Random

Dear Authors and Book Bloggers

I had no plans to blog today, but after an email I received sometime in the last 48 hours I wanted to get on my soapbox and write a little PSA. I’ll get back to semi-regular blogging with Stephen King’s The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1) on Monday.

I am not going to name and shame (Vlogger hotel scandal article Daily Mail link), but if you received the email you’ll know what I’m talking about. Please do not name and shame as that’s just more promotion for them. That is not the goal, this is just free advice for authors and bloggers so take it or leave it. I apologize for the length, click here for the TL;DR.

Dear Authors and Fellow Book Bloggers,

Authors, you want your books read, right? Bloggers we want our sites read, right? It’s natural—it’s why we do what we do.

Authors, you desperately want to write the next best-selling sensation and bloggers we all want to be the one to say: “I discovered that before it was big.” And we all want our names to be recognized, I get it. We’re all content creators, we’re all content consumers, we’re marketers through our books or our blogs, we’re all hustling to make an impact in the larger world. Why else would we be doing this so publicly?

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Book Group, Books

Book 266: Misery – Stephen King

Stephen King is a sick-sick man, but clearly incredibly talented to write these books. After reading Cujo, I wasn’t sure I’d read another, but my books into movies book group once again selected one. As I’m writing this I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’m sure I’ll be terrified. I’m not sure if I’ll read more of King, other than 11/22/63, but if they’re all like this I’d definitely consider it, even if I do get nightmares!

I’m a little torn on this novel, as with most novels that are just outside the realm of (my) possibility I’m not sure how much to enjoy it. If it’s something I could see happening, even if it’s a super stretch, then I get a little freaked out by it, and this is definitely one of those instances. And let’s face it with the number of weirdos out there this book is totally feasible! I mean it could happen today, even with all of the technology in modern society I could easily see this happening.

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Book Group, Books

Book 191: Cujo – Stephen King

One of my friends put it best, ‘So apparently Cujo is just a bad lifetime movie with a rabid dog’ and although he was referring to the movie, it pretty much sums up the book as well. I just was not impressed and couldn’t get into the novel. The major plus side was that it felt like a short novel.

If you haven’t figured it out yet I didn’t enjoy this book. I am glad I can now say I’ve read a Stephen King novel but overall it was lack-luster and disappointing. I didn’t choose to read this novel on my own, it was the selection for our April Books into Movies library book group. So my disparaging review is totally legit. I did have major issues with the formatting of this book. I read this book through Overdrive from my local library and somewhere during the conversion process a lot of mistakes were processed. It was really distracting and felt more like a galley than an actual published book.

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Updates

January 2013 Recap

Well I’m not sure how January was for the rest of you, but it flew by for me! I’m still trying to figure out where the month went! Not much to look forward to in February—it’s back to Single’s Awareness Day for me this year. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of books read and probably steer clear of romance novels for the month.

I hit my three-month anniversary at my new job and I’m glad to say I’m still loving it! Going into a busy period coming up, so fingers crossed all continues to go well. There were some major ups and downs in my personal life, but you know that’s how life is, so I’m just moving forward and making myself better as I can.

2013 01-22 Books from my SisterRecent Acquisitions
So I didn’t stick 100% to my no books rule, but I did REALLY well! I didn’t spend any of my money (all gift cards) and only purchased THREE books and they were all less than $3 because they were Kindle Daily Deals! (If you remember my two cop-outs were Kindle Daily Deals and Booker Prize winning novels for really cheap, and one of the three qualifies for both!) I purchased The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, 11/22/63 by Stephen King and The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell. In addition my sister bought me the three books in the picture above because she had money left over after selling text books 😀

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