The Sunday Salon

Last week turned out to be a very bad week, reading and otherwise. The otherwise part I’m going to skip because I don’t feel the need to complain about it today. The reading part was pretty much nonexistent which is what made the week very bad.

Stress, in my life anyway, can be forgotten or at least mitigated when I have a book to read. This week didn’t offer many opportunities for reading so the stress just built. By the time everything was over, all I wanted to do was sleep and that’s what I did.

One book did get finished yesterday, Blameless by Gail Carriger. It’s the third book in the Parasol Protectorate series and was a perfect choice for a lazy afternoon on the couch. I have two books left in the series and plan to save them for a rainy day, or a day on a plane, I haven’t decided which yet.

I’m catching up on the Red Seas Under Skies read along too. I wasn’t able to write up my post because I hadn’t read the section yet so it may appear later in the week.

I also hope to get to some of those reviews I wrote up last week posted and maybe finish up the one I started and never finished. Or I may take another nap and recover. It’s up in the air right now.

Finally, Happy Mother’s Day Mom! It’s been great. 🙂

Happy Sunday.

Reviewathon Wrap-Up (5/7/2012)

While I didn’t get to participate in the Reviewathon on Sunday thanks to work, I was able to get a ton of reviews written on Saturday. I was one review short of my final ultimate goal of seven reviews but I’m happy with the six I finished and the seven I did finally edit. By all standards, it was an impressively successful day for me. I honestly don’t think I’ve written that much in weeks and it felt really great to put words on paper which is something I’ve sadly been ignoring.

I was hoping to schedule a few of the reviews as well but having to go into the office made that plan a no go and with the schedule I’ve got ahead of me this week, that might not happen. If I manage to find an hour or two this week I may fit one or two in but I’m not that confident but I refuse to let the work I did this weekend go to waste so it will happen soon.

Thanks to Alita at Alita.Reads for thinking up this brainchild and hosting.

So final count:

Edited and done (but not scheduled) –

One Shot by Lee Child

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l’Engle

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, graphic novel part 1

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, graphic novel

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Reviews written –

The Invisible Man by HG Wells

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

The Gunslinger: Dark Tower Book 1 by Stephen King

All the Flowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Review started –

The Watchers by Jon Steele

 

Reviewathon #2

Post #3 – 5.43 PM: Lunch break is now officially over. After a walk in the sun, lunch in the shade, the Caps/Rangers playoff game, and a nap, I’m reading to get back to it.

Earlier today I wrote reviews for:

The Invisible Man by HG Wells

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

I’ve got three books left!

Post #2 – 7.56 AM: I have finished editing 7 previously written reviews! So these books are reviewed but not yet scheduled:

One Shot by Lee Child

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey Graphic Novel, Part 1

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility Graphic Novel

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Oh, and I use the words torrid sex once. Awesome.

Post #1 – 6.38 AM: I’m awake early. A better description is that I’m vertical. Awake is another concept.

Awake or vertical, it’s reviewathon time. I’ve got 7 reviews to edit and 7 books to write reviews for which seems like a lot right now but I think that’s because it’s so early.

OK, getting started with previously editing reviews…

Red Seas Under Red Skies Read Along Part 2

Back this week with an interruption in the #Reviewathon to play in the Red Seas Under Red Skies Read Along. Part 1 is here if you’re curious. This week’s questions are from Andrea at the Little Red Reviewer and she also has more info here.

I decided I had some fun last week writing pretty much stream of conscience and decided to go with it again so ignore dangling participles, fragments, and if I used the wrong conscience (conscientious), ignore that too. I, seriously, never use that word correctly. It’s my nemesis.

1 – Now that we know a little more about Selendri and Requin, what do you think of them? I worry Locke is suddenly realizing this con might be a bit tougher than he expected.

I don’t trust these two at all. Requin doesn’t give hints about anything, although once Locke did seem to surprise him with what he had to say, but I think he already knows what Locke is up to before he does so there’s the possibility of all this going so very wrong. Then again, why should I underestimate a character that seems to be able to get out of almost everything, with the exception of being poisoned? Ugh, he should have know better.

As for Selendri, I now think of her as the new Nazca. This will persist until Sabetha shows up because I appreciate a strong female character. Which, by the way, I do think Lynch does very well. The problem is that he kills them off, gives them horrible back stories, and has them only show up when someone else mentions her as in the case of Sabetha. What’s up with that?
2 – Isn’t the Artificers’ Crescent just amazing?  If you could purchase anything there, what would it be?

I would buy a mini elephant, around the 20 pound mark. Like a decent size dog, not too big but not too small either. Just think how much fun it would be to play fetch with that! Was that a weird answer? I sorta think it is but I’m leaving it because it said anything in the question.

3 – What did you think of Salon Corbeau and the goings on that occur there? A bit crueler than a Camorri crime boss, no?

Esh. I couldn’t wait for Locke to leave. The games are horrid and while it sounds like a ‘nice’ ‘safe’ place, I’d run as far away from it as I could.

One of the reasons I like Locke so much is that he isn’t cruel. He might scheme money away from the rich, play tricks on them, but he’s never outright cruel. And really, where does a child learn that entertainment comes in the form of beating an elderly person with clubs come from! Crap that place was a rat hole.
4 – The Archon might be a megalomaniacal military dictator, but he thinks he’s doing right by Tal Verrar: his ultimate goal seems to be to protect them.  What do you think he’s so afraid of?

This has me confused, not the question, this character. I can’t figure out what he’s up to and why he feels he needs to protect the place. Also, why does he feel so safe that his spies aren’t known by Requin! He should know that if he’s willing to pay, someone else is willing to pay more for the information he wants. Spying 101 — cuz I know so much about that. I should stop talking now but hole already dug, going in for me.

I don’t think he’s afraid of Requin, he understands him as a nemesis (I’m trying to work this word into everyday conversation. Used it twice in this post even!) and maybe a slight threat to his plans, but I don’t think there’s fear there. However, maybe there should be. Is it all a misplaced fear and he doesn’t get it at all? I don’t know.

5 – And who the heck is trying to kill Locke and Jean every few days?  They just almost got poisoned (again!)!

Head, e-reader. I’m pretty sure there’s an N on my forehead from my nook. Can these two just stop drinking everything put in front of them!? I was glad to see they passed on the ale because, really, you had to see that one coming.
6 – Do you really think it’s possibly for a city rat like Locke to fake his way onto a Pirate ship?

I want him to play the part, and I think it will be amusing to see him do it, but no, I don’t think he can be a pirate. In my head, now and forever, that’s Johnny Depp.

Reviewathon #1

Post #1 – 6.38 AM: I’m awake early. A better description is that I’m vertical. Awake is another concept.

Awake or vertical, it’s reviewathon time. I’ve got 7 reviews to edit and 7 books to write reviews for which seems like a lot right now but I think that’s because it’s so early.

OK, getting started with previously editing reviews…

 

Post #2 – 7.56 AM: I have finished editing 7 previously written reviews! So these books are reviewed but not yet scheduled:

One Shot by Lee Child

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey Graphic Novel, Part 1

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility Graphic Novel

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Oh, and I use the words torrid sex once. Awesome.

These books are waiting for me…

Waiting for me to review them that is. I’ve managed to get behind on several reviews, six to be exact. Instead of feeling guilty about this, I’m going to pretend I’ve been saving these up for the Reviewathon.

What’s a Reviewathon you ask? Alita from Alita.Reads will tell you here but in case you don’t click that link (which you should) it’s basically a chance to catch up on reviews, schedule posts, and a really excellent excuse to sit at the computer and play on twitter. No, that last one’s not really true but there is a hashtag – #reviewathon – so it’s kinda true.

I’m participating for a few hours on May 5th but it runs from May 4 – 6 so there’s more than enough time to write up a review or two, or six if you’re lazy like me.

Look at this book!

A co-worker lent me this book. It’s fabulous. In all honesty, I’ve never heard of this book but it has three things going for it that made me love it and I haven’t even opened it yet.

1.) Look at that cover. No, really look at it and focus some energy on the bottom right corner. Yes, those knights are pretty much dismembering each other. Awesome.

2.) It says it’s epic! Epic people. And right on the cover. The little blurb claims it compares with the Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings! Yep. I might be a sucker but I’m a sucker that loves the Lord of the Rings so I’m reading this book.

3.) Pictures. It has pictures. Those are soldiers of demonland if you can’t read the caption due to my crap photography skills.

This is going to be so much fun. Or not. We’ll see.

The Sunday Salon – Everything

Yesterday, for reasons my husband was unable to explain adequately, our wi-fi stopped working. It was highly annoying as I couldn’t read twitter or check silly facts online. Today, it’s back!

With no wi-fi yesterday, I parked myself on the couch with a book — Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson. I would say the book is funny but that’s such a bad description. Yes, it’s funny but funny in that way that makes you laugh out loud and people in the room (husband) start looking at you all strange so you decide that you’ll just laugh to yourself instead of out loud. For me, that means I giggle. When I giggle I start crying because I’m trying not to laugh. So, almost all of yesterday I spent curled up on the couch alternately laughing out loud, giggling, and looking as though I was watching something on TV that was so very sad. In fact, the hockey playoffs were on TV so that wasn’t case at all. It was the book. I don’t want to ruin it so I’ll save it all for the review.

And speaking of reviews, um, I need to write some. I have a stack of books sitting on my desk right now that are basically a daily reminder that I’m a bad book blogger. I haven’t written a review in a minute (read minute as days and days please). Wait! The reviewathon is coming up and I’m saving them all for next Saturday. Yep, that’s it. What I’m saying is, you might see some reviews soon.

Since the wi-fi was being unhelpful yesterday I didn’t get to visit all the people participating in the Red Seas Under Red Skies read along. I will do this today!

Now, I’m going to convince my husband that we must take a walk so I can buy some coffee. This is day two of writing without coffee or editing and while it’s been fun, I want me some coffee. I’d make it at home but I make the worst coffee on the planet. Seriously, I do.

Happy Sunday!