Category: Monday Musings

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Sunday Salon About Finding Books

November 24, 2013 Monday Musings 22

TSSbadge1Hi all and welcome to my first Sunday Salon post! Moving forward, this will be the meme I use to post my discussion posts and today we’ll be talking about where we find our books – especially our free books. When I started blogging, I wasn’t even aware free books were a thing. As I started reading more blogs in addition to writing, I started noticing that some people mentioned getting free books from publishers and then I was ever so pleasantly surprised when I first got my first review request. However, there are more proactive way to get free books. Obviously the library is a beautiful and amazing thing to which we should all occasionally donate. In my case, that happens when keep books out late (ones without a waiting list!) and then pay the fines. Today though lets focus on the online sources for free books. Read more »

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Monday Musing About Read-a-longs

October 7, 2013 Monday Musings 28

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I’ve been a bit reluctant to try a read-a-long because I hated the idea of having to read a book at a particular (slow!) rate. However, the past month there were two I just couldn’t pass up. Allison at The Book Wheel and Rebecca at  Love at First Book co-hosted a read-a-long of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. At the same time, Suey at It’s All About Books, Kami at Kami’s Library Thoughts, and Kathy at Read This Instead hosted a read-a-long of The Book Thief. Here’s what I liked and didn’t like about the experience of doing these read-a-longs. Read more »

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Monday Musings About Bloggiesta

September 23, 2013 Monday Musings 24

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today so I’m going to keep this short and sweet. I met almost all of my Bloggiesta goals. I finished cross-listing posts to 2 of 3 sites I use, wrote 3 of the 6 reviews I wanted to, and did 8 min-challenges even though I was only shooting for 6. Although I slept through the Saturday twitter chat, I had a lot of fun with the Sunday one. Here’s a list of what I got done: Read more »

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Monday Musing About Short Story Collections

September 16, 2013 Monday Musings 22

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I don’t read many collections of short stories, but I have twice since I started blogging. Each time I begin to write a review, I’m confronted by a dilemma. How do you review a collection with a lot of short stories? Do you review each separately? Or do you try to review them all together? Read more »

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Monday Musings About Giveaway Hops

September 9, 2013 Monday Musings 20

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

Other than participating in BlogFest last year, the Books to Movies Giveaway Hop I participated in last week was the first giveaway hop I’ve done. I generally avoid these hops for two reasons. First, I don’t currently make any money from blogging so I enjoy it being a hobby I can mostly do for free. I occasionally buy a book I can’t get at the library or as an egalley. I certainly plan on doing giveaways at follower count mile markers because seriously – you guys are awesome. But I don’t want to be paying for giveaways all the time. In this case, the chance to do a signed giveaway was too exciting to pass up 🙂 The second reason I don’t do many giveaways is a question I think many bloggers struggle with and which I’m pondering today. Do we really want followers who are only there for the giveaways? Read more »

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Monday Musing About Re-Tellings

August 26, 2013 Monday Musings 12

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

From Cinder to Thorn to the many, many, many Austen spin-offs, re-tellings and other derivative works seem to be incredibly popular lately. Personally, I adore them. Fairy tale re-tellings, classics re-tellings, re-imaginings of historical events – I love them all! And it seems many other people feel the same way, based on events like this fairy tale re-telling challenge and the Classics Re-Told event starting next week. This week I’m musing about why that’s the case… Read more »

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Monday Musings About Read-a-Thons

August 19, 2013 Monday Musings 29

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

Today is the first day of Bout of Books! Woo! So for my musing today I’m thinking about my goals for this delightfully laid back read-a-thon and would love to hear about yours. Read more »

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Monday Musings About Bookish Travel Experiences

August 12, 2013 Monday Musings 20

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

This weekend I’m out of town for a plant pathology conference in Austin, Texas and I’ve had a couple of fun, bookish travel experiences along the way. Today I’m musing about those and am interested to hear about your best bookish travel experiences as well. Read more »

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Monday Musings About Interacting With Other Bloggers

August 5, 2013 Monday Musings 58

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

If you’re a new blogger looking for advice, everyone will tell you to get social because many of us have found the social aspect of blogging the most enjoyable part. What not everyone will tell you is that not all comments are equal. I’ve tried a variety of ways of finding blogs to comment on and today I’d like to talk about the best ways to spend your commenting time if you want to create meaningful interactions, make blogging friends, and draw some new readers to your blog.
Read more »

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