Tagged: christmas

Look What Just Arrived! (#14)

Carrie Pictures 2013 072Yesterday I spent Christmas with my family and consequently got a lot of books as presents.  (We’re a pretty bookish family—my father got more books than I did!)  The only book I didn’t get for Christmas was The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson.  That was recommended to me a while back and I picked it up as I did my last-minute Christmas shopping on the 23rd.

Anyway, here are my new books:

  • Onyx by Jennifer L. Armentrout
  • Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
  • The Devil’s Concubine by Jill Braden
  • The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
  • Ingenue by Jillian Larkin
  • Earth Bound by Aprilynne Pike
  • Song of the Nile by Stephanie Dray

Frankly, I’m really excited to read all of these.  So excited, in fact, that last night I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to finish Bitterblue.  The review is to follow shortly.

The Devil’s Concubine is a book I reviewed for Wayzgoose press and I asked for it for Christmas because I had only an ebook copy.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happier with ebooks now than before when I didn’t have a Kindle, but I still prefer paperbacks.  Ingenue is the second book in the Flappers books by Jillian Larkin and I’m really interested to see where the stories of the girls go.  The same goes for Onyx by Jennifer L. Armentrout because of the cliffhanger at the end of Obsidian, the first book.

Song of the Nile is yet another second book and this time it encompasses a period of time that’s very rarely written about: after Cleopatra Selene married King Juba.  I’m interested to see how Stephanie Dray fills in the gaps in the historical record and I’m hoping that she does as good a job as she did in Lily of the Nile.

The only book that I really know nothing about was Earth Bound, a gift from a friend.  It’s not the sort of thing I would normally pick up on my own time because there’s going to be a love triangle (it’s mentioned right in the blurb), but I’ll try my best to read it with an open mind.

If you celebrate Christmas, did you get any books as presents?  Which ones?  Do you see anything you like here?

Look What Just Arrived! (#6)

Carrie Pictures 2012 279People seem to think (and I don’t know where they got this idea from) that I like books.  That’s why I got a lot of books for Christmas.  So here they are:

  • The Path of the Fallen by Dan O’Brien
  • The First Man of Rome by Colleen McCullough
  • The Riddle by Alison Croggon
  • The Skystone by Jack Whyte
  • City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
  • The City by David Moody
  • The Return Man by V. M. Zito

Actually, the first one, The Path of the Fallen is not a Christmas present so much as a pleasant Christmas Eve surprise from the author who sent me his book to review.  Dan O’Brien’s book will be a workout for my wrists because it is 600 pages and is a surprisingly heavy book.

Aside from City of Fallen Angels, all of the books I received are ones I’ve never read.  Yesterday I finished The Return Man (expect a review soon!) and last night, or early in the morning depending on how you count I finished The City by David Moody.  I want to finish some of the books I received last time and the time before that (and the time before the time before that) before I start on any other new ones, which means I’ll be reading and reviewing popular fiction like Game of Thrones and 1984.

So, my fellow book lovers, what did you get for Christmas?

Are You a Blogger?

No, sadly, this is not my usual Monday rant.  Yes, I am currently ready to call a certain someone unprintable names, but I figure it’s best to ignore them as they obviously have the reading comprehension and manners of a five year old.  Maybe I’ll get back to ranting after the Christmas spirit wears off.

Anyway, that’s not what this post is about.  Here are some important announcements/questions for your reading pleasure:

1.  Would you be interested in being interviewed by me?

If you’re a book blogger or an author that blogs about books and writing, I would love to interview you.  Why?  Because I like doing interviews and I want to give my fellow bloggers/author-bloggers some publicity.  It also gives my readers a chance to discover other great blogs.  So if you’re interested in being interviewed, tell me below in the comments and I’ll be happy to get in touch with you.

2.  I’ve figured out the prize for completing The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge!

(A big thanks goes to James Kennedy who suggested this in the comments!) Here’s what I will be doing: when you complete your challenge and another blogger completes the challenge on the same level or close to you I will put you in touch with one another.  You can then guest post for each other either about the challenge (what you learned from it, if you might do it next year) or just exchange reviews.  But how the grand prize is going to work is as follows:

Everyone who achieves Mad Reviewer earns 4 entries, Crazy Reviewer earns 3 entries, Slightly Sane Reviewer earns 2 entries and Sane Reviewer earns 1 entry.  I will put the names of the bloggers who have completed the challenge (and I have verified that they were honest) in a hat and draw one.  I’ll even do it on video so there are no complaints about honesty.  So what is the grand prize?

The grand prize will be a book blogger’s prize pack of a free book of your choice with the option of me to put my own annotations in it (some people like reading others’ annotations, but if you don’t like it, that’s cool too) and promotion on my blog.  Yes, it’s not exactly a large prize pack, but what I will do that other contest holders won’t is ship anywhere in the world, not just North America.  The promotion on my blog can be for either your blog or if you have a book out, I’ll promote that.

If more people enter next year’s challenge, I’ll likely up the prizes.  But for this first year I’ll stick with a free book and some promotion.

3.  Would you like to guest post for me?

Guest posting can be a drain on bloggers.  Believe me, I would know.  That’s why when someone guest posts for me, I always return the favour.  It helps both of us because we both get exposed to new readers and our readers get to read someone else’s thoughts.  I’ve had two amazing semi-regular guest posters, Caleb Flanagan and The Streetlight Reader, but a little variety is always nice.  For more information about guest posting, please check out this post.

4.  I will be posting a short story I wrote on Christmas.

I had intended on reviewing a Christmas-y book for Christmas, but I changed my mind.  I’m going to post a short story I wrote a couple years ago that I think a lot of writers and conspiracy theorists will be able to relate to.  It’s around 300 words and that’s all I’m going to say about it at this time.  If you celebrate Christmas, think of it as my Christmas present to you.  If you don’t celebrate Christmas, think of it either a special treat or torture, depending on whether you enjoy it or not.