tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88287271323150888522024-03-14T03:20:55.557+00:00Writer RevealedDollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.comBlogger373125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-31454591681251953932012-05-05T19:42:00.000+01:002012-05-05T19:42:04.233+01:00E-Books VS Paper Books - A Year LaterIt's been almost a year since I bought a kindle. I love my kindle. It's functional, convenient, and for travelling - an absolute blessing. It's a cool gadget. But that's it. It still does not give me the same feeling as reading an actual, physical book.<br />
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I have read a lot of stuff on Kindle for the past year, and sometimes when I consistently read two or three books, I found myself missing my paper books. Kindle gives me a feeling of dissatisfaction. It's the same story, same author, same words. But it is not the same experience.<br />
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Holding a particular book in my hand is a visceral experience. Every book is different, and the work and the effort that went into designing its cover and pages and font, feeds into the actual reading experience. That is why, I still continue to purchase mostly physical books.<br />
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So I would never give up my kindle, because of its practical, convenient value. But I don't think I could ever value it over physical books. I don't think it could ever give me the same feeling that an actual book does.<br />
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What about you? How are you faring with your e-reader? If you don't have one, would you ever consider buying one?Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-50654100156898279222012-04-14T18:14:00.002+01:002012-04-14T18:14:17.485+01:00Non-Fiction ChallengeThis blog is about writing, but it is really about my fiction writing. My predominant focus is on Fantasy, though I love science fiction too, and have also wrote a Indian-American women's fiction. Fantasy is at the moment my prime focus, and it's what I intend to focus on.<br />
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But one thing I've also always loved is journaling, and I wrote about my journaling experiments and passion on my <a href="http://www.journal-addict.blogspot.com/">Journal Addict</a> blog.<br />
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Now, I am taking that to the next level and actually focusing on creative non-fiction writing, instead of causal blogging. That is going to be on my brand new platform, <a href="http://www.kaizenjournaling.com/">Kaizen Journaling</a>, which goes live on Tuesday.<br />
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Check out the cool launch page, and I hope to see some of you there :-)Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-36061219014383980982012-03-22T22:44:00.001+00:002012-03-22T22:44:33.638+00:00Learning from Critiquing Other People's Work<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do you remember those days in school or college when you had to spend English classes pouring over fantastic work and ripping it apart? Wondering whether the author was depressed just because he happened to mention grey skies or feeling blue? </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's not the kind of critiquing I mean. We'll leave that to the teachers and professors. I mean a helpful critique of a fellow author's work. Looking at their book to help them see things they might have missed after the fiftieth edit. If you are a writer, you know what I'm talking about. We've all been there, and found that words blurred into mere black smudges on paper. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I haven't done a lot of critiquing for other people's book, possibly because I only have one critique partner. More because of lack of time than anything else. But even from my limited experience, I think it's a valuable thing. I guess it's human nature that it's a lot easier to spot mistakes or faults in other people's work than your own. Then there is the matter of outside perspective as well. When it's my story, I know it's inside out, so even a little hint makes the whole scene clear. But when it's someone else's vision, I don't know what it means, and so I need clear words and story line to be able to understand it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Critiquing someone else's work helps you think about issues in your own work. Or at least that's how it is for me. If I say to my CP, "too passive", and a day later I find myself writing a passive sentence, I notice it. If I complain that her character is "too whiny", I notice when mine is winging for no good reason. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What we offer to our critique partners (hopefully) is constructive feedback, and that feedback is constructive for both parties because the more effort and thought you put into reviewing their work, means the more knowledge and skill you build up to edit your own. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What do you think? Do you feel that your experience with your CPs is mutually beneficial? Does it improve your critiquing skills for your own work?</span></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-48482751443969365972012-03-11T20:40:00.004+00:002012-03-11T20:40:20.922+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Therese Walsh<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>1. Your childhood favourite</b>: Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>2. Your current favourite</b>: It's a tie between The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>3. Your top five authors</b>: Believe it or not, I don't have favorite authors, just favorite books. (Though I'd never turn down a book by Juliet Marillier or Barbara O'Neal.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now</b>: Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</b>: Ooh, good question, but I don't dare tell.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</b>: Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum has one of the prettiest covers I've ever seen.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>7. Book you’re a champion for</b>: Definitely the books I mentioned as favorites--The Time Traveler's Wife and The Night Circus--along with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. I also talk about Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest quite a bit, and with good reason; it's a beautifully written story.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>8. Book that changed your life</b>: The only book that changed my life, but that did truly change my life, is my novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy. I worked on the story for six years, and wrote it twice, before it was published.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b>: All of my favorites, and I'll also include the Harry Potter series.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>10. Book you turn to for comfort</b>: Any of Barbara O'Neal's novels.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>11. Favourite line from a book</b>: I have a deep love for many first lines, but I'll stick with one of my favorite novels. "It’s hard being left behind." - from The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger</span></span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-48472803484124501062012-03-07T20:34:00.002+00:002012-03-07T20:36:10.653+00:00Be the Best You<br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Do you wish you could find the strength to be who you are, regardless of what the world (or your mom, spouse, children) want you to be? </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Do you want to have courage to live by your own rules, whether or not it conforms with what you "should" do?</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Do you want to be the best you can be, and change the world one page a time? </span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">If you said "yes" to any of the above, I could use your help. I'm working on a new, super-exciting project, and I am trying to gauge what would my readers find most useful. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">If you didn't answer "yes" to any of the above questions but know others who might, then please share. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">If you would like to help me out, please let me know and I will send you a questionnaire by email. It should take no more than 20 minutes. Please send me an email at journaladdict [at] hotmail [dot] co.uk<br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Thank you in advance, from the bottom of my heart!! And even if you don't want to participate, thank you for being my reader :-) I appreciate you being here.</span></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-25042600291857794612012-02-26T11:33:00.000+00:002012-02-26T11:47:21.759+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Sara-Jayne Townsend<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">1. Your childhood favourite</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I’ve been doing a series of books from childhood on my blog, and there </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">are many. Though one of my favourite authors as a child was Enid </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Blyton. I loved her Famous Five books.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">2. Your current favourite</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I have read so many fantastic books, I really can’t pick an all-time </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">favourite book. Everything by all the authors listed below is in my </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">list of ‘best books ever’.</span><br />
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3. Your top five authors</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Stephen King, Sara Paretsky, Jim Butcher, Kathy Reichs, Mike Carey.</span><br />
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4. Book(s) you're reading now</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">THE ASSASSIN’S PRAYER by Ariana Franklin. I’ve really been enjoying </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">this series about a female Sicilian doctor who finds herself in </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">unenlightened England during Henry II’s reign, where women doctors are </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">unheard of and women with any kind of healing skill are considered to </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">be witches. I love books about strong women, and this series is about </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">a strong woman in a time when women really had no rights at all.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Sadly, Ariana Franklin died last year, so there will be no more books </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">in this series, which is a tragic loss to the literary world.</span><br />
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5. Book(s) you've pretended to read</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I haven’t. My reading tastes are very straightforward, and I’ve never </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">pretended otherwise. There are a lot of classics I haven’t read, nor </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">never will.</span><br />
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6. Book(s) you've bought for the cover</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I don’t buy books solely for the cover. I’ll read the blurb, and </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">maybe the first couple of paragraphs first, before I make a decision.</span><br />
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7. Book you're a champion for</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, by Agatha Christie. Still the most perfect </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">whodunit ever written.</span><br />
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8. Book that changed your life</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">BURN MARKS by Sara Paretsky. The first book of hers that I read, it </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">introduced me to V.I. Warshawski, who remains a shining example of a </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">tough, intelligent, strong-minded woman, and she inspired me to want </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to write about a similar strong-minded woman, which is the moment my </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">actress amateur sleuth was conceived.</span><br />
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9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">DISSOLUTION by CJ Sansom. This is the first book in an amazing series </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">featuring the hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake, against the backdrop </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">of Henry VIII’s ever-changing wives. Shardlake is an intelligent and </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">sensitive protagonist, with the education to make a comfortable life </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">for himself, whilst reconciling himself to the fact that his deformity </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">means he will always be ridiculed and shunned, and that he will likely </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">never find someone to share his life with. The politics of the era </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">are blended cleverly with some murder mystery Matthew is trying to get </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to the bottom of. I will read these books again, because the </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">wonderful writing makes them a joy to read, but it would be fabulous </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to do so again with the foreknowledge of ‘whodunnit’.</span><br />
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10. Book you turn to for comfort</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Douglas Adams’s HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. It always makes me </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">laugh out loud.</span><br />
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11. Favourite line from a book</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">No one line springs to mind, but I love Jim Butcher’s books about his </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Chicago wizard Harry Dresden, because they are full of snappy </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">one-liners. Harry is forever getting into trouble for them, but they </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">are wonderful to read.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Website: </span><a href="http://sarajaynetownsend.weebly.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #1155cc; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" target="_blank">http://sarajaynetownsend.<wbr></wbr>weebly.com</a><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Blog: </span><a href="http://sayssara.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #1155cc; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" target="_blank">http://sayssara.wordpress.com</a>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-62416330446841346712012-02-13T20:49:00.000+00:002012-02-13T20:49:44.729+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Karin Eider<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CvnbRhThbZA/Tzl3TCH1ubI/AAAAAAAAAu8/JU5hoCyKdF4/s1600/Karin's+Favorite+Bookshelf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CvnbRhThbZA/Tzl3TCH1ubI/AAAAAAAAAu8/JU5hoCyKdF4/s400/Karin's+Favorite+Bookshelf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">Your childhood favorite</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first love was a book of fairy tales in y grandmother's house. It was written in old German font and beautifully illustrated. Unfortunately it got lost or somebody else grabbed it when my grandmother died. I should remember to keep an eye open at flea markets and antique book shops!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As young girl then I was obsessed by the <i>Hanni & Nanni</i> series written by Enid Blyton.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Your current favorite<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's rather difficult to chose one under your children, isn't it? *sigh* But if I really have to it would be <i>The Black Dagger Brotherhood</i> series by J.R. Ward. I've recently read the whole series again, just because of the German release of the latest book. Of course, I've already read the English version, I can't wait such long!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">3.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Your top five authors<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In no particular order: J.R. Ward, Alexandre Dumas, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King ... can I really just name five?!?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">4.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Book(s) you’re reading now<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've just opened the door to Cornelia Funke's <i>Inkheart</i> series ... where I always ask myself to which book I literally want to find a door to get in there in person.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">5.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Book(s) you’ve pretended to read<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first impulse was to say 'None!', but then just the other day I saw an announcement for an upcoming movie ... to my shame and as passionate lover of <i>Lord Of The Rings</i> (both, book and movie), I have to admit, that I've never read <i>The Hobbit</i> - I only know the audio book. That doesn't count as <i>read</i>, right?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">6.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Again I'd love to say 'None!' ... but that's only half of the truth. I fancy books that look good in my book shelves. That for I've bought many of my favorites a second time, when a beautiful box set or special edition was released, e.g. Dan Brown's special illustrated edition of <i>Angels & Demons</i> and <i>The DaVinci Code</i> or the box set of <i>His Dark Materials</i> by Philip Pullman.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">7.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Book you’re a champion for<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are so many books I love for different reasons and for exactly those reasons I would recommend or defeat them:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Stand</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by Stephen King: Published in 1978, the possibility, that fiction becomes reality has never been more current and frightening.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Count Of Monte Christo</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by Alexandre Dumas: No other book has ever portrait revenge in such a complex manner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Twilight Saga</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by Stephenie Meyer: A series, that satisfies the desire of my teenage-girl-heart.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Perfume</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by Patrick Sueskind: The world of smells preserved between pages. Wonderful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Silent Miaow</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by Paul Gallico, <i>Felidae</i> by Akif Pirincci, <i>Warrior Cats</i> series by Erin Hunter: Must-reads for every cat owner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">Anne Franks Diary</span></i><span lang="EN-US">: A simple must read.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">Die Goldhaendlerin</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> (The Gold Merchant) & <i>Die Wanderhure</i> (The Wandering Whore) by Iny Lorentz: Strong heroines conquer their way in the Middle Ages.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">Pride & Prejudice </span></i><span lang="EN-US">by Jane Austen: In that particular case, I'm not sure, if I like the book or the movie (the version with Keira Kneightley) more?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">I'm Off Then: My Journey Along the Camino de Santiago</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by Hape Kerkeling: Funny, entertaining and 'a cognition of the day' at the end of every chapter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Physician</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by Noah Gordon & <i>The Pillars of the Earth</i> by Ken Follett: The Middle Ages have never been described more colorful and alive and thrilling.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Lord of the Rings</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> by J.R.R. Tolkien: What else should I say than 'One book to rule them all'!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">Ramses</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> series by Christian Jacq: Satisfies my desire for ancient Egypt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">Harry Potter</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> series by J.K. Rowling: With every new release I admired her immense imagination and her ability to lay out secret hints more and more.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">The Black Dagger Brotherhood </span></i><span lang="EN-US">series by J.R. Ward: Vampire warrior have never been sexier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 36.85pt; text-indent: -19.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><i><span lang="EN-US">And many others named in this questionnaire or waiting in my book shelves...</span></i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">8.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Book that changed your life<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wouldn't say <i>changed</i> ... I mean, it's quite a big impact for such a small word. But there's a book that made me think a lot, about life, fate and coincidence, possibilities and lost chances, me and my personality: <i>The Alchemist</i> by Paulo Coelho.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">9.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Book you most want to read again for the first time<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unbelievable, but true, there are a few books in my shelves, I have read only once and they just wait for another turn: <i>Ulldart </i>series by Markus Heitz, <i>The Millennium Trilogy</i> by Stieg Larsson and <i>The Swarm</i> by Frank Schaetzing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">10.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Book you turn to for comfort<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually, there's no particular book. When I feel for a special book, I read it!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">11.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc6600;">Favorite line from a book<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><i><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not sure, if it's from the book or the movie, anyway it's from <i>Lord Of The Rings</i>, J.R.R. Tolkien.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Find more about my thoughts on reading, writing and Art Journaling over at my blog <a href="http://nofretiri.blogspot.com/">Nofretiris Dream Of Writing</a>.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-71929770124911236712012-02-09T06:00:00.000+00:002012-02-09T06:00:04.237+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Wayne Kernochan<div style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a5/The_Outsiders_book.jpg/200px-The_Outsiders_book.jpg" width="246" /> </div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">1. Your childhood favourite</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">2. Your current favourite</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Wally Lamb and Aldous Huxley were tied until Wally friended me on Face Book </span><img class="emote_img" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/images/blank.gif" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: url(http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/yM/r/WlL6q4xDPOA.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; bottom: 1px; color: #333333; height: 16px; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: -2px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 16px;" title=":)" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">3. Your top five authors</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Aldous Huxey, Wally Lamb, C.S. Lewis, Sylvia Plath and Maya Angelou</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">4. Book(s) you’re reading now</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">None</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Once, I said I read the Quran cover to cover, but I skimmed it </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">None</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">7. Book you’re a champion for</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I don't understand the question </span><img class="emote_img" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/images/blank.gif" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: url(http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/yM/r/WlL6q4xDPOA.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: -48px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; bottom: 1px; color: #333333; height: 16px; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: -2px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 16px;" title=":D" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">8. Book that changed your life</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">The Outsiders started me writing. I'll go with that one</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I know this much is True</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">10. Book you turn to for comfort</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Elements of Style</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">11. Favourite line from a book</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">"Dear Jesse, as the moon lingers a moment over the bitterroots, before its descent into the invisible, my mind is filled with song. I find I am humming softly; not to the music, but something else; some place else; a place remembered; a field of grass where no one seemed to have been; except a deer; and the memory is strengthened by the feeling of you, dancing in my awkward arms."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Norman Maclean. I forget the book's name. It was a series of short stories that inspired the movie A River Runs Through it</span></span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-32216939486276519282012-02-06T06:00:00.000+00:002012-02-06T06:00:04.450+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Heidi Sutherlin<div style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="http://media.ove.cybermage.se/2010/06/a-thousand-words-of-stranger.jpg" width="300" /> </div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 14px;"><br />
</span></span></div></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Your Childhood Favourite </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain series. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>2. Your Current Favourite</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Nora Roberts' Sign of Seven trilogy.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>3. Your Top Five Authors</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle/Amanda Quick (her pen names), Marion Zimmer Bradley, Christine Feehan, Linda Lael Miller</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>4. Book(s) you are reading now</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Lisa Jackson SHIVER</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>5. Book(s) you've pretended to read</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I've never pretended to read one. Was tempted in college a time or two. </span><img class="emote_img" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/images/blank.gif" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: url(http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/yM/r/WlL6q4xDPOA.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; bottom: 1px; color: #333333; height: 16px; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: -2px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; position: relative; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 16px;" title=":)" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>6. Book(s) you've bought for the cover</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Oddly, I've never bought a book for the cover. Hmm. Weird. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>7. Book(s) you're a champion for</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser. It's not a happy or easy read, but it's an important piece of early American fiction. It was written during a time of self discovery in literature and was one of the precursors to contemporary fiction as we know it today. There are other more interesting novels from that period, but SISTER CARRIE is a powerful example of the impact of portraying life as it is, even when it's painful to watch. No happy endings there. A close second to this would be WHAT MAISEY KNEW by Henry James. He wrote this before Dreiser wrote SISTER CARRIE, but it is another Early American novel in the literary realism genre that was instrumental in grounding literature and paving </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">the way for contemporary fiction. Okay...stepping away from the soap box slowly.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>8. Book that changed your life</b></span></span><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">A THOUSAND WORDS FOR STRANGER by Julie E. Czerneda. In short the main character has part of her memory blocked. While she learns who she is all over again, she realizes in the end when her memory is restored that she's had the opportunity to grow as a person in ways she would not have without her memory loss. The lesson? That nobody is cemented into the path that they are on, that you can truly be whatever you set your mind to and that relying on "your nature" as an excuse is not necessary. There's a lot of hope in that. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b></span></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">The entire Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley (can you sense a pattern here...?)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>10. Book you turn to for comfort</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Nora Roberts' Three Sisters Island trilogy.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>11. Favourite line from a book</b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">"Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Went for a ride in a flying shoe." - Shel Silverstein, WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS</span></span><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks! This has been interesting. I've learned a bit about myself doing this. What a lovely exercise.</span></span> </div></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-1276522513443521122012-02-02T06:00:00.001+00:002012-02-02T06:00:03.511+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Joanne Hall<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/thegeekfiles/Dragonflight.jpg" /> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><b>1. Your childhood favourite<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">It’s not very fashionable to admit now, but I was really into Enid Blyton. All her adventure series (though not the Secret Seven, they annoyed me), but the Famous Five, the Five Find Outers, the “Castle of Adventure” series. Ok, I realise now they were essentially all the same plot and she was churning them out like MacDonalds make hamburgers, but I was about seven and I liked the idea of kids going off and doing Stuff without the intervention of parents. Also, I lived in the country, so it was easy to take a packet of sandwiches and disappear for the day and have adventures of my own without my parents worrying too much. This was the early eighties, I guess it was a different world then...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 2. Your current favourite<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">I’m going through an heroic fantasy phase – I say going through, but really I’ve always liked heroic fantasy, and the books that are coming out now seem more gritty and real. It’s also nice to see female characters playing a bigger role in modern heroic fantasy, I went back over a few David Gemmell books recently and it was alarming to me that I’d never noticed how the women were generally relegated to a washing / cooking/ healing role. I’m loving “Song of Ice and Fire” (who isn’t!), and Joe Abercrombie, and I recently bought “Wolfsangel” by M D Lachlan which looks great, so I’m looking forward to that. And for light relief between all the slaughter I’m re-reading Lloyd Anthony’s “Chronicles of Prydain”, which I haven’t read since I was about ten. They’re remarkably grown-up in their tone, and they’re making me want to go back to that classic British fantasy that came out in the 60’s, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner. So I might read some more of that next!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 3. Your top five authors<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">My top five of anything is subject to change without notice. My top five authors this week are Isaac Asimov, David Gemmell, Joseph Conrad, Neil Gaiman and Diana Wynne Jones. Ask me next week and it’ll be someone different.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 4. Book(s) you’re reading now<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">I’m currently reading “P J Harvey – Siren Rising” by James Blandford. It didn’t start off too promisingly; it falls into the trap of a lot of unauthorised music biographies of speculation laced with “facts” grabbed off Wikipedia and old quotes from the music press. It got more interesting when he started talking about the late 80’s Bristol music scene and began to sound like he had done some proper research. It’s one of those books that could go either way. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">I have pretended to read books, to sound clever *hangs head and mumbles* That was when I was in college and I had no confidence. I’m happy to say that I’ve now read most of the books I’ve pretended to read in the past, and most of them were books I wanted to get around to reading! Can’t think of many titles, but “Lipstick Traces” by Greil Marcus was one of them, and I <i>still</i> haven’t read that. It is on my wish list though!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover <o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">I’ve never bought a book just for the cover. If the cover’s good I’ll look at the blurb. It’s a combination of good blurb and good cover, a decent blurb can make up for a bad cover, but it doesn’t work the other way round! I remember picking up my first Terry Pratchett (“Wyrd Sisters”) because I’d never seen a cover like that – this was when Josh Kirby was still doing them, I think I was about fourteen – but I bought it because the blurb made me laugh. Then my mum borrowed it because the blurb made <i>her </i> laugh...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 7. Book you’re a champion for<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">At the moment, I’m championing Stephanie Burgis’s wonderful Kat Stephenson Regency fantasies. They’re like Jane Austen meets Dianna Wynne Jones, and I can’t wait to see how the series pans out. I’m buying them for my goddaughter in the hope that she too will grow up and want to cut off all her hair and run away to be a highwayman. If she does, I’ll know I’ve done something right!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 8. Book that changed your life<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">“Dragonflight” by Anne McCaffrey. A friend lent it to me when I was twelve (I say lent, I never gave it back). It made me want to ride dragons, and, more importantly, it made me want to <i>write</i> about dragons, and it opened up a whole previously unexplored genre to me. I blame “Dragonflight” for, yeah, pretty much everything...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 9. Book you most want to read again for the first time<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">“The Robots of Dawn” by Isacc Asimov. I think it might be the only book that I finished and felt so sad that it was over that I went straight back to the beginning and read it through again. That’s a rare feeling, and it’s impossible to recapture on a second / third / fifteenth reading.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 10. Book you turn to for comfort <o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">“Winne the Pooh” and “The House at Pooh Corner”. I still have the same copies I had when I was four, which are hardbacks, though they lost their covers years ago. It’s like reading a hug.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<b> 11. Favourite line from a book<o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">“</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere” – Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Such a succinct, smart way of saying “Oh dear, the end of the world just happened, and you missed it.” Even now, when I’m wandering down the street and it’s a Wednesday that looks a lot like an early Sunday morning, I get a little unnerved...<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-77541380444872074892012-01-30T06:00:00.000+00:002012-01-30T06:00:04.969+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Emily Gee<div style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ODfB-mJslT0/TJvHdHY-OuI/AAAAAAAAADY/fXE_HCQlW-g/s400/the-naughtiest-girl-in-the-school-4.jpg" width="268" /> </div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">1. Your childhood favourite</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree books and her boarding school stories, and the Biggles books by Capt W.E. Johns. I still have all my old copies – boxes of them – and reread them from time to time because I love them so much!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">2. Your current favourite</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Most of my favourites have been favourites for years, like The Magicians of Caprona, by Diana Wynne Jones, and Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer, and A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold, and Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">3. Your top five authors</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Georgette Heyer (Regency and Georgian novels)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan series)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Jennifer Crusie</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci books)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">My father, Maurice Gee</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">4. Book(s) you’re reading now</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I’m rereading a number of Georgette Heyer’s regencies. Also have just started A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.</span></span><br />
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</span><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I can’t think of one. I used to read every book I started, even if I didn’t like it; now I stop reading if a book doesn’t grab me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">7. Book you’re a champion for</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Welcome To Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. I keep telling my friends to read it, but not everyone gets the humour and loves it as much as I do.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">8. Book that changed your life</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">The Naughtiest Girl In The School, by Enid Blyton. I was given this at age 7. Until then reading had been a chore, but once I read this book I was hooked and became a voracious reader!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold and Welcome To Temptation by Jennifer Crusie. Both are fabulous – clever and funny and just plain brilliant.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">10. Book you turn to for comfort </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Anything by my favourite authors.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">11. Favourite line from a book</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I absolutely love the final lines of The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">‘Charles!’ uttered Sophy, shocked. ‘You cannot love me!’</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Mr Rivenhall pulled the door to behind them, and in a very rough fashion jerked her into his arms, and kissed her. ‘I don’t: I dislike you excessively!’ </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">(If you haven’t read The Grand Sophy, read it – it’s fabulous fun!)</span></span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-61722526907263480272012-01-25T06:00:00.001+00:002012-01-25T06:00:06.417+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Michela D'Orlando<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><img height="640" src="http://slaterfiction.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/12-fight-club-book.jpg" width="422" /> </span></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Your childhood favourite</b><br />
Fairy tales! I still complain about the fact that books for grown-ups don’t have illustrations. The ugly duckling is still my favourite classic fairy tale. Later on, to be honest there was never enough action in books for kids. I liked fights and strong heroines, but all that was available to me as a kid in elementary school were the various Pollyannas and Little Women and I didn’t like those stories at all. But at around 12 I fell in love with Homer, Virgil’s Aeneid and the epic poems of the Renaissance. My favourite reads were all about Greek mythology, legends and heroes.<br />
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<b>2. Your current favourite</b><br />
I really like the wave of gritty heroic/epic fantasy out there, so Clash of Kings by George RR Martin, Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie and The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan are among my current favourites. Aside from fantasy, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.<br />
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<b>3. Your top five authors</b><br />
I tend to have favourite books more than favourite authors and, except for the first two in the list, they change from time to time, but I’ll try:<br />
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Homer<br />
Stephen King<br />
Chuck Palahniuk<br />
Joe Abercrombie<br />
Richard Morgan<br />
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I want to add some ladies there... so many authors I haven’t read yet, or haven’t read enough and I plan to fill the gap as fast as I can!<br />
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<b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now</b><br />
I’m always reading at least four books at a time, usually more. <br />
At the moment: <br />
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Catching Fire, Book 2 in the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins, on your very welcome recommendation. <br />
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Roma Victrix by Russell Whitfield. I have a thing for warrior women, and this novel is about a female gladiator. <br />
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Legend by David Gemmell. For when I win the award... <br />
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Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston. Pulp-noire, and pulp is fun.<br />
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Last but not least, A Feast For Crows by George RR Martin.<br />
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<b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read </b><br />
None since I’ve finished school a long time ago. In school, Pollyanna and Little Women for sure, and Verne’s Journey To The Centre Of The Earth. As any ten year old, I perfectly knew that the centre of the Earth couldn’t look like that. A very bad case of suspension of disbelief not working at all.<br />
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<b>6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</b><br />
I can’t think of any. I get more lured by the story on the back cover and by the tags. I’ll admit, tag your book ‘gritty and bloody violent’ and I’m very likely to at least pick it up and check it out. I do love covers, though. There are so many beautiful ones out there, but I just like them as a form of art in itself. I buy the book only if I’m interested in the story.<br />
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<b>7. Book you’re a champion for</b><br />
If I have to pick one, that’d be the Iliad. If more than one I’ll add The Hobbit and, for more recent fiction, Fight Club.<br />
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<b>8. Book that changed your life</b><br />
Not a novel, but Nietzsche’s works that I read as a teenager. I didn’t embrace any one philosophy, but those readings really got me thinking and all that thinking set in motion some major changes in my life. As fiction goes, I’d say The Crystal Cave from Mary Stewart because it was the first epic fantasy book I read and I found it as exciting and intense as my beloved epic poems. It was about the Arthurian legend, told from Merlin’s point of view. It had swords, fights and magic and it marked the beginning of my love for fantasy books.</span><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b><br />
The Hobbit<br />
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<b>10. Book you turn to for comfort</b><br />
Any novel that sets off my imagination, since escapism has always been my solace. But when I need comfort because it’s hard to write, I turn to On Writing by Stephen King.<br />
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<b>11. Favourite line from a book</b><br />
I have too many, lines stick in my head a lot!<br />
OK, just two:<br />
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In Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, after beating a handsome guy’s face to a pulp, the narrator says: “I was in a mood to destroy something beautiful.”<br />
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And in A Clash Of Kings by George RR Martin, Jamie Lannister has one of my favourite lines ever. When told the world is a bad place because of men like him, he says: “There are no men like me. There’s only me.”<br />
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Thanks Dolly for having me, your blog rocks!</span></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-38021885471363807602012-01-23T06:00:00.012+00:002012-01-24T21:32:07.705+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Mike Shevdon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="400" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/159102594X.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" width="267" /> </div><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">1. Your childhood favourite</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">I know this isn't very politically correct, but for me the Enid Blyton Mysteries were a big part of my childhood reading. I had no connection with the characters - they were from another age - but that didn't matter. The freedoms they enjoyed and the adventures they experienced were everything. Nowadays they seem dated and culturally challenged, but at the time I devoured them. An early lesson - you can forgive much for a good story.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2. Your current favourite</b></span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Joe Abercrombie: The Blade Itself. </span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">I chose this book for a specific reason. I fell out of love with Fantasy. It had been a long affair and we had been through a lot together, but the relationship had become stale and repetitive and had nothing new to offer. It culminated with Robert Jordan's: Wheel of Time. Here was a Fantasy epic which had no perceivable end or even a plot. It had characters I cared about which I ceased to care about. It was the end.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Then I was on holiday in Greece and I'd read all the books I'd taken with me. I went to the hotel book exchange and swapped one of my books for one of the ones that had been left. It was The Blade Itself. I had no expectation that I would finish it, but most of the other books were in German. Two days later I had finished it and immediately got my son to read it. My love of Fantasy was alive and well, thanks to Joe.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">3. Your top five authors</b></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Neil Gaiman - Anything, but the Sandman series is an all-time favourite</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barbara Hambly - The Time of the Dark, the Rainbow Abyss, and many others</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alan Moore - Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc.</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Robert Crais - Start with The Monkey's Raincoat</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Janet Evanovich - Any Stephanie Plum, beginning with One for the Money</span></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now</b></span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Idries Shah: Darkest England - A re-read of the classic analysis of English Culture</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Windows Server 2008, Administrator's Pocket Guide - Work related</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sizzling Sixteen, Janet Evanovich - Light read</span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Houses of Parliament, Pitkin Guide - Research</span></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</b></span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Dickens. Seen and heard the play, watched the TV, never read the books.</span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover </b></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Keepers of the Kingdom, The Ancient Offices of Britain - for Mark Cator's cover photograph of the Queen's Remembrancer.</span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">7. Book you’re a champion for</b></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">The Master and Margarita: Mikhail Bulgakov. The devil comes to Moscow during the Communist era, but no-one believes in him. What ensues is a multi-layered tapestry threaded through an urban fantasy, a critique of the soviet system, a potentially blasphemous account of the meeting between Pontius Pilate and Christ, vampires, witches and a host of other things. Every time I read it I discover something new.</span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">8. Book that changed your life</b></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere, Adele Westbrook and Oscar Ratti</span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">I began studying Aikido in 1982, and bought a number of books to try and enhance and explain what was being taught. This book, with Oscar Ratti's black ink illustrations of Aikido movements, brought alive for me what the techniques meant, and continued to enlighten me right through to black belt. It's a book worth reading even if you have no knowledge of martial arts. Its philosophy and depth of understanding set it apart from any other.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Ursula le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea</span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">When I'd read The Hobbit and all of C S Lewis' Narnia books, I looked around for something to follow them. I bought and read everything I could find that was fantasy. I went through Anne McCaffrey, Stephen Donaldson, and a host of other authors. I enjoyed them all, but they didn't satisfy, they only fed the hunger. I branched out into SF, finding much to like but still not finding anything to satisfy. </span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Then I found A Wizard of Earthsea. Ursula le Guin wrote with such a simple transparent style, lucid and open, but with a wealth of meaning. It's still one of my all time favorite books. I bought Changing Planes recently and found myself wanting to read this book all over again.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">10. Book you turn to for comfort </b></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Barbara Hambly is an American author and medieval historian. She has written many books, all of them good, but my favourite is a trilogy called The Time of the Dark. It's a classic fantasy tale of a couple of young Americans who get accidentally transported to another world where the society is under threat from an invasion of strange creatures from below ground. The creatures are one of the best and most convincing depictions of a non-human creature in genre fiction, and utterly convincing. You should read them for that alone.</span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">The reason I read and re-read this book is because the story is totally immersive. I can almost feel numbing cold on the road with the refugees, almost taste the woodsmoke on the air. I can hear the chittering of the Dark as they slide silently between the trees. Wonderful writing, fabulous characters and a plot that delivers even when you know the twists and turns are coming.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">11. Favourite line from a book</b></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">There are so many, but this is a particular favourite:</span><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.” ― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely</span></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-15304481154792743692012-01-21T18:48:00.003+00:002012-02-26T12:25:30.496+00:00Books Read 2012<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As per <a href="http://writerrevealed.blogspot.com/2011/12/2012-annual-reading-challenge.html">this post</a>, this year I am hoping to read 100 books. I started doing this challenge on the blog since July 2009, and I love it. Now that I see how enlightening it is to keep track of books I read, I can't believe I didn't do it before. So, this is where I will list the books I read this year. Feel free to share comments about any of the books here, or what you are reading. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">01. So Many Books, So Little Time - Sara Nelson - 14/01</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">02. Art of Forgetting (critique copy) - Joanne Hall - 21/01</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">03. Dead Reckoning - Charlaine Harris - 26/01</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">04. 1984 - George Orwell - 02/02</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">05. 279 Days to Overnight Success - Chris Guillebeau - 09/02</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">06. The World Domination Manifesto - Chris Guillebeau - 11/02</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">07. 18 Months, 2 Blogs, Six Figures - Corbett Barr - 12/02</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">08. Live Off Your Passion (lite) - Scott Dinsmore - 16/02</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">09. Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris - 18/02</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">10. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable - Seth Godin - 24/02</span><br />
<br />Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-22919028851808434942012-01-16T06:00:00.003+00:002012-01-22T09:16:36.401+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Kaitlyn K. Hall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/DaVinciCode.jpg/200px-DaVinciCode.jpg" width="267" /> </div><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Your childhood favourite</b>The Little House on the Prairie series<br />
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<b>2. Your current favourite</b>The Wheel of Time series<br />
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<b>3. Your top five authors</b>Robert Jordan, Terry Pratchett, Laurell K. Hamilton, Laurie Halse Anderson, Edgar Allen Poe<br />
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<b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now</b>Betsy the Vampire Queen, A Grim Pact, From Where I Sit: Making my way with cerebral palsy<br />
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<b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</b>Pretty much every required HS reading assignment I pretended to read, BS'd my way thru the work, then read later on on my own time and at my own pace. I pretty much did it to spite my teachers. I have issues with authority... <br />
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<b>6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</b>I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever done that. I've bought new copies of books I've read or owned because they redid the cover art or and/or binding style, but I've never bought a book I've never read simply because I liked the cover.<br />
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<b>7. Book you’re a champion for</b>I get defensive about any books that go under fire. But the one I've gotten most riled up about has been The DaVinci Code. I love the book. It has amazing detail and thoughts, but IT IS A WORK OF FICTION. FICTION, people!!! <br />
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<b>8. Book that changed your life</b>3 of them. An Unquiet Mind, Speak, and The Book of Mormon.<br />
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<b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b>Speak and An Unquiet Mind. Most definitely.<br />
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<b>10. Book you turn to for comfort</b>Probably my scriptures. Or Speak. Sometimes both.</span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-12044431892069243852012-01-12T06:00:00.001+00:002012-01-12T06:00:07.658+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Brooklyn Ann<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VtOTmXO4yXY/TVwQ-sCE7yI/AAAAAAAAAS0/6pNqydHSciI/s1600/color_purple.jpg" /> </div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">1. Your childhood favourite</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">The Bunnicula books<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">2. Your current favourite</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">IT by Stephen King (I've read it 11 times so far.)<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">3. Your top five authors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Oooh, that's a tough one. Only five? ::sigh:: Stephen King, Eloisa James, Virginia Henley, JR Ward, and Alexandra Ripley</span></span><br />
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4. Book(s) you’re reading now</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">11-22-63 and a friend's fantasy novel that's freakin' awesome.</span></span><br />
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5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Pretended? Besides the time a school photographer made me pose with an embarrassingly babyish book when I was 9, I've never "Pretended" to read a book. Either I keep reading or put it down. </span></span><br />
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6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">DESERT HEAT by Jamie De Bree, TIME OF THE TWINS by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and anything with a cat on it. </span></span><br />
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7. Book you’re a champion for</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">PILLARS OF THE EARTH by Ken Follet. I think it's one of the greatest novels ever written.</span></span><br />
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8. Book that changed your life </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker.</span></span><br />
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9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">THE LONG WALK by Richard Bachman.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">10.Book you turn to for comfort</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">All of Judith McNaught's regency romances. </span></span><br />
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11. Favourite line from a book </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Okay I gotta do a serious one and a funny one: Serious: "I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice." THE COLOR PURPLE Funny: "The best part of you ran down your father's leg." IT</span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-55763728488175018832012-01-11T06:00:00.001+00:002012-01-11T06:00:06.503+00:00Word Count Goal for 2012<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love word counts. Maybe because they look so neat and tidy on my spreadsheet, or maybe because they show visible progress on WIP. Maybe, also because they make it easier to set writing goals. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stories should not be driven by word count, of course. It is the story that matters, but for most of us regular folks, we need something to make us sit and write regularly and consistently enough to get that story out. For me, it's word count goals. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For 2012, I've decided to try an annual word count goal challenge.<b> I'm hoping to write 250,000 words by 31st of December. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only condition is that this word count must be towards Book Projects. So blog posts, planning and outlining books, emails, letters, poetry - none of that counts. Just book projects. Reason for that is simple: I want to be a published author of books - so putting words towards that is what's going to achieve it. Not just words by themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not going to obsess over daily goals, or even monthly goals. I am going to focus on my books, and hopefully, that will get me there, because some writing periods are more intense than others. Still, 250K seems plausible. If you are interested, you can follow my progress through the word count progress bar at the right. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What about you? How do you feel about word counts? Will you / do you have any word count goals for this year? </span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-54162043359931968892012-01-10T06:00:00.002+00:002012-01-10T06:00:01.209+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Juliet E. McKenna<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); text-align: center;"><span lang="EN"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><img height="400" src="http://media.oregonlive.com/books_impact/photo/the-fifth-witness-jpg-91b6d288191e1cbf.jpg" width="400" /> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before I start, I should warn you that I find picking favourites in books pretty much impossible – in that if you ask me these same questions in a month’s time, you’re likely to get an entirely different set of answers, depending on mood, recollection, my current reading, work in progress and so on.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>1. Your childhood favourite<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rosemary Sutcliffe – Warrior Scarlet<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>2. Your current favourite<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Michael Connelly – The Fifth Witness – but only because this is the most recent by one of my favourite writers. As soon as one of the others has a new book out, chances are that’ll top the list.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>3. Your top five authors<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kate Elliott, Val McDermid, Ellis Peters, Charles Stross, Kelley Armstrong, Joanne Harris, Robert Crais – oh, wait, I need to stop now, don’t I?<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Redeemed, M.R. Hall<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A couple of self-published efforts forced onto me which I don’t propose to identify. I skimmed first and last chapters, which proved beyond all doubt why no agent or editor had taken them.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t honestly think there is one. A cover might get me to pick a book up but if the first page doesn’t grab me, it goes back on the shelf.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>7. Book you’re a champion for<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Farthing, Jo Walton.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>8. Book that changed your life<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Horse & His Boy; the first Narnia book I read for myself, opening up vast worlds of imagination for me.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Lord of the Rings.<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>10. Book you turn to for comfort<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett (who should be on that top five list as well)<u></u><u></u></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>11. Favourite line from a book<u></u><u></u></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'<b><span style="color: black;">You</span></b>'<b><span style="color: black;">re wizards</span></b>!' she screamed. '<b><span style="color: black;">Bloody well wizz</span></b>! ' Eskarina Smith in ‘Equal Rites’. (Since<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333;"> that last answer has me thinking ‘Discworld’ Ask that one again and there’ll be a different answer every time.)</span></span></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-75823753371015733792012-01-09T06:00:00.004+00:002012-01-09T06:00:02.377+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Gareth L Powell<div style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/11/Have_Space_suit.jpg" width="277" /> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">1. Your childhood favourite</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I had many favourite books as a child. I was very fond of the Dragonfall 5 books by Brian Earnshaw, the Biggles books by Cpt WE Johns, Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein, and Larry Niven's Ringworld Engineers. I also read 2000AD whenever I could, and I still have the 1979 2000AD annual on my bookshelves. However, the book I remember with most fondness is a book aimed at younger readers. The Bears Who Stayed Indoors by Susanna Gretz and Alison Sage, first published in 1971, is the story of four bears and their dog who, when forced by rain to stay indoors, play at being astronauts. As a young child (I'm thinking around 4 years old), I absolutely adored it. A quick search of Amazon shows that the book is still in print, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone with a little would-be astronaut in their life. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">2. Your current favourite</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I have a different favourite book every week; but my all-time favourite will always be On The Road by Jack Kerouac. It's a vast, sprawling epic and a masterpiece of compelling narration, and I still rate it as my number one favourite book of all time. Every time I read it I see something new, and I'm struck again by the rhythm and poetry of the language, and the immediacy of Kerouac's descriptions. When he writes about sleeping on a hot car roof in the sticky jungle, and the soft rain of bugs falling on his skin, you're right there with him. I think Kerouac's a very misunderstood writer. People get caught up with the beatnik craziness, and they miss the sadness at the heart of the book: the unspeakable, inescapable loneliness of the American night.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">3. Your top five authors</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">> Ernest Hemingway</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">> William Gibson</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">> M. John Harrison</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">> JG Ballard</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">> Philip K. Dick</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">4. Book(s) you’re reading now</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I tend to read several books at once, and am currently in the midst of Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith, Gonzo by Jan Wenner and Corey Seymour, and Player One by Douglas Coupland.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">5. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I was fascinated by the covers to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. The first, Red Mars, showed spacesuited figures in a lifeless landscape of canyons and rock; the second, Green Mars, depicted an airship flying over the same terrain, except now there was snow in the valley and green shoots between the boulders; and the final cover had a coastal town, pine trees and a schooner sailing a blue inlet at the foot of a red mountain. The transformation was startling, and promised an epic tale unfolding over time - which I'm glad to say the books within delivered.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">6. Book that changed your life</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I think the book that most shaped my development as a writer has to be William Gibson's Burning Chrome. Until I read it, I was still immersed in the old school fiction of Niven, Clarke and Heinlein, with its unshakeable faith in a rational, technological and largely American future. Gibson showed me something else. His stories felt more immediate and real. They were gritty and dangerous, but the lowlife grifters that peopled them were more believeable than the traditional "scientist as hero" types I had been used to, and the stories were written in a hardboiled, pared-down argot that wasted not one word. It was a revelation and a masterclass all rolled into one.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">7. Book you most want to read again for the first time</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I loved Douglas Coupland's Generation X. I read it at university, in my early twenties, and it was like a postcard from the other side of the world saying: "Don't despair. We are here, and we understand how you feel." The three main characters shared the same aimless, post-cynical weltanschauung that I saw in the faces of my friends. It seemed to be the first book I'd ever read about *us*. I'd love to read it again for the first time, to feel that thrill of recognition; but also, now I am in my forties, I'm sure it would also have a new nostalgic element that just wasn't yet there two decades ago.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">8. Book you turn to for comfort </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">When I want the comfort of a familiar book, I often turn to Kerouac or Coupland. Other favourites include: "e" by Matt Beaumont, which is a hilarious book for anyone who's ever worked in a large coporation, especially in marketing and PR, as I have; Nova by Samuel Delany; The Stone Canal by Ken MacLeod; Gateway by Frederik Pohl; and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. As my reading time is usually limited, I tend to go for short books. I love long epic trilogies, such as the aforementioned Mars books by Kim Stanley Robinson, but its hard to justify the time to go back and spend a couple of months re-reading them when I have so many new books clamouring for my attention.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" />9. Favourite line from a book</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Not so much a line as a passage, I would like the final speech from Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men read at my funeral. It's a masterful summation of human ambition and frailty, a view of mankind's place in the universe, and a calm acceptance of its eventual extinction. It begins: "Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them." and finishes, "It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man."</span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-35612365652756648992012-01-07T06:00:00.006+00:002012-01-07T06:00:02.592+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - José Kilbride<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/TheCrippledGod.jpg" /> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>1. Your childhood favourite</b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I think The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier is probably one of my favourite childhood books, a more profoundly moving piece of children's fiction I have yet to read. Based on fact, it follows the journey of the Balicki children as they journey through war-time Europe searching for their family. Brilliant.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>2. Your current favourite</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">This is a difficult one to answer as there are so many I really do love. I think my current one, of the moment anyway, is The Crippled God by Steven Erikson, final book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. A more fitting end to such a vast, sprawling, complex, intense, humorous and detailed series you will not find. Superb stuff. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>3. Your top five authors</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I have so many to chose from, but if I have to…</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Haruki Murakami</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Steven Erikson</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">CJ Cherryh</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Tanith Lee</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">China Mieville</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">All of them are intensely inventive, dark, humorous, with wonderfully realised characters and worlds. And for me they all explore the nature of humanity in ways that many others cannot quite match.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I always have some 40-odd books on the go at any one time. Current highlights are my re-reading of Gormenghast; plus EJ Newman’s From Dark Places, First among Sequels by Jasper Fforde, The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson, 1Q84 by Huraki Murakami, Roman Warfare by Adrian Goldsworthy and Japan Through the Looking Glass by Alan MacFarlane.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t think I have ever done this, as I would get caught out. There are books I have pretended NOT to have read, despite having done so. And no, I am not going to tell you what they are.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I buy a lot of books for their covers, particularly science-fiction and fantasy novels from the 1960s, ‘70s and early ‘80s. I have a thing for the artwork of this era, which can be inspired, awful and eyebrow raising, often all at once..</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>7. Book you’re a champion for</b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">The Napoleon of Notting Hill (GK Chesterton) is one of the greatest books I have ever read, and is one I would consider a must-read by anyone and everyone. Detailing the events of a futuristic London, the elected King of England plays a grand practical joke on his nation. His humorous vision inspires a young man to believe in his idea, not realising it is a joke, and thus a cascade of events takes place. It is a book about ideas, about faith and about the corruption of both. It is a brilliant, brilliant book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>8. Book that changed your life</b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein, for better and for worse. This book very much inspired my love for fantasy and science fiction (the good), which precluded reading more widely at one point (the bad). It was vast, epic and heroic, despite the odds. All despite the weird Tom Bombadil bit, which I hate. Everything else was wondrous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Thoroughly absorbing, incredibly inventive and wonderfully detailed, this book humbled and astounded me both as a reader and a writer. I wish I could read it again for that continuing sense of awe and that wonderment when it was finished.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>10. Book you turn to for comfort </b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Mortal World by Deborah Pope is a collection of poems that are simply sublime. I love poetry, and was profoundly impacted by this collection. Mortal World explores her Pope’s relationship with the world, her partner and her children, and it is gentle, heart-breaking, traumatic and up-lifting. It taught me much about emotion, about detailing those and the world around us with the simplicity of words. It is simply a superb collection of poems.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><b>11. Favourite line from a book</b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I don’t really have one, so I am going to cheat and use the quote that China Mieville wrote in my signed copy of Embassytown:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;" /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug.” - Kipling</span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-55253907612775455162012-01-03T06:00:00.001+00:002012-01-03T06:00:00.453+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Jamie Debree<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=31954ef4a0&view=att&th=1344d92c4f2675f3&attid=0.3&disp=emb&realattid=c345e94c3e91d0f3_0.1&zw" /> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><b style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Your childhood favourite</span></b><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hmm...that's a toss up between Trixie Belden, Sherlock Holmes and Jack London's dog/wolf stories. Loved them all. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>2. Your current favourite</b><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wow. These are harder than I thought they'd be! I can't choose just one. The Immortal Brotherhood series by Lisa Hendrix has be waiting rather impatiently for the next one, and that's paranormal romance (viking shifters - whew!). "Night of Wolves" (fantasy) by David Dalglish recently surprised me as really being quite fabulous (I don't read much fantasy), and this time of year my top pick for literary fiction is "Comfort and Joy", a short story by Craig Lancaster (new last year). Oh! And my favorite horror read this year was/is Cupid's Maze by Mark Souza. It's another short story, but amazing (and seriously freaky!). </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3. Your top five authors</b><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of all time? Restraining myself to fiction: Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Sir Arther Conan Doyle, Grace Livingston Hill, Issac Asimov. Well, today, anyways. I mean, there are so many....</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As far as modern authors go...I suppose I'd pick: James Rollins, Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child (as a team), Michelle Davidson Argyle, Samantha Hunter & Vivian Arend. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now</b><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The Donzerly Light" by Ryne Douglas Pearson (seriously intriguing and kinda freaky)</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"A Walk in the Snark" by Rachel Thompson (okay, but not really my thing)</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The Big Sky, By and By" by Ed Kemmick (local journalist, true stories from Montana, fascinating people)</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</b><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Half or more of the books I was assigned in college, fiction and non-fiction. Who has the time to read, study *and* work full time? I skimmed them all, and still managed to get decent grades... </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</span></b></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You're seriously going to make me admit this? Fine. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="When You Dare" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=31954ef4a0&view=att&th=1344d92c4f2675f3&attid=0.2&disp=emb&realattid=c345e94c3e91d0f3_0.3&zw" /> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">"When You Dare" by Lori Foster is one - for the cover and the trailer. Because I adore half-naked men. Well, most men, actually, but...I should really just stop there....</span> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=31954ef4a0&view=att&th=1344d92c4f2675f3&attid=0.1&disp=emb&realattid=c345e94c3e91d0f3_0.2&zw" /> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; line-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To redeem myself, I also bought "Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance" by Sara Poole for the cover. I still haven't read it, but I love how it looks on my nightstand...and I do want to read it eventually - sounds really good (historical thriller). <br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>7. Book you’re a champion for</b><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Society of the Mind" by Eric L. Harry. It's a hardcore cyber-thriller two inches thick, but buried in the freaky AI-based plot is a lot of deep philosophizing that will just blow you away. Or it did me, anyways.</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>8. Book that changed your life</b><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well that's a tough one. Books have been quite literally shaping my life since I could read...so maybe we'll go with the McGuffy Readers, which are some of the first books I read for actual "school time" when I was home schooled at an early age. I still have them around somewhere, and they are veritable smorgasboards of literature, poetry and bits of wisdom, all bound up in unassuming volumes. </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cliche as it sounds, the Bible had a profound impact on me as well...both philosophically and as far as prose and story-telling goes. </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Gone with the Wind", perhaps. Or "Call of the Wild" by Jack London. I often re-read cheap romance novels, but I'd love to experience those two again as if reading for the first time. </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then again, it wouldn't be the same experience now, would it? Would my adult perceptions hinder that first-time enthusiasm, I wonder? </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>10. Book you turn to for comfort</b><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hmm...I think I mostly need escape more than comfort from books. When I'm stressed or need a serious mental break, I'll mainline romance novels - preferably Harlequin Blaze, one after the other for *days* on end. I think because the core of a romance novel is hope, and the promise that everything will work out okay in the end. </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>11. Favourite line from a book</b></span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Jo never, never would learn to be proper, for when he said that as they stood upon the steps, she just put both hands into his, whispering tenderly. "Not empty now," and stooping down, kissed her Friedrich under the umbrella." - Jo March, Little Women *sigh* </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks Dolly - this was fun! </span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;"><br />
</div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-56496021546722415062011-12-31T06:00:00.017+00:002011-12-31T06:00:01.638+00:00Writer Revealed Book Awards 2011<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writer Revealed Book Awards returns for another year. This is a completely biased list, based on the books I read in 2011, and based only on my opinion. </span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Classic</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Picture of Dorian Gray</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Action/Adventure</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Six Sacred Stones - Matthew Reilly</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Children's</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Matilda - Roald Dahl</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Comic</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nemi - Lisa Myhre</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Crime</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fantasy in Death - J. D. Robb</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Fantasy (Epic) </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was the hardest category this time, because I read Patrick Rothfuss, G. R. R. Martin and more of G. G. Kay. But in the end, The Wise Man's Fear did surpass them all. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Fantasy (Romantic) </b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Laurentine Spy - Emily Gee</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Fantasy (Novella/Story Collection)</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twilight's Dawn - Anne Bishop</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Fantasy (Urban)</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dead to the World - Charlaine Harris</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Fantasy (YA)</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex - Eoin Colfer</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Inspirational Fiction</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Devil and Miss Prym - Paulo Coelho</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Literary Essays</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - Anne Fadiman</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Memoire</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Howards End is On the Landing - Susan Hill</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Science Fiction</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next Logical Step - Ben Bova</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Best Science Fiction (YA)</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Best Writing Craft</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">How to Read Like a Writer - Francine Prose</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Best YA</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Princess Diaries: Ten Out of Ten - Meg Cabot </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-56980703982388738202011-12-27T06:00:00.001+00:002011-12-27T06:00:01.546+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Laura Anne Gilman<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://pic.pimg.tw/amypeng/6dc6c314c89f3d409c0b649427d8e97c.jpg" /> </div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">1. Your childhood fa</span></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vourite</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">TARAN WANDERER by Lloyd Alexander</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;" /><b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">2. Your current favourite</span></b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Not really sure I have one, actually. I have many books I love, but none </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">that last beyond the start of the next new fabulous read. The most </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">recent, maybe was MOON OVER SOHO by Ben Abrahamson (I read the 2nd book </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">first, my bad)</span></span><br />
<div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3. Your top five authors</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">oh, impossible. But here’re five I value highly…</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Lloyd Alexander</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Robin McKinley</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Dorothy L Sayers</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Joe Haldeman</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Isaac Bashevis Singer</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>4. Book(s) you’re reading now</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Natana Barron’s PILGRIM OF THE SKY</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Silas Marner. I think that’s it.</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">I have occasionally picked up a book for its cover, but I’ve never bought </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">it, for that reason.</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>7. Book you’re a champion for</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">as a former editor, I can honestly say “hundreds.”</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>8. Book that changed your life</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">… um… Every book that means something to me changes my life. Sometimes </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">even books that don’t mean anything to me, change my life. Phil Dick’s </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">UBIK broke my brain and put it back together. So did John Irving’s GARP, </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">for a completely different reason. And likewise everything Roger Zelazny </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">ever wrote. And Eli Weisel’s NIGHT, and Judy Blume’s ARE YOU THERE GOD,</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">IT’S ME, MARGARET, and…</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">TARAN WANDERER. Or maybe THE BLUE SWORD, by Robin McKiney</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>10. Book you turn to for comfort</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">THE BLUE SOWRD and HERO AND THE CROWN (McKinley)</span></span><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="im" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #500050;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>11. Favourite line from a book</b></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">it’s not a line, but an entire passage, from A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE, by </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">Peter Beagle, and it ends “All lights go out. So do all fires, if it’s </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">any comfort. Love me, and look at me, and remember me, as I’ll remember </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #222222;">you. There’s nothing more. Sit close and shut up.”</span></span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-51331329678403467292011-12-25T06:00:00.001+00:002011-12-25T06:00:00.458+00:00Merry Christmas<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.ippudo.com.sg/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/13SnowmanMerryChristmas.png" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>To All My Wonderful Friends</i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>May you all have a fantastic Christmas! </i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>All my best wishes, and love. I appreciate any and all the time you spend reading this blog. </i></span></b></div>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828727132315088852.post-66840441309860928482011-12-23T06:00:00.003+00:002011-12-23T06:00:01.029+00:00Bookshelf Snooping - Mark Robinson<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://annathebookworm.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/stardust.jpg" /> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">1. Your childhood favourite</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">I wasn’t a big reader when I was a kid but I do have very fond memories of “The Phantom Toll Booth” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">2. Your current favourite</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Prey by Thomas Emson (this changes frequently) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">3. Your top five authors</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Neil Gaiman</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Terry Prachett</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Jim Butcher</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">John Meaney</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">4. Book(s) you’re reading now</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Rule 34 by Charles Stross</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">99 Coffins by David Welington</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Overclocked by Cory Doctorow</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">5. Book(s) you’ve pretended to read</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">None that I can think of</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">6. Book(s) you’ve bought for the cover </span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Keeping it Real by Justina Robson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Jennifer Government by Max Barry</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">7. Book you’re a champion for</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko & Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">8. Book that changed your life</span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">It would have to the the colour of magic by Terry Prachett, it’s not of his best by a long shot but when I first read it I didn’t read much. This is the book that made me realise how much fun it is to lose yourself in a good book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">9. Book you most want to read again for the first time</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Another really hard question, I’ll have to say Stardust by Neil Gaiman. There are about 15 books at least that I could give as an answer </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">10. Book you turn to for comfort </span></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;">Smoke & Mirrors By Neil Gaiman (awesome short story collection)</span>Dollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08144739453424963436noreply@blogger.com1