My August Reads

August Books:
Total books read: 4
New Authors: 3
Books in a Series: 2
Mystery: 3
Non-Fiction: 0
Romance: 0
Children or YA Fiction: 0

The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver
This Charming Man by Marian Keyes
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
24 Hours by Greg Iles

Hurricane Gustav

Now I don't want to think about it too much or I'll be a nervous wreck but I might not be able to get online next week since we live in Mississippi and it looks like Gustav is heading this way.

Jarren

Book Blogger Appreciation Week '08

I actually hadn't planned on participating this year but I after hearing about it from almost every blog I visit (and there are over 30 now) I decided to play too. I can’t wait to hear who wins… maybe I’ll add them to my huge list of blogs I visit! Here’s how you play:

Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2008 runs Sept. 15-19 sponsored by My Friend Amy. Here's her post about the nominations.

The 2008 BBAW Categories:
Best General Book BlogBest Kidlit Blog
Best Christian/Inspirational Fiction Blog
Best Literary Fiction Blog
Best Book Club Blog
Best Romance Blog
Best Thrillers/Mystery/Suspense Blog
Best Non-fiction Blog
Best Young Adult Lit Blog
Best Book/Publishing Industry Blog
Best Challenge Host
Best Community Builder
Best Cookbook Blog
Best History/Historical Fiction Blog
Best Design
Most Chatty
Most Concise
Most Eclectic Taste
Best Name for a Blog
Best Published Author Blog
Best Book published in 2008
Best Meme/Carnival/Event
Most Extravagant Giveaways
Best Book Community site
Write In (contact Amy if you think there is a category missing)

Feel free to nominate up to 2 blogs (or leave blank if you can't think of one) per category and nominations must be sent to this email: BbawawardsATgmailDOTcom

Deadline is Aug. 31, 2008.

I AM NOT PERSONALLY HOSTING THIS!

First Teaser Tuesday

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.


• Let the book fall open to a random page.


• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
  
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!


• Please avoid spoilers!

I'm reading The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson:

In 1964 he [Jim Morrison] moved to Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where he selected a name for an imaginary band he wanted to form someday. Aldous Huxley's The Door of Perception served as inspiration, as did a passage written by William Blake: "There are things that are known and things that are unknown, in between the doors."

~ # 227 (and pg) Light My Fire by The Doors.

Updates

I was happy to hear that you guys missed me while I was gone from blogland! Lately I’ve just been in a reading and writing rut but thankfully that’s passed. I’ve been trying to go around and check up on everybody and see what they’ve been doing lately. Lot’s of interesting books have gotten added to my already huge TBR list (I counted the other day when I was rearranging my books and I own 158 books that I still haven’t read- many I’ve owned for years!).

Here are the library books I picked up yesterday:

I just couldn’t help it! Somehow I started browing when I went to pick up the DVDs that came in for me (I love my library): The Women and Happily Ever After.

Oh and I have up new reviews on both of my other websites. Remember Me? By Sophie Kinsella on Movieholic & Biblophile and Stand Up and Cheer (1934) on Neverland. Hope you enjoy!!!

Author Threaten's Blogger

OMG! Have you heard of what Charidee over at Novel Reads is going through right now? While writing at a friend’s blog about Victoria Laurie’s book Crime Seen (which she praised by the way) and about the author herself, whom she didn’t care for (personality-wise) and then went on to quote from the author’s own blog where Laurie pretty much bullied a reader that had emailed her for not agreeing with her opinions (she even left these people's email addresses on her site).

After quoting this Charidee wrote “On one hand, I can kind of applaud Laurie for standing behind what she loves, on the other, I think she acted in an incredibly unprofessional manner with that.” but the Charidee concluded with, “In the end, I read WAGTD [What‘s a Ghoul to Do?], and I'll probably be at the store buying the next one the day it's released in March, because I LOVED that book, too. I'll continue to read Laurie's books, because she's one hell of an author and her books keep me turning the pages and even have me laughing at times too. I don't have to like how she views things. I'll continue to read her and be a fan of her BOOKS as long as she writes them as good as she has been.”

After being silent in the blog world for a little, Charidee opened up Novel Reads again and again talked about how unprofessional this particular author was because now Ms. Laurie was getting reviewers that had left unpleasant reviews of her books banned from Amazon.com (and then placing their screen names on her website). She also took the name of someone who had written to her about how she disliked her newest series and said she was going to place a person with a similar name (so as not to get sued) in a horrible situation in her next book. Humiliating someone because they didn’t care for your books (even though I don’t understand why they would write and be nasty to the author about it), is really low and extremely petty don’t you think?

Then, she learned that not only was the author seeming to enjoy bullying these people but that her editor was encouraging it. Charidee tried to find a way to contact said editor: “I'm trying to use my very limited powers of Google search to hunt down this editor of the authors so that I may contact them to ask a few questions about this. I'm very much interested in why the editor loves this idea enough to encourage it. Why the editor sees nothing wrong with it. I have no doubt my questions will go un-answered, but I still feel the need to try. Heck, I'm even thinking about contacting the agent of the author, asking if they know about the behavior. I think I'll wait tough, because I'd like to know about the legal angle here.”

Once she did track down these people, she left a voice mail asking for the editor in question to contact her about this because she was “deeply disturbed” by what she had read on said author’s blog (which by the way has been taken down). Charidee then talked to the owner of Dear Author about this, which prompted another posting about this author’s revenge.

Charidee eventually started getting some nasty emails about all of this but was a lady about it (and did not name names or post email addresses). Then on August 19 , 2008 (yes a few days ago and all of this started in January) someone claiming to be Victoria Laurie’s lawyer emailed Charidee pretty much bullying her but the lady of Novel Reads explained the situation to the Dear Author blogger and she (and several other people) came to her defense. Makes me want to stand up and cheer! Oh and I guess it was before Dear Author posted this but the crazy woman actually started bragging on her blog about what she had done which included something about suing Charidee and costing her, her kid’s college education. WTF?

The moral of this story? Not all publicity is good publicity after all and don’t write to psycho authors not matter how much you enjoyed their books. The moral for me? Never touch Victoria Laurie’s books… even with a ten-foot pole, you on the other hand can do as you please but I did warn you!

To learn more of this incredibly bizarre story you can visit Novel Reads and check out the latest post that gives links to all of the above quoted stuff. No, this is not a hoax either.

Under da Sea & Care-a-Lot

My July Reads

July Books:
Total books read: 6
New Authors: 3
Books in a Series: 3
Mystery: 4
Non-Fiction: 0
Romance: 3
Children or YA Fiction: 1

Naked in Death by J. D. Robb
Wreath of Deception by Mary Ellen Hughes
The Good Guy by Dean Koontz
Lover Enshrined by J. R. Ward
I'll Be Watching You by Andrea Kane
The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith