Tag: Books

Favorite Book Giveaway

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Click to viewI love lists.  Last year I decided to waste many hours compiling a 100 Favorite Books list.  This is certainly not a perfect list.  I rarely re-read books, so I relied on my memory.  Some are on the list because of the way they made me feel, some for the way they made me think, some for pure fun, and some for the way they shaped my childhood.  The list will forever be changing, but that’s part of the fun, right?

So, for my 11th and last birthday giveaway I will be choosing one winner on October 31st.  And what that winner wins is up to them.  The winner will choose any one book from my 100 Favorite Books list!!!  I’m pretty sure that everyone can find at least one book on that list that they want.  A few clarifications…I will choose the BRAND NEW edition you win and if there is a series of books listed you still only win one book, but which one is up to you.

To enter-

*Leave a comment with your email address on this post.

**If you would like an extra entry you can Tweet about it or add it on your blog.

***I will have 3 Monday quizzes before I pick a winner (QUIZ 1 – QUIZ 2).  For every question that you answer correctly first, you will earn one extra entry (so for 10 questions there are 10 extra entries up for grabs).

Open internationally.

I think that’s it.  Easy and fun.  I’m so glad to get to share one of my favorite books with you.  So, leave a comment and hope for a win 🙂

For a list of my 10 earlier winners, check here.

Birthday Winners!

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I’ve had a great 38th birthday.  Diner breakfast, church, apple picking, dinner and shopping at Joseph-Beth Bookstore, and opening up my present from my hubby, a pair of Adidas tennis shoes that he designed himself!  I’m the only one on the planet with these shoes – how cool is that?  Anybody can do it through the Adidas website if you are looking for an extra special gift.  Mine even say Go Bucks!

Anyway, on to what you are all really looking for, WINNERS!  I’ll be sending all winners an email, but if you want to email me your snail mail address, please do.  stacybooks@yahoo.com  I chose all winners from drawing names out of a hat (Seriously.  My apple picking hat).  Thanks for entering and congratulations to the winners!

 Travel Writing by Peter Ferry – #11 madwoman-doing-cartwheels

Transparency by Frances Hwang – #5 Rebecca Cox

Mary Kay Eye Gel – #9 Margot

Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips – #8 CeeCee

Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer Lee – #2 Wordlily

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman – #1 Carol

Heaven & Hell by Don Felder – #4 Heather

Bookmark Pens – #45 Trisha

The Red Siren by ML Tyndall – #2 Julie H.

Wifey by Judy Blume – #16 Rosa Maria

I promised you an 11th birthday giveaway.  When I get the post done.  I’ll link to it here.

Book Giveaway – Wifey by Judy Blume

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HB 10

This is a used mass market paperback, read twice.  Originally published in 1978, 276 pages.  Here’s the B&N synopsis–

With more than four million copies sold, Wifey is Judy Blume’s hilarious, moving tale of a woman who trades in her conventional wifely duties for her wildest fantasies-and learns a lot about life along the way.

Sandy Pressman is a nice suburban wife whose boredom is getting the best of her. She could be making friends at the club, like her husband keeps encouraging her to do.

Or working on her golf game.
Or getting her hair done.

But for some reason, these things don’t interest her as much as the naked man on the motorcycle…

To enter to win leave a comment with your email address. 

To earn one extra entry you can post this on Twitter or post it on your blog.  Leave me a separate comment telling me you did.

Open internationally.  Winner will be picked on October 11th.

WINNER – ROSA MARIA

Book Giveaway – The Red Siren by M.L. Tyndall

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HB 9

Today’s giveaway is a trade paperback read twice- gently.  Published in 2008, 318 pages.  Here’s my reiew and the B&N synopsis-

You’ll find it hard to come up for air once you dive into this suspense-filled historical romance where a lady pirate meets her match in a God-fearing naval captain.

To enter to win leave a comment with your email address. 

To earn one extra entry you can post this on Twitter or post it on your blog.  Leave me a separate comment telling me you did.

Open internationally.  Winner will be picked on October 11th.

The Taking, by Dean Koontz

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Taking by Dean Koontz: Book CoverFinished 10-8-09, rating 4/5, fiction, pub. 2004

Nevertheless, though this cross-section of humanity had shared the same experiences and had drawn the same conclusions – that their species was no longer the most intelligent on the planet and their dominion of Earth had been usurped – they could not come together to devise a mutually agreeable response to the threat.  Four philosophies divided the occupants of the tavern into four camps.

Chapter 19

Molly and Neil live in a small mountain town, secluded from the big cities and vacations spots.  One night it starts raining, only the rain is not rain and it is raining everywhere in the world at once.  Molly and Neil decide they need to join with others for safety and head to town, where they find four groups of people.  At the meeting place in the tavern they are cut off from the world, no television, internet, phones and there are those who think the world is ending and they plan to meet their maker drunk and happy, those who say to wait to talk to the invaders, those who want to stock up on gun power and take the fight to the occupiers, and those on the fence, undecided between three bad choices.

Molly, with some prodding by a dog named Virgil, decides she and Neil need to round up all the children and get them to safety, although they have no idea where that may be.  The world is being consumed by a fungus and ghostlike entities that can walk though walls.  As Molly and Neil head around town there is peril at every turn and the Earth’s final days seem like a foregone conclusion.

This book is a spooky nightmare full of despair and surprising faith.  It is an alien film come to life on the page and seen through the eyes of a young woman trying to do the right thing even if she doesn’t know what that is.  This book will scare you and it may depress you, but it will also make you think.  I wish I could tell you about the unexpected ending, because there is a lot to discuss, but I can’t without ruining the book. 

I really enjoyed it and it is perfect if you are in the mood for some spooky Halloween reading. 

This book was from my personal library.

1001 Books For Every Mood by Hallie Ephron

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1001 Books for Every Mood by Hallie Ephron: Book CoverFinished 10-4-09, rating 4/5, non-fiction, pub. 2008

I loved this book of book lists and recommendations.  Ephron chose to list one book per author and the format is easy and fun to read.  There are bits of trivia included too.  Of the 1001 books she has listed, I have read 65 and 33 of those are on my personal Top 100 list.

Since this is essentially a book of lists I chose one book from each category to add to my own TBR list.  Some of these books I already own!  So, for this review I am going to list every category -grab a cup of coffee and get comfy- and the book I chose so that you can get a taste of what’s in here.  And I’ll have an electronic list.  I’ve starred the books I already own.

Are you in the mood…

For a laugh…Sick Puppy by Hiaasen

For a Good Cry…Mama Day by Naylor

For a Wallow in a Slough of Despond…Miss Lonely Hearts by West

To Behave…Domestic Manners of the Americans by Trollope

To Misbehave…Fear of Flying by Jong*

To Go Over the Edge…American Psycho by Ellis

To Love…Gone With the Wind by Mitchell*

To Love Again…Foreign Affairs by Lurie

To Celebrate Friends…The Chosen by Potok*

To Celebrate Siblings…Founding Brothers:The Revolutionary Generation by Ellis

To Remember Mama…The Joy Luck Club by Tan*

To Remember Dear Ol’ Dad…Independence Day by Ford

To Blame Your Genes…The Source:A Guidebook of American Genealogy by Szucs

To Celebrate the Season…The Stupidest Angel by Moore

To Hug Your Dog…Travels With Charley by Steinbeck

To Sift Through Clues…No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Smith

To Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid…The Turn of the Screw by James

To Dream…The Alchemist by Coehlo

To Be Astounded…Mists of Avalon by Bradley

To Hit a Home Run…The Kid from Tomkinsville by Tunis

For Action…The RElic by Preston & Child

For Grand Adventure…Life of Pi by Martel*

For Apocalyptic Vision…The Stand by King

For a Walk on the Wild Side…Aminal Farm by Orwell*

For Thrills…The Silence of the Lambs by Harris

For Chills…Into Cold Blood by Capote*

For Intrigue…The Faithful Spy by Berenson

For Theatrics…Show Boat by Ferber

To Play the Game…Paper Lion by Plimpton

For a Musical Interlude…Bel Canto by Patchett

For Romance…I Capture the Castle by Smith

For Revenge…Life & Loves of a She-Devil by Weldon

For Heartbreak…Kate Vaiden by Price

For Heartburn…Fast Food Nation by Schlosser

For Adolescent Angst…All the Pretty Horses by McCarthy

To Indulge your Inner Child…A Little Princess by Burnett

To Clean your Plate…The Debt to Pleasure by Lanchester

To Satisfy your Curiousity…A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson

To Indulge your Senses…Perfume:The Story of a Murderer by Suskind

To Laugh & Cry at the Same Time…A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Eggers*

For Hubris…The Bonfire of the Vanities by Wolfe*

For Greed…She’s Come Undone by Lamb*

For Historical…Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Gurganus*

For Hysterical…Lucky Jim by Amis

For Shock…The Virgin Suicides by Eugenides

For Outrage…Roots by Hailey*

For Hope…The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Gaines*

For Inspiration…A Prayer for Owen Meany by Irving*

For Redemption…Deep End of the Ocean by Mitchard*

For a Shot in the Arm…How to Win Friends & Influence People by Carnegie*

For a Kick in the Pants…Nickel & Dimed by Ehrenreich*

To March into Battle…Machine Dreams by Phillips

To Run Away from Home…Under the Tuscan Sun by Mayes

To Join the Circus…The Aerialist by Schmitt

To Take a trip…A Walk in the Woods by Bryson

To Take a Trip in the Fast Lane…Around the World in 80 Days by Verne

To Trip Down Memory Lane…A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Smith

To Trip the Light Fantastic…My Life by Duncan

To Soar…The Right Stuff by Wolfe

To Set Sail…To Say Nothing of the Dog by Willis

To Slide Down the Rabbit Hole…The Eyre Affair by Fforde

To Bend Your Mind…The Illustrated Man by Bradbury

To Get Philosophical…Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig*

To Strike it Rich…Blink by Gladwell

To Get Wasted…Valley of the Dolls by Susann

To Get Sober…Charming Billy by McDermott*

To Suffer…Train by Dexter

To Suffer (No) Fools…The Emperor’s Children by Messud

To Survive…Kindred by Butler

To Trust No One…Tortilla Curtain by Boyle

To Grieve…The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Edwards

To Turn On…Lady Chatterley’s Lover by Lawrence*

To Turn Off…The Art of Doing Nothing by Vienne*

To Revel in Words…On Writing Well by Zinsser

To Revel in Wit…Leaving Home by Buchwald

To Revel in Art…The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Chevalier*

To Save the World…Change the World by Quinn

To Defy Expectations…The Diving Bell & The Butterfly by Bauby*

To Reinvent Yourself…Frankenstein by Shelley*

This was a library copy.

Book Giveaway – Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001) by Don Felder

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HB 7

Today’s FREE book is a BRAND NEW hardcover.  Published in 2008, 332 pages.  Here’s the B&N synopsis–

The Eagles are the bestselling, and arguably the tightest-lipped, American group ever. Now band member and guitarist Don Felder finally breaks the Eagles’ years of public silence to take fans behind the scenes. He shares every part of the band’s wild ride, from the pressure-packed recording studios and trashed hotel rooms to the tension-filled courtrooms, and from the joy of writing powerful new songs to the magic of performing in huge arenas packed with roaring fans.

To enter to win leave a comment with your email address. 

To earn one extra entry you can post this on Twitter or post it on your blog.  Leave me a separate comment telling me you did.

Open internationally.  Winner will be picked on October 11th.

Teaser Tuesday – The Taking

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teasertuesdays31Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of 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.

The chill that spread through Molly was different from any that she had experienced previously.  It was not a quivery thing localized along the spine or the nape of the neck, did not shiver through her like a vagrant breath of eternity, but lingered.  A coldness seemed to be spawned in the very cavities of her bones, in the red-and-yellow mush of marrow, from which it spread outward to every cell in every extremity.

The Taking by Dean Koontz Chapter 21

Cover Image

Okay, so it’s three sentences, but who’s counting?  This is a perfect one for Halloween-time.  What are you reading today?

Book Giveaway – Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

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HB 6

Today’s free book is a like-new mass market of Leaves of Grass.  Here’s the synopsis of this classic-

Whitman is today regarded as America’s Homer or Dante, and his work the touchstone for literary originality in the New World. In Leaves of Grass, he abandoned the rules of traditional poetry – breaking the standard metered line, discarding the obligatory rhyming scheme, and using the vernacular. Emily Dickinson condemned his sexual and physiological allusions as ‘disgraceful’, but Emerson saw the book as the ‘most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed’. A century later it is his judgment of this autobiographical vision of the vigor of the American nation that has proved the more enduring.

To enter to win leave a comment with your email address. 

To earn one extra entry you can post this on Twitter or post it on your blog.  Leave me a separate comment telling me you did.

Open internationally.  Winner will be picked on October 11th.

First Lines Quiz

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Check out the answers to last week’s Presidential Censorship Quiz.

Here’s how to play…Identify the first lines of these famous novels by telling me what book it’s from.  Leave a comment with the # of the first line and the title of the book and I’ll cross it off the list.  No Googling, that’s cheating and no fun!  

As a hint here are the authors you’ll find quoted here – Moore. London, Hurston, Crace, Jackson, Eugenides, Gilbert, McCullers, Hoffman, Gaiman, Hoeg, Sedaris, Frazier, Fforde, Nabokov, Steinbeck, Smith, Tolstoy, Leonard, Alcott

1. When the teacher asked if she might visit my mother, I touched my nose eight times to the surface of my desk. NAKED by DAVID SEDARIS

2. In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together.  THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER BY CARSON MCCULLERS

3. In a country such as Amerika, there is bound to be a hell-of-a-lot of food lying around just waiting to be ripped off.  STEAL THIS BOOK by ABBIE HOFFMAN

4. At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring.  COLD MOUNTAIN by CHARLES FRAZIER

5. “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – Beth F

6. Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom.  The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore – Tiny Librarian

7.No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.  THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE BY SHIRLEY JACKSON

8. When Fat Charlie’s dad named something, it stuck.  Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, Thoughts of Joy

9. Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.  THE CALL OF THE WILD by JACK LONDON

10. It’s freezing-and extraordinary 0 degree Fahrenheit-and it’s snowing, and in the language that is no longer mine, the snow is qanik-big, almost weightless crystals falling in clumps and covering the ground with a layer of pulverized white frost.  SMILLA”S SENSE OF SNOW by PETER HOEG

11. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – Fleurfisher

12. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy- Calila

13. When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio’s on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off.  GET SHORTY by ELMORE LEONARD

14. On the morning  the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide-it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese-the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope. – The Virgin Suicides (Wanda) by JEFFREY EUGENIDES

15. Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.  THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON

16. Going to Ford’s Theatre to watch a play in like going to Hooters for the food.  EAT ,LOVE ,PRAY by ELIZABETH GILBERT

17. My father had a face that could stop a clock.  The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde – Fleurfisher

18. To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.  Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – Calila

19. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock.  Lolita by Vladimir – Candice

20. For old time’s sake, the doctors of zoology had driven out of town that Tuesday afternoon to make a final visit to the singing salt dunes at Baritone Bay.  BEING DEAD by JIM CRACE

I found all of these lines in 1001 Books for every Mood and I”ll be reviewing it on Wednesday.