From the category archives:

Books and Reading

From My Shelves: Ten Books for Creative Inspiration

January 30, 2012 Books and Reading

Thank you to Joy Weese Moll, for suggesting that I put together a list of books ideal for creative inspiration for this month’s BAND (Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees) discussion of books that support goals and resolutions. It was a great idea, and I’ve had a blast this past weekend going through the books on [...]

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Some Thursday Random

January 26, 2012 Books and Reading

It’s been a while since I’ve written a “random stuff” post, but I woke up today to a whole pile of jumbled thoughts, so it seemed like a perfect time for random, you know?
Bookish Random
I’ve been having a blast filling my Kindle and Overdrive iPad apps with loads of interesting reads. In no particular order, [...]

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Pinning My TBR (And Other Fun Bookish Ways to Use Pinterest)

January 23, 2012 Books and Reading

I fell in love with Pinterest a few months ago, and have been madly pinning away ever since. In addition to lots of other, non-bookish things, I have a board called Bookish Things where I pin all the awesome bookish stuff that delights my little bibliophile heart.
But recently, I’ve discovered a few more fun bookish [...]

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My Mid-January Goals Update

January 19, 2012 Books and Reading

One of the perks of blogging is the truly awesome accountability tool it can be. It’s mid-January already (four days past the mid-point, actually) so what better way to motivate myself goal-wise than post this little update?
So how have I been doing with all my new year goals? Well …
This week has actually been the [...]

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I’m Reading: Zombies, Gaming and Legal Shenanigans

January 11, 2012 Books and Reading

Last year was so busy and so chaotic, I really fell behind on my fiction reading, and when I don’t read, I find I’m not as creative as I can be. The ideas don’t come as quickly, and I don’t write as much. I play a lot less and when it comes to doing [...]

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A Harry Potter Christmas!

December 28, 2011 Books and Reading

Happy holidays, everyone! I’m still in the middle of festive celebrations, as we have some family “dos” scheduled this week. And then, of course, there’s New Year’s, although Ward and I have been so busy, we haven’t actually figured out what we’re going to be doing on New Year’s Eve.
My Christmas Day was all [...]

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You Know You’re a Big Fantasy Reader When …

October 26, 2011 Books and Reading

One of Ward’s students invited him to a guy’s movie night on the weekend. Ward has been to this student’s house quite a few times before, but that night I received a call from him, asking me to look up the student’s address in his records.
So I did. And then I asked, “Did you forget [...]

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This is the Difficult Part

September 29, 2011 Books and Reading

So Ward’s home from Okinawa now, and almost all rested from his jetlag.
Which means it’s time to start:
1. Packing the things we’ll be moving with us.
2. Listing things on Craigslist and Kijiji.
3. Giving things away.
4. Getting things ready for storage.
And it also means …
tackling the difficult part. Meaning, this:

These are the bookshelves in our living [...]

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Some Bookish Television

September 21, 2011 Books and Reading

Ward’s away on his trip to Okinawa, and if anyone had asked what I would be doing while he was away, I would have said, “Why, reading, of course.”
I even stocked up on a few audiobooks: Gambit, by Rex Stout (a reread), A Trick of the Light, by Louise Penny (I’ve been SO looking forward [...]

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My Audiobooks-Only iPod!

August 18, 2011 Books and Reading

I’m normally a very difficult person to buy a gift for. The only things I ever seem to want are books, more books, a few more books, soaps and tech-y gadgets. The problem with books and soaps are, within those broad ranges, I’m very picky. I only like certain types of books. I only like [...]

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Review: Abandon, by Meg Cabot

July 5, 2011 Books and Reading

Summary:
Though she tries returning to the life she knew before the accident, Pierce can’t help but feel at once a part of this world, and apart from it. Yet she’s never alone . . . because someone is always watching her. Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you [...]

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A Magical (Reading and Writing) Turning Point

June 14, 2011 Books and Reading

Today I’m marveling at how rapidly kids change. I swear, sometimes these changes take place overnight, and they can be quite amazing.
Back in March of this year, I set up a GoodReads account for my son Dylan. He was seven at the time (he recently turned eight), and since we’re homeschooling him and books play [...]

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A Bookworm Declutters

June 2, 2011 Books and Reading

We have started the process of decluttering our house, in anticipation of putting it up for sale sometime this summer – and I have to say this:
Decluttering is a painful process!
Painful especially when it comes to my books. Over the past 20 years, I have amassed many, many books. Looking at the stacks and [...]

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From My Shelves: The Hardy Boys’ Detective Handbook

March 26, 2011 Books and Reading

Look what I found on my bookshelves this morning!
Actually, it’s not mine. It’s one of my husband’s books, from when he was a boy. He’s a saver, and has a lot of his old books from when he was little. (You should see when we unpack Christmas ornaments – he’s got ornaments he [...]

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A Reading Hangover: The Day After a Reading Binge

March 24, 2011 Books and Reading

Have you ever gotten one of these? I call it a “reading hangover”, although, luckily, the symptoms aren’t anything at all like a regular hangover.
Early yesterday afternoon, I opened up Sujata Massey’s Girl in a Box, which I’d started reading the previous night.
Time passed, and before I knew it, I’d finished the book. And without [...]

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Wednesday Fun: More GoodReads

March 9, 2011 Books and Reading

I know. I just talked about GoodReads here last week. But when I wrote last week’s post, I was still doing a lot of stumbling around the site, becoming more and more aware of its potential.
I’ve had such a good time since then, discovering all the things I can do there. So I thought it [...]

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Review: Blood Oath, by Christopher Farnsworth

March 8, 2011 Books and Reading

What Blood Oath is about:
The ultimate secret. The ultimate agent. The President’s vampire.
Zach Barrows is an ambitious young White House staffer whose career takes an unexpected turn when he’s partnered with Nathaniel Cade, a secret agent sworn to protect the president. But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. Bound by a special blood oath, Cade [...]

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Reading: Electric Barracuda, by Tim Dorsey

March 7, 2011 Books and Reading

What it’s about:
Serge Storms, that lovable one-man thermonuclear vigilante and one-stop all-things-Florida trivia shop, has been leaving corpses strewn across the Sunshine State for more than a decade. The authorities – especially one tenacious FBI agent – have begun to take notice of the mounting body count, and a police task force is being organized. [...]

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Using GoodReads

March 3, 2011 Books and Reading

Last November, I joined GoodReads. I know this mainly because I was roaming around online (doing that procrastination thing, you know), came across a link to GoodReads, clicked, realized I had an account and signed in again. And at the top of the page, it tells me I joined in November.
Which is all a roundabout [...]

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Inspiration Monday: Word After Word After Word, by Patricia MacLachlan

February 21, 2011 Books and Reading

Word After Word After Word, by Patricia MacLachlan, is, technically, a children’s book. I was charmed by the synopsis when I first came across it while browsing my library’s online ebook collection:
Every school day feels the same for fourth graders Lucy and Henry and Evie and Russell and May. Then Ms. Mirabel comes to [...]

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Surburban Spies, A Dead Ex, Wicked Plants, Genius Kids, and The Mystery of the Dead Romance Writer

January 12, 2011 Books and Reading

Wouldn’t you know it? Just as I’m really getting into my blogging rhythm again, my deadlines undergo a mini-explosion and now my January looks very much like my December and November.
In other words, lots and lots of work.
But, since I really don’t want to lose this new blogging rhythm of mine, here I am! And [...]

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Weekend Cooking: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

January 8, 2011 Books and Reading

It’s been five months since both my husband and my daughter decided to give the vegan diet a try. So, how have we been faring as a part-vegan family?
My older son happily went off to university, where, by all accounts, he spends his time scarfing down a load of fast food.
And my younger son remains [...]

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Review: Virals, by Kathy Reichs

January 5, 2011 Books and Reading

Synopsis:
Tory Brennan, niece of acclaimed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (of the Bones novels and hit TV show), is the leader of a ragtag band of teenage "sci-philes" who live on a secluded island off the coast of South Carolina. When the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing on a nearby island, they [...]

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Happiness Is …

January 4, 2011 Books and Reading

Happiness is finding four boxes of books stored away in a cranny.

Sorry for photo quality (dark hallway + iPhone camera).
The only catch is, I’m pretty sure these are the books my husband packed away early last year because we were running out of space for things, so now I have to find a way to [...]

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[TSS] My Year of Creativity

January 2, 2011 Books and Reading

I’m not one to make resolutions – they just don’t work for me. And perhaps it’s a matter of semantics; “resolutions” and “resolve” have a hard-edged feel for me, and I much prefer the softer ease of “intention”.
So at the beginning of each new year, I like to make some general intentions for the days [...]

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The Holiday Catch-Up Post

January 1, 2011 Books and Reading

Happy new year, everyone! It was a very hectic December for me, as evidenced by the scarcity of posts here. And after I finished my last deadline for the year, I came down with the flu. Christmas week was kind of a blur for me as a result, but this past week has been great, [...]

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Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny

October 29, 2010 Books and Reading

I learned my lesson last year when I reviewed the previous Chief Inspector Gamache book by Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling.
You see, I loved The Brutal Telling and quite literally gushed about it.
But I’d written the review from my perspective as a reader who had started with book one in the series; I came to [...]

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Insatiable, by Meg Cabot

October 17, 2010 Books and Reading

I am a huge Meg Cabot fan, so it’s probably not surprising that I quite liked Insatiable, which I read last month (I’d put in my hold request quite early at my library).
Having said that, I can kind of understand why it’s had some mixed reviews (I haven’t actually read any full blog reviews yet, [...]

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The Lineup, edited by Otto Penzler

October 4, 2010 Books and Reading

A couple of months ago, I bought The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler. I decided to purchase it in ebook format, so it’s been sitting there on my iPhone, ready for me to dip into whenever I’m in the mood.
If you love [...]

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Weekend Cooking: Vegan Planet, by Robin Robertson

September 19, 2010 Blogging and Blog Events

Last month my daughter Hayley announced she’d like to give a vegan diet a try.
So, the next time Ward and I found ourselves in a bookstore, we decided to buy a copy of Vegan Planet, by Robin Robertson. Well, okay, it was more like Ward browsed around for a vegan cookbook and found Vegan Planet; [...]

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