Friday Ramble 4/12/13

Welcome to the Friday Ramble, where I share what has been going on in my life and on the blog the past week.

Bookish Blog News

 I spaced. No Musing Mondays post this week.

 One book review!
1) The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back by Sariah Wilson

 And of course, this week’s Friday Finds!

Personal News

 On Monday, I went to the eye doctor. The old peepers are healthy but I needed new glasses. I knew I would. I haven’t been able to read streets signs in months. Of course, $600 later and I have new glasses and sunglasses. The frames weren’t even that expensive! Just $180 for the glasses and $90 for the sunglasses. Christ, where did it all go? And that’s with insurance!

 I’m getting back about $300 from my state and federal tax returns. I get to spend it on car insurance.

 I don’t even know why I bother trying to save money anymore. Life is obviously not going to let that happen.

 My seeds have sprouted! I have seven marigolds and two each parsley and basil plants. For some reason, my rosemary hasn’t sent up any shoots yet. (worries)

 On Wednesday night a huge storm rolled over Saint Louis, dropping a couple tornados. Once everything calmed down, I went about the task of contacting my family to make sure they were ok. One tornado dropped a couple of miles away from my Mom but she was ok. Another dropped practically on top of my brother’s head. He said that it was just a block away from his house when I finally got ahold of him. Miraculously, there was no damage to his property. He drove over to our Mom’s house because the power was out at his place and his bathroom is a mess because he’s remodeling. So, everyone and everything was ok. Whee, what a night!

What am I reading?

Finished: The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back by Sariah Wilson, The Witches’ Kitchen by Allen Williams, Scorch by Gina Damico
Started: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter, A Sticky End by James Lear
What Next: The Runaway King by Jennifer A. Nielsen

I would like to point out that I finished three books this week. I get the awesome award! For I am awesome.

Search Terms

 pictures of thomas in the story the cypher – There were pictures, yes. Nothing special.

 in the book splintered by a.g. howard what is the twins sisters cemetery called – It’s the Twid Sisters and I don’t think it was called anything. Just the cemetery.

 what is the book savvy by ingrid law about – Found out here.

 book genre for 20 something – I think you mean New Age.

 young adult books with to many cliches – The word you want is too. “Too many clichés.” All of them. Every Young Adult book has too many clichés.

 what happens at the end of croak by gina damico – Cordy dies, Zara escapes, and Lex returns to Croak with her newfound Damning powers and a lot of angst. And Bingo was his nameo!

 young adult story cliches  / book cliches in ya paranormal / cliches in ya novels / paranormal romance cliches – I’m seeing a theme here…

Note Worthy Articles

The 25 Books Every Kid Should Have on Their Bookshelf – Flavorwire
April marks the 70th anniversary of that magical children’s book, The Little Prince. I just gave my best friend’s daughter a copy of The Little Prince for her second birthday just a few weeks ago. A must have for every child’s bookshelf, just like the rest of the books listed in the article.

E-book Sales Bolster Publishers’ Bottom Lines – Publishers Weekly
If the big publishers weren’t acting like big babies and focused on managing ebooks correctly, they wouldn’t be having so many problems. (Or come off looking like big buttheads.) While I don’t think paper books will ever completely disappear, I do think the majority of the book business will be ebooks soon. Give it long enough and school kids will be reading their textbooks off of ereaders. Like it or not, ebooks will soon be publishers only profit.

28 Cats Who Have No Idea How They Ended Up Here – BuzzFeed
You are having a bad day. Go here and look at these kitty pictures.

The Facebook Phone’s Biggest Problem (Nobody cares.) – BuzzFeed
There is a phone?

Digital Public Library of America is a project to make the holdings of America’s research libraries, archives, and museums available to all Americans–and eventually to everyone in the world–online and free of charge. (x) The DPLA is leading the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all. (x)

Fantasy, Reading, and Escapism by Jo Walton – Tor.com
Literary snobs can bite me. I read only fiction and escaping ho-hum daily life is the main goal of reading for me.

Monster of the Week by Robert Lamb – stuff to blow your mind
Know your monsters, people. This is important stuff.

Neil Gaiman has new book coming out! Neil Gaiman has a new book coming out! Check out The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Check out his blog for USA tour dates.

From The Blogs

I adore The Book Smugglers. They are my favorite reading team. I don’t know how they do it. They’ve got The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle by Christopher Healy up for grabs on the tour and giveaway post. This is the second book in The League of Princes series, so be sure to check out the first book, The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom.

Kat @ Cuddlebuggery is sharing the ARC love with the Little Blogger, Big Ambitions Project. You can sign up to get the ARC’s other bloggers weren’t interested in and get your own foot in the door.

Karen @ For What It’s Worth posts a spotlight on Summer’s Desire by Olivia Lynde and the guest author offers a post about the appeal of the bad boy and being able to connect with characters.

I am really interesting in seeing the film adaption and reading the book Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. So I was pleased when Dani @ Pen to Paper put up a review of both book and film. Now I really want to read the book and see the movie! Yay for zombies! (I can’t believe I just said that…)

Nicole @ Word for Teens shares her thoughts on love triangles (worst cliché in YA books, I think) and external vs. inner turmoil in a relationship. Love triangles are probably my biggest turn off in YA books. For one thing, the basis for most romances in YA books is that a character is hot. I would love to find a character that professes to love another for some other reason than because they look good. The female character somehow always comes off appearing like she’s trying to choose between two flavors of yogurt. Should she choose strawberry hot-stuff or vanilla stud-muffin? It’s shallow and annoying.

Rachel @ Parajunkee does a Blogging Platforms Cross Comparison for this week’s Book Blogging 101 post. A lot of people are moving to WordPress after Google announced they are closing down their feed reader in a couple of months. Even though I can’t see Google shutting Blogger down, I no longer trust them either. Rachel compares Blogger, WordPress.com (Free), WordPress.org (Paid), and Tumblr. (I use WordPress.com (Free) and it works just fine for my purposes.) Her Dishing Junk post is hilarious this week too. (regurgitated other speak -giggles-)

Books Added This Week

Sorry everybody. I’m still working through the pile I got from the library last week. I haven’t had time to get anything new. I might do a bit of shopping this weekend for a giveaway for Earth Day but I’ll share that next week. Happy reading!

Etc.

At the time of this post, there are 167 books on my Goodreads to read shelf and 111 books on my Goodreads read shelf.