The Sunday Salon

Let’s see, this week I’ve been friends with a snowman and a rabbit. I’ve b,een to Papau New Guinea, Boston, Czechoslavakia, and the Congo. I’ve lived in Kabul and Pakistan in a time women had no rights. I’ve been enraptured by the stories of a second-grader in Watertower and China. I’ve been out to the county fair, where we ate swamp fries, roas’nears and elephant ears, and drank lemon shake-ups to our hearts content. AND, yesterday morning, I took Maggie for breakfast at her favorite place, The White House.

Okay, the first four sentences were things I did in books, I read and reviewed The Rabbit and the Snowman, The White Mary, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Gooney Bird Greene.

But we did go to the county fair and we really did eat breakfast at the White House. Of course, when the county fair is open, you have to go more than one day. You have to see the animals and the merchants one night, and do the midway on another night.

So Monday was roosters, rabbits and merchants night, which is my favorite. I love going through the merchants buildings and signing up for every single drawing every business, church or club offers. In the past I’ve one a DirectTV satellite package, Avon baskets, shirts, and other stuff I can’t remember. This year, though, so many were offering gas cards. That kinda sucks, since I don’t drive… but I signed up for them anyway.

On Wednesday, we went for bracelet night at the midway. I even got a bracelet, which is stupid because I have vertigo. Maggie and I rode an up and down kind of ride. It didn’t spin, so I thought I’d be safe… wrong. But I know to focus on one spot to keep from getting sick… Maggie, poor Maggie, did not. She quickly exited the side of the ride and lost her lunch. She was pretty much ready to go home after that. I have a question for any med-savvy people, Maggie has eczema that flared this week, so she’d taken Benadryl, can that make you more prone to motion sickness? I told her that’s why she got sick.

Oh well, we went to look at the horses after that. We scratched several piggie’s backs and made our way back to the midway for our last ride. By then Mag’s stomach was settled, and our tradition is to save the Ferris wheel for our final fair event. The thing creaked and groaned and scared poor Maggie, who thought with certainty we were going to plummet to our deaths. I told her it just needed some WD-40 and we were safe, though I secretly agreed with her and I never get frightened on rides!

We lived.

Breakfast at the White House… I’m sure you’ve been dying to know. Here in Logansport, there is a restaurant called “White House”. It is owned by Lester, who has been cooking at the White House since my momma was a little girl, and that’s saying something! Mags and me, we always order the same thing, eggs over easy, toast with extra butter, smoked sausage and bacon, home fries with onions, chocolate mile for Mags and coffee for me. We always have the same waitress, Karen, so we never actually have to tell her what we want, unless we are adding a pancake with peanut butter like we did yesterday. Mag’s loves Karen, who’s watched her grow since we had our first breakfast there when Maggie was three. Like most places Maggie goes, she gets away with a lot at the White House… she brings flowers and a smile, and all the orneriness she can muster!

Also this week, I found FRED, where Julie shared the Fart in the Duck, Fyrefly asked Where the Hell is Matt and Suey shared her addiction to Vlogbrothers.

My First Ever Giveaway!! is winding down… only 11 days until it closes! Right now, I have 584 entries, and am giving away a $20, a $10, and a $5 Borders gift card. 16 more entries will add another $10 gift card, and at 700 I was going to add another $5, but I’ve been thinking… that’s such a great number, that it might be more. So… if you haven’t entered to win yet, do it now!

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The Where’s your book set? meme

I found this on Blue Archipelago’s Sunday Salon post, and thought it’d be fun.  Here’s how it works – just answer some or all of the following questions about the book you are currently reading (or just finished if you are between books).

Here’s the questions:

1. Title and author of the book

2. What year is the book set in?

3. What happened on this day in that year? Go to google and type in the date ie 13 July 1952 and see if you can find a news item for that day.

4. Where is your book set?

5. Have you visited that place before? If yes tell us something about your trip. If no, look the location up on google and tell us an interesting fact about the city/country.

My answers:

1.  I’m currently reading The White Maryby Kira Salak (I’m also reading Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers but that wouldn’t play well with this meme)

2.  I’m not sure if it has a year, just current.  For the purposes of the meme I’ll say 2007.

3.  “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” opened in theaters on July 13th, 2007 (That would have made it a Friday the 13th…. perfectly witchy day for a witchy movie.)

4.  The White Maryis mainly set in Papau New Guinea and Boston, though there are a few other places Marika goes.

5.  I have not visited PNG, myself, but my dad did on a layover to Australia.  I haven’t been to Boston, either.  Wikepedia says this of PNG:

It is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, with over 850 indigenous languages and at least as many traditional societies, out of a population of just under 6 million.

And I thought Vietnam’s 57 different ethnicities and languages was a lot… 850!

The Sunday Salon – over 3000 served

 

This has been a very busy week!  Reading, blogging, and real life has been a driven affair.  I’ve read and reviewed Dough: A Memoir by Mort Zachter and Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. I’m also halfway through The White Mary by Kira Salak, which is a really good book… Right now, I’m in the Krit Village eating cassowary bird meat and admiring a Krit boy’s magic object: A Pulitzer Prize gold medal. And I’m nibbling on Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers by Francesca Gould… It’s quite the conversation starter, though not dinner reading.

I know, I know… last Sunday I said it was only going to be ARCs this week, as I am behind on them, and I hadn’t intended to read all of Rant, but I wanted a book on CD while I was working in the kitchen (I read and listen along) and got caught up in it. It’s really weird and mind-bending, and I like that kind of reading. ALSO, not dinner reading. The Booger book is in my purse to read while out and about.

Next up on the report: I managed to knock out three ARCs (well, two and a half with White Mary only half finished), and got three in the mail last week: Surviving Ben’s Suicide by C. Comfort Shields, Stealing Athena by Karen Essex, and Tan Lines by J.J. Salem. Well at least I’m even. This week, the plan is One More Yearby Sana Krasikov, Tan Lines by J.J. Salem, and The Aviary Gate by Kate Hickman. It would be lovely to be able to fit a fourth in there, but next week’s the County Fair, and I doubt I’ll find any peace until it’s over. “PLEASE MOM!! Can we go?!?”

AND NOW, an update on the $20 Borders gift card giveaway! The response has been overwhelming for My First Ever Giveaway! As of right now, there are a total of 465 entries… which means it’s now a $20 and $10 Borders gift card giveaway! When it hits 500, I’ll add a $5 gift card, and since I’m certain we’ll hit that, HERE IS THE NEW SCOOP:

If it hits 600 entries, I will add a second $10 Borders gift card! That will make 4 prizes totalling FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS!

So my question is, any suggestions on what should be pictured on the gift cards?  They have “The Giving Tree” and “Spiderwick Cronicles fairies” and a couple others at my Waldenbooks. 

AND DON’T FORGET TO ENTER TO WIN! 

Booking Through Thursday -Holidays

It’s a holiday weekend here in the U.S., so let’s keep today’s question simple–What are you reading? Anything special? Any particularly juicy summer reading?

Oh good golly! I have been busy with the Jane-a-thon, and have finished Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park. I’m just about cross-eyed from Austen. I had forgotten how different the language is! Austen English and American modern English are at times so different it’s almost like a foreign language. I cannot tell you how many times a character has commented about another by saying, “You look fagged!” meaning “you look tired”, and Lady Bertram’s proclamation, “I am so very stupid!” wasn’t a self-deprecating comment (could that even be possible? She never wanted for self-esteem.), she was just commenting on feeling sleepy. Anyway, I think I’ll take in a few modern reads before returning to Austen-land (I’ve got that book on Mt. TBR, too.) and reading Emma.

I’ve already been cheating on Jane anyway. I’ve been reading Nam Le’s The Boat. I really love it. It’s compelling and sucks you in. Remember the Tom Riddle’s Diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? The boat pulls you into the lives and events in the pages like Riddle’s diary. The Boat is a book of vignette-like short stories about characters from different parts of the world. The first story has enough reality and truth that I wonder if it is a recounting of a real occurrence between Nam and his Ba (father in Vietnamese). I’m dying to throw Jane over so I can dedicate myself to Nam.

I also picked up a book at Waldenbooks Tuesday called Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers by Fancesca Gould. It’s GROSS. It’s TRIVIA. It’s GROSS TRIVIA! It’s chalk full of nasty facts like various uses for human flesh, ie book covers, furniture and suits (I ate his liver with some favre beans and a nice Chianti *slff-fff-fff-fff*) I’m going back tomorrow and get a second copy to giveaway with the review. It’s a really fun book to have and read to people

Yesterday, like several other bloggers, I received an email saying my review for The White Mary by Kira Salak is wanted. So that ARC is top o’ the Mount. I read the introduction today and it sounds really intense. So I’ll be hopping to on that one.

Other books to be read very soon are: Chuck Palahniuk’s Rant and Khaled Housseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. I will also be reading Dick Gibson’s Rob Grant Trilogy, then offering the set as a giveaway.

Other things worth mentioning: I have added a couple pages and sidebar boxes. Be sure to check out the Giveaways and Contests page, there are a lot of free books to be had! I’ve also posted my inventory of Mt. TBR… feel free to suggest what I should read next. And check out the authors box on to the right. I haven’t got many yet, but check back from time to time as I add more.

Last but not least, don’t forget to enter to win a $20 Borders gift card in My First Ever Giveaway!