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 :)

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.

Charlene at The Literary Word nominated me as a Rockin’ Girl Blogger! She says:

I was awarded this for my blog, and it’s tradition to pass them to others who inspire us also. I love reading your blog and think you make an excellent Rockin’ Blogger!

Thank you very much, Charlene! You rock, too!

Knocked Up is a novel based on journalist Rebecca Eckler’s real life pregnancy. On the night of her engagement party (which her friends will later jokingly refer to as The Conception Party), Eckler and her fiance get drunk, and go home to a night of unprotected sex. She wakes up the next morning absolutely positive she’s pregnant, and it turns out she’s right. What follows is an account of her pregnancy as she prepares herself for parenthood with her fiance.

This book is funny — very funny. I rarely laugh out loud when I’m reading, but I did numerous times with this novel. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a light, fun read.

In related news, there is some controversy brewing over Rebecca Eckler’s novel and the movie of the same name starring Katherine Heigl that was recently released. Eckler believes the movie is based on her book, and she should be credited for it. I haven’t seen the movie yet (I’m going to see it with my book club later this month when we gather to discuss this book), but if it IS true that the movie based itself heavily on Eckler’s book, then yes, she should be credited for it. Though, with the media attention given to this controversy, I’d think Eckler has already been (unofficially) credited and she’s gotten some great promotion for her book –enough to prompt at least one book club to read her novel and then go see the movie for comparison. So I’d say she came ahead in that respect. But as someone with aspirations to write a novel of my own one day, I can understand why she’d be unhappy about it and that the extra promotion her novel is getting isn’t really the point here. So despite my general dislike of Katherine Heigl, I’m looking forward to seeing the movie and looking for the similarities. I’ll update this post with my thoughts when I do.

Update (July 30, 2007): Saw the movie with my book club and the consensus was that the movie and the book share pretty much nothing in common but the title. Honestly, I don’t see how Eckler can claim that she should be credited. I think this article says everything I think about the matter (thanks to my friend Deb for the link).

By the way… the movie is hilarious. I laughed a lot, as did pretty much everyone else in the theatre. I’d watch it again.

… of Ann Brashares’ The Last Summer (of You & Me) is Kailana from Kailana’s Written World. I used a very scientific method for choosing the winner… I asked someone to pick a number from the number of entries. Very clever, no? Anyhoo… thanks to everyone who entered to win!

Many thanks to Yolanda at FSB Associates for gifting me another copy of Ann Brashares’ new book, and while it’s a very good book, I don’t actually need 2 copies :) So! I’m running a giveaway contest. The only condition is that you have a blog and you review the book on your blog when you finish reading it.
To enter to win The Last Summer (of You & Me), leave a comment or e-mail me with your name and blog URL. The contest closes at midnight my time (UTC -6 hours) on Monday, June 18th, 2007.

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? ;)

Chapters Indigo, a major chain of booksellers in Canada, surveyed 12,000 teachers to find out what books every child should read. Being a teacher myself, I was interested in the list. I see the 12,000 teachers decided to stick with a lot of the classics. I’ve bolded the ones I’ve read myself. Here’s the top books, as arranged by grade:

Grades K- 2 (Ages 5 – 7)

• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? - Bill Martin Jr.
• Love You Forever – Robert N. Munsch
• Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom – Bill Martin, Jr.
• The Kissing Hand – Audrey Penn
• The Paper Bag Princess – Robert N. Munsch
• Something from Nothing – Phoebe Gilman
• Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse – Kevin Henkes
• Chrysanthemum - Kevin Henkes
• Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus! – Mo Willems

Grades 2 – 4 (Ages 7 – 9)

• Dinosaurs Before Dark - Mary Pope Osborne
• Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
• The Giving Tree- Shel Silverstein
• Junie B. Jones And The Stupid Smelly Bus – Denise Brunkus
• Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
• Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great – Judy Blume
• Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing – Judy Blume
• Geronimo Stilton # 1 Lost Treasure Of the Emerald Eye – Scholastic
• Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day – Judith Viorst
• Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak

Grades 4 – 6 (Ages 9 – 11)

• The Bad Beginning: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the First – Lemony Snicket
• Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson
• Frindle – Andrew Clements
• The BFG – Roald Dahl
• Oh, the Places You’ll Go! – Dr Seuss
• Number the Stars – Lois Lowry
• Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’dell
• A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’engle
• Dragon Rider – Cornelia Funke
• Maniac Magee – Jerry Spinelli

Grades 6 – 8 (ages 11 – 13)

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
• The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
• Holes – Louis Sachar
• The Giver – Lois Lowry
• The Outsiders – S.E. Hinton
• Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery
• Breadwinner – Deborah Ellis
• Hatchet - Gary Paulsen
• The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
• Artemis Fowl – Eoin Colfer

Grades 8 and up (ages 13+)

• To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
• The Catcher in the Rye – J.D Salinger
• Life of Pi - Yann Martel
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
• The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
• Eragon – Christopher Paolini
• Lord Of The Flies – William Golding
• Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
• Night - Elie Wiesel
• Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

The top 10 finalists for this year's International IMPAC Dublin literary award have been announced. The 10:

Graceland by Chris Abani

Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam

Havoc, In Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett

The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe

An Altered Light by Jens Christian Grøndahl – translated from the Danish by Anne Born

The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra – translated from the French by John Cullen

Breaking the Tongue by Vyvyane Loh

Don't Move by Margaret Mazzantini – translated from the Italian by John Cullen

The Master by Colm Tóibín

The Logogryph by Thomas Wharton

Anyone read any of these? I'm currently reading The Master, but I'm not far enough into it to be able to give my opinion about it just yet. And something kind of cool… Thomas Wharton is from my city. It's nice to see a local writer get some global attention. Kind of inspires hope :)

The library I work at, and many other libraries around the world, have been asked to nominate a book for this award. The criteria for the nomination: the book had to be published in 2005 and is one that would be considered a MUST READ.
I took a look at the nominations that are coming in so far from around the world. So far, there are a few books that I’m seeing multiple nominations for from many countries instead of a strong showing in one (it would seem that countries like to nominate their own authors. For example, Canada is really pushing Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness, and Australia is gung ho with Andrew McGahan’s The White Earth). These books seem to be the most popular around the world:

• Colm Toibin’s The Master
• David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
• Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

If librarians around the world agree on these few titles over the thousands of others they could have picked, then surely they must be worthwhile reads. Whip out your library cards and put some holds on these books, readers!

After thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided to move Kristina’s Book Blog from Blogger to WordPress. What I like about WordPress is that I can sort my reviews into various categories, which is very useful for a book blog. Now if a reader wants to see what children’s books I’ve read, but don’t care to spend time sifting through the archives and reviews of other genres to find them, they can click on the Children’s Books category and see all those reviews in one glance. This was the number one reason for switching. (more…)

Not to me, mind you. If you visit Maeve Binchy’s site, you’ll find a message from Maeve saying that if you write to her, she’d be happy to write you back. I was a little skeptical about it. Since Maeve is my favorite writer, I sent her a letter telling her I enjoyed her books and that I owned most of them, which is a big deal considering I work at the library and decided not to buy books anymore unless I love them or really want them. If I were a successful writer, I’d probably appreciate fan mail too, you know?

Anyway… I wrote this letter back in March. Then, with my wedding and honeymoon and house stuff to do, I forgot about it. Mostly. Every once in a while I’d think about it and wonder if she actually got it. Then yesterday, I get a postcard in the mail depicting a scene from the front cover of her latest book, Nights of Rain and Stars. It’s addressed to me (on a typed label) with the handwritten message: “Dear Kristina, Thank you for writing authors low a little praise. Maeve Binchy”. Or something like that. For an author, she has some indecipherable writing. But yay! I’m not entirely sure how to interpret the phrase (the Irish, pffft!– just kidding), though I’m sure it’s just modesty and gratitude.

A simple message, but nice to get all the same :) She even spelled my name properly, which I consider a big deal (most people seem to see my name, and then forget or revert to the CH spelling right away, and/or spell it with an -e at the end rather than an -a).

I was happy anyway.