool-Aid Mom

Thanks to Hatchette for this giveaway! Winners have been emailed.

So, I was just wondering…

I got one of those emails all parents dread. My son’s 11th grade English teacher was writing to say that he wasn’t doing well with the book they were reading. He hadn’t passed all of the quizzes and the final exam was coming up. All of my boys are good students but I wasn’t surprised to receive this, nor was it the first one. They have always struggled with reading comprehension for assigned reading. If they don’t like it they don’t retain it. Ugh.

Fortunately I don’t mind reading the book and discussing it with them I just wish the youngest light-of-my-life had told me sooner, much sooner. He thought he did OK on the exam, well the part about the last 5 chapter anyway. We are anxiously awaiting our his grade. He just wants to know how much I’m going to chew him out and I want to know how I he did and how I’m going to help him prepare for the next one. Next up is The Great Gatsby. I’ve never read it but something tells me I’m about to!

So, I was just wondering, have you ever had to do the same thing with your kids? I know most children need help with their homework in some capacity but have you done their reading with them? What books did you get to read and were there any favorites or least favorites? Some of the stuff I had to read in high school I could barely get through the first time so I’m really hoping not to get a repeat of Shakespeare or Silas Marner. My darling boy and I might not survive it! And speaking of our high school days, were there any special (or not so special) memories of your parents helping you with your reading? if you’re not too traumatized I’d love to hear all about it!

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading and asks you to :

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page
3 . Share 2 "teaser" sentences also citing the title of the book and the author and in that way people can have great recommendations if they like the "teaser".
4. Please avoid spoilers!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"What I've come to believe is that you have to cherish...this, the present. Life and death...it's a matter of a breath, a heartbeat...a single footstep." He thought about Lorena, who stepped on a mine in her vineyard, and he held Lily even tighter thinking about the simple timing of things.

~ page 160
Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday at The Printed Page is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

February was a slow month at the mailbox with only 6 books coming in the whole month! It worked out well though because I didn't read as fast as I hoped to either but I did find some good ones. It was a cold, snowy month but it did go by fast. I can't believe it's already March. Come on spring, I'm ready for ya!

Raven Stole The Moon
by Garth Stein

For review from Terra Communications and HarperCollins

On impulse, Jenna Rosen leaves the party she and her real estate developer husband, Robert, are attending in Seattle, takes his BMW and drives north to Bellingham. Again on impulse, she hops on the ferry to the Alaskan town where her Tlingit Indian grandmother lived and died. But there's more than impulse at work here: Jenna and Robert's 5-year-old son, Bobby, drowned in Alaska just two years ago, and something is drawing Jenna back to the scene. On the ferry, she's given a carved silver charm of a Tlingit spirit called a kushtaka, a stealer of souls. "Tlingits don't have good and evil," a local shaman explains, telling the story of how the spirit known as Raven gave the world the sun, moon, and stars by stealing them from someone else. As Jenna learns more about the kushtakas, helped by this very sophisticated shaman and an understanding fisherman, she begins to believe that her son's soul is being held captive by these spirits, as revenge for her husband's greed. Garth Stein's persuasive prose draws us into a book that mixes fantasy with tragedy and the natural human desire for closure.

Sex And The Single Vampire
by Katie McAlister

A bargain find from The Dollar Store, creepy and funny!

Dark One n. [Origin Czech, also known as vampires.] A Moravian Dark One is doomed to spend his lifetime cruising the singles' scene in search of the one woman who can redeem his soul. You think dating is hard? Try it when you're nine hundred years old and you've used every pick-up line in the book. Forming a lasting relationship is even more difficult when the woman who makes your heart sing sees dead people and likes to play with demons.

Summoner n. [Origin English.] Someone who summons ghosts, poltergeists, and demon lords. Summoners tend to hang around cities like London that are filled with portals to Hell, haunted inns, and other locations dishy vampires might be found lurking. Most Summoners are female, which makes for difficulties when it comes to explaining to the man who haunts your dreams and fills your soul with love why your pet ghosts can be found hovering around even in the most romantic of circumstances.