Tag: Books

Updates

Lunch Break Interlude I

Geoff W

We interrupt your regularly scheduled…— “Regularly scheduled,” what’s that?

I’ve done this once before, “way back” in August, and thought it was time for another quick one as I had so much new info to share that I didn’t want to wait until the next monthly update. Aside from my lack of humor, I’ve been busy with Thanksgiving and work, but I wanted to give a quick update with a few notables. (This may end up being my December update, if I’m too busy/lazy to actually post one).

  • The blog has gone through yet another re-design (as in I clicked the change theme button – and it was hard work), partially because I wanted to create a banner at the top – so check out the main page: www.geoffwhaley.com.
  • I started a photoblog: The Journal of the Movement of the World. It was inspired by all the 365 Photo a Day challenges, plus the title comes from another book! I’m probably most excited about the archives page because of the collective look at all the photos over time. [Update 01.27.12 – temporarily suspended until I can actually put some time into it. More than one blog was overwhelming.]
  • Last week I attended the Somerville Public Library book group Books into Movies and it was interesting. We read Friday Night Lights and I’ll have a review posted by Wednesday at the latest. (I haven’t quite finished reading it yet.) Next month is Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I’m excited about re-reading especially before the Hollywood version of the film comes out.
  • I splurged on books again this past Saturday, but don’t feel too guilty as I was supporting a local business on Small Business Saturday. I’ll have that list in the December monthly update.

And to close this brief interlude of your day, my friend Alie (not a blogger yet) went on a trip to Italy over Thanksgiving and brought back this awesome photo to the left. It is of the Italian promotional sign for Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance. I particularly like the other book signs in the back which show it’s definitely not in an English-speaking country, in case you missed the yellow strip across the top.

I love seeing international covers and foreign language editions of novels I’ve read. I actually have versions of Harry Potter in French and Spanish as well as complete British and American collections of the seven novels and the Tales of Beedle the Bard. At one point I had a British copy of one of the Dan Brown novels because I was stuck in the airport long enough to need a new book, but no idea where that went.

Updates

November 2011 Update

Geoff W

Better late than never…or something along those lines.

I waited to post November’s update as I knew I would surpass my 50-book goal for 2011! You can read about book 50 here, but it was only posted yesterday so hopefully you read it.

Now this isn’t a huge to-do as I usually read more books than this (and technically have read 51 already), but I actually kept up with posting about each book which is MAJOR for me. I found the accompanying image on socialdino.com – but it’s made me think I should try and create a line of similar photos for when I pass the various milestones in a year. Oh the numerous ideas I’m always coming up with…

What a crazy month, so not only did I pass my 50 book goal for the year, but I apparently finished 10 books since the October update. I didn’t do it last month, but the nifty pages read stat graphic from Goodreads is here:

That’s a lot of pages. More so than I reported on Goodreads last year (2010 total was 16,975 pages). Next year should be a bit more interesting as I’ve joined two challenges and I’ll build a page for them later, but for now you can see the Mount TBR Challenge and the Back to the Classics Challenge by clicking the links.

Click here to continue reading.

Culture Corner

Boston Book Festival, Part III: The Books

Geoff W

I’ve blogged about the panels and my awesome workshop, but I haven’t written about the plethora of books I purchased!

Going into the day, I set aside $40 knowing there would be book deals of some sort and that I would end up purchasing at least one book to get signed from a great panel presentation. I was very proud of myself, by the end of the day I only went over by $13! Honestly, I expected it to be closer to going over by $30. The major problem however is I’ve added an additional 14 books to my bookshelf to read (that are now staring at me) and an additional at least 20+ books to my list of books to read eventually (some of those I bought were already on my list). I encourage you to check out my bookshelf for books that are physically (or digitally) sitting on my bookshelf(/Kindle) waiting to be read, and check out the green on my reading list to see all the new additions as they are books I didn’t purchase I now want to read!

So without further ado here is my collection of new purchases!

You can see the festival program and the One City One Story booklet bottom center. The short story was a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be. It was The Whore’s Child by Richard Russo, and was about a nun in a writing course and her professor’s views/opinions. I thought it was well written and an intriguing enough story, if a bit bland overall. I didn’t go to the discussion, but I am glad I read it.

Click here to continue reading…

Culture Corner

Boston Book Festival, Part II: My Workshop

Geoff W

“I am laughing to myself. I just got off the phone with my sister and as usual she brought up something from high school, Remember that time we stole a fire hydrant? What ever happened to it? Just asking that question sends both of us into a fit of giggles….”

And so begins my ‘short story’ that I wrote during my Jumpstart Your Writing workshop at the 2011 Boston Book Festival. (Don’t worry you can read the rest at the end of this post in blue, but it’s definitely not the whole story or even a well written story – I only had eight minutes to write!)

As you read in Part 1, I had a great time at the panels, but I think the coolest thing I did (aside from spending too much money on books) was to step out of my comfort zone and take a writing workshop. The workshop was an hour-long and provided for free by Grub Street, one of the largest independent centers for creative writing in the US (and it’s a nonprofit). The description read,

You’ve spent the day hearing great authors read from their work–now it’s your turn to create some of your own. Join Grub Street for an hour of innovative and inspiring prompts that will get you brainstorming ideas for new stories and scenes. The focus will be on creating memorable characters and settings, inventing plots, and improving dialogue. This session is designed for people interested in writing fiction and non-fiction, but poets will also benefit from the challenge.

The workshop was really interesting. I took Section B with Grace Talusan, who was great! We started out with a bit of an overview and then jumped right into the writing activity. It was four basic steps and it was brilliant and just forced you to write regardless of what it was you were writing. My notes are to the left and below.

Click here to continue reading…

Culture Corner

Boston Book Festival, Part I: The Panels

Geoff W

This past weekend was the third annual Boston Book Festival and I am proud to say I’ve attended all three. Each year there have been a few hiccups, but the festival gets bigger and (for the most part) better each year. I apologize ahead of time as this is a VERY long post. Suffice to say I enjoyed the festival and am looking forward to next year’s event. Stay tuned as later this week I will post about the AWESOME workshop I attended and the books I (shouldn’t have) bought and the keynote.

One of the hardest things to do is decide which panels/discussions I want to attend. With a schedule like this:

it’s no wonder it’s hard to decide. (You can see a detailed version with links here.) Although I originally planned to attend four panels, a workshop and the keynote; and there were plenty other workshops I would love to have attended, I only attended three panels, a workshop and the keynote. Below are my thoughts/review of the panels.
Click here to read about the panels I attended…