Category Feature Posts

Nov 12 2013
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Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten Book Covers I Wish I Could Redesign! (11/12/2013)

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 Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

 Let’s face it, despite the old saying, most of us always consider the cover when deciding whether or not to pick up a book. I’ve always been a firm believer that the cover can tell you quite a bit about a title. Often times, publishers award the most desirable covers to the books they think are going to make them the most money. Even though it’s not a foolproof method, you could say that books with beautiful covers usually deserve a second look. That doesn’t mean a good book can’t have a crappy cover, as quite a few of my redesign selections today are among my all-time favorites. So without further ado:

 Top Ten Book Covers I Wish I Could Redesign! 

Interestingly enough, three of my ten covers were illustrated by the same person… I guess it’s safe to say his work just doesn’t speak to me. I’ve also included two Richelle Mead books because, as my favorite, I need covers that will help entice people to pick them up. There’s nothing worse than handing a customer a book with the disclaimer “don’t let the cover throw you off, it’s excellent!” The added visual really does help me get people excited to try new series. I realize a few of these actually have been redesigned, but I include them on my list anyway because I still don’t like how they were done.

  I love covers, so as a bonus I decided to include my:

Top Ten Favorite/Least Favorite Cover Redesigns:

Favorite Changes – Before:

Favorite Changes – After:

 Least Favorite Changes – Before:

 Least Favorite Changes – After:

 I liked the old designs better… I’m almost embarrassed to hand the Dawn Cook series to anybody now – it’s one of my favorite Dragon stories, but you’d never know it from the new covers.

I hope you enjoyed the extra mile I went this week. What book covers would you like to redesign? 

Nov 4 2013
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Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten Sequels I Can’t Wait to get My Hands On (11/5/2013)

Top ten Tuesday pink

 Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Sequels I Can’t Wait to get My Hands On!

The first five are sequels that have covers and release dates (and, incidentally, are the books I am most excited to pick up within the next six months):

 For the next five, I decided to feature the first books in the series, as covers, titles, and release dates aren’t yet available for their sequels. Some of these rank among my favorite books read this year, and I am impatiently awaiting the next installments:

You may notice that most of them are YA which should illustrate the direction my reading tastes have been lately. I can’t seem to help it, though, because there are so many great new authors hitting the market that I’m having trouble keeping up with them all!

Is anybody else as excited for these sequels as I am?

 by Niki Hawkes

Nov 2 2013
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Stacking the Shelves – October’s Edition!

Stacking the shelves

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Considering I own over 4000 books, I have a difficult time justifying the purchase of new books when there are so many unread ones on my shelves. I did the math, and if you subtract the ones I’ve already read, then divide the remaining by my average 100 books read per year, it will take me at least 35 years to read everything in my current collection. That’s not even taking into account all of the new amazing books that will come out in that timeframe (I can think of at least 20 I want in the next few months alone). Because of this, I have recently started to clear out some of the titles I know I won’t get to within the next ten years. There are so many unread series that I am excited for that I honestly haven’t missed the ones I was only casually interested in. Let the book purge begin!

Does that mean I’ve stopped purchasing books altogether? Uh, no. Not even close. I’m just a little more picky. :-)

Here’s a look at my library’s new additions:

Hardcopies:

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E-Books:

Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon
The Bane by Keary Taylor
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The Glasswrights’ Apprentice
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
The Fifth Wave by Ricky Yancey
Allegiant by Veronica Roth

ARCs:

Alliance by Mark Frost
Fractured by Sara Fine
Unhinged by A.G. Howard
Freak of Nature by Julia Crane
Pawn by Aimee Carter
Lady Thief by A.G. Gaughen

Thank you Netgalley!

 There you have it – my month of splurges for October!

What books stacked your shelves this week?

Nov 1 2013
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Dystopian Reading Challenge 2013 – The October Edition!

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Hosted by Blog of Erised (one of my favorite blogs), this feature challenges readers to pick up twenty-four dystopians over the course of one year. I don’t know how I’m only just finding out about this now, as I would’ve loved to participate from the beginning. Although, I haven’t missed out entirely because, as a self-proclaimed dystopian addict, I have been sort of participating all year. Here is a look at all the dystopian I’ve read (and reviewed) this month:

Inhuman by Kat F Falls
False Memory by Dan Krokos
Allegiant by Veronica Roth

 Inhuman – 4/5 stars

False Memory – 3/5 stars

Allegiant – 4.5/5 stars

 Add that to the 16 books I’ve read over the year and we end up with:

The Official Tally:

19/24

 Level 4: Leader!

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  What I love about this challenge is that it’s basically a celebration of the awesome dystopian books I would’ve been reading anyway (and it allows me to connect with other dystopian-addicts who are just as fanatical as I am).

 What dystopians have you read this year?

Oct 31 2013
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October 2013: Review Recap!

Review Recap

I actually read a ton of books that I loved this month. The only problem is, I didn’t have a chance to write reviews for all of them (I know, ultimate shame). So, although this recap doesn’t accurately reflect my month in reading, there were still some pretty decent books reviewed:

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
Book of Enchantments by Patricia C. Wrede
Hammered by Kevin Hearne

Poison Study – 4/5 stars

The Book of Enchantments – 4/5 stars

Hammered – 2/5 stars

False Memory by Dan Krokos
Inhuman by Kat F Falls
Prodigy by Marie Lu

 False Memory – 3/5 stars

Inhuman – 4/5 stars

Prodigy – 4/5 stars

And my favorite read:

Allegiant

 Allegiant – 4.5/5 stars!

As I said, most of best books I picked up this month haven’t been reviewed yet, so be on the lookout within the next couple weeks for some rave reviews!

Waiting on Wednesday features:

This is probably the best collective month of coming soon features that I’ve ever done – all of these books (with exception of the Estep book) I am so excited to read that I will be dropping everything to pick them up the day they come out!

What awesome books did you read this month?

by Niki Hawkes

Oct 29 2013
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Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten Book Covers by Luis Royo

Top ten Tuesday pink

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

 In honor of Halloween, this Top Ten post was supposed to be devoted to my favorite scary book covers. As I don’t particularly like books with creepy covers I thought I would (yet again) take it in a different direction:

 Top Ten Book Covers by Luis Royo

 Not only is Royo my favorite artists, but his works often have a bit of a darker edge – perfect for Halloween (The covers I’ve chosen lack of a little bit of that darkness, but they’re in the minority of his works. Just do a google search and you’ll see what I mean…caution: they can get pretty racy).

 I been wanting to feature these covers for a while, so I’m glad I finally found an excuse. I will admit that some of these I picked up based on the cover art alone, which sounds weird, but he hasn’t let me down yet – some of these books are among my favorites.

 There you have it! What books made your list this week?