Archive for Memes
Top Ten Tuesdays is an original feature created because The Broke and The Bookish is fond of lists. They love to share their lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see other’s top ten lists! Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list and everyone is welcome to join. Please link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your post AND add your name to the Linky widget.
This Week’s Question:
Top Ten Books At The Top Of My Summer TBR List
Man, this list took forever. You know why? Because at this point I’ve rewritten it nine times. I just. Can’t. Decide.
So I figure at least this way I’ve got some plan for the first 10 books down on (virtual) paper, and then after that I can go back to being extremely wishy-washy. Maybe.
- The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan: Even if I wasn’t a huge Kiernan fan, this book’s up for way too many awards (Tiptree, Locus, Shirley Jackson) to let it sneak past. Also can use it as research for my thesis on the weird trend for drowning girls on book covers.
- The Sea-Devil’s Eye (The Threat from the Sea #3) by Mel Odom: All good things must come to an end, and this series too. (ha-CHA!) Spoiler: the villain’s actually a great white shark in disguise.
- Redshirts by John Scalzi. Which I may have just read last week. But it’s one of those books that is either so good I need to read it again right away or so annoying I need to read it again right away to figure out why it bugged me so much. My brain is a weird place.
- The Last Season, by Eric Blehm: Some people visit national parks in the summer, other people read all about national park tragedies from the safety of under a pack of small dogs in their air-conditioned bedroom. Readers, I am one of those types of people.
- Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco: I’ve seen the movie, and I thought it was quite decently scary, especially for having been made sometime during 19-polyester, but a friend of mine read the book and declared *it* even scarier, so I’m going in! During a very brightly sun-lit day.
- Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell (reread): Oh who DOESN’T want to go on a road trip with someone who knows the intimate details of every US presidential assassination attempt? That would be so much more interesting than all those stretches of I-89 where all you get are religious channels on the radio (no joke). Plus there’s the whole thing with the vegetarian sex cult that also made teapots. Verily, there’s nothing this book can’t do.
- Wolf in the Shadows by Marcia Muller (Sharon McCone #14): Because I am on a mission to finish this series. And yes, I’ve been putting off this book for like six months because it takes place in San Diego and not San Francisco and involves romantic entanglements, but I will be strong, and I will make it through to #15, Til the Butchers Cut Him Down. With my series or on it.
- Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell: Is this cheating? There’s just something about Sarah Vowell’s books that says summer to me, though. And I’ve been saving this one for quite a while. Plus it has one of my favorite trailers ever.
- Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor: I’ve heard really amazing things about this book. I have not seen one negative review of it.
- The Town That Drowned by Riel Nason: Visions, floods, awkwardness, underhanded property dealings. I’m in. Oh, and I should mention my love of drowning towns. That might help explain. Or it might not.
Anyway, what’s at the top of your reading list?
Top Ten Tuesdays is an original feature created because The Broke and The Bookish is fond of lists. They love to share their lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see other’s top ten lists! Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list and everyone is welcome to join. Please link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your post AND add your name to the Linky widget.
This Week’s Question:
Top Ten Books Featuring Travel In Some Way
- The Fault in Our Stars: Hazel and Augustus travel to Amsterdam to fulfill Hazel’s “Make A Wish,” so to speak. It does not go over as they hoped, but it was an pivotal moment to add to their amazing time together.
- Meant to Be: This enjoyable book takes place in London, and we get to see many of the wonderful parts of a city that I love!
- Magisterium: I chose this book because it takes place between alternate realities that are separated by a fence. I loved how starkly different both realities are, and how instantaneous the change was once you crossed the barrier. I truly loved the world-building in this book!
- Songs of Magic series: These books take place in the modern day world, but the human characters are transported to Fairy at some point, and the Fairy characters are transported into our world. It adds a lot of fun and zany moments!
- Abandon trilogy: These books bounce around between the modern day world and Hades. Mmmmm, I do love me some Hades, aka John, time.
- Stolen: This book takes us to the vast outback of Australia, where we get up close and personal with the MC’s abductor. This book is INTENSE.
- In the Path of Falling Objects: This book is one big road trip from hell!
- The Iron Duke, by Meljean Brook: travel by airship! Lots of airships! All over zombie-infested lands, huhzzah!
- The Hearse, by Henry Clement: travel by uh, hearse.
- Snowblind, by Robert Sabbag: travel while covered in cocaine. Try not to act suspicious.
- Dead Presidents (Exponential Apocalypse #2), by Eirik Gumeny: Travel all over the post-apocalyptic wasteland, pursued by basically everyone you’ve killed in the past three days. Plus English majors. And scientists. And a squirrel.
- Be Brave, Be Strong: A Journey Across the Great Divide, by Jill Homer: Travel more than three thousand miles, from Canada to Mexico, on a bike. In a race. A week after your long-time boyfriend breaks up with you. (An amazing book.)
- Grubs (aka Nasty Little F!#*kers) by David McAfee: travel at high speed through the woods of Maine, pursued by carnivorous insects. Also zombies. Maine’s horrible, y’all.
- Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, by Catherine Ryan Howard: Does what it says on the cover. The author uh, basically got dragged across Central America by her much more enthusiastic friend. I was deeply sympathetic.
- The Road Trip, by Tina Lencioni: Book 3 in the Kate McCall PI series, and yes you have to read them in order. Features a trip from Seattle to Los Angeles and scenic environs nearby, undertaken by people who can’t stand each other, and some of whom are blood relatives. Now excuse me while I go whoop for joy that Book 4′s finally (finally!) been announced.
- Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, by Kirsten Miller: Travel to and through a city very like the one you live in, except entirely underground and abandoned and possibly filled with rats and things bigger than rats that are terrifying.
- The Riddle of the Sands, by Geoffrey Knight: Travel around with four other hot dudes, kicking international spy ass in exotic locales and while parting with your virtue at least once a day to get information from informants before racing to the next locale.
Top Ten Tuesdays is an original feature created because The Broke and The Bookish is fond of lists. They love to share their lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see other’s top ten lists! Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list and everyone is welcome to join. Please link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your post AND add your name to the Linky widget.
This Week’s Question:
Top Ten Favorite Book Covers Of Books I’ve Read
Wow, I got way more invested in this Top Ten list than I thought I would. I mean, I knew I liked book covers, but I didn’t realize I liked them enough to lose a whole morning to scouring GoodReads and turning the living room upside down looking for contenders. Then I had to refrain from disappearing down the non-fiction rabbithole, the rabbithole of Top Ten Pulp Western Covers (Draw, pardner! Aaaahahahahahahahahaha), Top Ten Culinary Mysteries With Subtle Skulls In (so tempting) and of course Top Ten Hot Chicks With Guns (my issues, welcome to them. Let me know if you’d like a subscription.) I have spent quality time on this project, is what I’m trying to say.
1. Whales on Stilts!
Look, if there’s something better than a whale that shoots lasers from its eyes, I don’t wanna know about it.
2. This Frankenstein purse.
I love the Frankenstein myth so much. So much that my own bedraggled copy (with a not very exciting cover) is riddled with post-it flags, and I’m actually in the process of writing a Frankenstein iBook for the middle grades. I love this cover the best, I think because Frankenstein + steampunk = WIN. Plus bonus severed hands! And it’s a purse. For all your body-part-totin’ needs.
3. Edgar & Ellen Nodyssey #9: Split Ends
I can barely bring myself to write about these books, due to the publishers leaving the twins on a cliffhanger and then subtly cancelling the last book in the series. BUT! I shall prevail.
I love the style of the art, I love how equally it’s split between twins. I love the saturation of the colors and the way the trees are done and most of all, I love how Pet gets top billing.
This one gets the nod out of all of them though, due to scuba inclusion. A girl’s gotta have her weaknesses.
4. The Siege of Mt. Nevermind
It was hard to pick one entry from the sub-genre of over-the-top-old-school-swords-and-sorcery (which I just tried to spell with a silent w, thanks swords). I mean, you’ve got to look at your Discworld covers, your Wee Free Men, your Thieves World, everything by Mercedes Lackey, your Forgotten Realms and all your many, oh so many Dragonlance books to choose one representative. But this, for me, sums up everything about why I like both this book and the genre: don’t trust gnomes to do, well, anything.
Gnomes: now putting extra chaos in the Chaos Wars. If they can remember where they left it after last time.
5. Monster
Admit it. This does totally look like a yellow pages ad for an exterminator company. If, you know, there was such a thing as cryptological exterminators.
And if there aren’t, leave me in the Happy Bubble, please. It’s nice and quiet in here.
6. Lost
I don’t know why this creeps me out so much, but I love it.
7. Meg: Primal Waters
I like big SHARKS and I cannot lie
/ you other hunters can deny / but a fish swims in with a six-foot grin and half a seal in its teeth / the trap’s SPRUNG / Wanna get the net / ‘Cuz the shark’s all wet but you won’t dive on a bet.
Deep in the sea it’s DARING /
I’m hooked and can’t stop SEA-FARING!
…what?
8. Torpedo Juice
Whoops, I slipped, chick with gun. But first of all, I’m sure those dashboard hula girls are sick of being made to jiggle, (and honestly I find them a little offensive), and second, this is a way easier cover to explain reading during lunch at the office than this one. Don’t ask me how I know this.
9. Alabaster
This one doesn’t get you right away, and then you turn over the book to look at the synopsis and realize:
Oh.
10. Nova
You guys, I tried. I really did. But I just can’t help myself. Also it was this or a shark with a sword, and you know that means I’d have to finish my song…
Clock Rewinders on a Book Binge is the weekly recap feature created by
Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Tara @ 25 Hour Books
In the life of Smash
Hello, bloggers and readers! I apologize for being so distant lately. I have not been interested in the internet or social media, but I think it will pass. I have just been doing so many other things lately, and enjoying life, in general. I am also in a review slump, so staying away from the computer at night has a lot to do with me not wanting to face reviews. Ha. I’ve been in a scrapbook mood and have really not cared about writing reviews. It’s ok. I’m not punishing myself for it. They will get done.
Let’s see. There is ONE WEEK left of school. I will be sad to see some of these mucnkins go, but I am SO PROUD of many of them for overcoming shit this year.
I’ve been Smash Booking, which is just a variation of scrapbooking. I am enjoying it.
I also made a Mother’s Day gift that I am truly proud of. It’s a memory file!
I took this adorable photo of Dr. Smash. ♥
And he competed in a burger cook off last weekend. He made a pork and andouille sausage burger with a melty cheese, a pepper sauce, cilantro and a fried egg! And and he made his own masa cake buns!
and TODAY, I AM HERE. Nomnomnomnooooooooooom.
Smash Attack Reads Recap
- Smash reviews The Gray Wolf Throne by Cinda Williams Chima
- Top Ten Tuesdays: Light & Fun
- Blog Tour Review: The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones by Jack Wolf + GIVEAWAY
- Smash reviews The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
- Let’s Talk: Freebies
- Bout of Books 7.0 Starting Line.
- Top Ten Tuesdays: Books Dealing With Tough Subjects
- Mel reviews A Vampire’s Salvation (Beyond Human #1) by Virna DePaul
- Let’s Talk: Creative Inspiration
- Bout of Books Challenge: Genre Book Spine Poetry
2013 Reading Goals
It’s all about the series, yo!
Let’s see…I’ve finished The Lunar Chronicles, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Seven Realms, Under the Never Sky, Jasper Dent, The Night Prince and Elemental Assassins! YAHOOO! Once I read Unravel Me, that series is done, too. Woot! Speaking of that series, I read Destroy Me this week and I want MOAR from Warren’s POV. I was so engrossed in that novells!
The Web 411
- OMG! *flails* They released the author lineup for YALLFEST!!!!!!!!!!!! FANGIRL MODE ACTIVATED! I am doing everything in my power to go this November.
- On a Book Bender: I Know My Why…Now What?
- Reading in Winter: Discussion: If I Had a Time Machine
- Epic Reads: Destination Romance: SMALL TOWNS
- The SITS Girls: Keep Calm & Understand the New FTC Guidelines
- Kelly talks about what she’s learned from reading monster erotica
- Go tell Amanda about your favorite audiobooks!
Favorite Quotes of the Week
“I’ve developed a reputation as cold, unfeeling monster who fears nothing and cares for less. But this is all very deceiving. Because the truth is, I am nothing but a coward.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Destroy Me
“Stop what?” Howie demanded. “Stop loving you, Jazz? I wish I could quit you, but I can’t. Someday, we’ll run off to New York and get married, the way God intended it.”
Despite himself, Jasper cracked a grin. “Sorry, man — my nips only go out this far.” He mimmed a quarter inch.
“Oh, well, in that case, nice to know ya…”
-Barry Lyga, Career Day
Top Ten Tuesdays is an original feature created because The Broke and The Bookish is fond of lists. They love to share their lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see other’s top ten lists! Each week, they will post a new Top Ten list and everyone is welcome to join. Please link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your post AND add your name to the Linky widget.
This Week’s Question:
Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects
Ohhh. I do love a good tough issue book. This is my list on Goodreads, and I’ve only read a smidgen of them.
- A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah: This is a real life account of a young boy in Sierra Leone who was unwillingly recruited as a child soldier in the civil war. It’s an ugly story with an incredible ending.
- What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage: I had to read this book for an elective course I took on public health issues. It’s a story about a woman who is HIV positive and makes her way back to the small town she left years ago, to rekindle relationships and find herself.
- House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III: You may have seen this movie, starring Jennifer Connelly and Sir Ben Kingsley. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but it is not as good as the book, which is chock full of intense emotions.
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky: Awww. This book is so special. I want to hug Charlie close and never let him go.
- Crank by Ellen Hopkins: I still can’t believe I haven’t read the rest of this series! This was my first venture into reading a novel written entirely in prose but it really adds to the intensity. Seeing the character slowly fall into bed with “the monster” was pretty horrifying.
- White Oleander by Janet Fitch: I had to read this book for my Child Welfare elective. It was supposed to show the extreme side of foster care, but also proves that resiliency does exist.
- Scars by Cheryl Rainfield: This book is worth a read, especially when you find out why this young lady harms herself they way she does. It’s horrifying but rings true about real life.
- Stolen by Lucy Christopher: Holy Mindfuck, Batman. A book about a young girl who is kidnapped and taken to a secluded spot in the Australian desert to live with her captor will leave you feeling extremely uncomfortable. The way the book is written truly makes you flip the last page and feel the effects of Stockholm Syndrome.
- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: WOW. This is a recent read for me and it packs a serious punch. A book about kids with cancer that is really a book about living life to the fullest. Lots of emotions, people.
- Ordinary Beauty by Laura Wiess: One of the many books that book club chose that I would never have picked up otherwise, and I am so pleased that it graced my life. It shows the truly ugly side of mental illness and family discord, only to show that one caring person in a child’s life can truly make a difference.
