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Discussion: Your School Reading Experiences

Since I’m a huge book nerd, I’m assuming that most people reading my blog are book nerds of varying degrees.  So I thought we could all share how our love of reading developed and was either discouraged or encouraged during school.  Here’s my story:

In grade one and two there was quite an excellent reading program at my school consisting of 26 levels you had to finish at the end of the second grade.  Well, the problem was that I mastered the books in each level too quickly but the teachers would not move me up the levels until I read every single book in them (although I was reading aloud fluently and had excellent reading comprehension).  Despite their efforts to hold me back, I was finished a month before school ended and my mother’s bitter fight with the school to get them to give me level-appropriate reading material began.

Middle school was an extremely boring joke.  By the time we were doing novel studies in grades 7, 8 and 9 I had already read all of the ones in the curriculum back in grade five and six.  My English teacher at this time was awesome and by grade nine she got tired of me spoiling the entire plots (I’ll admit I was a bit of a smartass and being bored/frustrated didn’t help).  So when I said yet again that I had already read the book we were about to study, she handed me an independent novel study booklet and let me use a book of my choosing.  I think I chose I, Claudius by Robert Graves and loved it.  Much better than the other option, which was reading a book I had read way back in the third grade (and could still summarize six years later).

So you could say school didn’t exactly encourage my love of reading, but thank goodness my parents did.  We didn’t always have money for things like new movies or toys but there was always money for books and for that I’ll always be grateful.  Without their support, I wouldn’t be writing this blog and my life would be a whole lot more boring and empty without it.

Well, now that you’ve heard my life story, I want to hear yours!  How did your school experiences affect your reading now?  Were they good or bad experiences?

“Game of Thrones man hatred” and More Weird Search Terms

It’s been a while since I rounded up any of the weird search terms I’ve received, so I figured I’d do it today to brighten up everyone’s Wednesday (including mine).  So here are the lovely search terms that people found my blog through:

rose leslie sex scene

writer self-deluded novel

is it really necessary for someone with chronic psin to moan out loud constantly

i hate slang

easiest chronic pain to write about

reasons why i hate teenage books

every girl on game of thrones naked

game of thrones man hatred

why do guys like game of thrones

Ah, Game of Thrones.  You either hate it or love it according to the internet.  And since I wrote about why it’s okay for women to like it in my chart-topping article I constantly get weird Game of Thrones search terms like the ones above.  Since I wrote about chronic pain a while back I get weird search terms from that.  (Also, no it’s not necessary but the person asking that question should be a little more empathetic.)  Basically, there are no seriously creepy search terms like I sometimes get, but there’s still a lot of naked women terms.

Seriously people: I don’t have naked women on my blog, especially not the Game of Thrones women.  If you want to see some of them naked go to Google Image Search or YouTube.

Discussion: Who are Book Reviews For?

One night as I travelled down the terrible depths of YouTube I came across several videos of authors ranting about reviewers and book reviews in general.  Later that same week I was given a link by a reader to a particularly incoherent rant that I won’t link to.  All of this vitriol and empty rhetoric really made me thing, though: who are book reviews for?

Well, my opinion is pretty simple:

1.  Book reviews are primarily for my own enjoyment because I like analyzing books but in general book reviews are targeted at readers.

2.  This is not to say that authors, publishers and/or editors can’t benefit from book reviews, but that those benefits aren’t intentional.

If you’re an author and expect an unpaid volunteer book reviewer like myself to write a 2000+ critique of your novel, you’re insane.  Hire yourself an editor if you need a critique that detailed.  (Also: a person can have an informed opinion about literature without having a degree in English Literature or the like.  Just like a person can be perfectly fluent in a second language without having a degree in it.)

My question for you guys this week is this: Who do you think book reviews (and other reviews) are for?  Why?

Introducing Tyrion

DSCN1757[1]Some of you may remember a little more than a month ago when I introduced this little guy as New Kitty and wasn’t quite sure of his gender yet.  Well, I’m absolutely certain it’s a boy and I’ve got a much better feel for his personality.  Therefore, he is now known as Tyrion and I’m taking him home with me on Friday.

Part of the fact I named him Tyrion is because I’m just a huge Game of Thrones fan and Tyrion is one of my favourite characters.  The other part was this little guy’s personality.  Although he wasn’t when I named him, now he’s the smallest of his litter of six and he’s pretty much always picked on by the dominant one I’ve nicknamed Cow (he’s white with black spots much like a cow).  Still, he always has lots to say and lately he’s been perfecting his strategy to attack Cow.  Rather than facing him directly he loves dropping in on him from a bit of a height where he has an advantage.  So, you could say that ‘Tyrion’ is the perfect name for my new cat.

Since today was a really, really awful, terribly sad day for both myself and my community, here are some bonus kitten pictures.  Cats are generally less terrible than human beings, after all:

DSCN1741[1]The entire litter in their sleeping spot.

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The Best and Worst of June 2014

I can’t believe it’s July 6th already, but then again when you have tech problems time seems to fly.  So yes, it’s a little late for my Best and Worst of article but I guess it’s better late than never.  Other than my ridiculous tech problems June was actually pretty good.  Work is picking up as the tourists flow into town and the weather is finally, finally starting to smarten up.  Luckily I’m not in the part of Saskatchewan that’s flooded or has experienced tornadoes.

Anyway, here are the best five articles of June 2014:

1.  Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal

2.  How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour

3.  The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome

4.  Your Open Book Promotion Thread

5.  I’ve Been Invaded by Gremlins!

For the fourth month in a row, I have broken my monthly stats record!  Instead of the 13,316 views of May, in June I received 14,198 views.  As with the previous months, I have the TV show Game of Thrones to thank for that as my rebuttal article received 8,581 views or about 60% of my total traffic for that month.  I have the hugely popular season 4 finale to thank for that, I think.

So what were the worst articles in this record-breaking month?

1.  Graphic Novel Review: Batgirl Volume II: Knightfall Descends by Gail Simone

2.  Discussion: Romance in YA Novels

3.  Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

4.  I am More Than Just a Chronic Pain Statistic

5.  The Best and Worst of April 2014

Meh, none of these are surprising or worrying.  The only real trend I’ve noticed among the five worst articles is that Scott Westerfeld’s books seem to pop up a lot.  It’s not because he’s not a popular author but maybe because I actually liked the books.  I seem to get a lot more traffic from reviews where I didn’t like the book.

So how was your June?