Confessions of a Reader #1, the paranormal classic

Ti over at Book Chatter (and other stuff) hosts a weekly meme called Confessions of a Reader. I don't expect that I'll have a weekly confession, but I do have one that I've been saving up to post somewhere and this seems like a good time.

Here it is: I totally don't get why someone would ever want to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters or The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies. I Just. Don't. Get. It. Pride and Prejudice , yes. Books about zombies, yes. (Well, kinda. I'm not hugely impressed with the cult following zombies get. Why are they cool when Vampires are cheesy? People who would never read Twilight are all over The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Why is that?) I understand the love of classics. I understand that people love a good retelling. I am a huge fan of paranormal books in general. I do not understand this trend to throw paranormal stuff into the classics in this manner. I have zero interest in reading those.

Austenland as a retelling of Pride and Prejudice is fine. The movie Clueless for a retelling of Emma , also fine. I love seeing a modern retelling of a great story, with new characters following a classic plot. But I just don't get splicing paranormal bits into a perfectly good book.

If you're read these, can you tell me why? Did you enjoy them? Did you read and enjoy the original? If you haven't, would you? What about books that take the classic characters and write a whole new book, like Vampire Darcy's Desire: A Pride and Prejudice Adaptation or Darcy's Temptation: A Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice? (I find them slightly more appealing, but they still wouldn't be on the top of my list.)

Do you have a confession to make? Drop by Ti's and leave a link, will ya?

Random Friday: TGIF

This has been a really tough week in our house. We had some bad financial surprises to start us off, The Pirate has H1N1 (but so far, knock wood, not the Bug), and work has been stressful. I have gotten an amazing amount of support from an online community of which I am a part and I can't begin to express my thanks to them. Their kindness and understanding has made a hard thing bearable. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I don't think any of them read my blog but I wanted to mention the kindness of the invisible people in my computer. I have been beyond stressed and haven't had the peace of mind to blog. That said, here are some thoughts.

It snowed here for the last two days.

I have three books waiting for review. I hope to actually review them before I forget them.

Tomorrow is Halloween and I am not at all excited about it.

Shop Update: I have listed a brand spankin' new type of item to the shop this week- small zippered wallets. They have a zipper pouch big enough for your credit card, cash, id, and chap stick, and a second snapped pocket that will also hold an id or credit card. They also have a key ring so you could attach them to your keys if desired. Go check them out. I have quite a few more cut out and ready to sew, so keep watching if you don't see a pattern you like. I also have a few crayon rolls in the wings.

Read-a-thon recovery

Well, I made it until shortly after midnight. Just as I was getting into my book and thinking that maybe I'd make it a few more hours The Bug woke up crying. I brought him out here but the book distracted him from going back to sleep. I spent half an hour or so trying to get him to drop off and when he finally did I put him back to bed. Where he instantly started to cry and woke up the Pirate. The two of us traded kids for a bit before Mike sent me to bed. It was not a good couple of hours and we have no idea what got into them. In any case, the read-a-thon was over. This morning the Bug came into bed with me and slept for a couple of hours (HIGHLY unusual!)

Here's my "stats"
Time read: no idea. A solid hour and a half in the morning, then off and on until about 4. Home from the party at 9 and read from about 10 to 12.
Pages read: 417
Books read: 1 and a half (The Missing Ink: A Tattoo Shop Mystery by Karen E. Olson and Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega, Book 2) by Patricia Briggs
Blogs visited: not many!
Twitter: yes

Lesson learned: It is possible to do the read-a-thon with small children, just lower your expectations. I advise against leaving in the middle as it's very hard to regain your motivation to stay up late. I'd love to be able to make it all night, perhaps the next one will be the one! Thanks to all the cheerleaders who left such great comments, and all the bloggers who did mini-challenges and organized us all.

Read-a-thon, a mini-challenge

Infant Bibliophile wants to know my 5 favorite children's books. I'm pretty sure I've told her all five at some point but here we go:

1. Doggies One Dog, Woof.
2. Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale - Where's Knuffle Bunny??
3. Llama Llama Red Pajama- Stop with all this llama drama
4. The Gruffalo-The Pirate: "Mommy, are Gruffalos real?"
5. How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?-Then one kiss more...

And that's all the review you get at midnight!

Read-a-thon, Hour 16? I think?

Back at it!

It's time to choose what I want to read next and I can't decide. Someone go look at my stack and tell me what to read.

Jill has a mini-challenge asking us about music associated with the read-a-thon or reading. I don't usually listen to music while I read, because usually Mike has the tv on. There is however one romance novel that really calls out to me for music. In the Midnight Rain by Ruth Wind is all about the blues and I can't help but want to listen to them whenever I reread the book. Or for that matter whenever I think about the book. The book itself has a very strong storyline (though the little mystery is easy to figure out) and strong main characters. The blues, however, are as much of the story as the people. The two cds I most want to listen to with it are Keb' Mo''s Keb Mo and BB King and Eric Clapton's Riding with the King (which is easily my favorite CD of all time, and which I have LOST!!) So, not a specific song, but a specific mood and a book that calls out for music.

The other specific song that reminds me of the Read-a-thon is the Harry Potter song that TRISH always links to! Trish! Where's our link??

Read-a-thon, update number four

Where were we? The boys are all three sleeping (what are the chances??) and I finally got to read some more.

Here's my stats:
Books read: 1- The Missing Ink by Karen E. Olson
Pages read: 299
Time spent reading: who the hell knows?
Mini-challenges done: 1, kinda
Blogs visited: 2
Realizations had: 1- I forgot to buy snacks. I am scrounging. Cheese stick anyone?

Yeah, I suck.

Unfortunately, we still have a family party to attend tonight so even though the house is finally quiet, I have to go get ready. I am hoping that by the time we get home the boys will be ready to crash and I can read into the wee hours with the rest of you.

How's everyone else holding up?

Read-a-thon, what Read-a-thon?

It's shortly before 1pm, we're just over 6 hours into the Read-a-thon. I've managed to read almost 200 pages. Bah.

They are currently playing in the doghouse perhaps I can get a few minutes in now!

I hope everyone else's reading is going well.

Read-a-thon: Trending on Twitter, Lookit us go!

Look at all the readers this morning! I got to read for just over an hour before the boys woke up. I suspect it will be a while before I can jump back in with my full attention.

Meanwhile over at Wordlily there is a mini-challenge to capture a screen shot of the #readathon trending on Twitter. I have tried for the last 30 minutes to upload my screenshot but no dice. You'll just have to trust me on it!

Read-a-Thon: It begins again.

Good Morning Read-a-Thon'ers!
It's 6 am and I just settled in with a cup of coffee (pre-loaded the coffee pot, yes I did!) and two big stacks of books. I'll be lucky to get one or two read all day, but I need CHOICES.






This first stack is my library stack, minus a few sewing books. There's a nice mix here of YA, nonfiction, mystery and crafting books. Chocolat and the Nora Roberts are both large print so that hopefully I can read while I ride the bike for the 100 Mile Challenge.

The ones in this stack are my personal books. I thought I'd throw in a couple romance novels in case the mood struck, plus there's In the Woods.

I know everyone else posted their stacks earlier in the week, I just got around to taking my pictures last night. I'm hoping to get an hour or so in before the boys wake up and join me.

Game ON!

Random Friday, pre-Read-a-thon

I took the Bug for his 15 month check up today. Granted, he's 18 months, but better late than never! At his 12 month when they gave him his shots he passed out. This time he barely even cried. For those who are curious, he's 23 lbs (20th%) and 33 inches tall (70th%).

Our internet at work is messed up. This really put a kink in my plans to clear out my Google Reader before the Read-a-Thon tomorrow. New plan is to just clear out the bookish ones! This is also why this is so late in posting. And speaking of Google Reader, I have had a couple new people show up in my section of people who I see their shared items. I LOVE that! I want to see everyone's shared items! If you know an easy way to add people, please let me know.

Plans for the Read-a-thon continue, however sketchy. Mike is sick AND will be at work both days. The Bug has started to cough. It is supposed to rain so kicking them into the backyard is not an option. And now we have an unavoidable birthday party on Saturday night. I'll do my best, but will be absent a good bit. I did stop at the library and picked up two more hold books to add to my stack. I'll post an entire stack post first thing in the morning.

There was a dead snake in my dining room last night!

Reminder: Every comment you leave before November 1st enters you into my anniversary contest! There will be some nice handmade goodies as well as a couple bookish goodies in the prize bag, so comment comment comment.

Shop Update: I listed two new backpacks in the shop this week as well as the lovely banner pictured above (it says "be thankful) (Also, that's what color my kitchen walls are!) Go check 'em out. This week I experimented with a little zippered wallet as well and you can defininately expect to see some of those showing up soon, and at a decent price.

What are you plans for the weekend? Are you Read-A-Thoning? If not, why not? Do you think the HUNDREDS of us that signed up are insane? (I kinda do!) If you are, are you planning an early bedtime tonight?

Reading about marketing, two brief reviews

I've recently read two books about marketing and I'm going to save myself some work and review them in one post. First is How to Market and Sell Your Art, Music, Photographs, & Handmade Crafts Online by Lee Rowley and the other is Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business by Lynda Resnick.

I picked up How to Market and Sell Your Art, Music, Photographs, & Handmade Crafts Online at the library a few weeks ago. Before checking it out I double checked the publication date, as anything about technology gets outdated so quickly that I didn't want to waste my time if it wasn't going to be helpful. This one was published in 2008 so it seemed like it would be fairly accurate. As it turned out, the book itself was really aimed at someone with a little less computer experience than I have and didn't really give me a lot of new ideas. I can see that there is a group of people who could really use the book, but I am not that person. The book it divided into chapters about buying a computer, creating a website, hiring help, and other similar topics. There is a chapter on social media as well, but it emphasized using MySpace with only a brief mention of Facebook and that's about it. I learned a tiny bit about keywords, but that's pretty much the only thing I got out of it. The plus side is that I "read" it in a couple of hours and was done.

Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business was sent to me directly by the author, or rather by her company POMWonderful, back in February. Resnick and her husband are (or were) owners of several well known companies, including POM, Teleflora, and Fiji water. I looked forward to discovering how she managed to turn the companies into a success. However, I quickly got the feeling that the book itself was nothing more than a giant ad for her various companies, and having received it directly from her just confirms this feeling. I read through the marvelous success of POM, and then that of Teleflora, and then her brilliance with the Franklin Mint before I got tired of hearing her pat herself on the back. Unfortunately, hearing her brag wasn't what I was looking for in a marketing book and I decided not to finish the book at all. I'm very glad that I did not pay for this one.

You can find more reviews at:
Savvy Verse & Wit,
Lost in Books,
book-a-rama

Did I miss yours?

What marketing book or advice do you like? Do you ever read business books? How do you feel about an author using his or her book as a giant advertisement for their product?

The Read-a-Thon OR I May Be Crazy(TSS)

Next Saturday is the 24 Hour Read-a-Thon. I've wavered a lot on it. I was in, then I wasn't. I really would like to participate, even just a little. So I went ahead and signed up! It is entirely possible that I'll get a couple hours in and that's it. I'll be solo parenting next weekend, both on Saturday and Sunday, and I don't wanna kill myself trying to read. But I'm gonna do it anyway.

So what will I read? I just went to Goodreads and made myself a library shelf and I'm working on adding all my library books to it (I'm also gonna add it to my sidebar and try to keep it updated.) I haven't taken a picture of them yet but will before it starts. I'm also adding In the Woods because I hear it's spooky and the middle of the night the weekend before Halloween seems like a good time for spooky. I'll also add anything else I've already started.

I REALLY hope the cheerleaders are good this time! (Last time they kind petered out in the middle of the night when I really could have used the help!)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a TON of stuff to get done before Saturday!