My Annual Trip Around the World
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Winners: OOGY By Larry Levin
Thanks again to Anna Balasi of Hachette Books for making this giveaway possible.
The Winners are:
Lu
Ruthie (already won)
NFM Girl
Tina
Tina
Congratulations! I emailed all 3 of you. Please respond with your shipping address within 3 days to claim your prize.
Winner: Golden Hustla by Wahida Clark
Thanks again to Anna Balasi of Hachette Books for making this giveaway possible.
The Winner is:
Martha
Congratulations! I emailed you. Please respond with your shipping address within 3 days to claim your prize.
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Snowstorm by Alexander Pushkin
At the end of 1811, Marya Gavrilovna was 17 years old. She grew up in a rather rich social class but feel in love with a man from a lower class, Vladimir. Her family would not allow them to marry, so they made plans to elope. Unfortunately, I may give away spoilers if I tell you any more.
The writing was tight and fluid, as in The Queen of Spades. There was a surprise ending to the story, which I have to agree with John on, I didn't like it. I actually that it was stupid.. If you want to read a really good short story by Pushkin, read The Queen of Spades. You can find the link to that story here.
To read The Snowstorm, go here.
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays or just find out about some great short stories, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story reviews. Come join in the fun!
Mailbox Monday
I received another animal book this week and a newspaper:
Thanks to John of The Book Mine Set! I won this book as part of his Canadian Book Challenge 4. He also included a newspaper from Yellowknife. It was so cool to read a newspaper from a more remote place in Canada.
It's not too late to join the challenge! It's fun and there are more prizes to be given away. You don't have to be Canadian to join in the fun. Join up here.
Giveaway: Two Lethal Lies by Annie Solomon
Book Description:
A love to die for... On the run since his daughter was born, Mitch Turner has concealed a truth so dangerous, its discovery could jeopardize both their lives. But when a series of shocking murders hits their newfound home, the trail leads straight to Mitch. With the police out for blood and his daughter ripped from his arms, he has nowhere to turn--until a beautiful stranger offers her help. Neesy Brown has made mistakes in her life, yet she refuses to believe this mysterious man is a killer. There's a strength in his broad shoulders that draws her to him and a weariness in his eyes that she longs to ease.
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2 .Bonus Entries:
+2 Post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an referral entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this giveaway from you.
+3 Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower three times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
+3 Become a follower on Twitter. I'm teddyrose1
+3 Become a friend of Teddy Rose on Facebook
+2 comment on my book reviews (+2 for each you comment on)
That's up to 14+entries!
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the book. This giveaway will end onMonday , October 11th,11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.Friday, September 24, 2010
Giveaway: THE BODY SHOP By Paul Solotaroff
Book Description:
As a scrawny college freshman in the mid-1970s, just before Arnold Schwarzenegger became a hero to boys everywhere and Pumping Iron became a cult hit, Paul Solotaroff discovered weights and steroids. In a matter of months, he grew from a dorky beanpole into a hulking behemoth, showing off his rock hard muscles first on the streets of New York City and then alongside his colorful gym-rat friends in strip clubs and in the homes of the gotham elite. It was a swinging time, when "Would you like to dance?" turned into "Your place or mine?" and the guys with the muscles had all the ladies--until their bodies, like Solotaroff''s, completely shut down.
But this isn't the gloom-and-doom addiction one might expect--Solotaroff looks back at even his lowest points with a wicked sense of humor, and he sends up the disco era and its excess with all the kaleidoscopic detail of Boogie Nights or Saturday Night Fever.
Written with candor and sarcasm, THE BODY SHOP is a memoir with all the elements of great fiction and dazzlingly displays Paul Solotaroff's celebrated writing talent.
The number of entrants to this giveaway will determine how many copies of this book I will giveaway:
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2 .Bonus Entries:
+2 Post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an referral entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this giveaway from you.
+3 Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower three times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
+3 Become a follower on Twitter. I'm teddyrose1
+3 Become a friend of Teddy Rose on Facebook
+2 comment on my book reviews (+2 for each you comment on)
That's up to 14+entries!
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the book. This giveaway will end on Friday, October 8th,11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.
Giveaway: EATING ANIMALS By Jonathan Safran Foer
This isn't just any regular giveaway, this one is very close to my heart! As most of my regular readers know, I take my animal loving very seriously and am a vegan because of it. I don't preach about it but I would love to give this book away to anybody who is interested. Therefore, no matter how many entries there are, there will be 3 winners, unless there are less than 3 entries. LOL!
Book Description:
Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told-and the stories we now need to tell.
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2 .Bonus Entries:
+3 Go to The Animal Rescue Site and click to give away free food (there's no cost to you.)
+2 Post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an referral entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this giveaway from you.
+3 Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower three times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
+3 Become a follower on Twitter. I'm teddyrose1
+3 Become a friend of Teddy Rose on Facebook
+2 comment on my book reviews (+2 for each you comment on)
That's up to 17+entries!
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the book. This giveaway will end on Friday, October 8th,11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Nashville Chrome by Rick Bass
After Rick Bass spoke with Maxine Brown of the chart topping Browns of the 50's and early 60's, he decided to write a novel about the Browns.
The novel centers on Maxine, the oldest sister of the Browns but also includes her sister Bonnie and Brother, Jim Ed. The Browns grew up in the swamps of Arkansas during the Great Depression. Their father had a saw mill that they helped with when there was enough money to keep it going and when their father was sober enough.
The secret to his lumber's quality lay in his children's ability to discern pitch. At the end of almost every lunch break, the Brown children would be summoned to the saw-sharpening table, where the newly honed blade would be placed on an axle with a motor and then spun rapidly, as if being made ready for a cut. The sound they listened for - the perfect blade - held an eerie resonance, the faint sirenlike echo of a high harmonic that was little different from the tempered harmony the Browns were already learning to achieve with their voices.
Maxine sneaks a recording of Jim Ed singing to a radio station, where it aired and the rest was history. Not a real glamorous history mind you. After one of their shows, Fabor Robinson presents them with a contract to make the famous. He did that to a point, but kept almost all of the money they generated. There was nothing they could do about it.
Eventually they got out of the shady contract and teamed up with Chet Atkins, who became their producer and they became quite famous. Their entire family was friends with Elvis Presley and Bonnie and Elvis dated for a time.
If my review sounds a little flat, that is because I found the book to me flat. It had a repetitive edge to it that is hard to explain. It read more like a biography then a novel as there was no dialogue to speak of. With only 250 pages, there were times I felt like giving up on the book completely. This could have been a real true tribute to the Browns.
I have heard so many good things about Rick Bass and there were some pearls in his writing, just not enough to hold this reader's interest.
2.5/5
Thanks to Lissa Renner of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for this book.
Have you reviewed this book? Please leave a link to your review in the comments.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Mailbox Monday
I received another animal book this week and my favorite magazine:
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Plate by Roddy Doyle
I have known about Roddy Doyle but never read anything by him. Not too long ago, I had the perfect opportunity to read his short story, "The Plate." A book blogger, Carol reviewed it and linked to the story.
The first line of the story set the pace, "I love you but I think I’m dying."
Jim is walking around in the back yard holding his stomach. At first his wife Maeve thinks he was stabbed but he wasn't. She says she is going to bring him to the hospital but then there is a flash back to an argument they had the night before which, involved a plate.
What they were arguing about wasn't important, in fact it didn't seem like they knew exactly what they were arguing about. I think it was just setting the tone of their relationship. They seemed to love each other but bickered a lot, like many couples do.
After the flash back they get in the car and rush off to the hospital but there is a surprise ending that you wouldn't be able to guess. You'll just have to go read the story, here, if you want to know. I really enjoyed this story but I felt like I was left hanging at the end. It certainly wasnt tied up with a neat little bow. I
definitely want to read more by Doyle, now that I got a tast of his writing. You can read the story here.
Also reviewed by:
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story review. Come join in the fun!
September Reviews for the ARC Reading Challenge 2010
Diane: 11 ARCs
Kool-aid Mom: 4 ARCs
Michelle: 9 ARCs
Tina: 10 ARCs
Wanda: 2 ARCs
Bronze Level Acheived (12 ARCs):
Working Towards Silver Level:
Alyce: 22 ARCs
Caribousmom: 18 ARCsHeather: 20 ARCs
Silver Level Achieved (24 ARCs):
Gold Level Acheived (25 or more ARCs):
Andrea: 83 ARCs
Beth: 28ARCs
Caitlin: 26ARCs
Kristen (BookNAround): 55 ARCs
Nicola: 148 ARCs| Teddy: 25 ARCs |
Please post all your links in Mr. Linky for your review of books that you read in May, 2010 for this challenge. I hope everyone is enjoying their ARC's this month! *Note: if you missed posting your links last month, please always post "late" links in the current month's Mr. Linky. For example, if you forgot to post a link in February, please post it on this Mr. Linky in this post.
September Reviews for the Books Won Challenge
Honorable Mentions: Read 1-3 books won:
Becky-3
Jo-Jo-3
Julie-2
Ninefly-2
Bronzes': Read 4-6 books won:
Melydia-6
Tina-4
Wanda-6
Silver: Read 7-9 books won:
Kathy-7
Please post all your links in Mr. Linky for your review of books that you read in September, 2010 for this challenge. *Note: if you missed posting your links last month, please always post "late" links in the current month's Mr. Linky. For example, if you forgot to post a link in February, please post it on this Mr. Linky in this post.
I hope everyone is enjoying their reading this month!
Please enter your name and the name of the book in this format: Name: (Your Name, Book Title and Author's Name) for example: (Teddy, Obsessive Reading by Helen Reader).
Winner: DESPERATE DEEDS By Dee Davis
Thanks again to Anna Balasi of Hachette Books for making this giveaway possible.
The Winners are:
Linda
Simply Stacie (already won)
Samantha
Samantha
Congratulations! I emailed all three of you. Please respond with your shipping address within 3 days to claim your prize.
Winners: AH-CHOO! By Jennifer Ackerman
Thanks again to Anna Balasi of Hachette Books for making this giveaway possible.
The Winners are:
Stephanie
Becca
Congratulations! I emailed all three of you. Please respond with your shipping address within 3 days to claim your prize.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
Set on the Island of f Dejima in Japan in the early 19th century, Jacob De Zoet was trying to make a name for himself. Jacob has come all the way from Holland as a young clerk in the hopes of making his fortune. The plan was to go back to Holland to his fiancée and marry her with the approval of her wealthy father.
While on Dejima, Jacob has a chance encounter with Ortio Aibagawa, a midwife who was granted permission to learn medicine under the tutelage of Dr. Marinus. It is very rare to see a Japanese woman unless she is a prostitute. Jacob becomes infatuated with her.
The first chapter of the book grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. It was of a childbirth that Ortio was midwife for. The child appeared to be dead but Ortio breathed life into him. It's too bad that the next 130 pages didn't hold my interest much. They were about the day to day business of Jacob as a clerk. To me they were boring and at times, hard to understand. I felt like I needed to have an interest in Jacob's job as a clerk, to understand what was going on. Historically, it seemed quite accurate but painfully boring to me.
When Ortio was brought back onto the pages, the story picked up again for me. She ended up in a horrific place that I had to see resolved. That is what kept me reading this book. It was these parts of the book that made me fall in love with David Mitchell's writing.
I have had David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green on my "to be read" list for a very long time. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet is the first book I have read by him but certainly won't be the last.
3.5/5
Thanks to Good Reads and David Ebershoff of Random House for an advance readers copy of this book.
Also reviewed by:
S is for the ship that Jacob De Zoet sailed on from Holland, Shenandoah and for the horrific place Ortio ended up at, The House of Sisters, Mount Shiranui Shrine.
David Mitchell is coming to the 2010 Vancouver Writers and Readers Festival. He will be at four different events at the festival. I will be seeing him at event #53, Japaning and event #62 The Sunday Brunch. If your going to be in Vancouver, come join the fun!
David Mitchell is coming to the 2010 Vancouver Writers and Readers Festival. He will be at four different events at the festival. I will be seeing him at event #53, Japaning and event #62 The Sunday Brunch. If your going to be in Vancouver, come join the fun!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Missives from Possible Futures #1, Alternate History Search Results by John Scalzi
In a way, the photo is a good representation of what this story is about. The story is actually written as an advertisement to customers of "Multiversity", interested in alternative history. All the customer needs to do is tell the company what alternative history she/he would like and they get a fully researched report.
They use the death of Adolf Hitler in the sample scenarios. For instance the first sample scenario is "Adolf Hitler is Killed by Mugging on the Steps of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna." The results and scenarios get get more crazy as the story progresses. It's really a fun story and has made me want to read more by John Scalzi. You can read the story, here.
Also reviewed by:
The Book Mine Set
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story review. Come join in the fun!
Winner: THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein
Thanks again to Sarah Daily of Terra Communications for making this giveaway of this book possible.
The Winner is:
Susan
Congratulations! I emailed you. Please respond within two days to claim your prize.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Giveaway: OOGY By Larry Levin
Book Description:
In the bestselling tradition of Rescuing Sprite comes the story of a puppy brought back from the brink of death, and the family he adopted.
In 2002, Larry Levin and his twin sons, Dan and Noah, took their terminally ill cat to the Ardmore Animal Hospital outside Philadelphia to have the beloved pet put to sleep. What would begin as a terrible day suddenly got brighter as the ugliest dog they had ever seen--one who was missing an ear and had half his face covered in scar tissue--ran up to them and captured their hearts. The dog had been used as bait for fighting dogs when he was just a few months old. He had been thrown in a cage and left to die until the police rescued him and the staff at Ardmore Animal Hospital saved his life. The Levins, whose sons are themselves adopted, were unable to resist Oogy's charms, and decided to take him home.
Heartwarming and redemptive, OOGY is the story of the people who were determined to rescue this dog against all odds, and of the family who took him home, named him "Oogy" (an affectionate derivative of ugly), and made him one of their own.
The number of entrants to this giveaway will determine how many copies of this book I will giveaway:
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2 .Bonus Entries:
+2 Post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an referral entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this giveaway from you.
+3 Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower three times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
+3 Become a follower on Twitter. I'm teddyrose1
That's up to 9 entries plus any referral entries.
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the book. This giveaway will end on Friday, September 24th,11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified. Tweet
Giveaway: The Golden Hustla by Wahida Clark
Book Description:All of Georgia law enforcement is aware that WMM Advertising-also known as "We Make Millionaires"-is one of the biggest and hardest-to-penetrate fraudulent telemarketing firms in the state. But when a tape recording of a man's death surfaces that may involve WMM, Atlanta homicide detective Danny Houser realizes that he may actually have the smoking gun needed to go after the firm. All he needs is someone inside WMM to sniff out the company's secrets. Soon he sets his sights on Alexis Greenspan, aka Nina Coles, the telemarketer's top sales associate. Approaching retirement, Houser will do everything in his power to manipulate Coles and solve this one last case...no matter who gets hurt in the process.
The number of entrants to this giveaway will determine how many copies of this book I will giveaway:
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
Here are the rules:
1. For one entry, leave a comment. Please be sure to include your email address (if it isn't available in your profile), so that I can contact you if you win. If I can't find your email either in the comments or your profile, you will be disqualified!
2 .Bonus Entries:
+2 Post about this giveaway on your blog and leave link to your blog post in the comments. You will also get an referral entry for each person who tells me that they learned about this giveaway from you.
+3 Become a Follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader or other subscription service. If you are already a subscriber or follower you still get the five extra entries! Please do not comment that you are a follower three times! I will give you the extra entries myself. I will delete any extra entries that you make as it will just confuse me when I go to pick the winners.
+3 Become a follower on Twitter. I'm teddyrose1
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only.
The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O. Boxes.
Only one entry per household/IP address
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the book. This giveaway will end on Friday , September 24th, 11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email, so remember to include your email address in the comments, if it isn't available in your profile! Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.
Tweet
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
For the King's Favor by Elizabeth Chadwick
Ida de Tosney was a ward of King HenryII through childhood. As a teenager she was presented to the King who would determine her future. Hopefully he would find a suitable marriage for her and she would have a happy life. However, once set eyes on Ida, he decided to keep her for himself and kept her as his mistress. She had no say in the matter.
Ida prayed that she wouldn't become pregnant and have King Henry's bastard child. She took every preventative measure she could find however, she conceived a son. Though she was worried about the religious ramifications, she fell in love with her son. In the mean time, she became infatuated with Roger Bigod.
Roger had a story of his own. He rebelled against his father and took the side of King HenryII. He spent the majority of the time trying to win the Kings favor and getting his family land holdings after his father died. His rightful title was Earl and he wanted it.
Eventually, King Henry married Ida de Tosney off to Roger Bigod and they had many children of their own. However, the son she had with King HenryII, was kept from her.
Many of my friends, including those at Historical Tapestry have been encouraging me to read a Elizabeth Chadwick book for a very long time. I have had her on my TBR and finely had the chance to read one of her books when I received an invitation to review this advance readers' copy.
Chadwick did not disappoint! She had a good cast of characters from real life to draw from. She made them come back to life with richly textured scenes of England and Royalty. I felt like I was one of the maids, getting to witness everything that happened. I will definitely be reading more Chadwick in the future!
Note: For the King's Favor was released previously as The Time of Singing.
4.5/5
Thanks to Danielle Jackson of Sourcebooks, Inc. for this book.
Also reviewed by:
If you reviewed this book, please include the link in the comments so I can give you some "link love."
"R" is for Roger Bigod
Monday, September 6, 2010
Riff-Raff by Heather O'Neill
which, is on my TBR (to be read). I thought I could get a tase of her writing by reading one of her short stories.Riff-Raff is narrated by an un-named 19 year old woman from Montreal. She is in a bad relationship with a man, Leroy, whom she met at McGill University. She claims that, "I prayed that I would have the strength to leave him, but I never did."
As her first year of school was coming to an end, she met an "American boy" and she decided it was time to change her life. She was going to follow the American back to New Mexico. Her father paid for the Greyhound Bus ticket and she had $80 to cover meals for the three day trip. However, in St. Louis something happened.
I don't want to spoil the story, so this is all I will tell you.
This is a truly Canadian story. In fact, Ms. O'Neill throws in some Canadian Steriotypes into her story telling. I liked Ms. O'Neill's writing style however, I am finding the devise of making fun of Americans using Canadian Stereotypes a bit old. Because of this, I wasn't too crazy about the overall plot and the ending was lame.
That said, I would like to read more by Heather O'Neill. She does show great writing potential. You can read Riff-Raff here.
Also reviewed by:
The Book Mine Set
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story review. Come join in the fun!
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