inthelouvre.org

July Book Blowout Wrap-up

So I joined the July Book Blowout Challenge to get through some of my mass market TBR pile. Instead, I read a lot of books by Erin Hunter. It’s worked out pretty well, though; I actually passed my goal of eight books this month, and I did manage to get through some of my MMTBRP (we are all about the acronyms in book blogging). If I do this again, I’ll probably want to concentrate more time on reading and less time online.

So here are the books I completed. Those with asterisks (*) were actually taken from my MMTBRP… So I did a decent job of getting through some of those.

1. The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
2. Unbound by Julie Kaewert*
3. Warriors: Into the Wild by Erin Hunter
4. The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan*
5. Warriors: Fire and Ice by Erin Hunter
6. Warriors: Forest of Secrets by Erin Hunter
7. Warriors: Rising Storm by Erin Hunter
8. Publish and Perish by Sally Wright*
9. Warriors: A Dangerous Path by Erin Hunter
10. Fatal Attraction by Alicia Fields*
11. Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About by Mil Millington*

The Castle in the Forest was started in June, so it only counts as a half book. If I wanted to count other “half books,” I could throw in The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox, Pursuit of Light by Sandy Brewer, and Confessions of a Book-Lover by Maurice Francis Egan, all of which I am still currently reading, but I’m not going to.

Did you discover a new author? A few, in fact, one of which I clearly enjoyed: Erin Hunter, Mil Millington, Amy Tan, Norman Mailer, Alicia Fields, and Sally Wright.

Where was the most unusual place you found yourself reading? I wouldn’t call it unusual to find oneself reading in a bookstore, but it was unusual that I traveled 35 minutes to read in this particular bookstore. Granted, I’d had a job interview that day, but I then stayed nearly four hours in the city just to read this book, which I could have read perfectly well at home.

Did you read more than usual? Oh yes, definitely. Unfortunately, I also picked up more books to read at once than I usually do: I’m a one-book kind of gal, but at the moment I’m reading three, maybe four.

Did you give up anything in order to read more? Until the end of the month, when I slacked down a bit, I gave up a lot of Internet time. This I found very rewarding and will try to do it again soon… If I spent less time online, I’d probably read 10 or more books every month.

If you won the Amazon voucher, what would you spend it on? Books, but more specifically, Pride and Predator by Sally Wright (which I can’t seem to find in bookstores), then I’d hold on to it until November to purchase Conspirata by Robert Harris. Anything left over would graciously be spent on Christmas gifts, I imagine.

Would you like to see a 2009 Book Blowout? Definitely. And I would like to see more people participate.

The World’s a Temporary Parking Place

The day went off pretty well! We set up the moon and got everything ready, then took some test photos to make sure it was doable. Perfect! I had high hopes until the afternoon hours rolled around and still no one had arrived. I got really discouraged when it started to rain and we had to take down the moon and everything, because I’d originally said that rain would reschedule the photos (but I took pains to let everyone know they could still come over for fun).

Finally some people arrived, and even though it’d stopped raining it was still considerably wet, so instead we gathered around the Wii as if it were a warm fire on a cold day (although it was, in fact, 90 degrees outside). It was pretty fun hanging out, but I was disappointed that one friend had to leave early and otherwise we weren’t terribly excited about the prospect of taking pictures in the wetness… But then some friends arrived looking spiffy, totally dressed up (as was originally intended), and I couldn’t let myself get discouraged. They’d come looking spectacular, so I was going to take some pictures.

All in all, it turned out pretty successful. I still have a few more to take next weekend (if it doesn’t rain) but I’m happy with the result. I’ll probably not take on another large project like this in the near future, though; it wasn’t difficult to put together and execute, but it was extremely time consuming. Everyone had a lot of fun, and I’m happy to say that the soundtrack was a hit (mostly Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, but some other period music was played also, including a few rendetions of “It’s Only A Paper Moon”).

The paintings, which I hung around the house, I let my friends take home. I still have three left, though… I’ll keep one, and give the other two to my family (who incidentally didn’t take any yesterday!). People seemed to like them, which makes me happy of course. I did create them with the purpose of giving them away.

I’m still editing the photographs a little bit, but my plan now is to create a new/old looking photo for each (as you can see above - the new ones will have the ‘grungy’ border, whereas the older ones will have an ‘old photo’ sort of border). I’ll put them on Shutterfly, print one or two to check the quality, then give the link to my friends so they can print any that they’d like to have.

Personally, my plan is to print several of the ones of Richard and I and send them away with my Christmas cards this year.

Quick Thoughts

Theoretically, I just registered biblio.me, but I fully expect that in an hour or two I’ll get an error email and a refund. If I don’t? Then I just wasted $40 on a domain that I really have no use for just because the name is cool. (Apparently the only option was to register it for two or more years - who knew? So I’ll have to find something to do with it if it is, in fact, mine.) Perhaps it’ll off-set the fact that “inthelouvre” is hard to spell and remember, so I’ll just start telling people to link me at “biblio.me” and have it forwarded. Who knows?

Edit: A-ha! It is mine.

Secondly, tomorrow is my “thing.” I’ve mentioned this a few times, somewhere, but for those of you who haven’t been following… I’ve been setting up a project for myself all summer. I made a giant foam board half-moon which was painted with the idea that some day I’d have my friends sit behind it and take photos of them. It’d magically look like they were sitting on the moon, sort of like those paper moon photos from ye olden days.

All of my hopes and dreams were shattered when I realized that not only is it going to rain tomorrow, but today and yesterday were both fantastically beautiful days. Monday is also supposed to be nice. Clearly, Jesus does not want me to have a successful photo project (Jesus controls the weather, if you didn’t know).

I’ll be decorating anyway with various paintings that I’ve created over the past month, playing some Glenn Miller and various tunes from the ‘war years’ (early 1940s), and offering foods ranging from Cool Ranch Doritos to poorly decorated sugar cookies. Sure, it’ll just turn into a Wii party - because, despite the fact that we are the youngins and generally have dedicated our lives to video games, Richard and I don’t have a Wii but my parents do - with lots of background noise and moon-shaped cookies, but at least my effort will shine through. The giant moon will also be present, er, somewhere, with its specially crafted background (a fine navy blue sheet with paper stars) to set the mood, but unfortunately, the photos won’t be taken. None of my friends will be sitting on the moon tomorrow!

So when I come back Monday I’ll have yet another non-book-related post detailing the successes of tomorrow’s gathering. I don’t normally host. I like to make people happy, which is a problem for hosts, because I get too tied up in meeting everyone’s needs that, A., I don’t really get to talk to anyone, and B., I spend the whole time getting things and doing things that I don’t have enough time to hang out and relax with my friends. But I wanted to do something special for them to show how much I appreciate their awesomeness.

I’m very proud of this project. Even though it won’t go as planned (the only day I will ever say “curse the rain!” because otherwise I love it), I’ll still be able to set the atmosphere I’ve been working so hard to achieve, and I know my friends will appreciate the chance to eat someone else’s food.

Bibliomemoirs, Among Other Things

First of all, I think I should get points for coining the term bibliomemoir. I’ve been using it for years and upon performing a quick Google search, I’ve found that only one other person on the indexed Internet has used this word, and it was fairly recently (March 2007). It’s true that I never wrote down the word with a definition on a piece of paper and then mailed it to myself for proof, but I have been using the term since before I even became interested in reading that kind of book. (I’ve always been a little intimidated, to be honest. Though book blogs are sort of bibliomemoirs, I suppose, but mostly unintentionally.)

In any case, I’m thinking of writing one. Gears have been turning in my head about format and it seems like every time something fantastic happens at the bookstore, I want to put it into a book. Why not write a book about my experience with books, bookselling, and publishing?

Oh, by the way, I’m an editor now. It’s freelance work, and I haven’t gotten my first manuscript yet, but it’s an extremely complicated process nonetheless and I’m very excited to embark on this new journey in my life. If I don’t enjoy it, then I know editing is not the correct field for me in publishing. If I do, then I’ll have an awesome new line on my resume detailing why I’m more experienced than those other entry-level jerks. I’m also hoping it’ll give me some insight about editing my own work. I find it’s much easier to look over someone else’s; perhaps this will help me look at my stories a little more objectively.

Unfortunately it means that I won’t get a lot of reading done for the remainder of the year. I’ll count whatever book I receive as a book read, even if I can’t talk about it or promote it yet. But I’ll be reading it four or five times before the editing process is complete, and that’s four or five other books I couldn’t get to. I could never give up reading entirely, of course, but I’m well aware that one of the pitfalls of being an editor is that you hardly ever get to read books just for fun.

So! To recap: Michelle has used her English degree to its fullest potential and made up another word and she’s an editor now who must edit out invented words from otehrs’ manuscripts.

WeeklyGeeks #12: Unwritten Reviews

As I’ve mentioned somewhere in another post (I’ll link it when I’m not exhausted and thus have the ability to search archives to find it), I don’t always review the books I read. Either I didn’t intend to read it in the first place, or I simply didn’t get that special “reviewing vibe” while I was reading it. Either way, I have quite a few books from this year that I haven’t reviewed which some of you might be wondering about. This week’s WeeklyGeeks is all about bringing those books to light a little bit. I think it’s a brilliant little meme.

Dewey’s “How To:”

1. In your blog, list any books you’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet. If you’re all caught up on reviews, maybe you could try this with whatever book(s) you finish this week.

2. Ask your readers to ask you questions about any of the books they want. In your comments, not in their blogs. Most likely, people who will ask you questions will be people who have read one of the books or know something about it because they want to read it.

3. Later, take whichever questions you like from your comments and use them in a post about each book. I’ll probably turn mine into a sort of interview-review. Link to each blogger next to that blogger’s question(s).

4. Visit other Weekly Geeks and ask them some questions!

So get ready! There’s quite a few to look through in this list here… You can ask any question!

1. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
2. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
3. The Bookwoman’s Last Fling by John Dunning
4. Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix
5. Four Letter Word ed by Joshua Knelman
6. Unsigned by Julie Kaewert
7. The Gladiator’s Honor by Michelle Styles
8. Unsolicited by Julie Kaewert
9. I Sing the Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury
10. Lover Enshrined by J.R. Ward
11. The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter
12. The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter
13. Unbound by Julie Kaewert
14. Warriors: Into the Wild by Erin Hunter
15. Warriors: Fire and Ice by Erin Hunter
16. Warriors: Forest of Secrets by Erin Hunter
17. Warriors: Rising Storm by Erin Hunter

And if you want to be ambitious, I plan on finishing Publish and Perish by Sally Wright and Warriors: A Dangerous Path by Erin Hunter this week…

Because I didn’t ever plan on reviewing these books, instead of including your questions in my “review post” for each of these; I’ll instead compile them all together to make one long “unwritten reviews” post which will address each of these books in a little bit of detail. Sound good? Ask away!

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