Stuff as Dreams are Made on

First Stuff to take care of: I was tagged by Kim for this great meme that she came up with for blogging tips! I always love reading new blogging tips because I’m always looking for new ways to improve my blog. I don’t know that I have a whole lot to add and I don’t know that what I do add hasn’t already been added, but here’s my advice:

- Add an interesting header to your blog that says something about you. My header is by one of my favorite artists, Dave McKean, and I think that it fits the theme of fantasy that my blog tries to aim itself towards…though it sometimes falls short. But whatever you choose, choose something that defines your blog!

- Personally I love seeing widgets on peoples blogs…things like “what I’m reading now” and the little librarything catalog widget that stupid WordPress won’t let me install!!! It just adds character to the blog and lets your readers know a little bit more about yourself.

- Finally (and I think most importantly) be yourself! Ok…that sounds really corny, but seriously, I love getting to know a person through their writing and what they share on their blog. This certainly doesn’t mean revealing the details of your life for all the world to see, but let some of your personality shine through in your writing. I don’t think this will be much of “advice” to anyone since everyone does this so well already!

Not very enlightening, huh? Oh well…this is what I like most in a blog though! Feel free to do your own post and add it to her Mr. Linky…if you do you could win an Amazon gift certificate!

So I made a trip to Borders today and two of the books that were on the mega list that I wrote yesterday didn’t stay on there very long :p I had a 40% off coupon so I pumped weights for a little while and then hefted up Orson Scott Cards new ginormous tome, Keeper of Dreams. It’s a beauty! So I think I’ll start reading Maps in a Mirror soon so that I don’t have 2 huge tomes of short stories by him sitting on my TBR shelf. I also picked up Susan Pfeffer’s The Dead and the Gone!!! It’s out already! And it’s not supposed to be until June. So if you’ve been waiting patiently like me, you may not have to…go check! I think I’ll start that one tonight.

I also woke up this morning mysteriously singing “Bigmouth Strikes Again” by the Smiths and have therefore been craving The Smiths all day…this happens to me sometimes and it just won’t stop until I can replace my own singing with the original. Unfortunately all of my MP3s went bye-bye with my broken computer and I seem to have lost all of my Smiths and Morrissey CDs, so while at Borders I also bought a new Smiths CD and have been enjoying that this afternoon. I’ll never stop loving them…You can’t be in a bad mood when you listen to them!

It’s time to join another challenge too :/ It’s all Becky’s fault…that’s the theme of challenges this year: “It’s all Becky’s fault”. This time she came up with the “It’s The End of the World Challenge” which is to read 3 books that deal with the end of the world, the apocalypse, post-apocalypse, etc. between May and September 15th 2008. I’m all in…I love this genre of books. Here’s my 3:

1. The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
2. The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card
3. The Stand by Stephen King

Finally, I’ve also been tagged again by Nymeth for the 6 things about you meme which CJ tagged me for awhile ago…so I better get on that! I’ll do it soon ladies, I promise! And I haven’t forgotten about the 5 causes you care about meme that you tagged me for Eva! Oh, and Nymeth, you’ll be glad to know that Middlesex arrived for me from Bookmooch today! That’s one of your favorites, isn’t it?

First off, I’m sorry I haven’t been responding to individual comments like I usually do…things have been chaos here lately, but I’m going to try to get back on track to responding as of today!! I like to converse with everyone and I really miss it when I can’t

Time to go back to books for a little while, eh? The best part about getting this new job for me (aside from the fact that I’m actually employed now :p) is the fact that I’ll have a good paycheck in a few weeks! Which means that there are a few things on the wishlist that have been there for a little while that I will most certainly be treating myself to! Most of them are Orson Scott Card books as this is a great year to be a fan of his! And this is what they are:

-Subterranean Press’ edition of Orson Scott Card’s Stonefather. It’s not being released until October, but I’m preordering it! It’s signed by the man himself and it’s a limited edition (2000 copies). It’s actually a short story, or maybe it’s considered a novella, that was originally published in the Wizards anthology and it was my favorite story in the anthology along with Neil Gaiman’s The Witch’s Headstone. Even though I’ve read the story and own it already in an anthology, I’m an OSC completist and have to have this one for my collection :p

-Subterranean Press’ release of Ray Bradbury’s Summer Morning, Summer Night. I am SO excited about this one. I love Ray Bradbury and one of my favorite novels of his is Something Wicked This Way Comes. Well this is a collection of short stories that takes place in the same town as SWTWC and Dandelion Wine: Green Town, Illinois…a county that Bradbury created for these stories. The collection will have 27 stories all set in that town and 17 of the stories have never been published before. Also a limited edition, 2000 copies.

-Orson Scott Card’s Keeper of Dreams. This is his new short story collection that collects all of his short stories since Maps in a Mirror. It was just published, but I haven’t bought it yet because it’s another chunkster and I still have Maps in a Mirror sitting on my TBR shelf (I’ve only read some of the stories). So seeing the two together may just be too overwhelming…but I really want it! I’ve heard on the OSC forums that there is confirmation in this book that there will indeed be another Pastwatch books for Pastwatch fans!!

-Orson Scott Card’s Ender in Exile. I was frikkin thrilled to see a release date and a cover for this the other day on Amazon when I visited their site! I knew that he was working on it but had no idea that it would be out this year. So I’ll definitely be preordering this. This is the direct sequel to Ender’s Game and is the book that will explain the events between Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. I can’t wait…I’m SO excited about this one. It’ll be released on November 11th.

-Orson Scott Card’s (sick of that name yet?) The Lost Gate. All amazon has up for this one right now is the MP3 and audio book links, but I’m guessing that the book also comes out on August 8th. This is the first book in the new Mithermages trilogy that Orson Scott Card is writing and I’m super excited about this series!! In fact, Stonefather, the story mentioned above that Subterranean is publishing is set in the Mithermages universe…he has one other story set in the Mithermages universe as well that can be found in Maps in a Mirror. Can’t wait for this one either!!

-Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book!! Need I say anything more about this one? I can’t wait for this book to come out. I’ve been following it’s progress on Neil’s journal as I’m sure many of you have and it just sounds great! For a sample, you can check out The Witch’s Headstone in the Wizards anthology. It’ll be gorgeously illustrated by Dave McKean as well…woot!

So that’s the things that have really been at the tip top of my wishlist aside from the Absolute Sandman editions that I don’t own…which I still won’t be able to afford. I have Volume 1 and it is the epitomy of gorgeous. I’ll get volume 2 one of these days, but by then, 3 and 4 will be out :/ I seriously doubt that I’ll buy all of these things with the first paycheck…take that back…I know I won’t buy all of these things with the first paycheck. But I think I’ll treat myself to at least 2 or 3!

In other book news, I am LOVING The Bone Doll’s Twin by Lynn Flewelling. I can’t believe that she hasn’t gotten the same attention as big names like George R.R. Martin. Her writing is amazing and her book (at least this one) is impossible to put down. George RR Martin has a quote in the cover saying “It got it’s hook into me the first page and didn’t let loose until the last” and I totally agree so far. Just an amazing dark fantasy book filled with magic and intrigue.

Also still can’t shake Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It from my head! We had these torrential downpours here last night and I couldn’t help but feel like the world was just ending…they had tornadoes break loose all over the place (luckily not here) and it was just creepy with that book still stuck in my head. Then there’s all of this sad stuff going on in Myanmar and China and it just forces Pfeffer’s book to stick to my brain cells. You know what I mean if you’ve read it. I really have to read The Dead and the Gone when it comes out here.

Ok…I’ve rambled enough…seriously, sorry…

I got the jo-ob! I got the jo-ob! I’m now officially the new admissions counselor at a private psychiatric hospital down here in New Orleans. The very same place that I’ve been wanting to work at since I graduated. So good things really do come to those who wait. It only took a year… I actually start working on May 27th. My salary’s even higher than I was expecting! I love the hours too…3-11pm monday-friday and every other Saturday and Sunday from 7am-3pm. But when I work the weekends I’m off on friday and monday to adjust my sleep schedule. The best part is I know a lot of the people who work there from when I did my internship there and I’m already familiar with the hospital. So excited about this job!

Met with dad’s surgeon this morning and he’s really good. He went over everything with us and explained the surgery and my dad’s condition in detail. It was reassuring in a way…stressful in a way…but I feel like he’s in good hands. The big bummer of the day is that they can’t do the surgery until next Friday, May 23rd which seems like an awfully long time to wait when his blockages are as bad as they are and his health has been as bad as it has been since this happened. But that’s the soonest the surgeon can do it. We just don’t have the resources down here since Katrina…a fact that the doctors will tell you. They’re just short handed. I think he’ll be ok though. We’re all helping him through. It’ll be rough starting a new job right after his surgery, but with the evening hours, It’ll work out good with me having some time to visit with him during the day before I go in and someone else can be with him at night while I’m working.

I’ve been forgetting that this is a book blog with everything else going on! I finished Life as we Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer WAY earlier than I was supposed to for Becky’s Online Reading Group. It was such an incredible book and so captivating that I really couldn’t put it down and as much as I meant to pace myself to keep up with the pacing of the group I found myself turning the last page of the book in no time at all. It’s written in the form of a diary kept by a 10th grader named Miranda. At the beginning of the book, life is normal and we are shown the everyday life of a teenage girl. Then there is talk of an asteroid that is supposed to collide with the moon. No big deal, it’s supposed to be a fun event that’s supposed to be visible with the naked eye and everyone has gathered their lawn chairs to watch the event happen. But when the asteroid collides the moon suddenly jumps in the sky towards Earth growing luminous and huge. In the following days tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes begin destroying the world as we know it and life as we knew it disappears. Food and water become scarce as does life.

This was a terrifying but ultimately hopeful story of survival, humanism, love, and companionship at it’s strongest. It was one of those books that was so well written that I couldn’t help but ponder for a long while how I would handle some of these same situations. I felt trapped in the book sometimes even when I wasn’t reading it wondering if the moon looked just a little bigger or even though the thermometer said 80 I couldn’t help but shiver a little bit. Does that ever happen to anyone else when a book is so well written? You actually carry the experience with you…get lost in it? Maybe I just had too much stress going on last week and I was losing it :p Anyhow, this is definitely one to put on your list if you haven’t read it yet. It’s fantastic! She really could’ve made this one of the most depressing books that I’ve ever read and I thought for awhile that she would. But it’s not and I’m glad that it wasn’t because I wouldn’t have been able to handle that last week. It was a story of hope and survival when it seems like there’s none to be found.

I wanted to write a quick post to thank everyone for all of your wonderful comments on my last post. I honestly can’t tell you how comforting you guys have all been and how much of a support you have been for me. It makes me smile every time I read a comment from you. This community really is such a wonderful things and you’re all the best.

We still have no idea what the hell is going on. My dad’s in the hospital still but might be going home today and we have no idea when they’re going to do the surgery. They keep running more and more tests and we haven’t had any definitive answers on anything. I guess all we can do is trust. He’s determined to change his lifestyle though which is the best thing I could ever hope for and they’re sending him home with loads of medication and the doctor assured me they wouldn’t let him leave the hospital unless they thought he would be ok. They were going to do the surgery early next week, but now it may be later because of some other test…who knows.

I’ve been reading some while at the hospital, but can’t concentrate for too long on anything. I read I was a Rat by Phillip Pullman and let me tell you, if you ever need a good little story to cheer you up for just an hour or so, this is one to do it. I loved it. It’s a great little spin on a tale you know about a little boy who shows up one day at a family’s house proclaiming that he was indeed a rat…and it seems that he was as he has all the tendencies of one. I really enjoyed it and hope you will too. Sorry, that’s about all the review you’re going to get out of me right now, but it was a good one. Started reading Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, but my brain can’t take non-fic right now…I need to get lost in a fantasy world. I’ll start Life as we Knew it later and maybe post on it in the book club if I can…we’ll see if time allows.

I’ve been missing commenting on everyone’s posts, but I have been reading them! I’ve been reading on my PDA at the hospital through Google reader…the wonders of technology, huh? Just can’t comment through it…well I could, but it would take forever. So when dad falls asleep, I surf the net on my phone :p So it’s good to know what’s going on with everyone.

My birthday is Sunday (same as Mother’s day) so we’ll probably do cake with dad for that. Hopefully the present this year is some good news on my dad’s case. If I can’t post before Sunday, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you wonderful mothers out there! Your kids are all lucky! Miss you guys!!

-Chris

Sorry I haven’t responded to comments or visited anyones blogs…my dad had chest pains last night and went to the ER and the news wasn’t good. His arteries are blocked really bad and he’s going to have to have triple bypass surgery, so I’ll be gone for a few days looking after him. His spirits seem to be good and we’re all hanging in there hoping for the best. He hasn’t always lived the healthiest lifestyle so if all goes well hopefully this will be a second chance for him to start over.

On a positive note, the job interview went well today…hopefully I’ll hear something back soon from them and I’ll try to let everyone know how it went if I get some free time.

Try to keep us in your thoughts and prayers if you can. I’ll miss all of you while I’m gone and I’m sure I’ll have TONS of posts to catch on when I get back. Read lots!

-Chris

I had the privilege of visiting Albuquerque, New Mexico about a year and a half ago for a conference during my Master’s program and fell in love with the desert during my week’s stay. There’s something beautiful and magical about it and it’s residents. It can seem barren at first glance, but stay a few days and walk the mountains and talk to the residents; get to know their crafts and traditions and it’s an amazing place with an amazing energy. The deserts of Tuscon are the setting for Terri Windling’s amazing novel The Wood Wife which is inspired by a series of paintings by Brian Froud.

The story centers around a journalist by the name of Marguerita (Maggie) Black and a poet has recently died named Davis Cooper. The two have never met but were long time acquaintances. Davis Cooper lived most of his life in the deserts of Tuscon, though he was born in England. He was a world renowned poet after receiving the Pulitzer for a collection of poetry that he wrote but he then turned to alcohol and seemingly abandoned his poetry. At the beginning of the novel, he mysteriously turns up dead in a dried up riverbed drowned. Even more odd is that he has left his home in the desert to Maggie who he has never met.

Maggie is not a desert girl. She’s lived in England, L.A., everywhere but the desert. She’s requested to do a biography on Cooper but he always refused and refused to meet her, yet he cherished her friendship over their letters. When she’s left his house in his will, she sees it as an invitation by him to write his biography, so she moves to the desert to learn the story of his life. She quickly learns that things are different in the desert. There are odd yet stunning and startling paintings by his deceased lover Anna Naverra that depict desert creatures, men with flames rising from their hands, mages, and spirals…paintings that are tied to letters that she reads that show a disconnect with the reality that Maggie has always known. She begins to wonder what Anna and Cooper may have seen and known in the desert as she begins to feel and see that the desert is alive herself.

This was my first time reading any of Windling’s writing aside from her posts on the Endicott blog and I can see now why she’s loved by so many people. I felt very “at home” with Ms. Windling’s writing and didn’t want to leave it. This was a beautiful, magical tale filled with mystery, intrigue, culture, folklore, and passion. She’s created a one of a kind work that’s highly deserving of the Mythopoeic award that it was awarded.

Other reviews:

Deslily
Dark Orpheus
Robin
Carl V.

Or they just don’t die at all. How many times have you heard me say this year that I’m not joining any more challenges? Well I am :p 3 to be exact! Well, to be fair one of them is sort of a renewal of a current challenge that I’m failing miserably at. That one would be the Series Challenge hosted by Crazy Cozy Murders. She’s renewed it for a round 2 because she didn’t do too well herself….I feel your pain So I’m continuing on with The Chronicles of Narnia and A Song of Ice and Fire for that one and round 2 ends on November 30th. Here’s the official list:

1. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire book 3)
2. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire book 4)
3. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Marting (A Song of Ice and Fire book 5 to be released 9/5/0
4. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis (Narnia Book 3)
5. The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis (Narnia Book 4)
6. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis (Narnia Book 5)
7. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (Narnia Book 6)
8. The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis (Narnia Book 7)

Next one I’m joining is the Southern Reading Challenge hosted by Maggie! I kicked myself in the ass for not joining this one last year. It didn’t sound like something I would be interested in, especially since I live in the south and I’m surrounded by it all of the time…but I started reading reviews of all of these great southern books and then realized that I liked reading about my own heritage and liked reading books set in familiar places with a familiar feel to them. I’m currently reading a book of short stories called Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic which Nymeth read last year for the Southern Reading Challenge and it’s all fantasy stories set in the deep south. The greatest thing about reading these is reading them on the back borch and smelling the magnolia tree, feeling the southern wind and just really feeling connected to the story while reading it. So I think I’ll enjoy this! Here’s my list. The challenge runs from May 15th through August 15th and you have to read 3 books! Thanks for hosting this again so that I can join in the fun Maggie!

1. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
2. The Watermelon King by Daniel Wallace
3. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

And finally, I couldn’t pass up the 1% Well Read Challenge hosted at 1morechapter! This one’s fun...it’s basically to read 10 books out of the 1001 books you must read before you die list. The Challenge runs from May 1st through February 28th 2009. I’ve only read 29 books on the list so I have PLENTY to read still before I die!! There are plenty that I’d like to read but here is a list of possibles that I’ll pick my ten from (please excuse the obnoxious list that follow but there were 1001 books!):

1. Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
3. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
4. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
5. Fury by Salman Rushdie
6. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
7. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
8. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
9. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
10. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
11. Beloved by Toni Morrisson
12. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
13. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
14. Possession by A.S. Byatt
15. The Virgin in the Garden by A.S. Byatt
16. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
17. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
18. Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
19. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
20. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
21. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
22. The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
23. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
24. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
25. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

How’s that for enough challenges?? Phew! Oh yeah….and Dewey’s weekly geeks number 2…can’t forget about that! I’ve actually been considering doing this one for awhile. For this second week, we’re all stealing Darla D’s idea if we want to And I think I want to. What she does is posts other reviews to books that she reviews at the bottom of her post. So if you see that I review a book and you’ve reviewed it as well, just let me know in the comments or shoot me an email (my email’s in my sidebar) and I’ll be sure to update the post to include your review as well. Great new feature there!

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get to two fun memes that CJ and Eva have tagged me for and hopefully sometime this week I’ll have some book reviews up! May is not starting out too good for me. I feel like I’ve been busy as hell and haven’t had any time for reading. I do have 4 books going at once though, so that could be the problem :p

The mail came today with every book lover’s favorite sound…a knock at the door. Now I haven’t done a post like this in a long time because I’ve been really good lately, but I caved when I was down in the dumps about not being able to find a job. I ordered books! And it doesn’t help that all of you wonderful bloggers have been writing so many damn good reviews of so many damn good books (hopefully). So I opened up my box from Amazon and here’s what I found!

First Row:

Beauty by Robin McKinley - Have read so many great reviews about this one and have really been wanting to try some McKinley! Looking forward to it!

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale - I may be the last person on Earth to read this one, but I haven’t read a bad review yet. Sounds great and I love that cover!

I Was a Rat by Phillip Pullman - I can’t tell you how excited I am about this one. I have absolutely no idea why…I really don’t know anything about it except for the fact that Debi and Nymeth loved it, but I can’t wait to read it.

Second Row:

Life as We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer - I bought this one for Becky’s book club and we’re starting it soon! I hope more people participate for this month’s read. It’s tons of fun and I think this one’s really going to be good!

The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card - This was the only Card book that I didn’t own (yes I own everything else he’s ever published :p) until he came out with his new short story collection….now I have to buy that too :/ And it’s one of about 14 of his books that I haven’t read. I’ve heard that it’s one of his best, so I’m really looking forward to it!

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer - I can’t wait to read this one either! I loved the movie version of this book and it’s one of Nymeth’s favorites. It’s also the only book that I bought that’s on any of my challenge lists, lol…it’s on the Herding Cat’s Challenge. Well I take that back…The Worthing Saga works for the Cardathon Challenge!

As for the good news part, I have a job interview next Wednesday at 2:00!!! So be thinking good thoughts then I am super excited about this interview. It’s the position I’ve been wanting since I got out of school…well, sort of. I don’t know if many people read my blog when I was interning at the child and adolescent psychiatric hospital last Spring, but I wrote about it every now and then. Well I fell in love with that job and that’s what sealed the deal for me. I wanted to work there so bad but unfortunately, there were no positions open. Well there are still no positions open on the child and adolescent unit, but an admissions counselor position came open and I got an interview for it and it sounds really good so far! I really loved this hospital and the staff over there and I could hopefully get my foot in the door to get back on the inpatient adolescent unit. And the best part is, the hours are 3-11 pm which is so how I function So that just made my day and I thought I’d share…thanks for all the good thoughts guys…I really can’t thank you enough!

My reading seems to have sloooooooowed down at the end of April, but I ended the month with an awesome book that I think everyone should read if you haven’t already - Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen. It’s book one in the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica and there’s not much not to like about this series from what I can see.

Owen has put together a fantasy lover’s dream with this one. Throughout the book there are not only references made to other books and authors that we have come to love, but we actually visit their lands through the Archipelago of Dreams, a world that exists parallel to ours that consists of many islands such as Avalon and Byblos to name a few.

The book opens during WWI in London with the murder of a professor who has been protecting a book called The Imaginarium Geographica. The book is an atlas to the Archipelago of Dreams and 3 caretakers have been unknowingly assembled to bear it’s burden. Their names are John, Jack and Charles. After being questioned for the murder they meet at 221B Baker Street (recognize that address?) and are suddenly visited by a man named Bert who tells them that they must leave as there are otherworldly beings coming after them who will kill them. They of course don’t believe this because they know nothing but the London that they’ve always lived in….until they see these dark creatures looming towards them. Bert hurries them towards a ship with the head of a dragon. It is one of 7 dragon ships and it is alive…it’s able to cross between our world and the Archipelago of dreams.

Once inside the Archipelago of Dreams, they learn that The Winter King is slowly erasing many of the islands in the Imaginarium Geographica and claiming the shadows of it’s residents. He wants to rule over the world and claim his seat as the rightful king. But to do this, he needs the book that John, Jack and Charles are now the caretakers of.

I won’t say anymore about this book except that it was quite an amazing ride and that the last chapter will blow you out the water! I can’t wait to read the next installment of the series. Oh and more thing…Owen also did his own illustrations for the novel which were top notch! One for each chapter and I really like the cover of this one. I loved Orson Scott Card’s quote on the back of the book: “Is there anyone who wouldn’t enjoy reading Here, There be Dragons? If there is such a person, I haven’t met him, and I doubt that I would like him if I did….” Classic :p

The second book that read today was the new Neil Gaiman! Yes, the new Neil Gaiman…No, it’s not a novel, it’s a new picture book illustrated by Grim Grisly called The Dangerous Alphabet and it was great. I don’t think that I’ve seen Grisly’s illustrations before, but I loved them. His monster drawings remind me quite a bit of Ralph Steadman’s art and I’d consider that a compliment. This was quite a fun little ride. It’s the story of a brother and sister and their pet gazelle who sneak away from their father with a treasure map in tow and go on quite the creepy adventure. Along the way they are greeted with all sorts of ghastly apparitions, dead things, soon to be dead things, and strange devices. The story is told in rhyming couplets by Mr. Gaiman with each part of the couplet starting with a letter of the alphabet…though there’s no guarantee that they’ll always be in order…but for the most part they will be. Whenever I have kids, they’ll most certainly get a copy of this book, but they won’t be getting my copy We can’t be having jelly all over it…

Next up is Terri Windling’s The Wood Wife!

I’m thinking that I’m probably one of the last people signed up for Dewey’s Weekly Geeks to actually do my week 1 post, but what matters is that I’m actually doing it! This first week’s geek-out was to find a few blogs out of the participants that you weren’t familiar with and familiarize yourself with them! So here’s some that I found:

1. The first one I found was JellyJules at Thinking About… She left a comment on my Prince Caspian review and I paid her a visit and found a blog that I really loved and added to my Google Reader right away! Her first post cracked me up and might be the funniest thing I’ve read since I started blogging…it’s called “The ‘F’ Word” You should go read it now!

2. Megan’s blog Leafing Through Life is one that I’ve lurked at occasionally for awhile now but I’m so bad at adding blogs to my blogroll that I haven’t become a regular reader. But everytime I’m there I really enjoy her blog! This time was no different as I truly related to her latest post about falling behind on reading blogs on feeds!! And now that I’m reading blogs on Google Reader, she’s added

3. Bottle of Shine is just an awesome blog! I love everything about it. She’s hosting the Herding Cats challenge that is taking over the blogosphere and she has awesome taste in books. She also linked to me in her weekly geeks post and had some really nice stuff to say. Who knew I was organized? I certainly didn’t :p Check out her blog for fun posts on just about every topic you can imagine…it’s one of those hodge podge blogs that you never get bored with!

4. In The Louvre is quite the cool blog as well. I love the design of this one. She’s a fellow NaNoWriMo participant and she’s an amazing writer. She does these “Sunday Scribblings” posts that are really great where she writes a short story and I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve read. Her other posts are great too!

5. Finally, Lightheaded is another blog that I stop by occasionally but haven’t become a regular reader of because I just haven’t updated my blogroll. So I’m really taking the time to familiarize myself with her blog now and I’ve added her to my reader. I know she’s a big fan of both Gaiman and Murakami which is very cool!

Now thanks a lot Dewey for adding to my already overwhelmed Reader Kidding of course…I’m always glad to have more great reading material!

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Topic 2: I’ve finally joined Bookmooch! I’m not one to part with my books even if I don’t plan on ever reading them again…but there are a few that I really can live without. And there are a few that I have duplicate copies of, so I decided what the hell, I’ll join up and see what it’s all about. It’s a really cool website…you get rid of books that you don’t want and in return you get books that you do want…well ok, you wait and hope that some day someone will post a book that you want and you’ll be lucky enough to see it before someone else :p But you can also browse and find some cool stuff. I already mooched a copy of Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight (non-fic about an African childhood) which Stephanie recommended ages ago and a copy of The Golden Compass! And I still have 8 points left! Those Bookmoochers are agressive! I listed 10 books and without exaggerating, 6 of them were gone within an hour! So now I just need some of the books on my wishlist to become available. Anyone else a Bookmooch member?