Archive | September 2009

BBAW: Best Design

Sep11

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

A Novel Menagerie Lots of cool lady pictures and badges (is that what those button-things are called?), and everything’s accessible.

Becky’s Book Reviews I love Becky’s new, or maybe not so very new, design. She’s got a lot going on at her blog(s), but you can find everything easily. And it’s all bright and welcoming.

Book Blather Nice and clean with a beautiful background.

Booking Mama Lots of pink, and I’m not too much of a pinky fan. Nice blog, though. I liked the Mother Daughter Book Club feature.

The Story Siren. Kristi obviously knows how to manipulate Blogger and make it do what she wants it to do. Here’s a post where she shares some basic tips on using Blogger tools to make you blogging life easier. (I’m in WordPress, but if you use Blogger, check it out.)

I’m not an expert on blog design, but I know what I like, as they say in the art museum. I’m voting for Becky’s Book Reviews because I remember when she changed her design, and I liked it then and like it now.

BBAW: Best Spiritual/Inspirational or Religious Book Review Blog

Sep11

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

2 Kids and Tired Book Reviews Holly at 2 Kids and Tired is a member of FIRST blog alliance, a group of reviewers who tour Christian books (from Christian publishers). In addition to the books from FIRST, Holly reads and reviews lots of other mostly fiction titles from Christian publishers. Her reviews are short, sweet, and to the point.

A Novel Menagerie has been nominated for Most Prolific Blogger and Best Design in addition to a nomination in this category. Sheri at A Novel Menagerie reviews all sort of books including Christian inspirational reading, Mother-Approved books for youong adults, and Guaranteed Good Books. The design IS lovely.

Callapidder Days Katrina at Callapidder Days sponsors the Fall Into Reading Challenge, a fine way to jump-start or share your fall reading list if that’s what you’re looking to do. (There’s also a Spring Reading Thing.) I would call these challenges low pressure, gentle reading encouragers–just like the blog Callapidder Days itself.

My Friend Amy Amy is, well, everyone’s friend and the brains behind BBAW. For the latter role alone, she should probably get all the votes in whatever category she nominated. After all, she’s worked extra hard to make all this BBAW stuff happen. However, Amy not only organizes BBAW; she also blogs about LOST, hosts her own book challenge, and reads and review lots of books of all kinds. “Faith ‘n Fiction Saturday is a weekly meme for Christians to get together and talk about fiction published from a Christian worldview, hosted at My Friend Amy. Amy’s blog was also nominated for most eclectic taste, most prolific blogger, most altruistic blogger, Best Community Builder, and Best Blog Post.

Semicolon Then, there’s little old me.

For obvious reasons, this is a hard one. You all can vote for Semicolon in this category, and I may vote for Semicolon, too, just to give myself a pat on the back because I do enjoy blogging here. I blog about my faith in Jesus Christ, my love of books, homeschooling, hymns, LOST, church and even politics sometimes and how all of those things and more relate to one another because all of them (plus the kitchen sink) make up ME. I am pleased to have been nominated for a book blogger award in this category, aand I will be pleased whether I win or not.

However, if I don’t vote for Semicolon, I’ll probably choose My Friend Amy as my selection for Best Spiritual/Inspirational or Religious Book Review Blog, mostly because of her Faith ‘n Fiction Saturday feature, something I plan to participate in as soon as all this BBAW hullaballoo is over.

Poetry Friday: The Choir Invisible by George Eliot

Sep10

I looked for a while to find a poem that I thought appropriate for this day, a day which certainly, in FDR’s words about another event, lives in infamy, but also reminds us of our own mortality and of the evil that inhabits our own hearts and those of others, the sin that sometimes escapes all bounds and produces tragedy.

May we all join the Choir Invisible, the one Eliot writes about and the one in Revelation in the Bible, as souls forgiven by the grace of God.

Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men’s search
To vaster issues. So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air,
And all our rarer, better, truer self
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better, — saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love, —
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever. This is life to come, —
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

BBAW: Best Nonfiction Review BLog

Sep10

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

A Striped Armchair This blog is one I’ve heard of somewhere, but I don’t think I’ve ever visited. The blogger is Eva, a 20-something passionate and eclectic reader, who in addition to reviewing nonfiction also reads and writes about mysteries, historical fiction, classics, fantasy, and literary fiction, a little of everything. Here you can read about some of her favorite authors, and here’s another post about the special books in Eva’s life. Lovely blog.

Citizen Reader reads like a highly opinionated, and entertaining, look at the world through the lens of (mostly) nonfiction books. I’m going to add this book about the founding of Facebook to my TBR list to reinforce my antipathy to that “social networking site” on the strength of Citizen Reader’s review. Citizen Reader has, in addition to blogging, been working with Librarian/Author Nancy Pearl on a book called Now Read This III: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, a fact which impresses the heck out of me. I’ll have to make time to read all of the Citizen Reader reviews, and the book, because I can never have enough suggestions of books to read. 🙂

Nonfiction Book Reviews Havilah is a part-time librarian who writes about nonfiction books exclusively. The front page of her blog is heavy on the astronomy titles, but it looks as if she just moved into this particular blog space back in April. Her old blog was NonFiction Lover, and it has a list of her Top Ten Favorite NonFiction Titles. Nice variety. Of the ten I’ve read, and enjoyed, five, and a couple more look good.

Sophisticated Dorkiness “Kim is a busy journalism master’s student at UW-Madison who blogs about books, school, and other dorky topics.” An aspiring journalist blogging about nonfiction? Sounds like a good fit. I’m going to have to take a look at this book, reviewed by Kim: Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg.

Welcome to the Hinterlands: A Narrative Nonfiction Blog Caroline Kettlewell’s blog looks a little more newsy than the others nominated in this category. She informed me that there’s a name for those “year of” books (an annualist book) and that Elizabeth Gilbert has a sequel to Eat Pray Love in which, after her sojourn in free spirit land, she embraces Marriage. Caroline’s Hinterlands Manifesto is worth a look for its lament for the undiscovered joys of nonfiction reading—and the book recommendations, too.

I loved all five of these blogs, and I’ll be visiting all of them again because I really like nonfiction that tells a good story or introduces me to a new subculture or world that I hadn’t know about before. However, I think I’ll cast my one vote in this category for Welcome to the Hinterlands. The manifesto pushed me over the edge.

BBAW: Best YA Blog

Sep9

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

I read Young Adult fiction. I like Young Adult fiction. An yet, I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never visited any of the blogs on this list. Time to remedy that little shortcoming.

Green Bean Teen Queen is a teen/tween librarian. She likes Emma-Jean Lazarus! (I just finished Emma Jean Lazarus Falls in Love, and it was just as good as the first Emma Jean book.) She’s in library school, and she’s reading all the latest YA stuff plus the classics for her classes. Lots of crazy reading!

Mrs. Magoo Reads Mrs. Magoo runs a first line contest each month featuring the first lines of all the books she’s read that month. I like that idea. Saturday’s Scribe is Mrs. Magoo’s feature for author interviews; she’s interviewed some great YA authors such as Mary E. Pearson, Lisa Graff, and Sarah Beth Durst.

My Favorite Author is a YA blog for adults, written by three co-bloggers whose nicknames are Speed Reader, Page Turner, and Aubrey. These three between them read A LOT of books, and they review them all for the benefit of those adults who enjoy young adult themes and characters and for the teens who drop in, too. The blog is on hiatus while Speed Reader deals with some health issues, but there are enough back reviews to keep anyone reading for a long while.

Pop Culture Junkie Alea has already read and reviewed 103 books this year, so if she spends time on other forms of “pop culture” I don’t know when she sleeps. I’m sure I could find several books in there to add to my TBR list, but I’m resisting temptation.

The Story Siren (also nominated for Best Design and Most Extravagant Giveaways) is the blogging home of Kristi who hosts In My Mailbox, where she posts about the books she’s acquired that week, and other bloggers can also link to “posts about what books we have received that week (via your mailbox/library/store bought)!” And she has a page that lists forthcoming YA and adult titles. That’s information that I’m always interested in knowing.

So I’m torn between two blogs for my vote in this category, but I choose . . . Green Bean Teen Queen. Because she shares my Emma Jean love. And because library school students are special; I know because I wuz one once upon a time.

BBAW: Best Speculative Fiction Blog

Sep9

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

Bibliophile Stalker Charles Tan, The Bibliophile Stalker, is having computer issues; I can sympathize. He’s a promoter of Philippine speculative fiction, a niche that hadn’t occurred to me but sounds interesting. In addition to speculative fiction, he enjoys and reports on RPG’s, anime, and manga. He’s a Neil Gaiman fan, and it looks as if a lot of his links are directed toward aspiring authors.

Dribble of Ink Aidan Moher is also an aspiring author of fantasy/scifi, and the emphasis at his blog looks to be sword and sorcery, wizards and witches. He also has a BIG List o’ SF blogs here which would be a fine resource for those looking for more speculative fiction blogs.

Scifiguy.ca I entered SciFiGuy’s Catching Fire promotional giveaway because I’m ready to read the sequel that we’ve all been hearing so much about for months. Doug Knipe, the blogger at SciFiGuy, says he reads and reviews “Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, SciFi, and Fantasy.” Look at these pictures of his library, and you’ll see that he’s serious about the genre.

The Book Zombie Joanne Mosher, The Book Zombie and the first female blogger in this category, is an enthusiastic reader. She says, “I read constantly and I have been known to read instruction manuals, cereal boxes and the YellowPages if I am without a book.” It looks as if her tastes run to zombies, vampires, and mystery/horror with a few other kinds of books thrown in for spice, when those are available to substitute for the phone book.

The Galaxy Express is subtitled “adventures in science fiction romance.” So, probably not my cup of tea, but definitely another niche I hadn’t thought about. Of the many authors Heather lists in her sidebar, I know and have enjoyed books by Anne McCaffrey, Ursula LeGuin, Connie WIllis, Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, and Stephanie Meyer. I have a lot of others to check out.

I’m going to vote for SciFiGuy in this category because he looks like the one with the closest taste to mine, and he’s giving away stuff! No, really, I just enjoyed his blog and his style and will visit again when I get through all the nominees that I’m visiting for BBAW.

BBAW: Best KidLit Blog

Sep9

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

OK, this category is the one I know best. All five of these blogs deserve an award for the great work they do to publicize children’s books and help adults and children choose children’s books that will pass on the love of reading to the next generation.

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast 7-Imp, as it’s affectionately called, is the blog of Eisha and Julie (Jules), who excel at the author/illustrator interview. 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a “weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you.” Jules’ and Eisha’s place is great place to hang out and learn about children’s books.

Fuse 8 at School Library Journal Betsy Bird is a leader. She’s also a librarian in New York City. She’s the one who lead me to Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy, Mo WIllems pigeon books, the Opus shelving system (wish I had one), and just this week, Awkward Family Photos. Her Top 100 Picture Books project inspired my Top 100 Hymns project (which is currently in abeyance but will return).

Jen Robinson’s Book Blog Jen is a software engineeer by day, and a Literacy Advocate and Reader Extraordinaire by night, weekend, and whenever else she fits it in. Her reviews are long enough to be informative, but not too long, and she links to everyone who has anything of interest to say about children’s books and children’s literacy. Jen just runs an all-around fantastic and generous blog.

Maw Books Blog Natasha at Maw Books does it all: kids’ lit, inspirational fiction, challenges (The Bloggiesta), YA fiction, author recipes, and much, much more. She’s been a contributor to the Saturday Review, and she’s just all over the place helping out with and organizing BBAW.

Shelf Elf Kerry, sole eflin proprietor of Shelf Elf, is or has been or hopes to be a harpist, a pastry chef, a children’s books seller, a middle school teacher, a cookie artist, a groovy chanson songstress, and a nature photo-journalist. I’ve worked with her on a Cybils panel for a couple of years, and I can say she’s also an expert on children and their books.

My vote goes to Jen Robinson’s Book Blog, only because I have to choose. Jen has done so much work to encourage children’s literacy and the love of good books. Her reviews are thorough and readable. And she makes me want to read the books, all of the books, and then give them away to children and young adults and encourage them to read the way she does.

BBAW: Best Thriller/Mystery/Suspense BLog

Sep9

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

Kittling: Books Kittling “is a Gaelic word that means “anything that strikes [my] fancy”, and that pretty much sums up my reading tastes. Although I do have a strong perference for crime fiction (mysteries), I also love historical fiction, history, biographies, time travel…anything that satisfies my craving for strong characters, story and setting.” Cathy has a list of favorite mystery series that I would like to emulate, only mine would be different because I haven’t read any of hers –yet. Cathy also has feature called Scene of the Blog which show us pictures of where those bloggers we know and love actually blog.

A Work in Progress I’ve had Dani’s blog in my feedreader for a long time. I like her because she’s not pretentious, but she reads a lot. And often she reads the kind of books that I want to know about. Dani’s the one who introduced me to Persephone Books and to the Modern Library Top 100 list. I have several books on my TBR list because of her reviews.

Bookgasm is a prolific blogger, heavy on the news and giveaways and new releases and reviews of new books. I liked this list of 50 Reasons No One Wants to Publish Your First Book, kind of snarky but funny. Bookgasm is edited by Ron Lott.

Jen’s Book Thoughts Jen features Six Word Memoirs from famous and not as famous authors, a good way to to take a look at some authors and what they think about their life’s work. She’s also got author interviews, and lots of reviews

The Drowning Machine is “swimming upriver in the river of books.” But right now Corey Wilde, the blogger at The Drowning Machine, is busy with The Watery Grave Short Story Invitational. Sounds dangerous to me.

SInce I have to choose, I think I’ll go with Jen’s Book Thoughts on this one. Her layout is clean and inviting, and the content is spectacular. I especially the idea of the Six Word Memoirs.

BBAW: Best History/Historical Fiction Blog

Sep8

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

Age 30+ A Lifetime in Books Heather is one of the most faithful contributors at the LOST Books Challenge Blog, and she reads and comments here at Semicolon, too. Heather likes historical fiction, but she says she needs “to have a real connection with the characters; their stories need to be the focus of the book.” Me, too, I think.

A Reader’s Respite: “Book Reviews, Author News, and Hot Reads with a bit of Sassy Comentary.” Michelle’s blog is also nominated for funniest, most humorous book blog, and I’m leaning toward voting forA Reader’s Respite for that one. Definitely sassy.

Carla Nayland Historical Fiction Carla is an author of historical fiction and a blogger about same, and her blog includes architecture, recipes, reviews, historical notes, news –and that’s just on the front page.

Steven Till Steven Till is also a writer and a blogger. His novel is still in process as far as I can tell from a quick look at his blog. His focus looks to be medieval history and historical fiction. He’s a Lewis/Tolkien fan, so I’m sold on his excellent taste in authors, at any rate.

TOCWOC A Civil War Blog If you’re a Civil War (aka the War Between the States) afficionado, TOCWOC is the go-to blog. Lots of book reviews, all having to do with the War, and some dates and trivia thrown in to make it interesting.

I choose Heather’s blog, Age 30+: A Lifetime in Books because she’s a real reader who happens to visit here and whose reviews have made me want to read the following:
The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner.
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.

I’ve gotta get around to both of those soon.

BBAW: Best General Review Blog

Sep8

Voting is now open at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards.

100 Scope Notes features children’s literature news and reviews, including all the news that’s fit to print concerning sock-related cover art. Good updates on the news in the children’s book world.

Books on the Nightstand “Books on the Nightstand is the blog and podcast of Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman. We are friends and colleagues who work in the publishing industry. That means that we talk about books all day long to other people who love to talk about books. But sometimes, those conversations have to end before we’re ready to stop talking. Thus, this blog.” This reading challenge introduced me to Beowulf on the Beach, a book I now must find to see what it’s all about. Great title.

She is Too Fond of Books Dawn writes great reviews (some have been linked to the Saturday Review), and her feature Spotlight on Bookstores will be a great resource when I get to go on my tour of the U.S., visiting all the bookstores I can in the process. It was Dawn who connected me with The End of the Alphabet by C.S. RIchardson

Rebecca Reads Rebecca has a List of Lists, too. What is it with readers and lists? Rebecca on classics: “I can’t describe why reading a classic feels like a relief, it just does. It’s great, and stretching it out makes it real and physical, rather than a by-passed pleasure. I’m not reading to turn pages. I’m reading to read.” I like that, reading to read.

The Zen Leaf Amanda shops at Half-Price Books; there’s a point in her favor. Amanda herself is “a slightly neurotic writing reading stay-at-home mom,” and she has “very particular tastes” in books. So do I, Amanda, so do I–I’m just not sure how to describe them. Ummm, I know a good book when I see it?

It’s hard to choose between all these great reviewers, but my vote goes to Rebecca Reads because of her love for books both old and new and because I enjoyed her recent post on John Donne.