Top Ten Tuesday: Secondaries Getting Their Own Books

If you have never come across a Top Ten Tuesday, it is a weekly feature hosted over on The Broke and The Bookish. They post a different top ten topic every week, it’s pretty awesome. All the cool kids are doing it.

I know that this was last week’s topic, but it was too fun for me not to do. I love secondary characters. Sometimes they are the reason I love a book. Sometimes they are the reason I love an author.

1. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. I never related to Harry. He was a 12 year old orphan boy who is treated like crap from his Aunt and Uncle and then finds out he is a wizard and subsequently ends up being The Chosen One. An intriguing lead, don’t get me wrong. But not someone I could relate too. A girl raised by loving parents, who loved to learn and read? There was my escape. I saw Harry through Hermione’s eyes. It would nice to get inside that head for once. Get on it Jo!

2. Simon Lewis from The Mortal Instruments. Wait, what’s this? I’M SO EXCITED.

3. Will Herondale from The Infernal Devices. Go ahead, argue with me that he was a main not a secondary. In the end I will win because I want what we all want. More Will Herondale.

4. Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter. The thing about the Harry Potter series is it is  seven books from the same point of view. We never get to see inside of anyone else’s head. I would love to know more about Neville’s life. He is one of my favorite characters of all time.

5. All of the Marauders. Collectively or separately I don’t care. Everyone wants this. Everyone.

6. Cinna from The Hunger Games. Another person that I would love some backstory on.

7. Poppet and Widget from The Night Circus. Can you imagine the whimsy?

8. Vida from The Darkest Minds. I am about halfway through In the Afterlight right now and what I wouldn’t give to understand Vida a little bit better. She is so sassy and bitchy and I love it.

9. Haymitch from The Hunger Games. If Haymitch had his own book I probably couldn’t handle it. I still want it though.

10.  Church from The Infernal Devices and The Mortal Instruments, and I am sure a couple more to come. Come on. You know that cat has some stories.

Quoting the Quill #11

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Quoting the Quill is a Meme hosted over on Blogs-of-A-Bookaholic every other Wednesday. Or every Wednesday if you want  You can find more information about it here.

Quoting the Quill #10

This is my favorite snippet from The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Though, I cannot tell you who the conversation is between, as it might give away some things 🙂 I can’t get over how much I loved this book. The writing was absolutely incredible.

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Quoting the Quill is a Meme hosted over on Blogs-of-A-Bookaholic every other Wednesday. Or every Wednesday if you want  You can find more information about it here.

Top Ten Tuesday: Blogging Confessions

If you have never come across a Top Ten Tuesday, it is a weekly feature hosted over on The Broke and The Bookish. They post a different top ten topic every week, it’s pretty awesome. All the cool kids are doing it.

This week’s Top Ten is about Blogging Confessions! Uh oh, getting a little invasive there aren’t ya Top Ten?

1. I always request more books on NetGalley when my shelf is already incredibly full. It’s seriously a problem.

2. I tend to read posts I love and not Like/Comment on them. Ironically, this is one of the things that bugs me the most when I see my stats page and realize that most people come to my blog and do the same thing! Comment people! I want to interact with you!

3. I usually only post my reviews here on WordPress and rarely post them on Amazon on Goodreads. Why? I have no idea! It would probably bring more people to my blog. I should probably work on that.

4. Since this is a book blog, I think certain book confessions are relevant right? Well, I try to use a book mark all the time. Really, I do. But say I don’t have one? I have no problem dog-ear-ing the shit out of pages. It really doesn’t bother me. If its a borrowed book, of course I would never. But you can pick up any book in my house and there will most likely be multiple creases on the corners of those beloved pages. I’m not even sorry about it.

5. I really should push this blog to .org status. Or just self-host it. I wouldn’t even have to do any of the work. I am literally married to a web developer. The man programs and builds websites for a living. Sue me if I still haven’t let him touch it because it’s something that has to do with technology that I actually chose to do on my own! Without any help! Maybe the proud woman in me should just suck it up at some point though, so I can have a bit more freedom with what I want to do with the blog? Maybe. (Probably not).

6. I am also the worst at social media when it comes to blogging. I could waste a whole day on my personal Facebook, but my blog doesn’t even have one. It does have it’s own twitter though! That really only updates when I publish new posts. I’m one of those people who are constantly on social media, but never actually participating. I guess I’m just kind of a creeper.

Okay, so I could only think of six. How many confessions can you guys make?

Quoting the Quill #9

 

This week’s Quoting the Quill is brought to you by my hilarious brother-in-law Matthew. He sent me this on Facebook the other day and I literally lol’d. How could I not?

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Quoting the Quill is a Meme hosted over on Blogs-of-A-Bookaholic every other Wednesday. Or every Wednesday if you want  You can find more information about it here.

Top Ten Tuesday: Classic Books

 

 

 

 

If you have never come across a Top Ten Tuesday, it is a weekly feature hosted over on The Broke and The Bookish. They post a different top ten topic every week, it’s pretty awesome. All the cool kids are doing it.

This week’s Top Ten is all about the Classics, however you wish to categorize that. Since I have baby on the brain (good-god-how-is-it-not-out-yet), I decided to talk about my favorite classic children’s books 🙂 I’m going to stick to the non-chapter books. What are those even called? Anyway, enjoy!

Oh, also, you’ll notice there is no Dr. Seuss on this list. That isn’t because I don’t think Seuss is classic, it totally is, I just wasn’t a huge fan when I was a kid so I am a little more biased to these ten 🙂

1. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

3. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

4. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish

5. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 

5. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

6. Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats

7. Corduroy by Don Freeman

8. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

9. The Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer

10. The Berenstain Bears by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Quoting the Quill #8

 

Read this to yourself. Read it silently.
Don’t move your lips. Don’t make a sound.
Listen to yourself. Listen without hearing anything.
What a wonderfully weird thing, huh?

NOW MAKE THIS PART LOUD!
SCREAM IT IN YOUR MIND!
DROWN EVERYTHING OUT.
Now, hear a whisper. A tiny whisper.

Now, read this next line in your best crotchety old man voice:
“Hello there sonny, does this town have a post office?”
Awesome! Who was that? Whose voice was that?
Certainly not yours.

How do you do that? How!?
Must be magic.

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This beauty is a poem by the lovely Shel Silverstein. My childhood was filled with stories and poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Light in the Attic. I am not sure which of his books this one is in, if any, but I do know for sure that it is his. Since it has no title, it’s a bit harder to track down.

But it’s so beautiful, isn’t it? So simple. So true. I’ve always believed in magic, even though my rational brain tries to take over and tell me that I never got a Hogwarts letter because wizards aren’t real and I will never be able to close my eyes and wish something into existence. Well, rational mind, how do you feel about magic now?

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Quoting the Quill is a Meme hosted over on Blogs-of-A-Bookaholic every other Wednesday. Or every Wednesday if you want  You can find more information about it here.

Top Ten Tuesday: Summer TBR Pile

If you have never come across a Top Ten Tuesday, it is a weekly feature hosted over on The Broke and The Bookish. They post a different top ten topic every week, it’s pretty awesome. All the cool kids are doing it.

This week’s topic is the daunting task of narrowing a summer TBR pile into just 10 books! I don’t know about you, but it isn’t even summer here yet and my pile of books to read this summer is already massive!

1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It has been way too long since I sunk myself into a Gaiman novel, and this one has been on my list for quite some time.

2. Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor. I was so excited for this release and it just got caught up in all of the other books I was reading at the time. I have heard mixed feelings about the ending, so I am excited to see how I feel about it!

PS- I totally regret getting these on the Kindle. THOSE COVERS.

3. Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This is the next book we are reading for the book club at work, and I am so stoked about it. I love circus/carnival books!

4. Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Alright, so maybe we couldn’t decide between this one and Night Circus during book club, so we decided to read both.

PS: EVERY SINGLE TIME. 

Let’s just touch on my shamefully full NetGalley shelf as well. I might need to put myself on a book buying haitus until this thing is cleaned out. 

5. Defy by Sara B. Larsen

6. The Lonely by Ainsilie Hogarth.

7. The Troop by Nick Cutter

8.The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

For now, with a new baby this summer, I think that these 8 would be an accomplishment! What is in your TBR pile for this summer?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Have Read So Far in 2014

Top Ten is back on thebookboozer! I have been slammed with work/life/general prego-ness and have been neglecting this wonderful meme. Now it’s time to get back on track!

If you have never come across a Top Ten Tuesday, it is a weekly feature hosted over on The Broke and The Bookish. They post a different top ten topic every week, it’s pretty awesome. All the cool kids are doing it.

This week’s topic is the Top Ten Books Read So Far in 2014. Since I have done a ton of re-reading this year, I will only include those that were first time reads! Well, lets just get right too it. Just click the links to see what I thought of all of them!

1. City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare. If this wasn’t obvious, then welcome. You must be new here.

2.Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

3. Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor. 

4. The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky

6. Severed by Dax Varley

7. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

8. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

9. Rengade by L.A. Wilcox

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Art

If you have never come across a Top Ten Tuesday, it is a weekly feature hosted over on The Broke and The Bookish. They post a different top ten topic every week, it’s pretty awesome. All the cool kids are doing it.

As you guys know, I have been a little absent on the blog front because I am doing a re-read of The Mortal Instruments leading up to the release of City of Heavenly Fire. If you haven’t read this series yet, just do yourself a favor and go buy all of them. And then binge read them. Twice.

Myself and the lovely Bec over at infernalimagination.wordpress.com are doing a blog collab on the re-read, so look out for that soon!

Anyway- this week’s Top Ten is about books whose covers are so beautiful you would frame them and use them as art in your home.

1. The Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare. I usually don’t even like covers with people on them, but seriously. These are stunning.

2. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I love all of the art in Silverstein’s books, that I would probably choose not just the cover art to be on display.

3. Stardust by Neil Gaiman. Oh, the whimsy!

4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling. I don’t know how many of you guys have seen the new covers for HP, but this is actually the back cover of the new Order of the Phoenix and the nostalgia that it gives my heart is almost too much. Seriously, how beautiful is that? And a Neville quote. The feels.

5. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. Self-explanatory. LOOK AT IT!

6. Incarceron by Catherine Fisher. I read this one and it’s sequel, Sapphique, pre-blog but I loved both of them!

7. Witch Finder by Ruth Warburton. I still haven’t finished this one (not because it isn’t good, because I tend to bite off more than I can chew sometimes) but look at that cover. So purrrty!

8. The BFG by Roald Dahl. Oh, the nostalgia.

9. Looking For Alaska by John Green. Simplicity at it’s best.

 

10. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. This whole book is beautifully illustrated, but that cover takes the cake!

What are some of your favorite covers?