Book Lottery

Here's a quickie blog post - one long, bored afternoon I decided to write out on tiny slips of paper the title of every book that I own and haven't read yet, folded them up into minuscule squares, and filled up a small jar with it. This way, whenever I'm completely stumped and don't know what to read next, all I have to do is give the jar a good shake and pick a slip of paper with a book title on it. I'll have no choice but to read it! (That's the agreement I have with myself.)

here it is! My Owl Jar on my bookshelf.

I was worried when I started this project that it would have interesting and mixed results. For instance, what if I picked a book within a series? I solved that issue by only putting the most recently unread title into the jar. When that one is finished, I'll put in the next unread title in the series into the jar until I eventually get to it. Of course, I won't put in titles that I've already read, and will throw out the slips of paper out once they're done.
But there's another problem that I was worried about. So, I'm nearly done with a bunch of library books and other titles I borrowed from friends, and I decided it was finally time to work out my system.
I took down the owl jar, gave it a shake, and pulled out my next book.

I bought this book on a bargain bin - it was on sale because the spin is
printed upside own from the rest of the book ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The title I ended up pulling was a huge biography on Catherine the Great - obviously left unread because it's, well, sort of intimidating. It isn't that I'm uninterested in Catherine the Great. I'm totally game! Otherwise I wouldn't own it at all, right? It's just not exactly light, beach reading. I knew, of course, that this would be an experimental arrangement. I didn't expect to get something so dense right out of the gate. All of my history books are for research-y things. Needless to say, I'm intimidated!

574 pages in this book ⊙﹏⊙ ulp!

General, Run of the Mill Blog Updates

Hey there, here's a little update post. Things might look a little different on the blog - We have a spiffy new layout! 

There are a few visual kinks I'd like to work out. But for now, I'll just let them be. (I don't think they're bothering anyone but me - but if you have any recommendations - please comment back and I'll try my best to fix them!)

With that out of the way, my October Reading List is going great! I'll try to have a new review or two up for you to read before next week! Thanks to my friends who suggested tons of great books. There's no way I'll be able to read them all before the end of the month - it's possible I might still being reading some in November! (I don't think anyone would mind that, would they?)

Speaking of Next Month - it'll be NaNoWriMo again before you know it! I'll be participating again this year, and you can check my daily progress with the neat little widget in the side bar. I've been doing tons of research for this project since the end of last winter - now I just have to write it! Thankfully, a lot of my friends are participating, which can be a helpful thing. I'll personally be writing in a notebook, and keeping count with the Writeometer app and maybe keeping tabs on other participants in my area via the NaNoWriMo website. Last year I attended a write-in at my local library and met tons of cool people. I may not have time to this year, but check your library to see if such things are available in your area!

That's all for now - later, Toots!

Spooky-Scary Reading List!

Just like last year, and the year before that, and the year before that one, forever and ever, America, The Earth, The Universe, etc., I celebrate the month of October by curating a reading list appropriate for Halloween - to get me into the holiday spirit.
Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, but it's the only one I dislike less than all the others. I don't especially like horror, costumes, or, shit, even pumpkin spice. I am, however, a morbid individual. It's hard to explain my rational. I'm not scared or disturbed by horror easily - I actually find a lot of it pretty silly. This may be owing to having grown up on Mystery Science Theater and just being desensitized by it through satire. So when I started devoting the month of October to reading horror novels - a genre that I don't usually give much attention to - it was an attempt to try something new and maybe find something that actually could scare me. But mostly it was just to get myself hyped about a holiday that I would otherwise just ignore. It's a fun tradition, and one that I look forward to, but more often than not I'm unimpressed with the books that I find.
Because I'm Super unversed in the horror genre in novels, I still depend heavily on the recommendations of others. I've read enough Stephen King and HP Lovecraft to know that I'm bored by it and hate it, but I know that there's got to be better horror novels out there. Occasionally I'll actually find some. But if it isn't Stephen King or HP Lovecraft, everyone seems to draw a blank. So it seems to me, the horror genre isn't as expansive as I'd hope. There may be a devoted market for it, but it doesn't seem to touch it's cousins, sci-fi and fantasy.

Anyway, over the course of the month I will be unveiling the creepy little books I've been reading - so stay tuned for that!

Happy New Year! and some Book-centric Social Media Sites

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm sorry I've gotten a little post-shy lately, but I think it's understandable and forgivable due to the holidays. Horrifically, unlike some, I was actually working through most of it. This means less free time for reading. But a book review is soon to come, so keep on the look out for it! Also, to make up for lost time, this update is going to be quite huge.

To start with, Here's an announcement: with the New Year, I decided to start something I think is pretty cool. Along with my book reviews, I'm going to include a unique illustration inspired by that book. This is because there's only two things I really love in this world, and that's reading and drawing. I think it would be irresponsible not to share both of those loves with you here, don't you think?

Now, I decided to try out some different Social Media websites created for readers. I've been using GoodReads for years now, and though it's still the bigger site of it's kind out there, many of it's users recently started moving over to new platforms after it was bought out by Amazon. This doesn't bother me much, personally. But I decided to scope out what else is out there. There is also Shelfari, which I'd used for many years before I found out about GoodReads. I much rather GoodReads of the two for many reasons, though. I don't like the idea of starting from scratch on any of these new sites, but I wanted to see if any had something interesting and new to offer me.

• BookLikes may be the most unique so far. It borrows some features I enjoyed from GoodReads (like the progress bar) and it seems to have a similar blogging function as Tumblr. This may very well become the new site for me. I've yet to explore all of it's functions, but what I see I like. Follow Me There
• Riffle is being described as "like Pinterest for books." Sort of, I guess. But I'm not convinced that I like it. The layout is beautiful and very reminiscent of Pinterest, but unlike Pinterest the focus is only on books. I suppose it's more fun when you get to mingle with other users, because there's a questionaire feature that let's you use books as answers, and cool list feature that might help you find something new to read. But other than that, I feel like it's a fancy toy on Christmas morning - the interest will fizzle pretty quickly. It is, however, still in beta - so there's lots of room to grow! Follow Me There
• Slice is my least favorite of all that I've tried out this morning. It, too, is still in beta - so hopefully it grows up with time. But for now, it's not much more than your Facebook feed, filtered out so that anything book-centric shows up. This is because you're restricted to linking up your Facebook account to it. Personally, I think that what happens on Facebook should STAY on Facebook. There aren't many redeeming features. It's pretty bland. I'd pass on it.

Take the Pledge to Give Books!

Hey All!
Thanksgiving isn't even upon us yet, but I'm sure we're all trying to force that Holiday Enthusiasm! I came across this cool little thing on Pintrest today, and I thought it needed to be shared here too! Chronicle Books has a campaign to give 10,000 books to kids this holiday season. This is something I really care about - so I didn't hesitate to participate.
They're also asking that you add books to your Christmas shopping list this year, too. Most of my family and friends (sometimes begrudgingly) have come to expect this from me already. Amazon has a time saving feature where you can send ebooks to your friends' Kindles - which I'm trying out for the first time this year. My brother, who doesn't ever read any of the books I give him for Christmas, is still going to get a book wither he likes it or not (it's become a kind of joke between us - I buy him books he won't read, he buys me video games I can't play - but we do it anyway, because it's what we're best at buying). But more importantly, I give books every year to children - my cousins and the children I babysat while I was in college. Because I understand that traditions like this are important and become treasured. I understand that it instills a love of reading and (more importantly) learning early on. AND I understand that for Christmas and birthdays, children tend to get an overwhelming amount of clothes and toys as gifts, and if anyone appreciates the change of pace, their parents do. So consider giving a book this year, people!

NaNoWriMo

So, we're literally about a week into November, and I'm long over-due for this announcement. So, um - this year I'm going to be participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). In other words, I'm writing a novel! Don't worry, I'm also far behind on my daily goals in writing it too.
I've always thought about writing - I think I have a fair amount of skill at it (not a gift I was born with, but one I've developed from years of reading other people's books), but it's not an idea I've ever sincerely thought about pursuing.
Do I really think this novel I decided to write on a whim is going to be any good? Good enough to be published and read by the masses? Le Nope. But I do think it would be fun and amusing to let my friends read it, so there is also something there. Most writers say that they don't do it for the money, just for the opportunity for someone else to read their work. Honestly, I don't even know how I feel about that. My intentions with this is just to try something different and challenge my creativity in a new way. It's been about a year since I've graduated from college, and when that ended so did every good idea in my brain. I'm a little horrified to see what I'll be doing in 10 years, if in only a year I wanted to call it quits on Creative Thought. Creativity is as important as air to me. In fact, post-grad the thing that disturbed me the most after college isn't how stupid adults are, but how un-imaginative they are. I've met so few imaginative adults that it really kind of sickens me. Dear God, Please don't let me become like them!

So my I'm trying to write is a hipster romance novel. (I'm trying really hard not to take myself too seriously). I don't have as much time to spend writing it as I'd hoped, but lord bless I'm having a lot of fun with it so far.

Blogging For Books

So... I have some big news! I've joined Blogging For Books, program from the fine Christian Literature publishers Water Brook Press. If you're interested in seeing more Christian Lit reviews here, this will be your dream come true (it's certainly mine!)

In other news, I will have a new book review coming this weekend, so check back soon!