This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine.
So I couldn't really get on the computer for any length of time to post these, so here they all are in a bunch.
Showing posts with label 15-day blog challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 15-day blog challenge. Show all posts
July 18, 2013
Day 11: Best Posts
This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine.
Previous Posts
Show off 5 of your best blog posts.
I figured the best way to do this was to go through my posts and arrange the ones I picked by categories and pick my favorite, so here we go!
Review | Never Let Me Go
Best critical review of an adult fiction novel. There was a lot to say about this book, and I said quite a bit of it!
Previous Posts
Show off 5 of your best blog posts.
I figured the best way to do this was to go through my posts and arrange the ones I picked by categories and pick my favorite, so here we go!
Review | Never Let Me Go
Best critical review of an adult fiction novel. There was a lot to say about this book, and I said quite a bit of it!
July 17, 2013
Day 10: What to read next?
This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine.
Previous Posts
How do you choose which book to read next?
I keep two TBR lists on Goodreads, "tbr-next" and "to-read". The to-read list has 600+ books that I want to read. The tbr-next list usually has around 30 books that I want to read in the near future. At first I just had one TBR list, but once it started growing into the 100s it was getting out of hand and hard to organize. So I picked the book that I wanted or had to read soon and created a much shorter list.
I try to order the list and read it through, but I'm always making changes to it. Usually the changes are books that I've added for my book groups or because I have a book that I need to read by a certain time for someone. Like when my sister ropes me into reading books she has to read for class, so I can help her on her paper.
Previous Posts
| Day 1: Confessions | Day 6: Book Shopping! |
| Day 2: Bedtime Ritual | Day 7: Blogging Quirks |
| Day 3: Blogging BFFs | Day 8: Blog Appeal |
| Day 4: Book Flinging | Day 9: Why Blog? |
| Day 5: Tearjerker |
How do you choose which book to read next?
I keep two TBR lists on Goodreads, "tbr-next" and "to-read". The to-read list has 600+ books that I want to read. The tbr-next list usually has around 30 books that I want to read in the near future. At first I just had one TBR list, but once it started growing into the 100s it was getting out of hand and hard to organize. So I picked the book that I wanted or had to read soon and created a much shorter list.
I try to order the list and read it through, but I'm always making changes to it. Usually the changes are books that I've added for my book groups or because I have a book that I need to read by a certain time for someone. Like when my sister ropes me into reading books she has to read for class, so I can help her on her paper.
July 16, 2013
Day 9: Why Blog?
This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine.
Previous Posts
Why do you blog about books?
Wow. Ok, so there's a little bit of a story behind this. I actually didn't start this with the intention of actually blogging. I didn't actually want to blog at all. I didn't even have a blog. The blog came later. The whole thing started when I started reviewing books just because I missed writing papers for school (can you imagine!) and wanted to share my opinions. Then I decided to find a book group so that I could be involved in actual discussions. I couldn't find one where I lived though, but eventually found Ladies & Literature on Goodreads. We had a lot of great discussions which lead to even greater reviews.
I had all these reviews now and no way to really sort them and view them nicely. Goodreads has great tools for this, but I was more focused on sorting all my books than just the one's I reviewed. So I decided to start a blog to organize my reviews and offer an easy way to share them with friends.
Then people started reading what I wrote and commenting on it, and I thought, "This is so cool!" So I've been building it up to actually work and look like a blog. The whole blogging thing was just secondary. I just wanted to review books.
Previous Posts
| Day 1: Confessions | Day 5: Tearjerker |
| Day 2: Bedtime Ritual | Day 6: Book Shopping! |
| Day 3: Blogging BFFs | Day 7: Blogging Quirks |
| Day 4: Book Flinging | Day 8: Blog Appeal |
Why do you blog about books?
Wow. Ok, so there's a little bit of a story behind this. I actually didn't start this with the intention of actually blogging. I didn't actually want to blog at all. I didn't even have a blog. The blog came later. The whole thing started when I started reviewing books just because I missed writing papers for school (can you imagine!) and wanted to share my opinions. Then I decided to find a book group so that I could be involved in actual discussions. I couldn't find one where I lived though, but eventually found Ladies & Literature on Goodreads. We had a lot of great discussions which lead to even greater reviews.
I had all these reviews now and no way to really sort them and view them nicely. Goodreads has great tools for this, but I was more focused on sorting all my books than just the one's I reviewed. So I decided to start a blog to organize my reviews and offer an easy way to share them with friends.
Then people started reading what I wrote and commenting on it, and I thought, "This is so cool!" So I've been building it up to actually work and look like a blog. The whole blogging thing was just secondary. I just wanted to review books.
July 15, 2013
Day 8: Blog Appeal
This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine.
Previous Posts
Write 15 bullet points of things that appeal to you on blogs.
Previous Posts
| Day 1: Confessions | Day 5: Tearjerker |
| Day 2: Bedtime Ritual | Day 6: Book Shopping! |
| Day 3: Blogging BFFs | Day 7: Blogging Quirks |
| Day 4: Book Flinging |
Write 15 bullet points of things that appeal to you on blogs.
- Crisp and Clean Design - I like to be able to see what I'm looking at/for. Color and art is nice and fun, but there is such a thing as too much. On the other hand, there should be some structure and design. Plain text is boring.
- Organized - Titles are a good description or the post, there isn't a lot of extra junk in the sidebar, images aren't flying around everywhere.
- Search and Archive - I like having the post archive to go through and a search bar for when I'm looking for something specific. And the search bar should be easy to find, which is typically the top right of the page.
July 14, 2013
Day 7: Blogging Quirks
This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine.
Talk about your blogging quirks.
Talk about your blogging quirks.
- Everything has to be formatted consistently.
- All my book reviews have the covers on the left of a post. All other posts have their images on the right side of the post.
- I write my reviews (mostly) like I'm writing a short paper for school. I feel like I need at least 3 paragraphs--an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. I've been a bit behind lately, so they aren't as structured as I'd like and a bit sloppy though.
- I'm constantly trying to find ways to better organize, but the more I try to organize, the less organized it seems because I don't have the time to do everything at once.
- I feel like I have to review a book immediately after reading it and in the order that I've read them. I'm thinking of just giving up on this though because it's causing me to fall behind and too much stress.
July 13, 2013
Day 6: Book Shopping!
This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine.
Unfortunately, money is super tight, so I haven't been to a bookstore in almost a year. That isn't to say that I don't get new books though! Most of my books right now come from the library. They have a free book exchange in the fiction section. You bring in a book; you take home a book. I never get rid of a book once I get it though, but my grandmother reads her mysteries and then gets rid of them once she's read them, so she leaves a book, and I get a book. She leaves more books than we take though, so we usually each end up walking out with a bag of books.
My other favorite place to look for books: garage sales. More and more garage sales have free book boxes, and many of them are often good and sometimes even newer releases. I also find a lot of really awesome old books that the people inherited from dead Grandma and just want to get rid of not realizing what they are.
Describe how you shop for books.
Unfortunately, money is super tight, so I haven't been to a bookstore in almost a year. That isn't to say that I don't get new books though! Most of my books right now come from the library. They have a free book exchange in the fiction section. You bring in a book; you take home a book. I never get rid of a book once I get it though, but my grandmother reads her mysteries and then gets rid of them once she's read them, so she leaves a book, and I get a book. She leaves more books than we take though, so we usually each end up walking out with a bag of books.
My other favorite place to look for books: garage sales. More and more garage sales have free book boxes, and many of them are often good and sometimes even newer releases. I also find a lot of really awesome old books that the people inherited from dead Grandma and just want to get rid of not realizing what they are.
July 12, 2013
Day 5: Tearjerker
This is part of a 15 Day Book Blogging Challenge from Good Books and Good Wine. Recommend a tearjerker.
I've read a couple tearjerkers recently, but the one I liked the best was Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. It's about a Chinese boy who falls for a Japanese girl in San Francisco during World War II. I've heard a lot about the treatment of people in Europe and Korea, but I haven't heard too much about the stuff that happened in the US. This book really brought it to life. You see the way the Chinese were treated along with the Japanese and how the two groups tried to avoid each other. I learned more about the US Japanese internment camps in this book than I did in my high school history classes. The most touching thing about this book is how one boy and one girl try to ignore all that's going on around them and what people feel in an attempt to have a happy childhood filled with jazz music and walks in the park. This was a wonderfully written and touching story. Well worth the read.
See my review of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
July 11, 2013
Day 4: Book Flinging
What's the last book you flung across the room?
For starters, I don't throw books. I am anal about the condition of my books, but I really wanted to throw The Dovekeepers out the window and into a shredder quite a few times while reading it, which is kind of funny because I actually really like the book. I think if I had read it on my own instead of for my book club though, I would have dropped it less than half way through the first story. I know that's how it was back then, but it drove me nuts how the women were treated as trash and unclean. I was so happy when the third story came around. Finally a woman that wouldn't conform with society!Check out my review of The Dovekeepers
July 10, 2013
Day 3: Blogging BFFs
Who are your blogging BFFs?
As you probably noticed from my disorganized state and sloppy reviews, I'm new to blogging, but I'm learning. There are some things that I've recently discovered that I'm working on changing, and I'm always working on making my reviews better, which is part of the reason why I'm behind on 2 reviews. Because of this, I haven't really had any time to meet too many people and make any blogging BFFs yet. I hope that I eventually do though. :)
As you probably noticed from my disorganized state and sloppy reviews, I'm new to blogging, but I'm learning. There are some things that I've recently discovered that I'm working on changing, and I'm always working on making my reviews better, which is part of the reason why I'm behind on 2 reviews. Because of this, I haven't really had any time to meet too many people and make any blogging BFFs yet. I hope that I eventually do though. :)
July 9, 2013
Day 2: Bedtime Ritual
What's your bedtime reading ritual?
Since I'm only a day behind, I thought I 'd go ahead and post both day challenges today.
When I get ready for bed, I do all the typical stuff. Wash, dress, let the dog out, and climb under the covers. Lately I've been addicted to ebooks, so I turn on my bedside lamp and pull out my nook. I end up all over the place when reading--on my side, on my back, on my stomach with a pillow stuffed under my chin, curled up at the foot of the bed. Good thing I have a large bed.
What happens after that depends on the mood I'm in. I don't like going to sleep (and I don't like waking up either!). I'll stay up as late as I want to read. Some times I end up going to bed when most people are waking up or leaving for work. Typically I end up crashing around 2am.
If I'm tired, I know it, and I want to make an attempt at sleeping, I'll read until 11pm or 12am and then put a movie on really low. Low enough where I can't understand what they're saying, and it just sounds like murmurs. Usually that makes me fall asleep pretty fast.
If I'm not really interested in the book I'm reading, I'll read until I put it down and then fall asleep watching a movie. Right now I'm really into K-Dramas, so I'm usually watching them at night.
Since I'm only a day behind, I thought I 'd go ahead and post both day challenges today.
When I get ready for bed, I do all the typical stuff. Wash, dress, let the dog out, and climb under the covers. Lately I've been addicted to ebooks, so I turn on my bedside lamp and pull out my nook. I end up all over the place when reading--on my side, on my back, on my stomach with a pillow stuffed under my chin, curled up at the foot of the bed. Good thing I have a large bed.
What happens after that depends on the mood I'm in. I don't like going to sleep (and I don't like waking up either!). I'll stay up as late as I want to read. Some times I end up going to bed when most people are waking up or leaving for work. Typically I end up crashing around 2am.
If I'm tired, I know it, and I want to make an attempt at sleeping, I'll read until 11pm or 12am and then put a movie on really low. Low enough where I can't understand what they're saying, and it just sounds like murmurs. Usually that makes me fall asleep pretty fast.
If I'm not really interested in the book I'm reading, I'll read until I put it down and then fall asleep watching a movie. Right now I'm really into K-Dramas, so I'm usually watching them at night.
Day 1: Confessions
Follow my blog with Bloglovin
This afternoon, I was browsing around Goodreads and checking up on the blogs I'm following when I came across this blogger challenge. The challenge started yesterday, so I'm a day behind, but I thought I'd give it a go!
Day 1: Make 15 book related confessions.
1. I judge books by their covers. I'm very artistic. I feel that if they put as much effort into designing or finding a good cover for their book that they might have also put that much or more effort into writing it. It doesn't take much though for my eyes to find a cover. Just a bit of typography will do, but there are so many books out there that it's hard to read every one. Sometimes judging by the cover is the only way to shorten the list.
This afternoon, I was browsing around Goodreads and checking up on the blogs I'm following when I came across this blogger challenge. The challenge started yesterday, so I'm a day behind, but I thought I'd give it a go!
Day 1: Make 15 book related confessions.
1. I judge books by their covers. I'm very artistic. I feel that if they put as much effort into designing or finding a good cover for their book that they might have also put that much or more effort into writing it. It doesn't take much though for my eyes to find a cover. Just a bit of typography will do, but there are so many books out there that it's hard to read every one. Sometimes judging by the cover is the only way to shorten the list.
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