Vonnie's Reading Corner: November 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

November Wrap-up/December's Plans 2012

November was another interesting month. I felt like I haven't had much reading done but when I look back at my read list, it's actually not bad, especially that Thanksgiving was this month and that whole week I hardly read.

So here's what I read:

Book Blogger Hop is the creation of Jen from Crazy for Books. Since October, the weekly hop has been hosted by a variety of bloggers. The next two weeks, the hop is hosted by Anglers Rest.

This week's question is:

2013 TBR Pile Challenge!

I am signing up for the 2013 TBR Pile Challenge! This challenge is hosted by Adam at Roof Beam Reader.

The goal of the challenge is to read 12 books that have been on your TBR at least one full year. What's the challenge? Well, it's required that you set your list by the end of this year and no changes are allowed after the challenge starts. Two alternatives are allowed though, just in case. 12 books in 12 months should be a easy but knowing, reading my old books from my pile is the hardest to do. I wonder why...

Here's my list:

Bibliophile's Winter Reading Challenge

The Winter Reading Challenge is about to begin over at Bibliophile from Shelfari. It runs from December 1st to February 28th. This year's theme is: End of the World. In this challenge, participants read as many books from the categories as they want to earn points. These points indicate how many raffle entries each participant earns. You can visit the challenge page here to learn more of the details. Here are the prizes the participants are working for:

Prize 1

Teaser Tuesday #22

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Should Be Reading.

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser:

"He walked into the room. Darcy's mouth fell open." Page 52 from Vamps and the City by Kerrelyn Sparks

Wisteria Book Blast & Giveaway

Title: Wisteria

Author: Bisi Leyton

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Romance

Date of Publication: Aug 2012

Number of pages: 275

Cover Artist: Olivia Smith

Wisteria by Bisi Leyton:

Sixteen year old Wisteria Kuti has two options—track the infected around the Isle of Smythe or leave the only known safe haven and face a world infested with flesh eating biters. But even with well-armed trackers, things go wrong and Wisteria ends up alone facing certain death, until she is rescued by the mysterious Bach. Uninfected, Bach is able to survive among the hordes of living dead.

Review: Angel Eyes by Shannon Dittemore

Synopsis: Once you've seen, you can't unsee. Everything changes when you've looked at the world through . . . Angel Eyes

Brielle's a ballerina who went to the city to chase her dreams and found tragedy instead. She's come home to shabby little Stratus, Oregon, to live with her grief and her guilt . . . and the incredible, numbing cold she can't seem to shake.

Jake's the new guy at school. The boy next door with burning hands and an unbelievable gift that targets him for corruption.

Les Miserables

Starring: Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman, and Clare Danes

I first watched this movie when I was 15 years old and I fell in love with the story. This movie also introduced me to one of my favorite actors, Liam Neeson. It has been a couple of years since I've seen this movie but with the upcoming new release of the musical movie version, I had to watch Liam Neeson's version again to get into the spirit (a very sad one of course, since it's a very sad story).

The story of Jean Valjean is completely tragic. He is a convict who was recently released on parole after 20 years of hard labor for stealing bread. During his incarceration, Valjean became very mean and has embodied the image of a convict. He is shown kindness by a priest who helps change Valjean's life. Given a second chance, Valjean decides not to meet his parole but instead find a better life by helping others in need.

When I first heard that Life of Pi was going to be turned into a movie, I was stunned. The book is very thought provoking and it's pretty much a boy stuck in a boat. Also, the simplicity of the storyline yet the impactful message is what made me like the book so much. So I asked myself, how on earth were they going to make this into a movie? I was skeptical but when I saw the trailer, I had to go watch it. The imagery was quite beautiful.

So on Thanksgiving, I decided to go watch it with my family. I did prepare myself though; I made sure not to have high expectations. I kept telling myself to keep an open mind to the artistry of the movie.

The Hobbit Read-a-Long Wrap-Up :)

We are done with The Hobbit Read-a-Long! This event was hosted by Sawcat's Book Blog and it was a great experience.

I first read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien back in 2000 when I was 14-years-old. Back then reading it was a challenge because I was not used to reading fantasy books. Re-reading it again now makes me appreciate the book more and astonishes me how much easier the read was for me now.

Synopsis: Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

Teaser Tuesdays #21

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB from Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Audio Review: The False Princess by Eilis O'Neal

Narrator: Mandy Williams

Synopsis: Princess and heir to the throne of Thorvaldor, Nalia has led a privileged life at court. But everything changes when she learns, just after her sixteenth birthday, that she is a false princess, a stand-in for the real Nalia, who has been hidden away for her protection. Cast out with little more than the clothes on her back, the girl now called Sinda must leave behind the city, her best friend, Kiernan, and the only life she’s ever known.

Sent to live with her only surviving relative—a cold, scornful woman with little patience for her newfound niece—Sinda proves inept at even the simplest tasks. Then she discovers that magic runs through her veins—long-suppressed, dangerous magic that she must learn to control—and she realizes that she will never learn to be just a simple village girl.

Last Minute Reading Read-a-Thon Sign-Ups!

Can you believe it? 2012 is almost over! Where has the time gone? I've been searching around other blogs to see if anyone was hosting an end of the year read-a-thon, but I coudn't find any. So, I decided to create one of my own (this is my first, hehehe).

Here's my Last Minute Reading Read-a-Thon! This read-a-thon is to encourage those who are trying to reach their year's reading goals in the last minute, knock off some of their TBR books, and/or simply want to have fun by challenging themselves to some good reading before the year ends.

Sunday is here again and it's time for H.P. Lovecraft. Today I read two short stories from the massive anthology:

"The Street"

4 stars

Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Synopsis: Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

My thoughts: This was a completely different reading experience. The narrator is a fifteen-year-old boy who has autism. One quickly comes to realize that he has a disability with the way he acts and the way he views the world. The book was an easy read but had a great message towards the end.

Friday Hops, Nov. 16th

This is a weekly blog hop hosted by the wonderful Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

Q: Books are turned into movies all the time! Turn it around. What movie would make a great book?

A: Ooh that's a tough one. Most of the movies I love are based on books, such as Phantom of the Opera, The Last of the Mohicans, Dracula, The Notebook, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc.

Review: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Synopsis: On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

My Teaser:

"I didn't like him touching me like this.
And this is when I hit him."
Page 8 from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night -time by Mark Haddon

Sunday, November 11, 2012

H.P. Lovecraft Sundays #10

Sundays are the days that a read a story from my big book, H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction, and review it here. My goal is to finish this book by the end of 2013.

Interpretation of the dream world of Lovecraft

"The White Ship"

3.5 stars

"I am Basil Elton, keeper of the North Point light that my father and grandfather kept before me."

Basil Elton, a lighthouse keeper, gets called out into the night. A great white ship has arrived, which encourages Basil to board it and go traveling to discover great lands.The ship is captained by a bearded man who follows a heavenly blue bird that guides the ship as it flies above.

The ship takes Basil to many different wonderous lands. They pass the Land of Zar "where dwell all the dreams and thoughts of beauty that come to men once and then are forgotten," Thalarion the City of a Thousand Wonders "wherein reside all those mysteries that man has striven in vain to fathom," Xura "the Land of Pleasures Unattained," and to the Land of Sona-Nyl where "neither time nor space, neither suffering nor death" existed, which Basil stays for many years.

In Sona-Nyl, Basil hears of Cathuria the Land of Hope. No man has ever seen it and Basil wants to find it. He urges the bearded man to take sail again to find this mysterious land.

Unfortunately, they meet themselves at the edge of the world and are about to crash. Basil closes his eyes from the imminent doom and when he opens them again, he is back at the lighthouse where time hasn't changed.

This was an interesting introduction to the dream world of Lovecraft. I enjoyed the different lands that the world described and I have a feeling that I'll be reading more about this land in future works. Overall, this was a good read.

If you would like to read "The White Ship", you can visit the H.P. Lovecraft Archives.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Audio Review: The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

Synopsis: In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.

The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village – self-proclaimed herbalists – and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous?

Friday Hops, Nov. 9th

The Book Blogger Hop was created by Crazy-For-Books to help connect bloggers with other bloggers.

Every week is a chance to visit a new blog or more, find connections, and learn about new books to read!

Cover Reveal - Heart of the Ocean by Heather Moore

Author Heather B. Moore

Heather B. Moore is the award-winning author of ten novels, two inspirational non-fiction books, and two anthologies, including The Newport Ladies Book Club Series, A Timeless Romance Anthology, and Christ's Gifts to Women (co-authored by Angela Eschler).

Her historical fiction is published under the pen name H.B. Moore. She is the two-time recipient of Best of State in Literary Fiction, two-time Whitney Award Winner, and two-time Golden Quill Winner for Best Novel. Her most recent historical novel under H.B. Moore is Daughters of Jared (2012 LUW Gold Award of Excellence & 2012 LUW Best Book Trailer).

Links:

Author Website:
www.hbmoore.com

Author Blog:
http://mywriterslair.blogspot.com

Timeless Romance Anthologies Blog:
http://timelessromanceanthologies.blogspot.com/

Heather B. Moore Amazon Page:
http://www.amazon.com/Heather-B.-Moore/e/B007HLYZ6A/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_2

H.B. Moore Amazon Page:
http://www.amazon.com/H.-B.-Moore/e/B001K8942Q/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1351275833&sr=1-2-ent

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/heather.b.moore.3

Facebook “Fans of H.B. Moore” page:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/37783537691/?fref=ts

Twitter:
@heatherbmoore

Book Summary:

Heart of the Ocean
by Heather B. Moore

A dark secret . . . a grieving ghost . . . a handsome stranger . . .
What more could Eliza Robinson want?
Except for maybe her life.

In Heather B. Moore’s enthralling 1840’s historical romance, Heart of the Ocean, Eliza Robinson has turned down the very pretentious Mr. Thomas Beesley’s marriage proposal. As a business partner of Eliza’s father, Thomas quickly discredits the family and brings disgrace to the Robinson name.

While her father scrambles to restore his good name in New York City, Eliza flees to the remote Puritan town of Maybrook to stay with her Aunt Maeve. Although relieved to be away from all- things-male and unforgiving gossip columns, odd things start to happen to Eliza, and she is plagued by a ghostly voice. Her aunt’s explanation? That Eliza is being haunted by a woman who died of a broken heart twenty years ago.

After Aunt Maeve is tragically killed, Eliza's life is put in danger as she tries to uncover the mystery of her aunt's death. She encounters Jonathan Porter in Maybrook, whose presence in the town seems suspicious, yet she finds herself drawn to him. When she discovers that Jonathan’s dark secrets may be the link between the dead woman who haunts her and her aunt’s murderer, Eliza realizes that Jonathan is the one man she should never trust.

Cover Reveal:

Gosh, isn't this beautiful?

Monday, November 5, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays #19

My Teaser:

" 'I'm not as poor as I look. Go ahead, get all you can,' he said. Then, touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day's work, unaware that it would be his last." page 21 in the epub file of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Sunday, November 4, 2012

H.P. Lovecraft Sundays #9

Here's another H.P. Lovecraft short story review:

"The Transition of Juan Romero"
by David Reuss

"The Transition of Juan Romero"

3.5 stars

"Of the events which took place at the Norton Mine on October 18th and 19th, 1894, I have no desire to speak."

This is a tale that takes place at a gold mine somewhere in the Southwest in 1894. The story is told by unknown named Englishman who was a former officer in Her Majesty's service in India. The narrator was also a student of Hindoo mysticism, which foreshadows that something strange will be happening in the story.

Review: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Synopsis: The chilling tale of a menacing specter haunting a small English town. Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is sent to Crythin Gifford--a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway--to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Drablow's house stands at the end of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images--a rocking chair in a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black.

My Thoughts: This was a very simple and easy read. I greatly enjoyed that the book was written in a Victorian-like manner. At first I thought that the very long sentences were going to irritate me but instead I found myself fascinated with Hill's descriptions and use of language. It almost sounded poetic.

Friday Hops, Nov. 2nd

The Book Blogger Hop was created by Crazy-For-Books to help connect bloggers with other bloggers. It is much more than just a “follow for a follow”. It’s about making friends. The Hop is about taking the time to make a quality visit to another blog, getting to know the person who is writing that blog, and seeing if you really *want* to follow that person!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations, Jessica. I've sent you an email, so please notify me in the next 48 hours :)

RAK: November Sign-Ups

{Please click on the RAK button above to be re-directed to our Book Soulmates Store on Amazon. You can find all your favorite titles there and add them to your shopping cart.}

The year is almost over! Ay, I got so many books to read before the year ends. In the meantime, let's enjoy another month of RAK hosted by Book Soulmates.

I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween last night and enjoy these next two days of Dia de los Muertos. For those affected by Hurricane Sandy, I hope you are doing well!

In the month of October, I did not receive any RAKs but I was able to send some books to my lovely friend Sarah from Sawcat's Book Blog. These are the books I sent her, which I hope she likes: