Talkative Tuesday 4/5/11

5 days into April, and it's been a whirlwind already!

Thankfully I'm introducing you to a blogger who is a spitfire! With her 3 year blogaversary coming up on Friday I thought it would be fitting to shine the light one her this week.

Everyone say hi to Natasha, who created Wicked Lil Pixie. Reading, review, contests, and random thoughts all fall into the pages of her blog. I think the main thing that truly draws me to it is the fact that she's as outspoken as I am. There's no candy coating, and sometimes there's even a failure to censor things that are said. (Which I love)

So you could see why I am drawn to her! She loves her books, and lets you know.....so what are you waiting for?! Start stalking, NOW!

You know the drill, Facebook, Twitter, blog. Believe me, she will keep you entertained and you WILL want to read whatever she's reading!

Teaser Tuesday 5.4.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

My teaser is from p. 23 of The Lost Kings by Bruno Hare.

"I was going to him in order to sell a collection of rare and beautiful watches so that I could follow the trail left by another, valued so far only by death. It felt marvellous."

True Blood Season 4: Waiting Sucks (#5)

SQWEEEEEE!!

Another "Waiting Sucks"! And it's PAM, who I love!

Monday Morning Kick Start

Over the weekend I found out the master cylinder is going out on one of my cars...ugh, really?! So now I need something to take my mind off the stress :)

LOVE his......tattoos

Obviously it's a "clothing optional" kind of day!

HAPPY MONDAY!!

Random Books from My Personal Library: A-C

What a lovely Saturday! I spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon reading the last 300 pages of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. What a brilliant book!

Now I've already started with The Lost Kings by Bruno Hare. It promises to be "a stirring tale of adventure and derring-do set on the far frontiers of [the British] empire". We'll see how I'll like the book.

But let's move to today's post. I have been thinking for a while that it would be nice to start a series of posts and have now come up with two ideas actually. I will start today with random books from my personal library. In this series I will feature books from my bookshelves, but only such books I have not already posted about. Most will probably be books I have read pre book blogging, but there might also be some I have read since I started this blog and have not reviewed or talked about yet. And to make it all even more fun (at least for myself:)) I will choose books in alphabetical order. In this first post in the series I'll introduce three novels titles of which start with A, B or C.
Let's get rolling then:

A:
Affinity by Sarah Waters

Set in 1870s London Affinity begins with Margaret Prior starting her charitable work as a prison visitor. In Millbank prison she meets inmate Selina Dawes, a disgraced spiritualist, and little by little becomes infatuated with her. But is Selina a genuine spiritualist and an innocent victim or a fraud and quilty of the crimes she is accused of? Does she love Margaret or is she just using her for her own purposes? Does magic and ghosts really exist?

This was Waters second novel after the fabulous first one Tipping the Velvet and while I enjoyed reading Affinity I thought it seemed a typical second novel, not quite as good or interesting as the first one. Later I saw the BBC adaptation of Affinity and loved it. I have been thinking that maybe I should reread the book. I have the feeling I'm going to like it more the second time around.

Waters is one of my favorite authors. I have read and own all her five novels. Waters visited the Helsinki Book Fair a few years ago and I was lucky enough to get my copy of Fingersmith signed by her!

B:
Boating for Beginners by Jeanette Winterson

Another favorite author, another second novel! Winterson's first novel was the kind of autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and Boating for Beginners was published only three months after Oranges. Winterson calls it comic book with pictures (there are some funny Assyrian-style drawings in the book) and says it was never intended as a second novel. Boating for Beginners was very much an atypical read for me, but it was also funny and innovative and clever.

Boating for Beginners is a surreal retelling of the Book of Genesis. And the name of the novel? In the book Boating for Beginners is a successful pleasure boat company run by a little, fat man called -you guessed it- Noah! :)

Hmm, if I reread this, would it qualify as another Mesopotamia novel for the One, Two, Theme Challenge? :)

C:
Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

The "indomitable product of the Victorian age", Amelia Peabody, starts her Egyptian adventures with this novel. What follows is book after book of mummies and villains and archeological excavations. There is already 19 books in the series that spans from 1884 to the 1920s.

I've enjoyed every one of Peters' novels I have ever read. When it come to the Amelia books I especially enjoy the humour, and the setting, mostly Egypt, is a huge plus. Also, I love how Amelia and Emerson's son Ramses grows from a really annoying, extremely precocious brat to a dashing hero of the later novels.

Well, that was it this time. I'll continue with the next installment (D-F) next week. Now I'll retreat back to reading The Lost Kings.

Wrap It Up - March

Feel SUPER proud & accomplished for all my reading I did in March compared to February! So if you missed out on any of the reviews, here at the books I was able to read:

The Demon Trappers Daughter - By Jana Oliver
(review here)

Rush of Darkness - By Rhyannon Byrd
(review here)

Rage - By Jackie Morse Kessler

(review here)

An Immortal Legacy - By Ashley Harrison Blalock

(review here)

Uniform Behaviour - Edited by Lucy Felthouse

(review here)

Second Chances - By Jennifer L. Place

(review here)

So now let's BLAST into April & read our little hearts out!

Fresh Face Friday 4-1-11

(US Cover)    

(UK Cover)

                                                                         

April already?! Man this year is flying by!

So this week I'm trying a new "way" of doing my FFF. Just to make them more informative.

Who: Alma Katsu

What: The Taker -

               Have you ever loved someone so much that you'd do anything for them?

    When Dr Luke Findley turns up to his hospital shift in the small town of St Andrews, Maine, he's expecting just another evening of minor injuries and domestic disputes. But instead, Lanore McIlvrae walks into his life - and changes it forever. For Lanny is a woman with a past...
    Lanny McIlvrae is unlike anyone Luke has ever met. Hers is a story of love and betrayal that defies time and transcends mortality - and cannot end until Lanny's demons are finally put to rest. Her two hundred years on this earth have seen her seduced by both decadence and brutality - but through it all she has stayed true to the one true love of her life. Until now.
    An unforgettable novel about the power of unrequited love to elevate and sustain, but also to blind and ultimately destroy, The Taker is an immortal love story on an epic scale...

    

Buzz:  "This is a great book. And by great, I mean, devastatingly so, like reading the Scarlett Letter, while riding a roller coaster, on acid. Seductive, daring, soaring, and ultimately gut-wrenching, the Taker is a lush, historical rendering of transcendent love, paranormal beings, and the depths of pain that can be felt by immortal hearts." - Jamie Ford, author of "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet"

Cover: US - it looks mysterious, like a suspense novel. UK -  fell in love with this cover, it's beautiful

My thoughts: I'm actually SUPER intrigued to start reading The Taker. I have a UK copy sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Alma's story seems to have a great mixture of love, mystery, and conflict, which is the perfect combination for a great ride. Look for my review soon! 

Excerpt: Read the 1st chapter here

Stalking Grounds: Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Website

 Extra: Watch the author video that Simon & Schuster put together: here