In My Mailbox #7 Late but not *too* Late

I know it's Monday but I had a cricket game yesterday and so wasn't able to get my IMM post up and that's why I'm doing it now!

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by Kristi @The Story Siren which was inspired by a post by Alea @Pop Culture Junkie

There's no vlog this week cos every bleeding time I try and record it my webcam has a special moment and the sound ends up out of sync with the video and it looks ridiculous So I'll just try and get a photo of last week's books.

Books in Photo:
Julius - Daphne du Maurier
The Reckoning - Kelley Armstrong
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Kiss of Death - Rachel Caine
Fade Out - Rachel Caine
Carpe Corpus - Rachel Caine
Lord of Misrule - Rachel Caine
Classical Mythology

Quite a light week really, the Morganville books were ordered off Waterstones as they were having an online deal where all Morganville books were £3.50 each! The Reckoning and The Adoration of Jenna Fox were ordered off Amazon... because I felt like it and I wanted to read the third Darkest Powers books as I really like that series (I finished it this morning and really enjoyed it). Julius and the book on Classical mythology were bought from the Oxfam bookshop as they looked intriguing and were both really cheap - under £5 for the two!! Julius adds to my collection of du Maurier books which has grown nicely over the past few months.

I'm not expecting to get many or any books this weeks as the exams are creeping ever closer and my stress levels are high so that is why I'm not posting all that frequently. I also realise that I'm *very* lax with book reviews which I apologise for but I'm pretty terrible at writing helpful reviews and there are lots of bloggers who can explain what was awesome about a book *much* better than I can, so unless people demand a review of a particular book (I'm going to try and sort out a tabbed page showing my reading list for the year so far) I shall probably not post many reviews although I know that is basically the point of a book blog. In the meantime for anyone who's interested in my garbled ramblings about the books I read This link and this link go to the two threads on LibraryThing's 75 Book Challenge where I record my reading. I haven't updated the reviews for the books I've read so far in May but I'm hoping to do it soonish.

Again apologies for the lateness and general lack of book reviews on the blog I'm still rather shaky at this and I'm working on it - bring on the summer when I have bucket-loads of free time!!
LadyV

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In My Mailbox #3

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by Kristi @The Story Siren

Good morning folks! (apologies in advance for any spelling mistakes- I am writing this at 1:35am and I've just got in from a night out so things may get a little squeewiff)

This week I've been quite a good girl and only bought two books. Both were from my beloved Oxfam bookshop and only set me back £4.50 which is much improved on last weeks bookapalooza.
I bought The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and A Lost Lady by Willa Cather. Both were pretty random purchases as I've never read anything by either author before, but I mooched another book by Willa Cather the other day which should hopefully arrive before the end of the month along with my other mooch - The White Horse by Jules Watson (I'm fairly sure that's the right name but my mind is very fuzzy at this time). So I thought that I should try another book by Cather before the mooch arrived to see if I liked her work.

 

I can safely say that while this week has been quite restrained- next week is going to be a mess. I'm going to visit my boyfriend in Oxford at the weekend and there are lots of second-hand bookstores close by which we *will* be making the rounds of, so I'm probably going to come back with about 10 books or something ridiculous like that. I'm going to try my best not to buy any full-price books and not to buy so much that I have to have an extra bag to carry them back on the train but knowing me and how my bf and I egg each other on to buy bargain books it's gonna turn into a buying frenzy (which I won't regret at all).

Well seeing as it's nearly 2am here in old Blighty I'm going to go to sleep now, or I may just carry on with the book I've been reading for a group read on LibraryThing which is the World Without End by Ken Follett. It's the last week and I want to get it finished this weekend.
Anyways c'est tout pour ce week-end
Bonne Nuit!
LadyV

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Really, Super-duper Late January Round-off!

Oh god I'm such a bad blogger!! I keep promising to do posts and then I don't! I won't try to make excuses for myself because it's mostly laziness which is stopping me- that and the fact that posts take me a heck of a long time to write and I really should use my free time for other stuff as well *grumble stupid work gripe*. Anyway I'm trying to rectify things by finally doing the January summary post that I'd said I would do on Monday (I've not realised how fast this week has vanished).

Ok, well January was a very productive month when it comes to book-buying and reading. I read 23 books during the month but unfortunately I bought 26 books so I'm not doing too great at reducing my TBR pile. Although it hasn't hit 100 books yet, it is hovering around the 90 book mark so I have to make sure I don't buy *anything* during February that's not needed for my studies (I did buy two books off amazon last night for Spanish so they don't count :P).

Since I'm probably not going to have time to do separate reviews for every book I read in January I'll just post the list of the books I read and leave a link at the bottom to my thread on LibraryThing where you can find my rather naff attempts at reviews.

January
1. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (2/1/2010 AM)
2. Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris (3/1/2010 AM)
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (5/1/2010 AM)
4. The Gift by Alison Croggon (6/1/2010 AM)
5. The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth by Brian Sibley (7/1/2010 AM)
6. Darke Academy: Secret Lives by Gabriella Poole (9/1/2010 AM)
7. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (9/1/2010 AM)
8. The Marsh King's Daughter by Elizabeth Chadwick (11/1/2010 AM)
9. Dingo by Charles de Lint (11/1/2010 PM)
10. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (13/1/2010 AM)
11. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (16/1/2010 AM)
12. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (17/1/2010 AM)
13. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (20/1/2010 AM)
14. A Place beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick (21/1/2010 AM)
15. Pagan's Vows by Catherine Jinks (22/1/2010 AM)
16. Alanna: L'Epreuve by Tamora Pierce (23/1/2010 PM)
17. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (27/1/2010 AM)
18. Fallen by Lauren Kate (28/1/2010 AM)
19. The Secret Circle vol. 1 by L.J. Smith (28/1/2010 PM)
20. The Secret Circle vol. 2 by L.J. Smith (29/1/2010 PM)
21. Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen (30/1/2010 AM)
22. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (31/1/2010 AM)
23. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl (31/1/2010 PM)

The bolded books are my Five Star reads for this month. The books which are italicised are books which count towards my Books off the Shelf Challenge, the aim of which is to reduce the number of books on my long-standing TBR pile by 50. Any books which were in my library *before* the 1st December 2009 can count for this challenge- the rest will only count towards my 75 Book Challenge (link goes to my thread where the "reviews" are). 

Also on a blog-related note: I'm now up to 18 followers!! :D I'm honestly amazed I have any considering how inconsistent I am with posting (I still need to do an award post since Serpentine Librarian @The Serpentine Library passed on the Bliss (Happy 101) award to me which I totally wasn't expecting and I need to pass it on as well). But yea, so thank you to the people who are following me - I may do a rather crazy, happy post when I get to 25 followers.
Hope everyone's having a good Thursday
LadyV 

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Monday Musings

I thought it might be a good idea get into a routine of posting on here or else I'm highly likely to let it fall into neglect very quickly and then it'll be a total waste of... something that I know not.

So I decree that Monday posts shall be reserved for ramblings of a varied nature - sometimes they'll be book related, other times they may be for random musings on things in my life (not that my life outside of the internet is terribly interesting but I like to whinge about certain things from time to time).

Today several interesting and extraordinary things happened; the first was the phone call I got this morning from my sister telling me she'd slipped over outside and may have broken her ankle (it later transpired that she had indeed broken her ankle). To me this was partly amusing because in my family it's been a long-standing joke that I am never ill nor have I ever broken any bones whereas my sister has broken the same leg twice in one year and had more time off school ill than I will ever have in my life.
 But I am still concerned for her (it's my job as the older sister) as she's got to spend tonight and possibly tomorrow night in the hospital as the Doctor's want to operate on her ankle to pin a bit of bone to her tibia to stop it "flapping about" (technical medical term quoted to me by my dad) but since it's swollen to elephantine proportions they couldn't do it today.
On the bright side for her - she gets time off school (which is always enjoyable when you're fourteen) and she gets a load of time to read. I've recently managed to get my sister reading as before she hated it but since I lent her my copies of the Twilight saga she's become semi-addicted. She's read the Twilight books almost to death (they're basically her books now since I haven't read them in ages, nor do I want to) and I've been suggesting to her other books to read.
While she didn't really get on with the Sarah Dessen books I lent her she has really hooked onto Nicholas Sparks (whom I adore) after reading his newest book "The Last Song". She actually keeps pestering *me* to read it which makes a change but since I already have a mighty stack of TBRs it's not too high on my priorities. So I suggested that she read The Notebook and the other Sparks books which I own and I got the impression when I called my dad earlier that she's commandeered all of the books and has them stashed in her room which is great, so long as she doesn't damage them by leaving them about (I'm ridiculously fastidious about the condition of my books).
It is really wonderful to be able to share the books I love with my sister because we didn't use to be as close as we are nowadays. So now that we have more things in common we have truckloads of fun together and although I'm sure she won't ever have the exact same taste in books as me, it's good to know that we can find books that we *both* love.

The second extraordinary occurrence happened this evening while I was pottering about on LibraryThing which is one of my web addictions - this website (if you don't know about it) kicks ass and is brilliant for all you book-loving nerdy crazy people out there. Well anyway I got a comment on my Profile Page from a lady called Gillian Philip who is a British author who has written a YA paranormal book called Darke Academy: Secret Lives under the pseudonym of Gabriella Poole. I read this book the other week and made a small review on my 75 Book Challenge thread. I really quite liked the book since I hadn't really known what to expect what with the plethora of paranormal books for  teens that have flooded the market in the last year. I gave it a positive review and pointed out in particular that it *wasn't* a vampire book despite what impressions the cover and blurb gave.
Well Gillian actually saw my thread and left me a personal comment on my profile (she even took the time to find my real name on the page instead of just addressing me as LadyViolet) which thanked me for my review and my comments regarding the "not a vampire book" bit and she hoped I would enjoy reading the second book Blood Ties which is released in February of this year.
This comment left me totally amazed and rather impressed, that she singled me out and personally thanked me for reading and enjoying her book and for trying to convince other people to read it. It isn't everyday that the actual author of a book takes the time to speak to their readers so this just made my afternoon.

Since I have now waxed lyrical about today I shall finish now but I shall be posting again this week as I would like to try my hand at one of the weekly memes floating about the bookblogosphere - possibly Booking through Thursday which looks rather intriguing. 

Adios
LadyV

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Even Newer Beginnings

As you may notice by the lonely post from last year, this is going to be my second attempt at keeping up a book blog. I may not succeed but I really would like to be able to maintain this for at least 6 months.
I shall try to keep things simple to begin with as so not to overload myself - I'll probably do a monthly post on what books I've bought, a weekly post about any books I've read (equipped with my rather feeble reviews), and I may even try my hand at some of the memes that other book bloggers do i.e. Tuesday Teaser, Booking through Thursday, Sunday Salon etc. Hopefully I shall find what works for me and stick to it.

With regards to my reading I'm currently partaking in two challenges on LibraryThing; the 75 Books Challenge and the Books off the Shelf Challenge, the latter is in an attempt to cut down the number of books that I own that have been unread for a very long time and the former is my general thread for all the books I read this year.

If anyone has any ideas for other things I could include in this blog please let me know in the comments - I'm not too great with the whole technical stuff like redesigning the general look and layout of the blog so any changes to that will be slight and slow-going.

I shall try very hard to post again soon after I've done some blog stalking for ideas ;)
LadyV

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