Today is, believe it or not, the third anniversary of the founding of Reading Reality. In other words, it’s my blog’s birthday!
Tomorrow, April 5, just so happens to be my own personal birthday. (Three years ago, this was a pretty busy week!)
As is my custom, I’m having a Hobbit birthday for us. That means that instead of getting presents, I’ll be giving some away. I want to share the joy.
I also want to share a few books that need to get out and be loved by some lucky reader. These are my review copies, but because I usually get ebooks from NetGalley or Edelweiss, these are all unread, and waiting for someone to read them.
So, how is this giving stuff away thing going to work?
I’m giving away a $15 Amazon or B&N gift card to the first prize winner. Second prize gets to pick 4 books, and third prize is three books.
Which books? Forgiving Lies and Deceiving Lies by Molly McAdams, Dash of Peril by Lori Foster, Retribution by Anderson Harp, and a signed copy of Tarnished by Karina Cooper. I also have 2 copies of The Clockwork Wolf by Lynn Viehl, so both winners get one copy.
In the rafflecopter, just let me know which book you would pick first if you get to choose!
Time passes so quickly. Reading Reality’s 3rd anniversary is this Friday. My birthday is Saturday, so this Friday I’m holding my annual Blogo-Birthday Celebration. By celebrate I mean giveaway! This year I’m planning to give away a gift card and some books from my recent collection. For international visitors, I’ll do a giveaway from Book Depository (I wish they did gift cards!!!)
But until Friday rolls around, here’s what else has been happening:
Before I say anything about any books on the nightstand, virtual or otherwise, there’s something else sitting there that needs to be acknowledged.
I have a great big pile of virtual thank you notes. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came to my Blogo-Birthday Giveaway April 4-5! It was great to see all of you at my party. I’m so happy that you came. Every single one of your comments and follows was a present. Thanks a bunch!
Since this was a hobbit birthday, I’m giving presents. The lucky winners of the ebook giveaways and the Amazon gift cards will get emails and be announced tomorrow, April 9.
Back to our regularly scheduled Mostly Virtual Nightstand…
Last winter (okay, it was winter everywhere else, the U.S. South doesn’t get much real winter) it seemed like everyone else was reading and raving about North of Need by Laura Kaye. I missed picking it up on NetGalley. I should have and just didn’t.
When Ms. Kaye was asking for bloggers to participate in her West of Want cover reveal and contest announcement, I jumped at the chance. It was my opportunity (read excuse) to finally read and review North of Need, and participate in a terrific event. April 10, Reading Reality will be one of the hosts for Laura’s contest announcement and excerpts of West of Want and I’ll post my review of North of Need.
This week is also the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. Why is this relevant? I have a copy of Wreck of the Nebula Dream by Veronica Scott to review. Nebula Dream is a science fiction romance based on the Titanic disaster, so it is fitting that the review be posted close to the April 15 anniversary.
I have two books I received from Samhain. One, The Lawman’s Surrender by Debra Mullins, I almost can’t believe I asked for, because it’s part of their Retro Historical line. I reviewed the first book in the Calhoun Sisters series, Donovan’s Bed, for Library Journal and here. It was an absolutely terrific guilty pleasure, one of those books that reminded me how much fun western romances can be when they’re done right. (Also, this retro isn’t very retro, it was originally published in 2001) I just have to find out what happens to sister number 2!
My second Samhain title is Lexxie Couper’s Love’s Rhythm. Her books have done pretty well in the Ebook Review Central tallies, and I wanted to see for myself.
How many of you have mostly virtual nightstands? Would you like to share them? The magic of Mister Linky makes that possible. Just add the link to your Virtual Nightstand post below, and we can all share the books we’re reading and reviewing this week.
Today is my birthday. Not Reading Reality’s blogoversary, but my actual birthday.
I’ve been referring to this celebration as a hobbit’s birthday. For anyone who has not read J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpieces, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, hobbits give presents to other people on their birthdays.
Reading, and re-reading The Hobbit and LOTR gave me my love of fantasy, and led to my lifelong adventures in genre fiction. From that introduction, I followed the primrose and circuit-strewn path to science fiction, and thus became a geek girl forever.
The biggest argument I had with Tolkien, then and now, is that there were almost no strong female characters. My current favorites generally don’t have that problem.
One of my favorite books from 2011 is Queenie’s Brigade, by Heather Massey. Queenie is a very strong woman, the leader of a prison colony at the edge of known space. This ebook science fiction romance was on my Best Ebook Romances of 2011 column at Library Journal. I could only pick 5 books, but Queenie’s Brigade had to be one of those five. Read my review and you’ll understand why it made my top 5.
Heather Massey, in addition to being an SFR author, also follows science fiction romance as the pilot of The Galaxy Express blog. Interested readers and fellow travelers should climb aboard The Galaxy Express. It’s a fantastic ride.
But about Queenie. Queenie is an alpha heroine leading a fight against overwhelming odds. Queenie’s Brigade has been called The Dirty Dozen in space. Why? Because Queenie joins the freed inmates of her prison colony to the crew of the last spaceship escaping from a doomed Earth Federation. Queenie and the captain of the spaceship team up to turn the prisoners into soldiers.
I called it great science fiction with hot romance. And thanks to Heather Massey, I get to giveaway a copy of Queenie’s Brigade to one reader of Reading Reality for my birthday.
(If Queenie’s Brigade sounds good, take a look at the review of Heather’s latest erotic clockpunk romance, The Watchmaker’s Lady. There’s still plenty of time to get in on that giveaway.)
To have an ebook copy of Queenie’s Brigade for your very own (PDF, EPUB or .mobi) , here’s all you have to do. Leave a comment that answers the following question: if you were in command of a ragtag fleet of barely repaired ships, which evil science fiction empire would you rather be up against? And also let me know which format you want you ebook in if you are the lucky winner.
The deadline to enter the giveaway is 12:01 a.m. EDT on the morning of April 8, 2012. I will announce the winner on April 9th.
There are no calories in a picture of a birthday cake. The only problem is that there’s no flavor, either.
Notice that it’s a picture of a VERY chocolate cake. When I think birthday cake, I think “chocolate”.
I remember laughing out loud, and for quite a long time, the first time I read Sandra Boynton’s famous book Chocolate: The Consuming Passion. There’s a page about white chocolate, where she describes the taste of white chocolate by telling the reader to cut out a page of the book and eat it. That’s her opinion of white chocolate. Mine too.
This is a book that seriously needs to be back in print.
I got here from chocolate cake. Honestly. The strangest things remind me of books, and often by the most twisted of paths. (Birthday to Chocolate Cake to Boynton)
Just as the blogoversary was a time to reflect on a year of blogging, my birthday is a time to reflect, But then I changed my mind. Why reflect when I have so many wonderful books to escape into?
Instead, earlier this week, I sort of got a different kind of present. As I might have mentioned (a few dozen times) I’m a librarian. Not just because I’ve worked in libraries, but because I have a Master’s Degree in Library Science.
My MLS is from a little school in Kentucky. Yes, the University of Kentucky, who won the NCAA Basketball Championship earlier this week. This may be one week when if I say I went to UK, no one asks what I mean, even in Atlanta.
Since this is a hobbit birthday, and I am giving presents (don’t worry, I will get at least one very nice present from my husband), there is a giveaway for all of you who have patiently read to the end of this post.
Or maybe you just skipped down to the Rafflecopter! The question to enter the giveaway is a birthday-related question, since this is a birthday-related giveaway. What was your favorite birthday present?
(There is still plenty of time to enter yesterday’s giveaways. You can take your chances on a $15 Amazon GC here and an ebook copy of Heather Massey’s fantastic erotic clockpunk romance The Watchmaker’s Lady here.)
This drawing is for a USD$20 Amazon Gift Card. The giveaway will be open until 12:01 a.m. EDT the morning of April 8, 2012. I will announce the winner on April 9th.
On April 4, 2011 this blog was born. The first version was Escape Reality, Read Fiction! Courtesy of The Wayback Machine, here’s what it looked like, back in the early days of…last year. (My own birthday is tomorrow, so blogo-birthday)
Escape Reality, Read Fiction! is still on the masthead, but now it’s under the bar. For anyone who wonders where that phrase came from, like so much wisdom, I got it off a t-shirt–which doesn’t make it any less true. I firmly believe that you can escape reality for very large periods of time by reading fiction. And that’s a good thing!
I’m equally firmly of the opinion that you can’t judge a book by its movie. Also from a t-shirt. There’s some great stuff on t-shirts, if you look for it. Especially if you like pithy.
So, about last year. April 4 was a Monday. My first post was published that day, after a weekend of Galen and I setting things up. There was one absolutely paralyzing bit about selecting a WordPress theme from the zillion and one options I still have nightmares about.
I knew I would write about books. Not a big surprise. I expected to be writing more on the, I guess you would say meta-level, about the business of books, or the business of libraries, rather than book reviews.
I never expected it would be quite so easy to get books to review. I thought I’d be reviewing from my already large TBR stacks. Instead, the TBR stacks are getting bigger by the day, but mainly in the virtual sense. I get most of my review copies in ebook form, with the exception of conference ARCs.
A year means it’s time to reflect a little bit. That’s why there have been a few changes in the last month. I’ve added features to bring in more traffic. I’ve discovered that writing the blog, even every day, isn’t the hardest part. Getting people to come and read it, the promotion, that’s the more difficult bit. At least for me. As the saying goes, YMMV.
So in addition to regular features like Ebook Review Central, it’s time for Reading Reality to participate in a couple of memes like In My Mailbox and On My Wishlist. On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand turned into a meme itself this past weekend. I’m also participating in some blog tours and blog hops, like the Where’s That Bunny? hop hosted by Reading Romances this week. (By the way, Nat at Reading Romances designed the Blogo-Birthday graphic. Thanks, Nat!)
But I want to make sure that the loyal readers of Reading Reality keep reading. So, as I start my second year, I want to hear from you. What do you look for in a blog? What keeps you following? Comments please!
This is a Blogoversary Celebration, so of course there is a giveaway!
Here are the steps to enter the drawing for a USD$15 Amazon Gift Card. This giveaway will be open until 12:01 a.m. the morning of April 8, 2012. I will announce the winner on April 9th.
Murphy’s Law being what it generally is, more stuff happened over Bloggiesta weekend than was originally planned. Which means that I didn’t participate in the Bloggiesta events as much as I would have liked.
There will be another Bloggiesta September 28-30, and I hope to participate in the actual festival next time.
But that doesn’t mean that we (Galen and I) didn’t get anything crossed off the Reading Reality Bloggiesta to-do list.
Finalize the plans for my Blogo-birthday celebration April 4-5!!!!!!
Fix up my blog’s Facebook page
Update my review policy page
Add an advertising policy page
Check out triberr
Create a page for collecting my challenge progress
Add Networked Blogs back to my sidebar
Check out Mister Linky for WordPress (should the Virtual Nightstand be a meme?)
Write an advertisement for an associate reviewer
Accomplishments were definitely made!
Next Sunday, the Virtual Nightstand will have a few more details about the meme. It’s there and it works, but the concept could probably use a few more details.
Networked Blogs is working, as well as Linky Followers. Follow me through one or the other (or both!) and I’ll follow you.
Triberr turned out to be an idea for…not yet. It’s an interesting concept, but the idea of auto-approving tweets from my tribe, or having to curate the tweets, not now. Maybe by the next Bloggiesta.
And oh yes, my Blogo-Birthday Celebration! Everything is set! We’re going to have a party! A two-day party for a two-day event. April 4 I will be giving away a $15 Amazon GC and a copy of Heather Massey’s new clockpunk erotic novel The Watchmaker’s Lady to celebrate the Blogoversary of Reading Reality.
And on April 5, I’ll be giving away a $20 Amazon GC and a copy of one of my favorite science fiction romances of 2011, Queenie’s Brigade, in celebration of my own birthday.
Everyone’s invited. Here’s your invitation to the party!
Before I say anything at all about what might be on my nightstand, virtually or otherwise, I have to give over a few minutes to April Fool’s Day. Really.
Did you have a Nintendo NES? Or any 8-bit gaming system? The folks at Google obviously not only had several, but they remember them very, very fondly. Go to maps.google.com and start your quest for a touch of nostalgia. Watch the video tutorial for a real belly laugh. There’s an article on USA Today with details and “Easter Eggs”.
For the more literary-minded, Shelf Awareness has published a special, April 1 edition of their normally weekday e-newsletter for booksellers, reviewers, librarians and anyone interested in books and the book trade (it’s generally awesome and well worth subscribing to). But the April 1 issue is an absolute delight of wit, sarcasm and irony. With just the splash of “oh, maybe, could it be…someday?” thrown in now and again for good measure.
On my nightstand, really and not April Fool’s, it’s a light week. I’ll try to do a little catchup, or a little reading ahead. I know, I know, famous last words…
Ripper by Amy Carol Reeves is a YA-ish paranormal mystery. But I picked it on NetGalley because is it set in London during the Gaslight era, and involves Jack the Ripper. It sounded creepy-scary but not too scary. And I love Victorian London of that era, it’s the Sherlock Holmes era.
Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson had four things to recommend it: urban fantasy, a New Orleans setting, and Hurricane Katrina blowing everything to hell in a handbasket to start the story, and dead pirates. As a starting line-up, it sounds terrific. I’m willing to bite on this debut novel. I reviewedIsles of the Forsaken by Carolyn Ives Gilman last year. Although it got off to a slow start, about half-way through I got totally absorbed and couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. The sequel, Ison of the Isles is finally here. Yes!
So, what do you think? Should I catch up on some of the TBR nightstands of old? Or should I read ahead and queue up reviews for nightstands to come? Or here’s a novel thought, I could read some books just for fun!
No fooling around, there will be an Ebook Review Central tomorrow, and it’s the four-in-one issue.
Before I forget, April 4 and 5 Reading Reality will celebrate a unique event. It’s a Blogo-Birthday!
What’s that? Reading Reality’s Blogoversary is April 4. The blogger of Reading Reality is having a birthday April 5. Hence, Blogo-Birthday.
This will be like a hobbit birthday. Meaning that I will give presents instead of receiving them. A giftcard will be given away on each day!
The Descartes Legacy
