Tag: NetGalley

NetGalley Review-a-Thon

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> NetGalley> NetGalley Review-a-Thon

What an utterly cool idea!

Lisa at Adventures of 2.0 is hosting a NetGalley Review-a-Thon event as the post-NetGalley Month “debriefing” this weekend. The thought being that since we read all those lovely NetGalley books last month, we need to catch up on our reviewing.

Because reading the books is fun. Writing up what we read can be, well, not so much.

Since we have to commit to how many reviews we’re going to write (but not necessarily post) this weekend, I’m going to say three. I have one book finished that I have to write up, and I should get two more read this weekend and written. I read a lot when I’m stressed (see this morning’s post), and if I’m going to be up half the night I might as well write the reviews while the books are still fresh in my mind.

Every time I see the hash tag for the read-a-thon I have to smile. It’s just perfect. Because the hash tag for the review-a-thon–wait for it–it’s #netgalleyrat.

I think the NetGalley books are the cheese.

NaNoWriMo no, NaBloPoMo, yes!

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blogging> NaBloPoMo

Everyone has heard of NaNoWriMo. It’s the month where people all over the United States commit to writing so many words per day, in order to kick-start themselves into writing their novel. It’s like a global support group for novelists. NaNoWriMo is a not-quite abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. But I’m pretty sure it’s expanded way beyond the U.S. boundaries, at least unofficially.

NaNoWriMo is held in November every year. And it’s a really neat idea. But I’m not writing a novel. I write pretty much every day, but so far, there isn’t a novel screaming to come out of me. Someday, maybe, but not today.

Today, I’m here to talk about NaBloPoMo, which does not quite roll as trippingly over the tongue as NaNoWriMo, but is way more relevant for me.

NaBloPoMo is National Blog Posting Month, and is organized by the terrific ladies at BlogHer. Signing up for NaBloPoMo is a commitment to post something to my blog every single day for an entire month. The absolutely fantastic thing about NaBloPoMo is that it’s NaBloPoMo every month!

Yes, I’m committed. I’ve signed up to be one of the Book Bloggers on NaBloPoMo for the month of February. The complete list of February bloggers is here on BlogHer, so please take a peek at my fellow inmates. If you are interested in joining us, the blogroll will remain open until February 5.

Because my primary focus lies someplace in the ebook and book world, defined as broadly as possible to include libraries and bookstores, I always have something to write about because NetGalley kindly provides egalleys for me to review. There is never a lack of material. I run headlong into the “so many books, so little time” conundrum more than anything else.

For participants without that, let’s call it a saving grace, NaBloProMo provides a writing prompt that bloggers can use for inspiration if needed. The February prompt is “RELATIVE”.

My mind went to “relatives” as in family. Not so much to my own family as to families in books. J.D. Robb’s Celebrity in Death is due out at the end of February, and I’m looking forward to slurping it up as soon after midnight as my iPad will process the download. Eve Dallas is an orphan, and as we find out during the course of the series, for damn good reasons. But she does have a family. The family she made, not her birth family. And yet, they are very much her family, and they love each just as much, if not more, than many families. After all, they put their lives on the line for each other every day.

How many series, especially mystery/detective series, do you follow just to keep up with the “family”?

 

Impossible Mission

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | About> American Library Association> conferences

I plan to carry out an impossible mission in this post. Not the kind where the “Secretary will disavow all knowledge of my actions,” although there will be some “Secretaries” involved. So this mission will not involve either Peter Graves or Tom Cruise. Nor will there be any spies.

By the time you read this, I will either be flying between Atlanta and Dallas, or already in “The Big D” and in the midst of the madness that comprises the American Library Association Midwinter Conference. A madness that is only exceeded by the insanity of the American Library Association Annual Conference, which will be in hot, dry Anaheim California, in June. Look out, Mickey Mouse!

ALA Midwinter originally came into being for the Association to conduct its business. And there are a LOT of committee meetings. But since everyone was there anyway, the vendors who sell to libraries also come to the conference to exhibit their latest and greatest. The publishers come to promote their new books. There are usually LOTS of Advance Reading Copies free for the taking. Stacks and stacks of them!

About that impossible mission? Attempting to make my ALA Midwinter Schedule sound interesting. Please don’t stop reading now!

I said that ALA conducts a lot of its business during the Midwinter conference. I am proud to say that I am part of that business. This year, I am the Chair of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services Affiliate Relations Committee. Whew, that’s a mouthful. It’s abbreviated as ALCTS ARC. You can imagine why.

Being Chair of an ALCTS committee means that I go to the ALCTS Board meeting on Friday afternoon and Monday afternoon. This year, ALA is promoting the theme of “Transforming Libraries” and a big part of that theme is “Transforming Collections”. ALCTS, well, remember that word “Collections” in the name? We’re all over that “Collections” thing. So we’ll be talking about our role in ALA’s initiative.

The Affiliate Relations Committee is something different. We gather information about continuing education that happens all around the country, and distribute it to everyone. So that folks in California know what’s going on in Maryland and vice-versa. You might think that’s not all that relevant, but with webinars, location is not quite the factor it used to be. And if someone in Oregon knows of a good speaker on a hot topic, the speaker might very well be willing to travel to conduct a similar workshop. Networking is everything!

(I’ll be doing two webinars for the Maryland Library Association, one on genre selection on Jan. 31 and one on Ebook Collections on Feb. 9. The webinars are from Maryland, but I’ll be in Atlanta!)

What else will I be doing in Dallas? Seeing colleagues I only see at conference. Going to sessions on topics that interest me, like ebooks and collection development.

And oh yes, I’ll be walking the floor. Not like that. The exhibit hall floor. A chunk of the publishers I regularly cover in Ebook Review Central will be at the Conference. Kristina from NetGalley will be there. And I want to visit all the print publishers and get on their lists to get review copies, too.  There’s miles of walking in my future, but it will be so worth it.

I just have to restrain myself from bringing home too many ARCs. Those suckers are heavy.

Gold Star Girl

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | NetGalley> reading challenges

I always thought I was a Skyline girl. I still stop by for a three-way whenever I’m in town.

And unless you’re from Cincinnati, you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Or your mind is still rolling around in the gutter.  Not to mention, you are seriously confused about what any of the above might possibly have to do with my usual blog topics.

Emily, a.k.a WilowRaven over at Red House Books, has been hosting the quarterly NetGalley Month Read-a-thons for the past, well, lo these many moons and she has apparently gone whole hog and decided to host a 2012 NetGalley Reading Challenge.

The 2012 NetGalley Reading Challenge has levels. In this particular case, the levels are represented by stars. Blue Star is up to 10 books, Green up to 20, Red up to 30, and Gold, is the 30+ level.

I think I might have already read 10 books from NetGalley. So I am hereby signing up for the Gold Star level.

Even if, back home in Cincy, Gold Star Chili was always the “other guys” to me.

About that “three-way”? Spaghetti, covered with Skyline chili, covered with shredded cheddar cheese. The taste of home.

It’s always NetGalley Month!

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | NetGalley> NetGalley Month

December was NetGalley Month at Books, Biscuits and Tea. I have 9 reviews listed, because that’s what I posted to NetGalley last month. It looks like anything I post in January goes on the next month.

Speaking of the next month, January is NetGalley Month at Red House Books. And I absolutely declare myself to be a part of it. Or a party to it. Or a participant in it. Or all of the above. Yes!

I’ve figured something out. I was one of the winners from NetGalley October. (Thank you again, Emily!) Winning means that you get books from the Book Depository. Which, of course, you can’t use for NetGalley month. This is sort of like the winners of the Super Bowl getting the last pick in next year’s draft, isn’t it? Without the cheerleaders.

I currently have 43 active requests on NetGalley. (Yes, I know. I’m a very bad girl) Finding stuff to read for the read-a-thon will not be a problem. Finding time to write the reviews might be another story. Speaking of stories, I’m in the middle of two really good ones. And guess what? I got them both from NetGalley!

New Year’s Resolutions of the Bookish Kind

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> books

Other people have a TBR pile. Ereaders don’t really lend themselves to that. I suppose you could say I have a TBR bitstream, but it doesn’t really mean the same thing. Or stack the same way.

I really have two TBR lists. Make that three.

There’s the TBR list of stuff I have made a commitment to review. That list actually exists as a list. It’s the “to-do” list on my calendar. I can track that one.

Then there’s the TBR lists in Library Thing and Goodreads. That has some physical components. All the print books that we kept when we moved, that I own but I hadn’t read yet. There are over 200 of those. I’m trying not to make the physical component of that problem any worse, but good books come out all the time. And that’s the third list.

I still see things I want to read. I do mark them as “to-be-read” on Goodreads. And there’s still that “so many books, so little time” problem. When the 2012 Goodreads reading challenge ticks over, I’m going to commit myself (now there’s a double meaning if I ever wrote one) to reading 400 books in 2012. Otherwise it isn’t a challenge.

But about that whole “New Year’s Resolution” thing? In this post I’m going to list all the books on my “to do” list that are past due. These are the ones I’ve already promised to somebody. In other words, this list is the dreadful backlog I keep referring to, and then averting my eyes.

I’m going to see how many of these I can get rid of before my first blogoversary, which is April 4, 2012. Coincidentally, my birthday is April 5. We’ll see how I do.

Author Requests

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in my incredibly overwhelming NetGalley queue:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Sagara’s Cast in Ruin should be on here, except, I finished it Thursday night. It was awesome. The whole Elantra series was fan-damn-tastic. And I absolutely can’t wait for Cast in Peril, whenever that comes out. But I will be so glad to knock Cast in Ruin off my NetGalley queue.

Technically, Heir of Novron, Truthseeker and God’s War are not in any queue. But by the time I finish Theft of Swords and Rise of Empire, does anyone really think I’m not going to finish the series. Honestly? I’ll have to just to see how it turns out.

Truthseeker and God’s War are both the second books in their respective series. And I can’t seem to make myself read the second book with reading the first book, well, first. And I have a delicious suspicion that after I’ve read Cut & Run I’m going to be reading the rest of that series, because all of the reviews have been phenomenal. But maybe I’ll be able to resist the impulse until after I’ve caught up a bit.

I can dream, can’t I?

What resolutions have you made for the new year, bookish or otherwise?

 

 

 

 

 

Ebook Review Central for Carina Press for November 2011

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

It’s time to take a look at the Carina Press titles from November 2011. When Carina Press posted their November catalog on NetGalley, the whole list looked fairly yummy, and the reviews bear that out. Every title has at least four reviews. This is amazing! Carina published 18 titles in November, and Carina always has the shortest time from the end of the month for reviews to be generated. Clearly, I was not the only reviewer who thought their November list looked really, really good.

And as always, the September and October lists have been updated to include recently published reviews. So keep ’em coming.

This month’s featured books were easy to choose. Any time review numbers start going into double-digits, I sit up and take notice. That means a title has got lots of people not just talking, but reading.

So what were the big three titles in November?

Shona Husk’s Dark Vow was definitely a wow. Eleven reviews, including a TOP PICK! review from RT Book Reviews is enough to make anyone take a second look. For anyone who likes stories with a western flavor, or steampunk, or strong female leads, this book is a winner. There is a hint of science fiction/fantasy, but it’s more of a tease than hard core. It made a lot of reviewers think of the TV series Firefly, and that is not a bad thing by any means. RT Book Reviews made a comparison to True Grit. The blend works incredibly well. Shona Husk’s paranormal series starting with The Goblin King is very popular; this will be too.

For Toni Anderson’s Edge of Survival, thirteen turned out to be the lucky number of reviews this month. Even better, one of those thirteen was a feature review on USA Today‘s Happy Ever After blog. Edge of Survival is a romantic suspense story about damaged people in an unforgiving wilderness, trying to find ways to be strong past the broken places. It is an extremely good book, one that keeps the reader guessing until the end. The heroine of this tale is diabetic, and the author is donating 15% of her royalties to diabetes research. Readers of Nora Roberts suspense titles will love this one.

The third featured title is the second novella in Christine d’Abo’s Long Shots series. A Shot in the Dark was the third book this month to break that magic 10+ review number in November. A Shot in the Dark is an erotic novella with much more than a hint of BDSM. The Long Shots series features the Long siblings and their erotic adventures at an upscale local sex club, Maverick’s. Double Shot, the first book, was sister Sadie’s story. A Shot in the Dark leads sister Paige to her happy ever after. According to the reviewers, these stories are steaming hot, even hotter than the coffee served at the Long Family’s coffee shop. If you are looking for erotic stories that lead to a happily ever after, Christine d’Abo’s trilogy may be just the shot of espresso you are looking for. Pulled Long, the third book in the trilogy, just came out in December.

And that’s a wrap for this week. We’ll be back on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) with the Dreamspinner Press November titles.

What’s on my (mostly virtual) nightstand? 12-17-11

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Virtual Nightstand

Your eyes do not deceive you. This virtual nightstand post is indeed coming to you on a Saturday. Why, you ask?

Because Sunday, December 18 Reading Reality is the host of the Unacceptable Risk blog tour. So it will be my pleasure to have a guest post from Jeanette Grey, the author of Unacceptable Risk, as well as a review of her excellent science fiction romance and a giveaway of one copy of the book.

And we’re still in the middle of moving. So the actual nightstand just got stripped to its essentials today. The virtual one is getting something of a workout. It’s hard to concentrate amid piles of boxes. My office has developed an echo. All the books that formerly lined my walls clearly had a major sound-dampening effect. The boxes, not so much.

I looked ahead to what reviews I have due the week of December 26 and nearly had a seizure. What was I thinking? Was I thinking?

I have five reviews slotted for books with publication dates of December 27. Merry Christmas!

Forever and a Day by Delilah Marvelle is the first book in her new Rumor series. I read and enjoyed her Scandal series, so I decided to give this one a try when I saw it on NetGalley.

Like a lot of readers, I’ve never forgotten the thrill of Maria V. Snyder’s first novel, Poison Study. It was marvelous. It was an utterly amazing fantasy romance, and then to find out that it was her first book, I was absolutely floored. But the sequels never quite recaptured that magic. But I keep hoping. Maybe Touch of Power will be the one. I got it from NetGalley in hopes that it will be.

Demon Lover by Juliet Dark sounded like an interesting “story within a story” when I saw it on NetGalley. A female professor at a remote upstate New York college is writing a book titled “The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers.” She thinks it’s folklore, but finds out it’s biography. I can’t wait to see how this one turns out.

I found Robin D. Owens’ Enchanted Again irresistible when I spotted in on NetGalley. I love the Celta books. I also enjoyed her Summoning series. Enchanted Again is the second book in her Mystic Circle series, after Enchanted No More, which was fun, but no Celta. We’ll see how this one goes.

I picked up The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees because of all the buzz about it. And when I say picked up, I mean that literally, I have a print galley from the publisher. I also have a egalley from NetGalley. Does the “so many books, so little time” cliché apply to multiple copies of the same book? It looks like a hybrid of virtual-reality, alternate history, steampunk and cyberpunk. I hope it’s half as wild and cool as the descriptions make it out to be.

From last week’s perils of Marlene, the question is, did I finish anything at all in the middle of packing and moving? The answer is a yes, but not a whole lot.

Unacceptable Risk, absolutely, positively yes. The review will be part of the blog tour post. Not finishing would have been unspeakably rude.

I’m about halfway through One Perfect Night. And it is perfectly the level of mind candy my brain can process in the middle of this moving mess. I expect to finish it and Lady Seductress’ Ball in time to review them early next week.

And speaking of a brain not properly processing, while the boxes have been flying, one of the things that has been randomly firing the synapses is reading challenges. I know, total non sequitur. Nevertheless, I’ll start posting my reading challenge entry posts this week in between everything else. I know I’m going to read the books anyway, so I might as well enter a few challenges for fun.

And I finally finished David Chandler’s Honor Among Thieves. That was so good. It does not have a happy ending. It has the ending it needs to have, but it is not happy. Bittersweet, definitely, but not happy. But excellent. I sat there stunned for several minutes after the last page, just taking it all in.

I just gacked. I have 8 more books scheduled for the week of January 1. And we have to unpack. Does anyone have a second brain I can attach?

Don’t forget to tune in on Sunday, December 18 for the Unacceptable Risk blog tour and giveaway!

And Monday, yes, Monday we’ll be back with another edition of Ebook Review Central featuring the Carina Press titles from November 2011.

 

December is NetGalley Month Too!

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> NetGalley

Unofficially, every month is NetGalley month at Reading Reality. Seriously, I’ve read five NetGalley books so far this month, and the month isn’t half over yet.

Officially, Vicky @ Books, Biscuits and Tea has declared December to be NetGalley Month. Fine by me. Emily @ Red House Books hosted NetGalley Month in April, July and October this year. It’s terrific to see another blogger show more NetGalley love.

Me, I’m still trying to figure out whether NetGalley is my supplier or my enabler, but that’s a whole other story. I just added four more books to my NetGalley queue this afternoon, and I only took one off. This is not good.

But it does mean I’ll have plenty left for the next NetGalley month, which is coming up in January 2012 at Red House Books. So no matter how many I read this month, I’m good to go for next month!

So many egalleys, so little time.