Home safe!

Dear friends! I'm home safe from my European adventure and am currently staring down a big old pile of laundry. And since I don't want to do laundry (despite having almost no clean clothes) I will start writing some vacation posts soon!

Can't wait to go through my bloglovin and check up on all your posts that I've missed!

Almost on my way, but needing some advice...

So, the big trip starts on Friday!

My thanks to Johnny Jet, Euro cheapo, Travel Fashion Girl, Jamie from Gunters Abroad, Denise from The Girl in 5A, and all of the other websites and blogs that I have stalked and followed in an effort to be prepared and well equipped for this trip. (I'm an over planner it's how I deal with the unknown.) If you don't have the wanderlust in you already, these sites will do it to you.

Does anyone have any tips for long plane rides or jet lag? I know I'm not supposed to drink alcohol because it dehydrates you, but I'm not a good flier; so there will be some medicinal booze :) Do you take off your socks curl your toes like John Mclean? Any tips on how to crawl over a sleeping aisle seat passenger without making things INCREDIBLY awkward?

If you're interested in pictures, you can follow me on Instagram! Wi-Fi is a bit spotty but I'm sure I can manage to get some pictures up. A lot of the might be of food...

I'm going to be radio silent here on the blog for a little while, but I have not abandoned you. When I come back I'll be talking about the trip for a little while and then we'll run head long into All Lady July 2015! Thanks to all my lovely guest posters!

Alright, guess that's it! Talk soon!

Czech and German Reads, and What I'm Bringing to Read on Vacation

So, I'm a little beyond excited to be on vacation in a few days. We're going to be in Germany and the Czech Republic so I combed my "read" shelves to see what Czech and German reads I could recommend to you!

First up, Germany

A hard read but a good read. A woman handles a terrible situation with grace and gallows humor. My review here.

I keep talking about this book! It's creepy, weird, short and a delight. I talked about it here.

I didn't review this book anywhere, but I really enjoyed it. Modern Germany and it's not WWII related.

This book is kind of a mind trip. Luckily it ends happyish. My review here

And then off to Czech Republic!

No review on this one. It's interesting and modern but a little depressing.

Loved this book, and the author is a sweetheart. Review here

Surprisinlgy funny, but well informed and interesting. Also a little sad. Review here.

I didn't review these anywhere. I was shocked by how much I liked this trilogy! I couldn't gobble them up fast enough!

What I'm bringing:

I've been saving this book to read for months. (Sadly, it is the show tie-in cover.) I've heard raves AND rants about this book. I feel like I'm either going to read it an be like "Ok, that was good but I'll just watch it on Starz" or I'll become obsessed and try to hunt down an English language bookstore in Berlin when I land.

An old favorite :) Haven't re-read it in about a year so I'm excited to get back in with this friend.

And on my Kindle.....

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!

Armchair BEA Day 4 - The Constant Heartbreak that is Book to Movie Adaptations...

Book to Movie Adaptions

What books do you want to be made into a movie or television show? What are some of your favorites? We'll explore more about this topic, especially what works and what doesn't.  Are there any upcoming shows or movies that you're excited for? What are your recommendations?

I'm going to tell you a sad story.

So I read this book "Serena" and I loved it. I made my friends and family members read it and they loved it. I was feeling triumphant.





Then I heard they were making a movie based on the book and I was feeling nervous.






But then I heard the JLaw and Bradley Cooper were the leads and I was feeling thrilled!



But then I heard about the amount of reshoots they were needing to do....and then I heard nothing. I was feeling scared.




And then articles like this started coming out....

Serena is the cinematic equivalent of watching a car battery dying

Doomed from the beginning

It gets released on Netflix on June 9th and I will be watching it as soon as that beloved red envelope shows up in the mail. I'm holding out hope, because the critics are not always right, and I love the book so much.

We shall see!

Armchair BEA Day 3 - Blogging Talk...

Blogging Q&A

Blogging 101. All kinds of tips and tricks to get you started or keep you going. Talk about ARCs, reviewing in general, web design, etc.  What blogging platform do you use? How do you network? What are some of your favorite web designs?  Or maybe you want to talk about your own blogging journey, and how you got to where you are now. Either way, we want you to share your knowledge with the rest of the community!

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I am no expert on anything blogging, there are people who have been doing it for much longer than me. However I thought that this topic was fun and a good opportunity to chat on such things. I'm really looking forward to seeing what other people have to say too!

1. I've really tried to incorporate posts that aren't reviews once a week onto the blog. It takes some more brainstorming, but I think the variety is good. Also it gives me more flexibility if I'm in a reading slump or just don't have time to get a book read and reviewed in time. I think it's gone well so far! They seem to be some of my more popular posts.

2. I love Netgalley, because goodness knows that free books are some of the best kind. However, it also gives me this anxiety knowing that I have a archive date deadline and a percentage to keep up! Whenever I get approved for a title I try and read it right away so I don't forget about it...

3.If you're a book blogger and you're not on the twitter I highly recommend you join in. It's weird in the beginning, I agree. But just start following all of your favorite bloggers and chime in occasionally and before you know it you'll get the hang of it. It's a great way to meet people and get all the good gossip :)

4. I am not tech savvy and am actually pretty proud of myself that the blog doesn't look like something I created in MS Paint. Thank goodness for pre made templates on Blogger.

5. I seem to have a problem keeping my fonts consistent. I do not know why that is but it is annoying to me (and I'm sure to readers) so I will do my best to pay attention to that more!

Armchair BEA Day 2 - Talking Social Media, kinda. I might have hijacked this topic a little...

Social Media: How do you use social media to expand your blogging/writing horizons?  Social Media is all about networking and connections, and utilizing today's technology to the fullest.  Make sure you mention your own social media pages. Do you have another blog, maybe a Tumblr? Have a Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook? Or maybe there's an underrated social media program that you like.

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Before we start here's my social media info:

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Goodreads

(Instagram is technically just my personal account but lots of bookish stuff pops up there too!)

So it probably doesn't count as social media, but I want to talk about Goodreads.

I don't think I'd be half as organized in my reading life or running this blog.

I think my favorite thing is making your own shelves. I have shelves for big books ("450 pages +") , books that are perfect to read on vacation ("vacation reads") and books that I can't get my hands on through my library ("books I want to read but the library doesn't have"). I'm super creative with the names right?

One thing that irritates me (and I know Jen from Relentless Reader talked about this too) is that there isn't a way to show that you read a book. Like if I read a book in 2012 and reread it again this year there isn't really a way to show that. Unless I made a special shelf for rereads. Which I might, because I do like making my own shelves! :) Anyone have any hints for Jen and I?

At first I was going to copy and paste all of my reviews on to goodreads but then I got super lazy and was like "naaaaaaah." Maybe someday but not now.

I was scared when Amazon bought it, but in the way that I use it, it hasn't seem to make a ton of difference...except for the lame ads embedded in the feed. That's stupid. (Though I did read one of the books it recommended once and it was awesome so whatever. It was helpful once.)

I love the giveaways! I used to win them all the time and now I hardly win any. But it's a great way to keep pulse on books that you might not hear about otherwise and add them to the TBR!

Are you on Goodreads? Want to be my friend? Have any tips to share? Any great features I'm not using?

To finish, here's an interesting graph that goodreads made (Click on picture for link to larger image:

Armchair BEA Day One! - Introductions

All! It's BEA this week! Those of us who aren't at actual BEA are participating in Armchair BEA! An (almost) week of discussion posts. It's a fun time, and I've been looking forward to it for awhile and it starts today! Hooray!

Each day I'll share the discussion question and my response. Can't wait to read everyone else's responses too!

Introductions

An Armchair BEA standard. We provide a list of ten questions beforehand, and ask that you pick FIVE. Hopefully you'll be making more friends and meeting new people, so introduce yourself and get to know others. Tell us all about yourself!

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Share your favorite blog post on your blog

I guess it would be this one where I talk about a form letter for authors and publishers who want bloggers to review their book. I think it's good hearted, almost helpful, snark.

What is your favorite genre and why?
I wouldn't really call it a favorite but I read a lot of nonfiction. Sometimes I look at my library hauls and my goodreads shelves and I'm like "uhoh , got to mix in some fiction, getting a little nonfic heavy!"

What book are you reading right now? Remember how I just said I read a lot of nonfiction? I'm in the middle of a very interesting (but sad) book called "Firestorm: Allies Air Power and the Destruction of Dresden". It's all about why the Allies decided to bomb Dresden to pieces, and why it's still kind of scandalous, much examined decision. There are more fun, less serious books in my future, I promise!

What is the top book in your TBR pile? 
I guess it would be Outlander! I've been saving it for a few months to read on a really long upcoming airplane ride. (T-8 days, Ah!)

What book are you most looking forward to reading this summer?
I've got a lot of really great sounding books waiting on my Kindle right now: Uprooted, For the Love, Rain: A Natural History and The Book of Speculation