16 books for $6.50 - I should be so lucky!

Becca is so funny. She’s down one minute because of pesky uni assignments and then up the next because of books. Not drugs or booze, or chocolate or even ice-cream just books. Although I must admit that if I got 16 books in one go for $6.50 I’d be pretty chuffed too.

Becca loves lists, an affection I’ve noticed many bibliophiles share. The Dymocks Booklover’s Best 101 list is out and Becca’s head is spinning with questions over at Just One More Page ...

Are those of you in Australia aware (I’m sure you are) that the 2009 Dymocks 101 Booklover’s List is now out. Have you got it yet? Have you checked it off? Have you compared it to last year's list? What do you think of the changes? What was your score? Did you go up or down? Did you get the top ten? What do you think? Huh? Huh?… yeah, the girls at Dymocks think I’m crazy too…

I have, of course, got the list; checked it off – have read 7 of the top 10 and 40% overall – and highlighted the ones I’ll buy this year. I don’t know how I compare to last year, sorry Becca I don’t keep this list form year to year. I like lists but this one’s not necessarily my favourite as I don’t always read/like what’s popular. I’m amazed that the Twilight series is #1 but I hope this means that a lot of younger people are reading more. I know, I sound so old, very don’t-know-what-the-younger-generation-is-coming-too, but I do worry that the electronic age is adversely affecting reading habits (subject for another post I think). My introduction to the 2009 list being out went something like this...

Whilst shopping with my fabulous girlfriends (don’t you just love shopping with the girls), after a liquid lunch, we wandered past Dymocks. ‘oo oo Ive gotta get our next bookclub book!’ said one and that was all it took. I was in the shop and leaving them behind in the dust. I heard one say ‘of course Wendy would know exactly where it was on the shelf, I can never find anything in here’, as they followed along. So you can imagine my chagrin when To Kill a Mockingbird was not where it should be!

It’s a little annoying from my point of view. Don’t get me wrong, I love the list, but they create a new run of books and slap them up the front of the shop, I know marketing and libraries are worlds apart, but it makes it confusing – as if arranging the fiction by genre isn’t confusing enough.

Anyway we found the book she wanted and she was very happy to discover the 3 books for the price of 2 promotion. It was the least amount of time I’ve ever spent in a bookshop, I am in awe of her snappy decisions, perhaps motivated by the fact that we were on our way to get pedicures – books and a foot massage l-u-x-u-r-y!


edit: If you've checked out the Dymocks List please note that the Panda says NO!

I love this meme hosted by Marcia at the Printed Page celebrating the artistry of book covers. Pop over to The Printed Page and have a look at a selection of wonderful artwork that motivates our book choices (like we need any encouragement). Join in by leaving a link to your Cover Attraction or just leave it here if you’d rather. If you like my button please feel free to copy and paste it into your own post.

This week my cover attraction is a book I bought at the airport (yes I know risky) the purchase of which was based purely on the cover. I ended up giving it to my son when I realised I had souvenirs for everyone but him (bad mother). It was just a short get-away to nowhere exotic and he’s a bookworm too so he didn’t think it at all odd to get a book instead of a Gold Coast key ring. He has that whole new-book-excitement-thing too and, as a bonus, he loved the book. He recommends it as a great short read - he read it on the day he got it in one sitting.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB over at Should be Reading. Anyone can join in so here's what you do...

Grab your current read & let it fall open to a random page.
Share with us two “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
Share the title of the book… that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given but remember...avoid spoilers please.
leave a link to your Teaser in my comments or pop on over to Should Be Reading leave your Teaser and get tantalising glimpses of other reads.

*Disclaimer: this event may be hazardous to your TBR health.

My teaser is from Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected...

At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head. She might just as well have hit him with a steel club.

*and all women who have ever had their cooking skills dissed say, amen.

This week’s MM, hosted by BFF Becca of Just one more page asks...

How do you respond to the comments on your blog? Do you try to email individually or comment on the post yourself, answering the comments above? What do you think is the best way to respond to comments and do you respond to all of them? Do you feel slighted if you don't receive a response back from the blog owner?

I’ve only ever commented on the posts – don’t know anything about emailing responses yet. I’m not sure of the best way to respond to comments but I love reading them and am very excited when someone comments on my posts. This is the best thing about blogging, if you ask me, it’s a validation of the very nicest kind when like-minded people from all over the world take the time to leave a comment. Plus I love seeing the many different sides of the same coin as the discussion develops. I can’t tell you how often I’ve said to myself ‘good point I‘d never have thought of that’!

Take my recent Friday First experience for example, I went over to Under the boardwalk to respond to Nise’s comment on my Friday First post and while I was there I read the comments on her Friday First post... Staci’s comment reminded me of a long lost treasure AND gave me an idea for next week’s Friday First. I commented on this I hope that's okay, I'm not sure if it's polite to respond to the comments left on someone else's blog.

As you can see this week's MM is a timely question (courtesy of Jenny) because, as I don’t really know what the etiquette for blog comments is, I’ve have been reading up on it whilst lurking and learning. One really informative blogger I’ve discovered, who all probably know, is Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness (don’t you just love that blog name!).

Kim’s BIP (Blog Improvement Project) is really helpful to a new blogger, I’ve been catching up on old posts too but April’s project is perfect for me...it’s all about comments. I’m going to try out a few of the suggestions found here and in some of the links Kim suggests. I like the sound of hoisting, well actually it sounds a tad uncomfortable (wedgies come to mind). More to the point I like the sound of community building which it promotes. Don’t really understand it yet, will let you know when I do.

I find it easy to respond to the comments on my blog as I don’t get that many (I don’t know how you’d manage comments in double figures) and they are always interesting, conversation sparking ones. I hope I'm responding properly - I'd hate to offend and am more than willing to be instructed if you ever feel slighted!

I’ve popped out of the shadows where I lurk a couple of times to leave a few gushy comments on other blogs. Hopefully people (who don’t know me) don't worry about the crazy lady stalking their blog.

While I’ve visited my follower’s blogs I haven’t ‘talked’ to them all yet – this is my project for this week. I don't mind if I don't receive a comment back from the blog owner, I figure I'm here for the experience not for sweating the small stuff (enough of that to do IRL).

So much to lurking/learning to do... so little time. The irony that blogging about reading does actually cut into my reading time has NOT escaped me. How do you deal with that?!!

The First Friday First

A meme all about those all important first words:
So, here's what you do.. .
* Copy the theme/question and the FF button & paste into your own blog.
* Include the author and title of the book your first line is from.
* When you’ve posted your response, leave a comment here so everyone can find your post.
* If you don’t have a blog yet, just reply in the comments section.
* You don’t have to answer on Fridays, it's just great to hear from you anytme.
* Some week's there'll a puzzle, the answer will be up the following week (or earlier if it's really bugging you).
*Lastly let me know what you think...love Friday Firsts? hate it? got ideas to improve it? got ideas for questions/themes? I'm keen to know your thoughts and add your ideas to this adventure,
cheers

Since this is our first Friday First and as it's Good Friday why don't we start with a good first...

Favourite Firsts: Do you have one or many? Share one of your favourites. with us. Why do you love it, remember it or feel connected to it.



One of my favourite first lines happens to be in one of my top five books, which I also happen to be (re)reading atm for BookFreaks.

'When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.'

In this one perfect sentence we are introduced to the two pivotal characters - the narrator, and her brother, and the allegorious sub-plot of Boo Radley. And in the category of 'perfect first line' this one gets you hooked...you've read the first chapter before you realise you've heard no more about that broken arm.

In fact, in what I think is wonderful symmetry, we don't return to the broken arm until the apparent decrescendo of the book, the third last chapter and those amazingly thrilling words, 'Run Scout! Run! Run! Jem screamed.' By this stage of the book the court case is over, the crescendo has built up to the verdict and result is known, prejudice has won -or so we think. The broken arm is forgrounding of the best kind, it is a link to the redeeming victory of tolerance over prejudice that is the 'kitchen knife stuck up under the ribs' of Bob Ewell.

Puzzle:
A "First Famous Coarse Thread" is a Famous First Line translated from English and back again.
This time we have a famous first line translated from English --> Chinese --> English:
can you unravel this coarse thread?

'This is the best time, it is the worst time; this is a wisdom, its age is the stupid age...'

Check back next week to find out what book it's from or look at more coarse threads here.

This week's BTT question is an old one revisited which is good because I wasn't doing BTT 2 years ago so it's all new to me!
Some people read one book at a time. Some people have a number of them on the go at any given time, perhaps a reading in bed book, a breakfast table book, a bathroom book, and so on, which leads me to…
Are you currently reading more than one book? If so, how many books are you currently reading? Is this normal for you? Where do you keep your current reads?


I have always been a one-book-at-a-time devotee. My thinking was that I wanted to give my whole heart and soul to each read and I found that diffucult if I had more than one on the go. I say WAS becasue my reading habits were changed perforce by uni. It took me six years to get my degree and the amount of reading required demanded concurrent reading.

Although I'm no longer writing essays and reading primary texts along side secondary criticism I find emersing myself in multiple reads possible. This is good because I do like to have more than one book to show off at the "what I read last month" part of BookFreaks (my bookclub). Especially as some members (Becca) have little OCD problem and bring anintimidatingly huge pile of recent reads.

I keep my current read with me at all times (Becca's not along in the OCD department), it's usually my bookFreaks book. The others are on my bedside table (BST), I dip into each according to my mood. At the moment my BST reading consists of The Devil's Brood = I've gone to bed early to escape the world and I'm in the mood for a nice long read (It's HUGE so it'll be on my current read pile for quite a while); Tales of the Unexpected = I'm tired or short story mood; and for those outside the square moods I've started Mrs Dalloway.

Cover Attraction

Marcia from The Printed Page hosts a weekly meme celebrating the delicate artistry of book covers. Pop over and have a look at all the wonderful artwork that motivates our book choices (like we need any encouragement).

This week my cover attraction is The Book Theif. I just love the playfulness of a child skipping along with the grim reaper that reinforces the 'playing with death' aspect of the grim storyline set in WWII.


Zuzak uses the format of dialogue with death popular in the 16th century to tell this poignent story of a little girl who loves books and is deprived of them. Spectacular imagery and quirky sense of humour propel the narrative. Anyone who loves books and language should have this book on their bookshleves, and in their booklovers' heart.