BTT- The Cold, an Award and a Giveaway!

The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch … what kind of reading do you want to do?

When it’s really cold, I like get into my bed, snuggle up under my warm covers, and then read.  I’m not particular about the type of book, though I don’t think I’d read anything that required me to think.  The problem I have, however, is that I always fall asleep!

read other Booking Through Thursday answers here 🙂

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I’d like to say thank you to Reagan at Miss Remmers’ Reviews for my first award for 2010.  It’s quite a lovely award, don’t you think?

A Prolific Blogger is one who is intellectually productive… keeping up an active blog that is filled with enjoyable content.

There are a couple of rules for this award:

1. Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers. Spread some love!
2. Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award.
3. Every Prolific Blogger must link back to This Post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.
4. Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky, so that we all can get to know the other winners.

Miss Remmers’ Reviews is one of the blogs that I first visited during Bloggiesta as part of the comment mini-challenge, and I enjoy Reagan’s posts, especially the Thesis Statement Video, which has the Thesis Statement Rap in it.  LOL! Had to put it in there 🙂

Now for my magnificent seven nominees:

Care’s Online Book Club – While Care is currently UNPLUGGED, I enjoy reading her posts, particularly the Virginia Wolf ones (I argue I don’t like stream of conscious, and yet I loved Push.  Maybe I should give Ms. Wolf a shot, since it really was the movie The Hours that made me run from her.)  Looking forward to your return, Blogging Buddy 🙂

Wrighty Reads – Debbie has great reviews and I enjoy her “So I was just wondering…” posts.  AND she’s a fellow left-hander 😉  Lefties RULE!

Unfinished Rambler – Poor Unfinished.  He’s lost his favorite blog home, Humor-Blogs.com, and he’s been going through the various stages of grief about it.  I think he might be at acceptance now, but I’m not quite sure… He’s definitely still snarky about it, but he’s usually snarky anyway, which is one of the things I enjoy about his blogs.  Did you know Elvis is the janitor at his library?  He’s probably too cool for this award, but here it is all the same 🙂

Lady Gwyn’s Kingdom – This is a fairly new-to-me blog, but quite enjoyable.  I found it through my Google Alerts.  She had “Reading Challenge” and Welsh on the same page, so Google thought it was the same as “Welsh Reading Challenge”… erm, not quite, but I’m glad for GA’s loose extrapolation, because I would have missed this one.  It’s a lovely blog, playing chamber music while you read reviews of books about Tudors and other royal members behaving badly (and some not so bad, too;-) ), books by Sharon Kay Penman, and you can read about what happened on this day in history, as well.

Reading In Color – Ari is probably another one who is too cool for this award (really, she is, go check her blog out 🙂 ), but it’s what I’ve got to show my appreciation for what she’s doing, so here ya go.  She’s working with Doret and Laura on a project to find the most diverse YA/MG publishing company, so if you have any ideas, pass it along!

Debbie’s World of Books – This is another great blog I first visited during the Bloggiesta mini-challenge, and I’ve enjoyed ever since.  Great reviews, fun memes, and I love the blog theme (purple’s my favorite color 😉 )

In Spring is the Dawn – Also a Bloggiesta find, Tanabata focuses a lot on All Things Japanese, whether that be in book or movie form, or the traditional music of Japan.  It’s fascinating to learn about translations, and her blog’s layout is fun and beautiful.

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Also, don’t forget to check out my giveaway!  I’m giving away a copy of Push by Sapphire, and the more people sign up, the more prizes!  If 50 or more people enter to win, I’ll add $10 to spend on Amazon.com for the grand prize!

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BTT ~ Dune Thief’s Daughters

Jackie says, “I love books with complicated plots and unexpected endings. What is your favourite book with a fantastic twist at the end?”

So, today’s question is in two parts.

1. Do YOU like books with complicated plots and unexpected endings?

2. What book with a surprise ending is your favorite? Or your least favorite?

My answer to the first part, “do I like complicated plots and unexpected endings?” is a resounding YES!  I think it’s one of the things I liked best about Dune.  All the intrigues and plots and subplots made it like taking a long trip down a winding road and checking out all the historical markers, garage sales, and tourist traps along the way.  I hate reading a book where I know what’s going to happen, it really takes a lot of the fun out of it.  Maybe that’s one of the things I didn’t like about The Blue Notebook, none of it was a surprise… except just how far human depravity can go.

As for what book with a surprise ending is my favorite, I’d say The Book Thief is my favorite book.  I don’t know whether it was a “surprise” because we know Liesel is going to die by page 3, and yet… somehow… her death is still a shock, like when a person with cancer dies in a car crash.  You knew their end was coming, but when it happens it’s a shock.  It wasn’t the fact she died, but the how and what all happened in the book before that.  I actually cried for several minutes, and couldn’t start a new book for a few days because of how much emotions it had wrought in me.  That’s why The Book Thief is my all-time favorite book.  I’ve never had a book reach me so deeply.

As for my least favorite “surprise ending” book, that’d be BoneMan’s Daughters.  By the time the end came, I was hating the book so bad, there was nothing Dekker could do to bring me back.  I’d lost my willing suspension of disbelief, so the ending was ridiculous to me.

So how about you?  Do you like complicated and twisty books?  What’s your favorite surprise ending?

Check out other Twisty Booking Through Thursday answers!

BTT- Jane Austen of Gor

Barbara wants to know:

What books did you get for Christmas (or whichever holiday you may have celebrated last month)?

Do you usually ask for books on gift-giving occasions or do you prefer to buy them yourself?

Normally, I prefer to buy books on my own.  I have put the word out to those who might be buying me a birthday present in June that I’d like a complete set of the works of Jane Austen, one where the books match each other.  I have so many books that I worry someone would give me a copy of one I already own or have read.

Having said that, I did get books for Christmas.  My LibraryThing Santa, youthfulzombie, gave me The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 1) by Patrick Rothfuss and Patient Zero:  A Joe Ledger Novel by Johnathan Maberry, neither of which I had heard of, but both look really cool.  I also bought a book for myself from Amazon with Christmas cash my mom sent… lol… the title is a bit embarrassing:  Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman.  On SecondLife, there is a whole Gorean community, so I thought I’d read the first book of the series that inspired them.  Not sure how I’ll like it, though.

Check out other answers to this week’s BTT questions 🙂

BTT ~ If the Corn and the Mashed Potatoes Touch, the World Will Implode!

Follow-up to last week’s question:

Do you keep all your unread books together, like books in a waiting room? Or are they scattered throughout your shelves, mingling like party-goers waiting for the host to come along?

Okay, I was not going to do Booking Through Thursday this week, I was going to start back on them next week, but I have to tell on myself… after all, confessions good for the soul, right? 

I am obsessive about keeping things separate (except when it comes to the laundry, then everything gets shoved in the machine with as much hatred for the chore the clothing and washer can take without breaking).  I get panicky if my food touches.  I swear, if they’d make good china like the lunchroom trays, I’d eat off those.  My dad used to grouse about it at dinner, “It’s all going to get mixed up in your stomach anyway!” and I’d answer, “Yeah, but I don’t have to look at it there!”

So YES, oh god yes! my books are separate.  Not just TBR and Read separate, but ARC and review piles here, audio books there, books on deck there, manga up there, Mt TBR here and here and there, unreads that aren’t yet TBR’s way over there, the kids’ books are in the living room so they can’t go near my books and spread their cooties to them… each kid has their own specific, all-yours books in their rooms, coffee table books over there… I used to seperate them even further according to genre, but my TBR shelves have become a free-for-all from acquiring so many so fast that I had to give that up.  

So, do I qualify as mildly anal or OCD? 

Oh, forgot to tell you, I alphabetize my canned foods, too.

BTT ~ The Best Place After the Womb!

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?

(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)

Oddly, when I think of “summer reading” I think of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  When I first really started reading books in earnest, I was in high school and part of an Honors Reading program.  The summer before my junior year, I was a camp counselor and took my copy of The Scarlet Letter with me.  I found this little hidden clearing that was just off a secondary trail, and I would slip into it and park my butt under a tree and read through my free time. 

To this day, this memory is my “happy place” that I go to in my mind whenever I’m stressed out.  It was such a relaxing place.  Quiet but for a gentle breeze blowing through the trees and the birds singing cheerfully.  Safe… no one ever found me in there, even when they were walking by on the trail and calling for me, they never saw the opening to the clearing.  The cheerful sunshine radiating down and warming me, while the shade of the tree kept me from being too hot or getting too much sun.  The book in my hand transporting me to another time and place.

What’s your best summer memory of reading?

BTT ~ Next Stop, Fantasyland!

One of my favorite sci-fi authors (Sharon Lee) has declared June 23rd Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Day.

As she puts it:

So! In my Official Capacity as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I hereby proclaim June 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day! A day of celebration and wonder! A day for all of us readers of science fiction and fantasy to reach out and say thank you to our favorite writers. A day, perhaps, to blog about our favorite sf/f writers. A day to reflect upon how written science fiction and fantasy has changed your life.

So … what might you do on the 23rd to celebrate? Do you even read fantasy/sci-fi? Why? Why not?

Well, actually, June 24th is my middle daughter’s birthday, so I’d imagine I’ll be busy shopping around for the cake and dinner and presents.  That is also a Tueday… not that that means anything, just that the 23rd’s a Tuesday.

As to whether I read sci-fi and fantasy, heck yeah I read it!  It’s really cool to see what bends, twists and detours the human imagination can take.  I’m forced to deal with reality on a daily basis, so it’s nice to escape from it in a good book.  Some of my favorite authors of this genre are Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and others for whom I’m drawing a blank… but they’re great!  lol…

I have H. P. Lovecraft on Mt. TBR, as well as several Richard Matheson books.

BTT ~ All Things Vietnamese

There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.

What niche books do YOU read?

As many of you may know, my youngest, Maggie, is half-Vietnamese.  Now, in my honest opinion, it should be her dad teaching her all things Vietnamese.  However, that’s not often the case.  And the distance between him and us also makes it a bit more difficult for him to impart his cultural wisdom to her.  So I read what I can, then pass it along.

Some of the Vietnam-related books I have are cookbooks, with stains on several pages… Pho Bo gets made a lot, as does Mung Bean soup.  I also have a Kinh Tanh (Vietnamese Bible), and an English-Vietnamese dictionatry.  I’ve read The Boat by Nam Le and also interviewed him.  And I’m always on the lookout for Vietnamese kids books and folklore books.

That’s our little niche, what’s yours?

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Edited to add this vid clip. I felt so incomplete leaving this post without any media. For the most part, the recipe in this video is how I make Pho Bo, except I don’t use meatballs, nor have I ever ate anyone else’s soup that did. What we always do is slice a nice cut of beef paper thin, put the raw beef strips on the top of the noodles and everthing else, and when you pour the hot broth over it, the beef cooks. Very nice that way. Interesting point, btw, I char the ginger on my electric stove’s coils… so ghetto, I know, but it’s the only way I can do it.

YUM!

BTT ~ Stickin’ it to ya!

 

saw this over at Shelley’s, and thought it sounded like a great question for all of you:

“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

Fifteen books that will always stick with me, right off the top of my head….  K, here goes:

1. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
2. Matrimony by Joshua Henkin
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
5. Lisey’s Story by Stephen King
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
8. The Giver by Lois Lowry
9. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
10. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
11. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
12. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
13. Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
14. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
15. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo

Now, not all are on my top 10 list, oddly enough, and not all of them are what I’d call “great novels.”  Of course, there are many others that will also stick with me, but I’ve written this post while Gwen and Maggie are fighting and tattling, my friend came over to chat and The Departed is playing on the TV, so we’re all lucky Dick and Jane wasn’t the only book title I could think of.

BTT ~ Ah! To Be a Virgin Again!

What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time?

(Interestingly, I thought that I had thought this one up myself, but when I started scrolling through the Suggestions, found that Rebecca had suggested almost exactly this question a couple months ago. So, we both get credit!)

I love the thought of being able to have a fresh mind to read my favorite books again for the first time.  Sometimes, a book can be read a second time (or third, and more) and still appreciated and learned from, but to have that sense of not-knowing, and of biting your nails for the character, to experience the injustices and learn the lessons for the first time again would be a gift.

I would love to wipe my mind of the movie and book of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.   To NOT know the outcome of the court case and to feel Scout and Jem’s pain as they realize that justice and the law do not always run in the same pack would be great.  To wonder what Boo Radley was, a ghost or a man?  and to hide Dill under the bed, only to get caught by our father… well, It’d be like falling in love with your first love again.

Another book I’d love to read for the first time again would be The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  It is so incredibly powerful and the poetry of it so beautiful, that I’m sure it can withstand re-reading again and again.  However, to feel that thrill, that wonder… that terror… to go on that journey again, new once more, would be an experience I’d just about be willing to pay money for.

How about you?  What books would you like to have a second “first-time” with?