TBR list update for August

Here we are at the end of another month! While it is possible that I'll add something else to my TBR today, I'm going to go ahead and post the list this morning.

August 2009
Sprout by Dale Peck- Amanda at A Patchwork of Books
Going too Far by Jennifer Echols- Ana at The Book Smugglers
Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase- Rowena at Book Binge
The Patron Saint of Butterflies by Cecilia Galente- Corinne at The Book Nest
The Secret Life of Prince Charming by Deb Caletti- Leila at Bookshelves of Doom
Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford- Leila at Bookshelves of Doom
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead- snarly's review on Goodreads

I did manage to read two books off the list this month but as I haven't written the reviews yet I can't link you up.

What did you add to your TBR list this month? Any terrific reviews that made you immediately go search out the book? (Because my list isn't quite long enough, and my shelves aren't quite full enough...)

Today is the last day to enter the TBR contest! Be sure to leave me a link on this post if you want to enter.

On reviewing books (TSS)

Do you have a harder time writing reviews of non-fiction than of fiction books? I'm sitting here next to a small stack of three books that are waiting for a review. One of them is fiction and two are non-fiction. Despite having loved one of them and recommended it to everyone I know, I still haven't sat down to review it. It's been months now and the details are getting fuzzy so every day that passes the review gets worse and worse.

Reviewing fiction seems so much easier, because I don't have to get "real" facts right. I can talk about the plot and how I felt about the characters and if I thought it all worked. I don't have to worry about being accurate. The only real worry is spoilers which are pretty easy to avoid, if it isn't a book in a series. Series book present their own challenges, in how to write a nice review but not give away details of previous books. Somehow, I muddle through on those.

Recently I've read a couple of blog posts by popular authors that talk about if blog reviews are real reviews. (The posts also address non-blog reviews, but I don't read many of those so I am not.) In this post by author Shannon Hale, she addresses the issue of "is 'did I like it?' a real review?" Many bloggers (according to her) post reviews that consist of if they liked it, and then have a rating. This is certainly how *I* review books. Does that make it less of a review? Does it have less value if I don't talk about things like technique and motivation? Does applying a rating to the book make the review less legit? Hale asks some great discussion questions at the end of her post, and you really should pop over there and join that discussion as well.

The other post, which directly refers to Hale's, is on John Green's blog. He asks if there are any reviews that you just got wrong. Where you didn't understand the book, but didn't clearly see that the problem was you and not the book. His example was about technology and age, which is a great example. I've been thinking about my own reviews and can't think of an obvious example of one of my own. After looking over my list of reviews, I've come to decide that this is because my reviews tend to be pretty safe. I don't review a lot of things that I dislike because I don't finish books that don't work for me. There are a few that I wish I'd done a better job of linking up to author sites or other reviews of my own, but I'm too lazy to go back and do it. So what about you, are there any reviews that you'd like to do over? Do you ever want to change a rating, if you give ratings?

Another reason that reviews are hard to write, is that I find I get fewer comments on my book reviews than on any other of my posts. I know that comments aren't everything, but it does feel good to get a little feedback on what you write, ya know? I don't know, but I do think that it makes a difference on how much effort I want to put into them. What type of posts do you get the most comments on?

Quick reminder: If you want to enter my TBR day contest you have one more day to do so! I'll accept entries until midnight tomorrow (oh, ok, until I wake up the morning of the 1st.) Head over to this post to enter.

Random Friday: oops!

I seem to have missed Friday! Have some kid pictures to make up for it.

We had a crazy week, ending with a horrible Friday.

I have three books sitting here to review. I need someone to kick me in gear.

I also have another custom bag to work on this weekend, so I'm sure you'll all be seeing some sewing posts in the near future.

There's still a few days left to enter my TBR contest so hop on over to that post.

We are going to the fair today (Saturday). The "must dos" include the ferris wheel, the little game where you pick up a duck and win a "prize", throwing ping pong balls at goldfish, and a funnel cake. What is on your must do list for the fair? What are you doing this weekend?

Team Spirit Banners/ Contest Reminder

One of the things I've been making a lot of lately are Team Spirit Banners. I made a Minnesota Twins one to hang at our campsite.


I made a Go Bulldogs! one for my mother's classroom.

There's a Sturgis Scoopers one, which is a local high school team.



I'm in the process of making a War Eagle one for my friend to tailgate with this fall.

(You'll have to imagine this one, it's not quite assembled yet!)

You'd prefer one with a name on it? I can do that too...

What team do you cheer for? Could you use a custom banner to hang in your game room or at your tailgate party? There is still time to win one! Blog a picture of your TBR pile, or if you don't blog email me a picture and I'll post it for you. You have until August 31st to get your entry in! Be sure to leave me at link at the contest post. Don't have a TBR pile, but still want a banner? You can get your own at the Made by Lisah shop.

Movie: The Time Traveler's Wife

On Friday night two of my girlfriends and I went to see The Time Traveler's Wife. This is fairly significant seeing as the last movie I saw in a theater Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, while I was pregnant with the Bug. I'm not a huge movie buff (hello, understatement!) but I loved The Time Traveler's Wife (the book, my review is here) and knew this was one I needed to see.

To sum it up: I loved it! I thought both Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana were terrific. There were a few moments in the beginning where I doubted Bana, but he definitely pulled it off. I thought they did a great job condensing the story into a reasonable length movie and wasn't too bothered by the changes to the plot. They did leave out some major plot lines, but I don't think that they left anything IN that shouldn't be, so overall it worked. I don't think the time travel itself was nearly as confusing as in the book but as with the book if I think too hard about it I get myself all confused, especially when I think about him traveling forward in time to a point after.

One thing that was much clearer in the movie than in the book was that Claire really didn't have a choice. She always knew what was going to happen and how her life would play out. While I believe that she was in love with him, it kind of changed the focus for me. The movie was much more about HER than about THEM, which is fitting given the title. How do you act when you know how your life will play out?

Anyway, despite the changes and the different focus (for me, anyway) I really enjoyed it. If you're a fan of the book, be not afraid and check it out.

Random Friday, back to school

I made a custom bag for my niece for back to school. I'm really proud of how it turned out.

(The yard is crooked, not the bag.)

My new favorite song is Lady Antebellum's Can't Take my Eyes Off of You. Here is a Youtube video of it- please note this is not actually the video, but it does play the song. You should go listen to it now.

You know how at McDonald's they have those boxes for the Ronald McDonald House at the drive up? I ALWAYS put my change in those. But other restaurants want me to pay like $1 for a little shoe for March of Dimes or something and I always refuse. Wouldn't you think that they'd make a lot more if they did the change thing? Surely someone has done a study on that.

My best friend Gina has decided to take her blog in a new direction. She's the master of finding a good deal and she's going to start showing us how. I've been listening to her save money for months and now you should too.

Raych needs help remembering her current events. Go help her.



My cold seems to be getting better, finally. This is good because we are camping tomorrow. This campground has a playground so the boys can burn off steam before bed.



Garden update: More zucchini! Two real tomatoes in addition to a couple handfuls of grape tomatoes. One cucumber ready to be picked! More chard. The brussel sprouts are pea sized.

What's on tap for your weekend? Camping? Reading? One last hurrah before school?

Honest Scrap Award (meme?)

The Infant Bibliophile tagged me for the Honest Scrap meme and since they are among my favorite posts, I decided to make it a post of it's own, instead of including it in a Random Friday. (In general, I put awards in the Friday post, these seem a little different since there are more to it than just "thanks!")

The "Honest Scrap" award requires me to tell my readers 10 true things about me and then pass it on to 10 more blogs.

10 Things:

1. I make myself a cup of coffee every morning and even though I really want it, I often lose track of it in the morning rush.
2. The only part of the Sunday paper that I read are the ads. Some weeks only the Target ad.
3. Some days I take my kids to daycare 20 minutes early so I can sit in my car and read.
4. I vacuumed my bedroom on Sunday for the first time in months.
5. I do not make the Pirate clean his room, nor do I regularly clean it myself.
6. I do not look for missing toys either.
   
7. I can't stand scare movies or "documentaries" about the destruction of earth by natural forces- typhoons, earthquakes, meteors, floods, nothing. (Actual documentaries about things like Hurricane Katrina are fine.)
8. With the exception of Independence Day.
9. My favorite movie is The Matrix, but if you were to offer me another movie with a plot involving spies, guns, fight scenes, and fake governments I'd be totally uninterested.
10. On Saturday someone asked me when my baby was due. I am not pregnant.

Now to tag 10 other bloggers. I am not going back to see who else has been tagged, sorry.

1. TRISH
2. Kailana at The Written World
   
3. Janssen at Everyday Reading
   
4. Miss Remmer
5. Heather at A High and Hidden Place
6. Gwendolyn at A Sea of Books
7. Lori at She Treads Softly
8. Suey at It's All About Books
9. Alyce at At Home with Books
10. Lisa at Git Down Kitty
    

Don't forget to post a picture of your TBR pile for a chance to win my contest. Entries accepted until August 31st.

TSS: A guided tour of the TBR and a contest with prizes!

Last week I mentioned that I had a huge TBR in addition to the library stack. I thought I'd show it to you today. Now, this is only the "most urgent" of the TBR books. There are 163 of them. Plus probably another dozen scattered through the house either being read or having been carried off by Mike or the boys, so let's say 175 total. There are more in the living room and hundreds more in the basement. I am working on getting rid of some of them, and in fact I have 15 books taking up most of the chair I am sitting in making typing very uncomfortable. I will be listing them on Paperbackswap when I finish this post. At the end of the year there will be fewer books on those shelves, no matter what I have to do to get rid of them (read them or give them away.)

So. This is the full set of shelves. It's located in our bedroom and the top of it becomes a handy dumping ground for mail, keys, hairbrushes, etc. I cleaned that stuff off before taking the picture. AND I PUT IT ALL AWAY! And then I cleaned the rest of the room except Mike's nightstand and the top of my dresser! And then I vacuumed!! I know, right?

They are pretty well organized, but not strictly alphabetically, as some concessions were made for maximizing shelf space. On top you have Romances on the left, and paranormal on the right. You can see the remainder of the Weather Warden series, Harry Dresden, and the last two Kitty Norvilles, among others.
This first part of the top shelf is reserved for young adult fiction. This isn't all the YA in my TBR collection, as I have loaned some Laurie Halse Anderson and Sarah Dessen to a friend.


Then we have regular fiction, mostly alphabetically except for the hardbacks that are too tall for my shelves.

After that is non-fiction. The first stack are the short ones, and by that I mean physically top to bottom. This takes up less horizontal room in a stack. They are in no particular order. After that they are alphabetical, starting there with Armstrong. The bottom shelf is cockeyed, sorry about that. The shelves are at the end of my bed and hard to photograph well.



And at the very end, another stack of romance.

Now, the Contest. I dare you to show me your TBR. You don't have to show me all of them, just the most important ones to you. (And yes, these are the important ones to me.) Tell me how yours are organized. I know a lot of you have done this in the past, but I'm sure your stacks have changed. Leave me a link to your post and I'll draw a winner on September 1st.

The Prize: Any item of your choosing from the Made by Lisah shop including the custom name or team banners* OR any two books off my Paperbackswap shelf. I'll be adding more books to the shelf this week, but being PBS they may not be there on the 1st.

* please, no more than 12 or so letters if you choose this, or you won't get your banner until 2015!

Random Friday *cough*cough*

I have been sick all week, so I haven't been saving things up for Random Friday like I normally do. I have a few blog posts rattling around in my head, so soon I will be will back in full force.

I finished a book this week: A Not-So-Perfect Past by Beth Edwards. Fans of contemporary romances of the Harlequin variety would enjoy it. Great hero and heroine, not a lot of external plot.

I had a couple Amazon.com gift certificates to use up, so I bought these shoes, these marshmellow roasting sticks, a waterproof mattress pad (yes, it's been that kind of week) and a book called Craft, Inc.: Turn Your Creative Hobby into a Business.


I pulled a few more zucchini from the garden this week, and TWO grape tomatoes! I predict a hefty handful more this weekend. There are two cucumbers that seem to be doing well as well.

Since I don't have a lot to say this week, why don't you tell me what you found interesting this week?

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

Just a brief review today because when it's the 9th book in a series it's really hard to write a review that doesn't give anything major away.

Dead and Gone brings me completely current on two series by Charlaine Harris, the Sookie Stackhouse and the Lily Bard series. It makes me want to quick read An Ice Cold Grave to bring myself current all the way around. (Yes, I know she has one more series, I don't like that one.)

So what's this one about? Things have come to a head with the faeries and the weres have decided to come out. The former takes place in secret, since faeries are not out, but the reaction to the existence of the weres take an ugly turn.

What did I think? Definitely stronger than From Dead to Worse , this one seemed to follower a smoother path to the conclusion. While there are two different storylines, Harris brings them together in the end in a way that doesn't seem as disjointed. Bill works towards redeeming himself, there is a Bubba sighting, and there is a nice little open-ended plot line with Eric. There is a lot more specific violence in this one than I remember in previous ones- as in violence against specific people as opposed to big werewolf or vampire brawls. The conclusion has shades of Iron Kissed for me, and I wonder if the great response to that influenced her. Overall, a good entry in the series with enjough of a hook to leave me wanting the next one.

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
Ace Hardcover
2009
320 pages

What's on my list, and where does it come from? (TSS)

Happy Sunday! I'm actually hoping for a nice day of reading and sewing today, so I'm posting this early to get it out of the way. It's been a while since I posted a Sunday Salon and I'd like to get back in the habit of thinking about reading more. For this week I'm easing back in easy.

First, these are the books I added to my Books I'd Like to Read list in the month of July, and the review that pushed me over the edge:

The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand- Gwendolyn at A Sea of Books

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine- Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger- Heather at A High and Hidden Place

Black Hills by Nora Roberts- Holly at Book Binge, nath at Books, Books and More Books

How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford- Gayle Forman

Hold Still by Nina LaCour- Gayle Forman

Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Cultureby Daniel Radosh - Stephanie at Open Mind, Insert Book

I didn't manage to mark a single book off the list this month, but I do have Black Hills, Ella Enchanted and Rapture Ready checked out of the library at this very moment.

Which leads me into my next short topic- where do I get my books anyway? I already told you that I don't request many ARCs. In fact, the whole conversation about ARCs made me feel so guilty that had to check and see what ARCs I DO have that I have not reviewed. I decided that I'd move one of them up the TBR so that I could slowly work off some of that guilt, so Rubies in the Orchard will be read soon. Soonish. What can I say, I have a ton of great library books checked out too! The majority of the books I actually get read lately do come from our library, which has a very nice renewal policy and I can usually renew them online. The rest of my books come from Paperbackswap. As we established when TRISH was here, I have a LOT of books sitting around unread (perhaps soon I'll post a new picture for you) and the majority of them come from Paperbackswap. It's a great site, if you're not a member you should really consider becoming one. (Aside: Do not get two book bloggers together and allow their respective husbands to overhear you discussing your book acquisitions. Said husbands will find much to bond over on the topic of bookshelves or lack thereof and unread books in general!)

Here's the full library list:

The top three are the ones I'm currently reading.
Black Hills by Nora Roberts
Graceling by Kristen Cashore
Rapture Ready! by Daniel Radosh

The Nonrunner's Marathon Guide for Women by Dawn Dais
The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Raising Children for Fun and Profit by Jill Conner Browne
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Languageby Dianne Hales
Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson
The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History - and How We Can Fight Back by Allen Collinge
Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions, and Lore that Shaped Modern America by Martin J Smith
Parenting, Inc.: How the Billion-Dollar Baby Business Has Changed the Way We Raise Our Childrenby Pamela Paul
No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels by Jay Dobyns
Columbine by Dave Cullen