Category: Weekly Memes

Blogging Reflections: On Covers

Posted July 29, 2014 / Other Memes / 10 Comments

Blogging Reflections: Thoughts on Book Covers [Bimonthly feature from Bookshelf Reflections] I’ve been looking for an excuse to expand on this topic! You may remember I posted a top 10 list of Books I’m Judging by the Cover. I mentioned a little bit of my thoughts in that post, but now I can tell you a little bit more. Covers are really important to me; I’m not going to lie. It’s very, very hard to not judge a book by it’s cover. There are so many books out there for our consumption; there have to be explicit signals to make people decide to pick up the book and read the back cover. If a book doesn’t have an appealing cover, people are rarely going to flip it over and see the plot summary. Browsing for books on Goodreads, at Barnes & Noble, or on review sites, covers that catch my eye are the ones I’ll most likely purchase. I really enjoy graphic covers with beautiful typography, or some of the new contemporary YA covers with typography placed over pictures. I think covers should match the book’s plot – that goes without saying. Some covers (especially fantasy ones) can be a little cheesy and cheap… If it looks like the author, with no graphic design skills, threw it together in Paint on their computer, I probably won’t read it. It sucks, but at least I admit I’m being superficial, right? Overall, there are certainly more to books than the covers. There […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #1: Most Owned Authors

Posted July 29, 2014 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 4 Comments

Some of my numbers may be a bit off, since 3/4 of my books are still at my parents’ house, the rest are at my apartment, and none are currently with me at work. Regardless, here are the 10 authors I own the most books from! The Gossip Girl series, including the Carlyles mini-series/spinoff, and Cum Laude (which I haven’t read yet due to fairly bad reviews) The Private series, the spinoff Privilege series, Shadowlands trilogy, Sweet 16, and Megan Meade’s Guide to the McGowan Boys (haven’t read yet) The Clique series and the summer character-based books The Pretty Little Liars series (I am dying to get my hands on her two newest books ASAP, and still waiting for the final PLL book to be released at the end of the year!) I went through my Goodreads and counted the books I own by her (I hope I counted correctly)… I’ve probably only read half of the books I own Is this even a picture of her? This is the only one I saw online. Regardless, I have the A-List series and the A-List Hollywood Royalty spinoff series Series of Unfortunate Events! This is another one I’m not 100% which books I own by her. I’ve read almost all of her books but don’t own all of them. This is an educated guess based on […]

Musing Mondays #1

Posted July 28, 2014 / Musing Mondays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Musing Mondays offer six different topics to choose from to focus on each week. You choose which of the six is most appealing to you that week and run with it! Or, you can muse about anything book-related. Here’s what I chose to respond to this week for my first Musing Monday. Describe one of your reading habits. I’ve talked about this one before quite a bit, but I’ll reiterate. One of my reading habits is that I alternate between e-books and hard copy books. I can’t part with “real” books that easily. I love the convenience of my Kindle and being able to read in the dark, but there’s no better feeling than opening up a paperback and reading. I am trying to read through my extensive collection of books before buying more – but obviously that’s easier said than done. My mom bought me a Kindle for my birthday right before college, but I wasn’t able to use it much during the school year. I found it difficult to balance college studies/reading with personal reading. During the summers and lunch breaks at my internship, I would read as much as possible! I loved my first Kindle very much and it still has some books on it I have yet to read. This past Christmas, my boyfriend got me the new Paperwhite version because I desperately wanted to have a backlight. I love my new Kindle but definitely miss the keyboard and real keys (instead of the touch screen) […]

Seven Deadly Sins

Posted July 26, 2014 / Other Memes, Personal / Information / Etc. / 1 Comment

Okay so I wasn’t tagged in this, but it looks fun anyways! (Found on Woven Magic Books) Greed – What is your most inexpensive book? The cheapest books I’ve purchased would be The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (haven’t read it yet) and Class of ’98 by A.L. Player (LOVED it). Both were $2.01 on my Kindle. Those are the cheapest over the past year, but I have gotten some for free or for 99 cents on my Kindle in 2013. Wrath – What author do you have a love/hate relationship with? This is a tough one! Normally I either love or hate an author. There haven’t been a lot of instances where I dislike some of their books and like some others. I guess I would have to say Nicholas Sparks because his books feed into the super-romantic stereotype that is very unrealistic. I don’t like what they imply about romance at times, but I also have enjoyed many of his books. I am a sucker for The Notebook but wish I wasn’t! Gluttony – What book have you devoured over and over with no shame? Honestly, none. I don’t typically like to re-read books. I WILL re-read Harry Potter at some point. In the meantime, I can say I have never read a book more than once. In my opinion, there are too many books out there and I don’t want to waste time I could spend on a new book. Sloth -What book have you neglected reading due to laziness? I […]

Friday Finds #1

Posted July 25, 2014 / Friday Finds, Weekly Memes / 7 Comments

I find new books in a variety of ways. I head to Goodreads and do some browsing – sometimes I check out other people’s feeds or Read shelves; sometimes I look at their recommendations for me. I love going to Barnes & Noble and browsing the YA shelves to see new releases or find books by authors I like. I immediately add them to my Goodreads shelf so I don’t forget them (thank god for iPhones)…or I buy them on the spot. Lately, as I’ve gotten deeper in the book blogging world, I check out people’s blogs that I follow and see some of the reviews they’ve done recently. If any of the books sound interesting, I’ll add them to my shelf. Here are the ten latest books I’ve added to my shelf, where I found the book, and why it sounds interesting. Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Page Where I saw it: Review at Chrissi Reads Why I added it: I’ve seen this book many times at B&N and always thought it looked semi-interesting. Based on the title and cover, I could tell it was Wizard of Oz-related. I typically don’t like spin-offs like this, but there are a few exceptions. I’ve found myself becoming increasingly interested in books like this, but wasn’t completely sold and never even bothered to read the plot summary. Then, I saw a review by Chrissi Reads and decided to check out her thoughts. She seemed to like it a lot. I’ve […]

Booking Through Thursday #1

Posted July 24, 2014 / Booking Through Thursdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

I’m going to do the past two Booking Through Thursday topics to get myself started. Do your reading habits change in the summer? Absolutely! I read SO much more during the summer. When I was in college it was essentially the only time I was able to read for pleasure. Lunch breaks, sitting outside at a table or under a tree, were my favorite time to read. There’s nothing that says “summer” more to me than sitting out and reading a book. I used to love making laps walking around my pool while reading too. Different kind of reading … what do you think about letters? Do you ever send them anymore? Receive them? Or do you just do email and texts instead? Do you miss the days when people used to write letters? I typically only write letters to my grandma at this point. There is something special about getting a letter or card in the mail, but it happens so rarely it doesn’t bother me when I don’t get any. I primarily email and text. I was sort of too young to even write letters when they were popular.

WWW Wednesday #1

Posted July 23, 2014 / Weekly Memes, WWW Wednesdays / 7 Comments

What are you currently reading? I am currently reading September Girls by Bennett Madison. I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews on this book, so I’m really interested to see what my opinion ends up being. Most Goodreads reviewers hated it, while apparently critics love it. The book is about a boy who goes to a beach town with his family for the summer and discovers that the town is full of beautiful blonde girls. He begins to figure out the mystery of the girls (a mystery that I ruined for myself by reading someone’s bookshelf tag on Goodreads). What did you recently finish reading? I binge-read the entire Shadowlands trilogy by Kate Brian over the past few days. The third book, Endless, was released yesterday and I finished it within a few hours. That series was a total pageturner for me; once I started I seriously could not stop. What do you think you’ll read next? Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn has been on my bookshelf for months. People keep urging me to read it, so I think I’ll finally read that one next. It’s not my type of book normally; it seems a little to scary for me to read before bed. I’ll have to utilize all this spare daylight time in the office while my boss is out of town!