Monthly Archives: January 2011

MONDAY MEMES: MAILBOX MONDAY & WHAT ARE YOU READING? — JAN. 31

MY READING WEEK

Good morning!  Welcome to our Monday Memes, in which we celebrate the books we’ve received in the mail or bought, as well as the books we’re reading.

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by Rose City Reader, while What Are You Reading? is hosted by Book Journey.

MAILBOX MONDAY:

 


This week, I received one book for review from Amazon Vine, and bought three books on Amazon.

1.  The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain (Amazon Vine) has been on my wish list.

“Told in the voice of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain, is a richly imagined portrait of bohemian 1920s Paris, and of America literature’s original bad boy.” —Town & Country

2.  The Red Garden, by Alice Hoffman

The lush and haunted wildlands of Massachusetts provide fertile ground for Hoffman’s endlessly flowering imagination. Like The Probable Future (2003) and Blackbird House (2004), The Red Garden, a sequence of beguiling, linked stories, is rooted in colonial times and reaches into the present.

3.  All the Available Light:  A Marilyn Monroe Reader, by Yona Zeldis McDonough

Journalist and editor McDonough (The Barbie Chronicles) takes on an ambitious project: collecting thoughts about a woman whose every nuance has been so exhaustively discussed that nothing new, it seems, could possibly be said. Happily, McDonough pulls it off, delivering new insight into a star who absorbed all the available light and made it her own….

4.  The Enchanted Barn, by Grace Livingston Hill (e-book) – A Blast from the Past

The story of a poor family displaced by economic hard times; and how, with the kindness of strangers, they turn an old barn into a home.

****

WHAT ARE YOU READING?


This has been a busy week, in terms of reading, blogging, and writing.  Here are some of my posts.

Accidental Choices:  Reading, Etc.

Spreading Their Wings (An Excerpt)

A Journey Into the Depths

Weekend Potpourri

I Scream for Ice Cream

Row 80 Update – 1/30

Books Read & Reviewed – Click Titles for Reviews:

1.  Child of Silence, by Abigail Padgett

2.  My Mother’s Daughter, by Rona Maynard

3.  The Girl in the Green Raincoat, by Laura Lippman (e-book)

4.  I Remember Nothing, by Nora Ephron

What’s Up Next?

1.  A Ticket to Ride, by Paula McLain (Graduate of the TBR Piles!)

The summer of 1973 in Moline, Ill., is enlivened and permanently marked for 15-year-old Jamie by the arrival of her charismatic, seen-it-all cousin, Fawn Delacorte, in McLain’s sure-handed if familiar debut novel (after the memoir Like Family). Abandoned by her parents as a baby, Jamie is a lonely, naïve teenager from Bakersfield, Calif., sent to live with her uncle Raymond after her grandmother falls sick. She falls under Dawn’s spell and embraces the dissolute life of layabout teenagers, brushing ever closer to the inevitable tragedy to come….

2.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson – e-book (For my Awesome Authors Challenge)

Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family’s remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden’s dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker….

3.  Wild Child:  Girlhoods in the Counterculture, by Chelsea Cain (Graduate of My TBR Stacks)

Tofu casseroles, communes, clothing-optional kindergarten, antiwar protests – these are just a few of the hallmarks of a counterculture childhood. What became of kids who had been denied meat, exposed to free love, and given nouns for names?

4.  Where Angels Fear, by Sunny Frazier

Set in the Central Valley of California, author Sunny Frazier once again explores the rich agricultural region, rural law enforcement and crimes shrouded by Tule fog in this sequel to FOOLS RUSH IN. Amateur astrologer Christy Bristol finds herself on the fringes of Kearny society and a members-only sex club as she reluctantly takes on a missing person case. A prominent business man has disappeared and his wife cannot go to the authorities. Armed with only a prescription bottle and matchbook as clues, the young woman must face the Knights of Sensani and her own sexual limitations….

So that’s it for this week.  What was your week like?  What’s up next for you?  Hope you’ll stop by….

A JOURNEY INTO THE DEPTHS — A CREATIVE EXPLORATION

Photograph by Craig Robinson, Berlin Photographer

THE BEAUTY IN RUINS

Sometimes when we embark on a creative exploration, we find unexpected things. Treasures, maybe; but the possibility always exists that we will stumble upon something dark and even frightening.

Interior journeys are like that, even when they’re not creative ones.  Reflecting on our thoughts; plumbing the depths of memory; and taking those reflections and thoughts to the story we are creating, or even the life we are living, can yield unique gifts for potential readers.

Sharing our true selves on the written page will shine through and strike a chord with someone out there.  If we remain on the superficial plane, without delving deep into the core of our being, that will show, too.

Like the image above (in the post) and on the header, sometimes our journeys will lead us to decadent places; however, there is also a beauty in the ruins. The past, even if it feels dark and forbidding, can tell us how to overcome our obstacles in the here and now.

What unexpected treasures have you discovered lately?

MUSING MONDAYS — JAN. 24

 

Welcome to Musing Mondays, hosted by Should Be Reading.  In this event, we share our responses to specific questions about books and reading.

Today’s Question:

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all?

Like our hostess has pointed out, it’s more of a type of book that I love that doesn’t seem to have a huge following…Books about dysfunctional families, or books about women’s issues.

Sue Miller, Barbara Delinsky, Marge Piercy (loved her books from the seventies, like Small Changes).

These authors do have a following, but probably from some of us who have been around awhile…LOL.

I do enjoy exploring new genres and authors, but I must admit that I am not a fan of paranormal; so I guess it goes both ways.  I enjoy my dysfunction, while others enjoy the adrenaline rush of vampire lore.  To each her own.  That makes the world interesting.

What about the rest of you?  What turns you on to certain books?

 

MONDAY MEMES: MAILBOX MONDAY & WHAT ARE YOU READING? — JAN. 24

MONDAY MEMES

Welcome to our Monday Memes:  Mailbox Monday, hosted this month by Rose City Reader; and What Are You Reading? – hosted by Book Journey.

MAILBOX MONDAY:

 

 



This week, I ordered and received (via Whispernet) two e-books for my Kindle.

1)  The Girl in the Green Raincoat, by Laura Lippman

A bedridden detective, a mysterious dog walker in a green raincoat who suddenly disappears…drama and suspense!

2)  The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.

***

WHAT ARE YOU READING?


This week has been a very busy one, with my writing challenge, my Bloggiesta participation, and my reading.

Here are some Blog Posts:

Wrap-Up for Bloggiesta

Sunday Salon

Row 80 Update – 1/23

Saturday Snapshot

Review of “The Social Network”

Now for the Reading:  Books Read & Reviewed (click title for review):

1.  1022 Evergreen Place, by Debbie Macomber (Amazon Vine)

2. Straight Into Darkness, by Faye Kellerman (TBR Stacks)

3.  My Formerly Hot Life, by Stephanie Dolgoff

Here’s What’s Up Next:

1.  Child of Silence, by Abigail Padgett (From my TBR Stacks)

This powerful and suspenseful debut features an unusual heroine, San Diego Juvenile Court child abuse investigator Bo Bradley. A closet manic-depressive, Bo fights to keep her job and her equilibrium when she is assigned the case of a four-year-old boy found tied to a mattress in an abandoned house on an Indian reservation….

2.  My Mother’s Daughter, by Rona Maynard (a memoir from my TBR stacks)

“Maynard hasn’t written this memoir from behind the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. Every character who makes an appearance in her memoir is a fully sketched human, the flaws no less visible than the positive attributes. She doesn’t shy away from portraying honest family difficulties…. Maynard writes honestly and unselfconsciously, without coming off as malicious. No, the people in her life are not perfect, but My Mother’s Daughter stands as a firm testament to the fact that they were still valued, and deservedly so.”

3.  The Girl in the Green Raincoat (e-book), by Laura Lippman

In the third trimester of her pregnancy, Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan is under doctor’s orders to remain immobile. Bored and restless, reduced to watching the world go by outside her window, she takes small comfort in the mundane events she observes . . . like the young woman in a green raincoat who walks her dog at the same time every day. Then one day the dog is running free and its owner is nowhere to be seen….

So that’s it for my week.  What are you reading, and what did you buy, receive, etc.?  Hope you’ll stop by….

WRAP-UP POST: BLOGGIESTA — JAN. 23

I’ve finished my tasks!  I’m all set to go to the Finish Line…and here’s what I’ve accomplished.

Note the list below.  My most time-consuming, yet satisfying tasks involved reinventing my site, with a new name, a new look, and some additional pages.

I created an About page to reflect the mission and purpose of my blog.  I added a “My Review Ratings” page to delineate how I rate books (and the occasional movies) that I review.

When doing these things, the domino effect on my other blogs included changes in link names (to this site from all of my other blogs); plus, I added the ratings page to each of the others.

I participated in four mini-challenges, which were fun.

My total time spent over the three days:  Nine-and-a-half hours.

My List of Goals:

1.  Reexamine the idea behind this blog, and consider renaming it.

2.  Update About Page to reflect these changes.

3.  Experiment with new Word Press themes.

4.  Define review rating system and set up a page for this.

5.  Check all links and update sidebar images/links.

6.  Arrange for guest posts. (request sent; author responded)

8.  Create Image for New Page (Review Ratings)

9.  Participate in some mini-challenges.

10.  Change Title and Look of Blog on Facebook

11.  Update blog links on all sites and website.

12.  Create new blog button.

DAY 2 – BLOGGIESTA – MINI-CHALLENGE — JAN. 22

Good morning, and welcome to Day 2 of this edition of Bloggiesta!

Today I’m participating in a few mini-challenges, as well as finishing up my goals established yesterday.

Over at Word Lily, I’ve discovered an intriguing challenge.  Ten Blogger Don’ts is a fascinating exploration of how to NOT make an impact, with the flip-side being, of course, what one can do to make things better.

One of the tasks for this mini-challenge was to read and study the Blogger Don’ts, and then rate yourself, one to five, with five being muy excellente.

Some of the “don’ts” are obvious to me, like don’t expect results overnight. Like anything else in life, building a readable, easily navigated blog that can be found by potential readers is going to take a long time.  I think we can see some positive results in the early months, as we click around the blogosphere and learn by example. Which takes us to another “don’t.”  Do not scrape another blogger’s content!

What I’ve learned from other bloggers’ examples is how to link to another blog in order to point to its relevance, excellence, whatever.  In this way, we can share what the other blogger has said, without “poaching.”  In this instance, we are properly crediting the other blogger.

Another good piece of advice:  do not try to become another blogger.  Just as in writing, we have to find our voice. Our own, unique, individual voice.

Updating our blog regularly can be a challenge if, like me, you have numerous blogs!  LOL.  I have worked hard to finally settle on a more manageable number.  Fourteen may not seem manageable to you, but that is an improvement over twenty; that’s how many I had at one point.

Every day on one or more of my blogs, I have something posted.

Then there are points about optimizing blogs for search engines; networking our blogs; and making our blogs readable and easy to navigate.

Okay, I need to work on that SEO part.  I think I understand it a little…keywords, etc.  But I need to study it more fully.  I have done well (I think) on the networking part, as I have networked my blogs on Facebook. Additionally, I participate in several memes and visit other bloggers.

After studying how others make their blogs easy to navigate, I think that I have improved.  Like everything else, though, this aspect is a work-in-progress.  Diligence is required, which is why we do this thing called blog housekeeping on a regular basis.

Fortunately, the final point of Do Not Throw Mud Around is common courtesy, and I think I’ve got this one handled.  Good advice, though!

Now that I’ve studied and considered each of these “don’ts”, I am ready to rate myself.  Okay, here goes:  3.5.

Mainly because there is always room for improvement.  Plus, I must study the SEO aspect more.  And, in order to become fully professional, I must continue to evaluate, assess, and reassess what I’m doing in order to improve.  To become as professional as those shining examples I see around me in this wonderful blogging community.

***

Update of My Blogging Tasks:

1.  Reexamine the idea behind this blog, and consider renaming it.

2.  Update About Page to reflect these changes.

3.  Experiment with new Word Press themes.

4.  Define review rating system and set up a page for this.

5.  Check all links and update sidebar images/links.

6.  Arrange for guest posts. (request sent)

8.  Create Image for New Page (Review Ratings)

9.  Participate in some mini-challenges.

10.  Change Title and Look of Blog on Facebook

11.  Update blog links on all sites and website.

12.  Create new blog button.

BLOGGIESTA! START-UP POST – JAN. 21

Today was one of those hectic ones. My daughter and some friends went to Vegas for the weekend, so I had my grandson for a sleepover last night; then I took him to school this morning.

So I was all geared up to start tomorrow—silly me!—thinking the start date was on Saturday.  Well, better late than never is my motto.

Here are a few goals I’ve come up with – To be crossed off as I finish each task.

1.  Reexamine the idea behind this blog, and consider renaming it.

2.  Update About Page to reflect these changes.

3.  Experiment with new Word Press themes.

4.  Define review rating system and set up a page for this.

5.  Check all links and update sidebar images/links.

6.  Arrange for guest posts.

8.  Create Image for New Page (Review Ratings)

9.  Participate in some mini-challenges.

10.  Change Title and Look of Blog on Facebook

11.  Update blog links on all sites and website.

12.  Create new blog button.

I may decide to add a few things later…I’ll also keep track of the time spent throughout the weekend.

Let’s Party!!

MUSING MONDAYS — MEATY OR FLUFFY? — JAN. 17

Musing Sasha

Good morning, and welcome to Musing Mondays, hosted by Should Be Reading.

Every week, we ponder a question.  Today’s Question:

Do you prefer deep, intellectual, “meaty” books… or light, “fluffy” books? Why? Give us an example of your preferred type of book.

I actually love both, but I have to mix them up.  Although when I was younger, I read Dostoevsky during one long, hot summer.  It was an obsession, like reading Tolstoy.  I called it my “Russian Novel Period.”

Then I went through a Joyce Carol Oates stage.

But after my lengthy years in school, and once I’d finished my master’s degree, I turned to lighter books.  For awhile, I would read nothing but fluffy.

Nowadays, though, I like to intermingle my tales, with literary fiction, mysteries, contemporary fiction, and chick lit peppering my days and nights.  Just to keep things interesting.

What about the rest of you?  What do you enjoy?

MONDAY MEMES: MAILBOX & WHAT ARE YOU READING? — JAN. 17

A WEEK IN READING & BLOGGING

Good morning, and welcome to our Monday Memes, in which we share our thoughts about reading and blogging.

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by Rose City Reader.

What Are You Reading?  is hosted by Book Journey.

MAILBOX MONDAY:

This week, I received several books via Whispernet (for my Kindle!).

1)  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, has been on my wish list for awhile.  I’ll be reading it for the Awesome Author Challenge.

Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family’s remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden’s dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker.

2)  Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, by Beth Hoffman – another one for the Awesome Author Challenge….

Hoffman’s debut, a by-the-numbers Southern charmer, recounts 12-year-old Cecelia Rose Honeycutt’s recovery from a childhood with her crazy mother, Camille, and cantankerous father, Carl, in 1960s Willoughby, Ohio….

3)  Circling My Mother, by Mary Gordon (a memoir)

Anna Gagliano Gordon, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, was the personification of the culture of the mid-century American Catholic working class. A hard-working single mother – Mary Gordon’s father died when she was still a girl – she managed to hold down a job, dress smartly, raise her daughter on her own, and worship the beauty in life with a surprising joie de vivre….

4)  Getting to Happy, by Terry McMillan (sequel to Waiting to Exhale)

For McMillan fans (and they are legion, given the immense popularity of her novels and film adaptations), the publication of Getting to Happy will be welcome news. The novel is full of the juicy romantic entanglements, family dysfunction, and high drama that readers have come to anticipate….

I’m very anxious to delve into each of these!  Soon….

***

WHAT ARE YOU READING?


This week’s journey has been a busy and productive one.  Here are a few of my favorite blog posts.

Restless Energy

Defensive Characters

ROW 80 Check-In Post

Saturday Snapshot

Exploring the Road Not Taken – A Movie Review

Now for my reading week….Here are Books Read & Reviewed (click title for reviews)

1)  Made in the USA, by Billie Letts

2)  Final Payments, by Mary Gordon

3)  Reading Women, by Stephanie Staal

What’s Up Next?

1)  1022 Evergreen Place, by Debbie Macomber (Amazon Vine Review)

Dear Reader,

Guess what? I’m falling in love! With Mack McAfee.

My baby daughter, Noelle, and I have been living next door to Mack since the spring. I’m still a little wary about our relationship, because I haven’t always made good decisions when it comes to men. My baby’s father, David Rhodes, is testament to that. I’m so worried he might sue for custody.

In the meantime, the World War II letters I found are a wonderful distraction. Both Mack and I are trying to learn what happened to the soldier who wrote them and the woman he loved.

Come by sometime for a glass of iced tea and I’ll show you the letters. Plus I’ll tell you the latest about Grace and Olivia, my brother Linc and his wife, Lori (who tied the knot about five minutes after they met!), and all our other mutual friends. Oh, and maybe Mack can join us….

Mary Jo Wyse

2)  My Formerly Hot Life, by Stephanie Dolgoff (Amazon Vine)

“Remember all those deep and important life transitions going on amongst a group of smart, beautiful women that the last, tepid Sex and  the City movie tried—and failed—to capture? Skip the film; Dolgoff’s got it all in her book, and in a far more genuine way….Dolgoff’s style is energetic, funny, highly engaging, and self-aware….Bottom Line: Whether you’re going through the Formerly transition yourself or looking back on it (or catching hints of it down the road), Dolgoff’s book is a wonderful take on the early 40s….”

3)  Straight Into Darkness, by Faye Kellerman (From my TBR Stacks)

In 1920s Munich, the body of Anna Gross, a young society wife, has been found in the English Gardens, still clothed in finery. Soon a second body is discovered, also a woman of high society. When a third body is found, homicide detective Axel Berg realizes he’s dealing with unprecedented evil….

So that’s it for this week.  I’m excited and looking forward to discovering new adventures within these pages.  What do you have on your list this week?