It’s been nearly 3 months since my last post? Yikes. Well, time flies when you’re busy, busy, busy. But I have been reading a bit here and there.  I’m just not finding the time or motivation to write reviews lately. I will though. I’ve been on a real Harlan Coben kick lately — keep your eyes peeled for reviews of Hold Tight and Just One Look. I’m also starting his Myron Bolitar series, with Deal Breaker on my nightstand. And I’m still plugging through Gabaldon’s Outlander series (just bought An Echo In the Bone in trade paperback at Costco). And I have a review copy of one of my childhood favorites to put up soon — the 2010 version of Ripley’s Believe It or Not “Enter if You Dare.” Hopefully I’ll find some time this week to put them up.

I’m a mommy! My son, Alexander, came into the world last Wednesday, July 9th, weighing 7 lbs, 2 oz. and measuring 19 inches. He’s healthy, happy, and he lets me get some sleep. What a wonderful gift to give his mommy!

I never really believed in love at first sight, but I do now. I loved the idea of my child before I was even pregnant, but I can’t even describe the love I felt for my adorable baby boy the second I laid my eyes on him. Stronger than the idea, stronger than the bond we formed when I grew him. Stronger than anything I could imagine. My life has changed completely.

I haven’t had much sleep in the last while, and I’m too tired and overloaded with new feelings and experiences to formulate a coherent post, so I will leave it at that for now and get back to my sweet boy and my wonderful, thoughtful, super helpful husband. Life is good :)

Time.com released its list of the 50 best websites of 2008, which is how I came across this great site called LookyBook which allows you to view children’s picture books from cover to cover online. I used to read a lot of picture books and review them on this site when I worked at a public library, but since I left there for my current job, I haven’t looked at too many other than a few flips through whatever’s on the book table at Costco from time to time, which is a shame because I love picture books (the stories, the colors, the illustrations) and find they can easily make me go from grumpy to happy in just a few minutes.

Now that I’m just a few weeks away from the birth of my own first baby, I’ve been thinking more about picture books, so I was happy to find this site today. I found a few books I remembered reading and loving when I came across them at the library, and it was nice to see them again online. It’s certainly a good reference source for those people trying to remember what a picture book was about. It’s also a great way to preview a book before you buy it from Chapters or Amazon, etc. Librarians, teachers, and people who work with children could spend hours going through these books looking for the next story time read.

Personally, I’m not sure how authors and illustrators might feel about having their entire works on display on the site (I wonder about legal issues, etc.), but I assume that books don’t appear on the site without permission from the appropriate people. I suspect it could be a reason for why the site currently only has 300 books online (though they are “growing daily”). However, don’t let that number stop you from browsing — there are a lot of excellent books in that number.

I’ve finally been leisure reading more lately. The last few months have been busy and tiring. Lots of work, and a bunch of birthdays and social gatherings to attend to. “Stuff” was just going on. Work was pretty busy in January and February, but it’s gotten less hectic now (or else I’m just getting more efficient), and my energy levels are back up again.

Why were they down, you ask? Well, that would be because my husband and I are expecting our first child this summer. We’re very excited, as it took a while for it to happen for us. And even though we’d been trying, I was still pretty shocked when it actually happened. So the first few months were sort of an adjustment period, where all I could really think about was being pregnant and if everything was going well, and dreaming about what life will be like when the little one arrives. And the first trimester wasn’t so good to me. Nausea and exhaustion were my constant companions. I’d start reading a page of a book and just fall asleep. I’d get 8 hours a sleep a night and still need a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day. I’d spend hours on the couch, willing the nausea to just go away.

But not anymore. I’m 5 months along and I feel really, really good right now. My other constant companion is kicking a lot now, particularly around my bladder, and waking me up at night. I find myself up early in the morning, unable to sleep, and wondering what to do with myself after the now regularly scheduled 5 AM trip to the bathroom. So I’ve been reading more (not in the bathroom, mind you, as I find the couch a lot more comfortable), and I realized how much I missed it.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that this book blog might just be a little less neglected for the next few months. Yay for that :)

Okay, there’s a lot of you know what that seems to be hitting the fan and blowing in my direction lately.

1. My server went kaput yesterday. There’s nothing like wanting to post something and then not being able to. And when you post as sporadically as I do, it’s even more annoying. I blame you, AN Hosting. I blame you, Midphase. I’m glad I’m back up, and it only took them a whole day to fix it, but there are still some issues behind the scenes that are vexing me. It seems that my site is down more and more lately, and it irks me.
2. I’m sooooo behind in my reading and my book reviews. I have books piled up. Book club book, books from publicity reps, books I’ve just been meaning to read, books for work. So many books and yet… after being at my computer and reading all day long, I don’t feel like training my eyes on a book.
3. I’m being a perfectionist and spending a lot of my time on some work stuff. Working on creating documents, and assignment pages, etc. I don’t feel right if things aren’t organized just the way I like them. Thus, I spend time making and moving files and folders on the computer, matching fonts in documents that are related, fixing rubric tables to look just right and fit onto the page. It all takes time and effort, and I’m trying to decide what priority everything has for my time and effort, especially now that….
4. NaNoWriMo has started. Somehow, I’m still determined to participate and win. I’ve got a lot on my plate lately, but somehow the fact that I participated last year and actually won is making it hard to consider not doing it this year. Plus, I haven’t written a single word, and one of my friends? He’s already got over 10K done in ONE day. The competitive nut in me is starting to get antsy which would explain why I’m up at 1:30AM and determined to get started writing as soon as I get this post up. So yeah… wish me luck. And someone please unplug that fan.

UPDATE (3:38 AM): Okay, it’s a little over 1 hour later and I’m up to 1969 words. Only 48,031 to go! But I think I’ll go to bed first.

First off, congrats to Heather over at A High and Hidden Place on the birth of her little baby boy!

I went to the book store today. Let me just say that I had no intention of buying any books other than the two I went to the book store specifically to buy for my new job — Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (the copy I got from my new workplace doesn’t look appealing to me, it’s too thick and it’s been battered a bit, so I thought I’d get my own copy), and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (which I’m certain I have, but can’t seem to find no matter where I look).

Now, in my review of Sybil Brinton’s Old Friends and New Fancies, I mentioned that I might set myself a personal challenge to read all of Austen’s novels by the end of 2008. So while I didn’t really intend to buy any more than the 2 books I came for, imagine my delight when I saw a display with all her books and they were on sale. It was like kismet… I made the resolution to myself and lo and behold a display was set up JUST FOR ME. These books were beautiful too. I had noticed them a few months ago in the book store and thought that the covers were just so striking — modern, yet Austenesque (especially the one of P&P, right), but I resisted. They were still a little too expensive for me back then at regular price. I may have mentioned before that I like deals and I rarely buy anything unless it’s on sale.

But today, the beautiful books were on sale 3 for $25. I told myself I could do 3 for $25. It seemed like a good enough deal to me. So, there I was, carrying my 3 for $25 Austen novels around (I chose Persuasion, P&P, and Mansfield Park) and I started wandering the book store. Now that I no longer work at the library, I sort of miss being surrounded by books. And, now that I no longer work at the library, I’m not feeling too badly about buying books. Especially when they’re on sale. So I wandered… straight into the bargain section. And what should cross my path?

Another display table full of Dover classic books with very exciting $4.99 stickers on them, including all of Jane Austen’s novels (except Northanger Abbey for some reason, which is fine since I have it on my iPod) and A Tale of Two Cities, all unabridged. So I did some math (which hurts my brain, people. I do not like math) and 3 books for $25 comes out to $8.33 a book. So the Dover books, which, while not having the beautiful covers I had coveted for months, did have very pretty looking covers, so they won out.But! It gets better… I went to pay for my books (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion and A Tale of Two Cities), and usually, when I’m going to pay for things, I put myself through the brain hurt and calculate how much it will be, so 6 books at $5 each + tax was working out to about $32. So just imagine how good I felt when the cashier told me the books were actually on sale 3 for $10 (though there wasn’t any sign saying so, not that I was about to ask her if she was sure about that), and then she said that I could use my membership rewards card on it as well for even further discounts. Yay! So I got 6 books for $18.00. Pretty, happy, shiny new books…

And yes, my frugality kept me from buying To Kill A Mockingbird. I’m sure I have it somewhere in my house. I just couldn’t do it.

It’s been a while since I last posted a review. The reason for that would be simple… I haven’t been reading any novels.

Tsk tsk, I know.

I like to think of myself as a blogger without obligation, meaning that I don’t have to make excuses for my lack of posts, but… I do have a good one.

I recently started a new job, and it’s one that I’m very excited about. It brings me back into the field of teaching (I am a teacher), but I get to work from home (love it!). Part of the new job is getting acquainted with the curriculum for the courses I’ll be working with, and that’s what I’ve been doing — learning the high school English Language Arts and Social Studies (History) curriculum. Which means I’m reading a lot of textbooks, short stories, poetry, novels and plays. The majority of which I’m enjoying quite a bit — and making me realize the real pity that I didn’t appreciate them well enough when I read them for the first time myself in high school.

So while it may seem like I haven’t been reading, I actually have. I just haven’t been blogging. I may be MIA for a while longer (after all, the new school year is starting up here right away), but I will be back to the reading and reviewing shortly (with reviews of Old Friends and New Fancies and Astrid & Veronika).

Just in time to set it all aside again for NaNoWriMo 2007 ;)  Ack!

… and excuse the mess. I’ve just moved and there’s still a few things to unpack and rearrange until I’m completely at home here. So come on it, read a bit, but don’t go getting attached to the colors or the layout or the graphics or… anything, really. It’s all likely to change! :)

When Heather over at A High and Hidden Place posted the American cover art for the last Harry Potter book, I had to go in search of the Canadian and British covers over at Canadian publisher Raincoast books, and at British Bloomsbury, and here they are:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve really liked the adult covers for the Harry Potter books. However, when I bought the first books in the series, they were only available in the children’s covers, so, if you’re anything like me, you’ll know I can’t just buy up the other set… I have to buy the same series of covers because it looks better on the shelves that way :) Anyway, if you’re interested in knowing what the blurb on the back of the book reads, click here.

By the way, I’ve always thought that artists of any kind should be recognized for their work, and while most children’s picture books will credit the author and the illustrator on the front covers of the books, the majority of books bump acknowledgment of the illustrators to the inside or back of the book. So can I just mention: Jason Cockcroft (Canadian and UK), Mary Grand Pre (the American cover not pictured here) and photographer Michael Wildsmith (adult cover) for these covers.

BTW, looking at the children’s cover… I’m thinking Harry, Ron and Hermione are in Gringotts? And as for the adult cover… a medallion with S for Slytherin? Snape? Snake? Scary? So sad because it’s the last book? ;)

Recently, I attended a reader’s advisory course at work, and the genres discussed were Inspirational fiction and Chick Lit. I don’t care much for Inspirational fiction, but I do like Chick Lit, so I was looking forward to the course.

Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. The presenters and the majority of the people in the session treated Chick Lit very negatively. They made it seem like all Chick Lit was just a fluffy genre full of pastel covers featuring bubble gum snapping characters interested in nothing but shopping and bedding men, who are employed in fashion (or else unemployed but headed towards a great job in fashion), and, above all, nothing more than silly heroines with trivial problems. (more…)

For those of you interested in writing, you may want pick up the December 2006 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine. Lots of great articles about prepping for novel writing, including good advice on mapping out the plot, developing characters, and finding ideas when you’re completely blanking.

I was reading it at work and thought I’d photocopy the article I liked, and then as I read on, I found more good articles, so I figure it might be better to just buy the issue instead of photocopying pretty much the whole thing. Pluys, at 10 cents a page to photocopy, it’s actually cheaper to buy the magazine. Doesn’t it just figure that I had to go and cancel my subscription the month before the best issue in a long time comes out? Now I’ve gotta go pick it up in the store. Silly me.

My husband and I have been busy working on constructing our fence (drilling post holes, staking the posts, cementing them in place, painting fence boards, etc.). We’ve been hoping to get that done before the weather gets any colder, though now the rain is slowing things down and it’s supposed to (ack!) snow soon.

On top of that, my brother-in-law came to visit from Atlanta for a week, so we spent many evenings at my parents’-in-law for family dinners, which was nice, not just because we spent time with my brother-in-law, but because I didn’t have to cook all week :)

And then there was Thanksgiving, which was this last weekend up here in Canada. That meant dinners at both sets of parents’ houses.

And oh yeah… I’ve been working too.

So, apart from children’s books, there hasn’t been a whole heck of a lot of reading done lately. A chapter here or there, but nothing substantial. Hopefully I can get back into it this week.

So I’ve registered for NaNoWriMo. And I got the fun icons for the sidebar. In a little less than a month, I’ll (try to) pump out a 50,000+ word novel in 30 days. From scratch. I’ve got ideas, and I’ve even done a little research about certain aspects of the story I’ll be telling, but I have tried not to think about it too much. Some of you may have noticed that I’ve had NaNoWrimo creator Chris Baty’s book, No Plot? No Problem! under my “currently reading” sidebar area for a while now. That’s actually purposeful, unlike Jovah’s Angel which I’ve been looking at from time to time but doing a really bad job of actually reading (I think I’m taking a break from that genre and series for a bit). Anyway, back to Baty’s book — I’m reading it slowly, only a few pages of it every day or two, so that I keep my mind on NaNoWriMo and get some motivation from it. So far, it seems to be working. And I find myself kind of wishing NaNoWrimo would get here already. I’m ready to just jump into it. How about the rest of you? Anyone participating? Anyone thinking about participating? Anyone actually planning? I know you are, Sonya :)

I’ve mentioned before that I work in a library, so I very rarely buy books anymore. When I do buy them, it’s because I LOVE the author and own everything the author has written to date, or it’s because I collect the books of a certain series and once I start, well… I can’t just stop now, can I?

So there I was, shopping in Costco, and instead of avoiding the new books tables as I usually do (better to avoid temptation than invite it, right?), I thought I’d just take a little look. A glance, really. And as I quickly swept my eyes over the table, I notice sitting there, side-by-side no less, were the only two books I’ve been anticipating buying for about a year or more now. The fact they were sitting there right next to each other seemed like as good a sign as any that I’d better just buy them right then and there, rather than go hunting through the bookstores looking for the best possible prices (Yes, I do this. It’s almost obsessive for me. I just can’t buy anything without knowing I got the best deal, even if the difference is just a dollar or two, I will do the work and go the extra mile to find it and I tell you, if I discover after the purchase that it’s cheaper somewhere else or that it goes on sale very soon, I literally moan with a bit of pain).

Anyway! I got Maeve Binchy’s latest, Whitethorn Woods, which I’ve been waiting for a long time to be published (though my husband jokes, “Oh? Another Binchy? Can it already have been a month since her last one came out?” Grrrrr… she doesn’t pump them out that quickly, and each one of them is damn GOOD, dammit!) and Diana Gabaldon’s A Breath of Snow and Ashes, which has finally been released in the trade paperback format I’ve been buying her Outlander series in.

<Happy sigh> Since I don’t buy books very often, I really do get very excited when I can, and I think I end up loving them even more because of it. On the way home, instead of putting the books in the trunk with the groceries and other things I bought at Costco, I put them on the passenger seat so they wouldn’t be tossed about or slide into something and risk getting a page bent. There was even a moment when I had to brake suddenly and I threw an arm out to make sure the books didn’t fly to the floor… I’m sure I’ll make an excellent mother some day ;)

So I had This Heart of Mine under Currently Reading on my sidebar for a long time, and I totally meant to get to it, but I just… didn’t. It’s not that I tried reading it and gave up, because I didn’t even get started on it. I just haven’t felt like reading much of any book lately. Probably due to a combination of being really tired the last couple of weeks, working extra hours and pursuing other non-reading activities. But I have been reading a bit here and there, mainly one of Sharon Shinn’s Samaria books. I gave it a good commitment today, so hopefully I’ll finish it soon and get the review up.

I visit a bunch of book blogs and I am amazed at how much people read and how often they post their reviews. And a lot of these people have kids (which I don’t) and full-time jobs (which I don’t) and other things taking their up their time. I’m amazed how much they can read despite it all. How do you do it, readers? When do you find the time to read so much? Are you just fast readers?

My husband is an incredibly fast reader… he puts me to shame more often that I’ll admit to him. But he also reads while eating (I find it hard to hold the book and eat without making a mess) and he’ll read in the bathroom (I’m more of a “get in and get out quick” kind of girl). I also prefer to find a chunk of time that I can devote to reading, so 10 minutes here and there doesn’t cut it for me, and then I’ll minimize distractions like the TV or music or people, and settle in with all my attention on the book.