Weekly Geeks Week 2 Summary

Dewey wanted us to post a summary of our experience with adopting the policy of linking to other reviews in our review posts. I adopted the policy, but I've yet to have anyone ask me to link to a review. Then again, I've only posted one review, and I did so I was going to do it from now on, not retroactively. I think I'll revise that and say that I'll edit any review posts if you comment on them, even if they were months ago. Sometime soon I'll add a list in my sidebar to books I've reviewed, so you don't have to go hunting. Please be patient, though, as I don't have a lot of blogging time during the week.

I've seen a lot of participation this week, but only a couple of books I'd read. I lost one post - I thought I had kept the post unread but couldn't find it later. (If anyone's reviewed The Thirteenth Tale and mentioned it this week, let me know, because it was probably you!) One book I had read and thought I reviewed, but it turned out to only be a mention in a longer post. And then there was one that I had reviewed and linked to the other person's post and asked to be linked (which hasn't happened, but it was retroactive so possibly the person just hasn't caught up).

I think this is a great way to get involved in the larger book blogging community.

It's Tuesday, where are you?

Every Tuesday, raidergirl3 at An Adventure in Reading (http://raidergirl3-anadventureinreading.blogspot.com/), asks "Where are you today?" in regards to what book you are reading. Because I can't comment at work, and by the time I get home, I've usually forgotten about this, I'm going to start posting these on my actual blog. I'll try to remember to comment on raidergirl3's post later in the day with a link to my answer, but no promises.

So, where am I today?

I've yet to pick up my book, but when I do in about an hour, I will be at the House on the Rock with Shadow and Mr. Wednesday, which is somewhere along the way from Chicago to Madison, I think. Strange things are happening in Shadow's life, after being released from prison, but he doesn't have a clue what's going on yet. Neither do I, for that matter! I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

On my commute I will be in 2 places. First, I will be with Greg Mortensen while he figures out how to start a school on the edge of K2, the second highest peak in the world. This is in Three Cups of Tea. And then, after picking up my daughter, we will be with Lyra as she ventures into the Land of the Dead in The Subtle Knife. (I lied, I visited both of these places on my morning commute.)

And at bedtime tonight, we will be with Black Stache as he tries to take the treasure being carried on The Wasp in Peter and the Starcatchers.

Wanna play along? Visit raidergirl3's blog (link at the beginning of this post)!

What a way to start the week!

It was insane trying to get out of the house this morning. I guess Monday's always are. But then I realized I couldn't find my coffee cup (the travel kind) and think I left it at church yesterday. And *then* I realized I had forgotten my book! Oh no!!! I always read over lunch, unless I am knitting with friends, but only bring my knitting on those days that I know I'm going to be doing that. So I'm stuck at work today with nothing to read over lunch. This reminds me of last week's Booking Through Thursday question! I do have a Bookmarks magazine stuck in my bag, and I have a couple of puzzle books that I keep on hand for those really slow days. But I don't have my BOOK. Dammit.

Little Bitty Mousie by Jim Aylesworth

This is my first picture book review for Becky's PB&J Challenge. This week I will review two "A" books, one "A" title and one "A" author. Obviously, this is my author choice.

Little Bitty Mousie is an adorable "ABC" book that meets my first requirement for a great picture book - it is very fun to read aloud. The chorus, so to speak, throughout this book goes like this:

Tip-tip tippy tippy
Went her little mousie toes.
Sniff-sniff sniffy sniffy
Went her little mousie nose.

How can you not read that with a smile?

The illustration in this book, by Michael Hague, are also superb. Very vivid colors and a fine attention to detail. You want to reach out and bite into the apples on the first page!

I highly recommend this book for little ones in the preschool-to-kindergarten age range.

If anyone else has reviewed this book, leave a comment for me, and I'll edit this post to link to your review.

Weekly geeks week #2

This week, the Weekly Geeks challenge is to adopt Darla's policy of linking to other reviews whenever you post a new review on your blog. I think this is a great idea, as I always like to see what others have said about books I'm reading/have read. I generally don't read detailed reviews before I start a book, since I sort of like to go into a book blind. But about halfway through I start wondering what others thought of the book and take a look on Amazon or LibraryThing to at least see star ratings. Since I struggle to find blogging time as it is, I'm not going to make this retroactive, but starting today, whenever I post a book review, if you will comment on the post with a link to your review of the book, I'll add it to the post as soon as I get a chance.

Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

I forgot to post about Outlander when I finished listening to it last fall, so I'll talk about it and the next in the series, Dragonfly in Amber, together. I finished listening to DiA today. These audiobooks are extremely long - the one I finished today was about 38 hours, and the next two in the series are both 40+hours. However, the narration by Davina Porter is extremely well-done.

If you don't know anything about the series, the premise is that a woman, Claire Beauchamp Randall, finds herself in 18th century Scotland after stumbling through standing stones near Inverness while on a vacation with her husband, Frank. That's the only fantasy feature of the book, though. Otherwise it's just a standard historical fiction; well, except that Claire has knowledge of the history of the time and knows things from the future that are helpful (such as an understanding of how disease is spread). There's also a good deal of romance when Claire finds love. I don't read romance anymore (can't say I never did...), but this is more than just a romance series.

I'm thoroughly enjoying listening to these books, but I have to take breaks between them, since they are so. friggin'. long.

I'm not sure what I'll listen to next. I have several Jodi Picoult books to choose from and a couple of other things of interest. I'm leaning towards Three Cups of Tea.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

I'm not sure what I was expecting with Princess Academy, but this wasn't it. I think I expected something more fantastical, while really, this was more realistic fiction than fantasy. I mean, there were some magical-ish parts, but no fairies or witches or anything of that sort.

So, the plot. Miri is a girl who lives with her family on Mount Eskel, where her village makes its living by harvesting a rare type of stone. When the prince's priests divine that the next princess will come from Mount Eskel, a "princess academy" is created to make ladies of rough mountain girls. After a year, the prince will choose one girl to be his bride.

Some themes that are dealt with are prejudice (the "lowlanders," people not from the mountain, feel that the mountain dwellers are stupid and coarse), misfits (Miri's father doesn't allow her to work in the quarry with everyone else, and she must deal with her feelings of inadequacy), and young love.

One of the things I loved about this book is how reading is portrayed as so important. Once the village girls learn to read, all sorts of new opportunities open up for them.

I wouldn't count this as one of my favorite books, but it was still good. I give it 3.5 stars. It started out sort of slow, but I was really enjoying it by the end.

Challenge summary

I forgot to include a Challenge Summary in my summary for April. So here it is, as of May 2:

Once Upon a Time II: 3/5 (need to post a review of Princess Academy, which I finished over lunch)
Chunkster: 2/4
A to Z: 12/52
PB&J: 0/52
Soup's On: 1/6 (no reviews posted yet, though)

One Word

I ran across this site, and while it's not about books, it's close.

http://www.oneword.com

A word will appear at the top of the screen and you have 60 seconds to write about it. You can then submit it, or, if you'd like, you can just skip that and see what others wrote. What a neat idea!

Booking Through Thursday

Quick! It's an emergency! Youjust got an urgent call about a family emergency and had to rush to theairport with barely time to grab your wallet and your passport. Butnow, you're stuck at the airport with nothing to read. What do you do??
And, no, you did NOT have timeto grab your bookbag, or the book next to your bed. You were . . .grocery shopping when you got the call and have nothing with you butyour wallet and your passport (which you fortuitously brought with youin case they asked for ID in the ethnic food aisle). This ishypothetical, remember….

Don't forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don't have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!

My answer: (The formatting of this post may
be off, since I can't see the original formatting perfectly, thanks to
our filtering software. But I'm going to give it a shot anyway. I can
always come back and fix it this evening.)

This would certainly present a problem for me. However, luckily, I know that both of my local airports have shops that sell books, so, since I do have my wallet, I'm sure I can find something to pick up and read. If, however, this was the middle of night or something and the shops were closed, I suppose I would have to content myself with watching CNN on the conveniently placed TVs. Seems like they're always turned to CNN for some reason... As someone else mentioned, though, if this is truly an emergency, I probably couldn't concentrate on a book, so I would more likely pick up a puzzle book of some kind to work on. In fact, I have done just this when waiting to pick up my child when he was flying back from his grandparents' house and I, gasp, didn't have my book. When I'm picking up my kids or putting them on the plane to and from their grandparents' house, I usually only bring my wallet with me, because I hate going through security with a bunch of
stuff. So much easier to just stick my wallet, keys, and phone in the little basket.