The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-22-24

Posted on December 22, 2024December 21, 2024 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

It’s only three more sleeps until both Christmas and Hanukkah. Are all of your presents wrapped and ready to go? This morning’s cat picture is of Hecate being oh-SO-helpful last weekend while we were wrapping presents. It took repeated applications of the Monster Vacuum to keep the cats off the dining room table long enough to get the job done. Miss Hecate kept popping back up on the table and/or getting underfoot much too quickly after each application – but it did work (mostly) and isn’t she adorable?

Last week’s readings didn’t quite go according to plan. In my head, I thought that the audiobook of Blood Jade was about 10 hours, and that I’d be ready to switch to the text on Wednesday to finish the book in time for a Friday review. My head was in error on both counts. The story is awesome, the narrator is marvelous – Natalie Naudus is one of my faves, especially for stories like this one – but the audio is more like 15 hours and I wasn’t ready at all to give up the fantastic audio in order to listen to the voice in my head who sounds much more like me than a professional narrator.

Very much OTOH, I expected – and I’ve started the book so I know I’m right at least so far – that Echo would be terrific and compelling. But it’s also set in a typical February in Chicago, and I wasn’t quite prepared to face THAT. (I lived in the Chicago area for more than 20 years and February sucks. It’s too damn cold, it’s still much too dark, and spring feels like it’s eons away even if it’s (probably, hopefully) not. Now I’m into the book and I’m sure I’ll get it done if I haven’t already by the time you read this. (I’m writing on Friday.)

One final note on scheduling. Officially, the Winter 2024-2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop started yesterday, so if you want to get in on it immediately hop on over to Versatileer and check it out. Howsomever, I’ll be posting Reading Reality’s entry in the hop tomorrow, on Monday, December 23.

“Just one more thing,” to quote a classic TV detective of yesteryear. This is the last full week of 2024 – as difficult as THAT might be to believe. This year has gone by SO FAST. Nevertheless, 2024 is on its way out the door, which means that it’s time for Reading Reality’s Best Books of 2024 post, coming this very Friday.

There’s LOTS in store here this holiday week. I hope you’ll take a bit of time to stop by and see what’s up! Happy Holidays!

Coming This Week:

Winter 2024-2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop
Echo by Tracy Clark (#BookReview)
Xmas Day (#GuestPost by Galen)
Blood Jade by Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle (#AudioBookReview)
Best Books of 2024

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-8-24

Posted on December 8, 2024December 7, 2024 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

It’s beginning to look a lot like the end of the year is coming on fast. Entirely too fast! Which means both holiday presents to wrap and New Year’s Resolutions to make.

I’m not really talking about actual New Year’s Resolutions – because those seldom work. It’s more about cogitating on what changes need to be made for Reading Reality. Last year it was the decision to start posting on Instagram, something I’d been debating for a couple of years and finally made the plunge because Twitter was getting weird and I felt the need to start posting on a different – and less weird – social media channel.

And Twitter/X got even weirder and more toxic, so I think the Insta decision was a good one. But it’s looking like it’s time to bail on the whole X thing and that’s what I’m looking at now, both at Bluesky and Threads. If you have any thoughts or experience or both on either service, I’d be VERY interested in hearing about it!

With cats in the house, wrapping presents is always a problem. They ALL want to HELP. Which means playing with the wrapping paper. After all, if it interests us, it interests them even more! And we pay SO MUCH attention to THEM when they’re playing with it. Even better – at least from their perspective.

So, we brought the vacuum cleaner into the room with the big table. We’re planning to run the “Monster Vacuum” while we wrap. Based on past performance, we think a five minute blast of Mr. Vacuum will vacate the room for at least an hour!

Because that little story absolutely BEGS for cat tax, here’s a picture of Hecate looking rather dignified. This might become her “official” portrait.

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Fall 2024 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Holiday Giveaway Event!

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the Holiday Book Bingo Challenge Giveaway in the 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon is Kai