The day before leaving on a big trip is not my favorite.  Not.  At.  All.  I spend the day running around like a crazy woman trying to get everything together and wondering why the heck I thought traveling (with 4 kids, no less) would be a swell idea.  I'm still woefully behind on posting reviews, but that's just going to have to wait—we're hitting the road bright and early tomorrow morning, so I only have so much time today for anything besides trip prep.  I did want to post Part 2 of my favorite bookish things before I disappeared from the blogosphere, though.  I've got my priorities, you see.

Here we go, with four more of My Favorite (Bookish) Things:

1.  I love this quote by Dr. Seuss, especially when painted by Nicole DeFord.  I adore her whimsical style, which you can see on proud display at her Etsy shop, Jelly Bird Signs.  Nicole's fabulous to work with—she's fun, creative and does a beautiful job with all her pieces.  This gem was $30 (plus shipping):


I couldn't get a good picture of my sign (I had her customize mine by changing all the green words in the above sign to red) with my camera phone, so here's the one Nicole uses.  Isn't it the cutest sign?  Wouldn't it make a wonderful present for the book lover in your life (which might just happen to be you)?  Well, it's too late to order one in time for Christmas gift-giving, but who needs a reason to purchase something as lovely as this?

2.  Wouldn't it be nice to have your own, personal proofreader to edit everything you write before you print it off or send it out?  The Grammar Nazis in your life would surely appreciate the effort.  As would your audience, be it a professor, your boss at work, or the fortunate soul who plucks your manuscript out of the slush pile.

Proofreaders, sadly, are quite expensive to hire, especially to comb through everything you write.  So, some very clever folks out in California created Grammarly, an affordable, easy-to-use online proofreader that goes far beyond your word processing program's Grammar Check.  For a monthly fee, you can use it to scan all the documents you write—term papers, office memos, manuscript queries, newsletters, etc.  You simply import or cut and paste the text you want edited, hit enter and let the program do its job.  Within minutes, it will begin highlighting problem areas.  Not only does it show you potential errors, but it also explains the grammar/punctuation/style rules you may be violating.  If you're worried that you might be unintentionally poaching someone else's words, you can use Grammarly's Plagiarism feature to make sure you're giving credit where credit is due.  Another big plus to the program is that it points out stylistic no-no's, like redundant word choice and overuse of passive voice.  It also keeps track of your most common editing mistakes so that you can avoid making them in the future.

Want to try it out for yourself?  Go to Grammarly.com, drag-and-drop some text into the box and, voilá, magic will happen.

Now, the big question is: how much does Grammarly cost?  You can get a 7-day trial for free.  After that, you choose a payment plan that works for your budget—the lowest one offers the program for $11.66/month.  Is it worth it?  If you do a lot of writing and don't have a ready, reliable editor to help you with the nitty, gritty details, then I'd say yes.  It really is a cool thing.

And, to appease the Grammarly gods, here's my attempt at a clever tag line:  I use Grammarly for proofreading because it makes me look smarter (and, believe me, I need all the help I can get)!

(P.S.  Although Grammarly is sponsoring this post by paying me a small fee, the opinions expressed are honest and my own.  I tried the program for myself and was impressed by its functionality.)

3.  Another of my favorite bookish things is my local indie bookstore, Changing Hands.  It's in Tempe, which is a bit of a drive for me, so I don't get there very often.  When I do, though, it's always a pleasant experience.  Not only does the store offer a great selection of new and used books, but it also hosts lots of fun events like book signings, writing workshops, and holiday events for the whole family.  The employees are knowledgeable, the store offers nice discount/frequent buyer incentives, and Changing Hands does a lot to give back to the community.  It's a wonderful business for many, many reasons.  

Because the Tempe store is so popular, Changing Hands plans to build another one in central Phoenix (not the East Valley—boo hoo!).  Store owners launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund the project and recently reached their goal of raising $80,000.  Fundraising continues through December 24th, so if you want to contribute to a worthy cause this Christmas, consider this one.  You can also get fun merchandise when you donate, including T-shirts, tote bags, greeting cards, etc.

Here's the video Changing Hands created to announce the project:

 

4.  Since we're spending Christmas in the Motherland (that would be the Columbia River Gorge in Washington/Oregon, where I grew up) this year, we decided to do our own little family Christmas celebration before we leave.  On Monday, we had a nice dinner, read the story of Jesus' birth, discussed the "gifts" we've given Him this year, and then opened the presents under our (dry and dying) Christmas tree.  I was thrilled to find this, a present from my always-thoughtful mother-in-law, waiting for me:


It's a beautiful cookbook full of yummy-looking recipes that I can't wait to try out.  Anyone have a favorite?

So, there you have it, some bookish things that I've been lovin' on lately.  How 'bout y'all?  Any fun, bookish things caught your eye lately?  Don't keep your discoveries to yourself—I'd love to hear all about them!

Sorry for the radio silence here at BBB.  That's what holiday busy-ness, plus a 4-day trip to the (freezing cold) Midwest, and now a nasty cold will do to a blogger!  Thanks to the *lovely* weather (actually, it was lovely—it's been a while since I've seen falling snow), I spent even more time in airports and on airplanes than I thought I would, which means I got more read than I thought I would.  Which also means that I am even more behind on reviews than I was before I left town.  Ack!  I'm not sure I'll ever catch up.

Since I'm already procrastinating on the reviews, I thought I'd give you a little something different today.  I've never understood why "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music is played so much at Christmastime (something to do with the "brown paper packages tied up with string," I assume), but the title works well for this post.  I've been meaning to tell you about several of these items for a while now, so I'm just going to combine them all into two posts of bookish awesomeness.  Sound good?  Well, alright then, here we go:

1.  Not long ago, I entered a giveaway over at Mommy's Reading Break and won this cute little block stacker.  Isn't it adorable?  I had my choice of stackers, but this one seemed most appropriate.  It sits on my desk, making me smile every time I look at it.


Heather sells all kinds of stackers in her Etsy store, Rutherford Wood Designs.  She's got Christmas themes, sports themes, family themes, etc.  The stackers are very affordable, running between $8 and $14.  They'd make great Christmas gifts, so be sure to check out the store.

2.  Have you all heard about SwoonReads?  It's a new website run by Macmillan that allows authors of YA romances to publish their manuscripts online and lets readers browse titles and leave their feedback about the books.  Those entries that get the best response will be considered by Macmillan for publication.  Cool, right?  I'm going to let Stephanie Moore, an author from Utah whose book, A Flutter of Butterfly Wings, is up on the site right now tell you a little more about this very cool program:

Me and my husband at Cannon Beach, Oregon

So, you may—or may not—have noticed that I took a bit of a blogging hiatus.  It really was not an intentional break, but one that came about because my computer crapped out on me.  Thanks to Costco's superior customer service, I now have a brand spankin' new computer.  However, I'm still very, very behind on reviews, emails, blog upkeep, etc.  So, while I try to get all that in order, I'll bore entertain you with some vacation photos.

If you've read the oh, very fascinating About Me page that sits at the top of this blog, you know I hail from the beautiful Pacific Northwest.  You also know that my husband lured me away from its lush greenery, just to plunk me down in the middle of a flat, brown, scorching hot desert.  Not an easy thing for this Northwesterner.  Although I don't get back to the Motherland very often, I miss it a lot.  So, as part of our July 4th family vacation in Utah, we decided to take a little detour—to Oregon and Washington State.  It was a long drive, but worth it to see my family as well as some absolutely stunning scenery:

Multnomah Falls, Oregon

The view from my parents' deck—the gazebo is in Washington, the mountain (Mt. Hood) is across the Columbia River in Oregon.

The Bridge of the Gods—Cascade Locks, Oregon

My 10-year-old bookworm was thrilled to be able to turn the sign from  "Closed" to "Open."

Me, looking at books while my children do who-knows-what.

We liked all the fun quotes that hung throughout the store:


Well, I hope I've sufficiently distracted you from the fact that I haven't posted a new review in a while.  I'll get caught up soon, I promise.  In the meantime, enjoy the photos.  And, answer me this:  Where has this summer taken you?  Anywhere fun, exciting or breathtakingly beautiful?

Even though Halloween's over, I still have a few treats up my sleeve. Mostly they're treats for me, but still, I thought I'd share. I'm just generous that way :)

-- First off, I have a winner to announce. Pam, you won copies of all three books in the Iron Elves series by Chris Evans. Congratulations! If you'll shoot me an email (blogginboutbooks AT gmail DOT COM) with your mailing address, I'll pass it onto the author's publicist so she can get your books to you.

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. I'll be having more giveaways, including a big one to celebrate my 1000th post - when I reach that milestone, of course (this post is #951). So, definitely stay tuned.

-- Secondly, I thought you might like to see my new license plate. I totally love it, especially the Q's, which look like little googly eyes. Anybody else have a bookish plate? They're so fun!

-- Thirdly, I wanted to give a big shout-out to my (kinda) local indie bookstore, Changing Hands. Since it's about a 30-minute drive from my house, I don't go there that often, but when I do, I'm always impressed by the place. They have a HUGE selection of new and used books and the booksellers there are so helpful and friendly. Case in point: CH has a promotion going on where you get a $10 gift card to their store when you purchase a one-year subscription to the Arizona Republic. Since I'm big into coupons, I wanted another copy of the paper anyway, and this seemed like the perfect time to order it. So, I did. My extra paper came right away, but I didn't hear anything about the gift card. When I still hadn't heard anything after a week, I emailed the folks over at CH. Soon, I got an email back apologizing for the mix-up and offering me a $15 gift card for my trouble. Nice, right? CH also has a rewards program and they give you a discount during your birthday month. Plus, the Wildflower Bread Company store/restaurant is right next door, so the bookstore smells amazing! There are so many reasons to check Changing Hands out - if you're in the Tempe area, stop in. You'll love it.

I took my 9-year-old daughter with me on this excursion. Neither of us can resist a bookstore. She was super excited to find some old American Girl books and at bargain prices, too. Since she was making such frugal choices, I wandered over to the new releases section and found these two titles:

I've been really excited about When She Woke by Hillary Jordan ever since I first read about it. A dystopian Scarlet Letter-ish story? Yes, please! Cannot wait to read this one. And the book's signed by the author to boot. Insert happy dance here.

I'd never heard of Those Across the River by Christopher Beuhlman until I saw it in the store, but it looks really good, too. Creepy. I probably should have read it before Halloween. Oh well.

-- Speaking of things I should have done before Halloween, I have a Cooking the Books post for you that I'm going to publish today (with an earlier date on it, though, so it looks like I did it when I was supposed to). It's for Whoopie Pies and it'll go up right before my review of Pumpkin Roll by Josi Kilpack, since that's the book it came out of ('kay, the recipe is now up. Click here). Even if you're not interested in Whoopie Pies (which you should be because they're rich and chocolatey and just yummy), you might want to check out the post about Pumpkin Roll. Josi's running a giveaway for an iPad 2 that ends today. You can get extra entries by commenting on my review of Pumpkin Roll. So, if that interests you (and why wouldn't it?), click here for all the details.

-- Okay, that's it. I'm going to be working on catching up on everything today - reviews, reading, laundry, ironing, coupons, dusting, mopping, etc. Gah! I can't believe it's November already. Where did 2011 go?

Even though I've got several books sitting on my desk begging to be reviewed, I feel like indulging in a little randomness today. Bookish randomness, but randomness nonetheless. Just humor me, mmkay?

First and foremost, don't forget to enter the fabulous giveaway I have going on right now. You could win a boxed set of The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater. Nice, right? Click here for all the details. Less than 40 people have entered, so the odds of winning are still pretty good. The contest ends on August 10, so enter ASAP!

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is coming up fast. I love this event that celebrates book bloggers and the wonderful online book blogging community. Click here to register and start nominating your favorite book blogs for awards in a variety of categories. Nominations will only be taken through August 13, so hurry, hurry, hurry.

Do you love magazines? I do. Not as much as books, of course, but I still get excited about flipping through the glossy pages of a great periodical. Even better is when they include sections on books. Oprah's a famous book nerd, so naturally, books are always chatted up in her magazine. This month's issue gushes about all kinds of intriguing titles. Books added to my TBR pile because of it: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin, Among the Wonderful by Stacy Carlson, Northwest Corner by John Burnham Schwartz and FatherMotherGod by Lucia Greenhouse. The August issue of Adoptive Families includes the magazine's 2011 Best Books List. Titles added to my TBR pile because of it: Mamalita by Jessica O'Dwyer, I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla by Marguerite A. Wright, Dear Birthmother by Kathleen Silber and Phyllis Speedlin, and In On It: A Guide for Relatives and Friends by Elisabeth O'Toole. I've added other titles because of suggestions in All You, Good Housekeeping, Elle, and, of course, Bookmarks, BookPage and, interestingly enough, Costco Connection. Have I mentioned how much I love magazines?

Speaking of magazines, I happened by the clearance sale at my local Borders (Okay, I left my 12-year-old in charge of the younger kids and rushed off to the mall as fast as I could to hit the sale for the second time in a week). Through my tears over the bankruptcy of my favorite bookstore, I managed to find a *few* bargains, including a magazine put out by Writer's Digest called Writing for Kids & YA. I'm only about halfway through it, but there are some excellent articles about cultivating an authentic voice, writing the kinds of books agents/publishers are looking for, the e-publishing revolution and much more. My favorite article so far is one by Andrew Karre, the editorial director at Lerner Publishing Group, entitled "The YA Perspective." If you have dreams of publishing a YA novel, it's a must read.

If this randomness isn't quite exciting enough for you, you can read about my most memorable kiss in the comments of yesterday's guest post by Brooke Moss. Can you say, awkward?

If randomness isn't your thing, well, buck up little trooper - Bonus points if you can name the movie from which that little gem comes (Hint: I love me some John Cusack.) - I'll be back soon with more reviews. Watch for posts about The Agency: The Body at the Tower by Y.S. Lee, Storm Runners by Roland Smith, and Sharks & Boys by Kristen Tracy (if you're LDS, you're going to be very interested in this one ...). Stay tuned!

So, you may have noticed it's been a little quiet around here lately. What? You didn't notice? Hm. Well, trust me on this one: it's been quiet. Why, you ask? Because I've been busy writing the suckiest rough draft of a YA novel ever written. But, it's done. It's 200 pages (around 70,000 words) of pure crap, but it's 200 pages! A lot of you believed I could write a YA novel, but I'm not sure I believed it ... until now. Whether or not it's even worthy of evolving into a first draft remains to be seen. Still, I'm proud of myself for getting this story out of my head and onto the computer. I'm also excited to let it sit while I put the rest of my life back together. In a month, I'll read it through and decide what to do with it. For now, though, I'm just going to keep grinning and patting myself on the back.

Or, heck, maybe I'll just let someone else do it for me. You may have missed this comment from michemily but it totally made my day, my month, my year:


Take that, Nancy Pearl! (Just kidding, Nancy, you know I love you.) Thanks so much for that, Michemily! I'm still smiling :)

After a fun evening of finishing my rough draft, playing in the park with the kids, and eating Thrifty ice cream at my favorite sub shop, I'm euphoric, but so very tired. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming sometime soon ...

(Apparently, I haven't blogged in so long that I forgot how to do it and published this post before I finished it. Duh.)

So, Springtime lurks right around the corner, which means the beginning of the end of decent weather here in the Arizona desert. While many of you probably shivered your way through yesterday, I was out re-teaching my 6-year-old to ride a bike (the front tire of his "little" bike may or may not have had a fatal encounter with the tire of my minivan, hence the lesson in how to ride a "big" bike) and sweating. Yes, sweating. And when I got out of the spa last night at around 10, I didn't even shiver. It was that warm. *Sigh* Next thing you know, I'm going to start hankering for a dip in the pool.

These little hints of Spring also remind me that it's almost time for the LDS Storymakers Conference again. I had a great time last year, so I signed up for it again this year. Boot Camp (it's really just a critique group, much less intimidating than it sounds) was such a fun experience for me that I'm doing it again. Also, since my friend got a lot of encouraging feedback on her writing last year from entering the First Chapter contest, I decided to do that, too. Which meant I spent a week of January writing the first section of the novel that's been floating around in my head for some time. You may recall that I wrote a chapter of the same story for last year's Boot Camp. I figure a chapter a year is about all I can handle because, as it turns out, crafting a decent fictional story is kind of hard. Okay, really hard. It's almost enough to make me rethink my Simon Cowell approach to book reviewing. Almost.

As I was editing my chapter, visions of bestsellerdom dancing in my head, I happened across a discussion about how book blogging can harm an aspiring author's chances at publishing. Have you all heard about this? I became aware of the issue first from Jordyn over at Ten Cent Notes, who's taking a hiatus from book blogging because she's afraid that writing negative reviews will hurt her chances at publishing her own book. She wrote about her concerns in this post and this one. Some of her worries come from this post by popular urban fantasy author Stacia Kane, who essentially says that yes, dissing authors (not just slamming them, but even just not recommending their books) can come back to bite you in the hiney. Even though my humble little chapter may never grow into an actual book, let alone one worthy of publication, I shuddered over some of the things Kane said. I mean, I've never held back my opinions on books, but I also never realized that authors bothered to read my reviews let alone cared that much about the thoughts of little ole me.

Then, I ran across this post by an Australian author named Sylvia Massara. At the time I read it, the post had over 100 comments by irate book bloggers as well as authors warning Massara not to ruin her own career by whining about negative reviews. Predictably, the comments have since been deleted. Although I am so unimpressed by this woman that I will never, ever read a book by her, her thoughts on book blogging are really quite hysterical. Still, her remarks make it clear that some authors do read blog reviews and absolutely are affected by what we say. Who knew?

I don't know if you've noticed, but I seem to be getting a little paranoid in my old age. Yesterday, it was sci fi/fantasy books I missed out on as a child; today, it's book blogs. I've been around the book blogosphere for awhile now, but I'm still finding new ones. I love it. I'm just stressed about all the wonderful blogs I might be missing out on. I know you're wondering, "Doesn't she have anything better to worry about on a Sunday afternoon?" Well, I stayed home from church with my sick 10-year-old; my husband took two of the others to church; the baby's asleep; I have ground beef thawing in the microwave so I can have dinner ready by the time the hubs gets back; I'm caught up on reviews, so no ... I guess I don't have anything else to worry about on a Sunday afternoon.

Last week, my Microsoft feeder went all wonky on me, refusing to update and such. So, I showed it by converting to Google's reader. I'm sure there's a way to export feeds from one to the other, but I haven't the foggiest idea how, so I typed in each and ever one of my blog URLS manually. I have hundreds. It took hours. The good news is I have all my favorites together and Google's working fabulously for me. Since I was overhauling my feeder, I also cleaned up the links on this blog. So, would you do me a favor and give the list a glance? It's on the bottom of the left sidebar. If you write a book blog, make sure I haven't forgotten it. Also, tell me which ones I'm not reading that I should be reading. I just don't want to miss anything. See what I mean about paranoia?

Oh, and if you haven't commented on yesterday's post, I'd love to hear your recommendations :) And, yes, some day I will post an actual book review.

The other day, my 7-year-old closed her Nancy Drew book and sighed. "You know what I hate about mystery books?" she asked. "You can't re-read them until your memory gets old." True, that. Even though my memory has gotten very old, I still can't re-visit anything I've read in the past 2 decades or so. Fortunately, though, my memory's aged enough that I can re-read books I enjoyed as a child. Thanks to Melissa's fabulous Top 100 list, volunteering with my kids' school reading program, and a recent IM chat with a friend, I have been re-visiting books I loved as a kid. In doing so, I've come to a grim realization - I seem to have skipped over an entire genre of children's literature. Yep, it's true. My reading repertoire included Nancy Drew, Amelia Bedelia, Babysitter's Club, Pippi Longstocking, etc. but few princesses, wizards, dragons or robots. In other words, no science fiction/fantasy. Looking back, I can remember reading only two books that fit into this category: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and A Wrinkle in Time. That's it, unless my memory's really, really, really bad. Once I had this epiphany, I raced to my computer and promptly put Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper and The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander on hold. Then, concerned that I might be missing newer children's sci fi/fantasy, I stuck the first Spiderwick book on my list, too. I'm still worried that I'm missing out, so I thought I'd ask all of you a question. It's this:


Help me remedy the mistakes of my past. I'm working on The Dark Is Rising books as well as the Chronicles of Prydain (all of which I will review when I'm done with the series). I believe I still need to finish the Chronicles of Narnia, but at least I've read The Hobbit and LOTR (although I experienced both of these as an adult). So, what am I missing? Help out an ignorant reader, will you?

I've talked before about what a little bookworm my 7-year-old daughter is. She reads constantly, running through dozens of books each month. She stashes books in the car, the bathrooms, the kitchen - everywhere - just so she will never be without one. Sound familiar?

Passionate readers know there's nothing better than receiving a free copy of a favorite author's new book, so imagine how thrilled I was when a British publicist offered me a copy of Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud. I was just about to hit the "Reply" button when I noticed a small problem: the publicist could only send books within the U.K. Cursing my U.S. address, I sent him my disappointed reply. A few days later, I got another email from one Hallie Patterson, a publicist from Disney. Not only did she offer me the Stroud book, but she sent me two fat catalogs of books she had available for distribution. I started marking my selections, thinking, "There's no way Hallie's going to send me 50 books," but guess what? She urged me to request as many as I wanted. Needless to say, I went crazy. Today, a big, heavy box arrived on my doorstep. Books, books and more books. And it's only a third of the titles I requested. I couldn't be more excited. Really, I couldn't. Thanks so much, Hallie and Disney!

My 4-year-old was home when the package arrived. I ordered two of these book and magnet sets for him - the Wall E and Toy Story themes. The sets come with a book based on the movie, a set of character magnets, several backdrops, and a handy dandy carrying case. The sides of the case are magnetic, so kids can slide in a backdrop then stick the magnets on to create scenes from the film. Best of all, everything fits neatly in the case creating a portable fun center. My only complaint about the product is that my son couldn't open the case by himself. Several of the sets are available on Amazon for between $10 and $15. The price may be a little steep, but my son loved this product. I'm not sure where else you can find these - I'll check with Hallie and get back to you all.

So, I'm still working my way through Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but I am loving every page. It's an excellent book - look for my review sometime soon (hopefully). I'm trying to finish it quickly so I can go onto my last book for the R.I.P. II Challenge - Lord of the Rings. Definitely stay tuned! In the meantime, I wanted to mention a few things:

First, I was so inspired by (I was going to insert the name of the blogger here, but I can't remember who it was!) that I went to the library the other day WITHOUT a list. I never do that, but I thought I could benefit from a little spontaneity. So, I grabbed Garden Spells by Sarah Addison and The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle, both of which are on my TBR list. Then, I just went crazy and grabbed a couple more that I had never heard of. One is Family Skeletons by Rett MacPherson, which is the story of a historian/geneaologist who is hired to look into the disappearance of a friend's father, who left for WWII and never came home. I thought it looked fun. The other is Margaret's Peace by Linda Hall. It's about a woman who returns to her childhood home after her daughter's death only to find herself caught up in long-hidden family secrets. Love those family secrets! They make for such juicy books. So, anyway, we'll see what I think of this pile of novels.

Secondly, I wanted to give a shout out to Eva, for motivating me take my book list to a whole new level of OCD-driven organization. Just this morning, I was perusing it and realizing how many book suggestions I get from book blogs. So, thank you, book bloggers! I subscribe to the feeds of many of your blogs and read them religiously. It's so nice to have this wonderful book-minded community in the blogosphere.

Thirdly, I signed up for a new challenge. Read all about it on my companion blog, Up For A Challenge.

Lastly, I wanted to mention a magazine I enjoy called Bookmarks. It's a great magazine that features book reviews, author interviews and other bookish items. I mention it because the editor asked subscribers to spread the word via blogs and reviews, so that the magazine can stay in business, unlike my former fave Pages. The subscription is a bit pricey, but it's worth it. You can find this magazine at bookstores, but they receive more of your money if you purchase a subscription.

Okay, that's it. Back to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Have I mentioned how much I love this book??