Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for Pictures] 

Playful: Pippa climbs back aboard as William jokingly grabs Kate; right, the sisters relax on deck, with Kate using her camera
Sunshine days: William, in red shorts, with Pippa (left), Carole, in green bikini, and other holiday guests
They show the Prince larking around with Kate and Pippa, the girls' mother Carole and their brother James on a boat belonging to Carole's brother Gary Goldsmith during a week-long sunshine holiday to Ibiza.
Pippa shows off her athletic prowess -- and her enviably toned physique -- performing a backwards dive into the sea.
Kate, who also looks stunning in her white bikini, is content to stand back and watch.
Heir in the air: Watched by Carole, Kate, James (in the patterned shorts) and Pippa, William attempts a backflip from the boat...
... but the young royal finishes with an ungainly belly-flop into the water
Making waves: The Prince failed to match Pippa's graceful aquatic display
Carole, who won admiration at the wedding for her elegant appearance, also reveals a youthfully trim figure in an emerald green bikini.
Meanwhile, in his red swimming shorts, William could be any young man eager to impress his girlfriend by performing a backflip -- which somehow turns into a belly-flop by the time he hits the water.
Her Royal Hotness: Pippa in her bridesmaid's dress at her sister's wedding
The pictures reveal the extent to which the Middletons invited William into the heart of their family.
During their week in Ibiza, they stayed at Gary's £5million villa, dubbed 'La Maison de Bang Bang'.
source: dailymail

VIA William larks around on a boat in Ibiza with Kate and the Middleton clan in never-before-seen pictures

Bumps ahead: A rep for the actress has denied the claims by US publications that she is expecting
'She's not pregnant and this photo looks doctored,' Ina Treciokas told E! News on Monday.
The 32-year-old's slightly protruding belly was obvious beneath her tight-fitting top and jeans as she browsed the shoe department of Barney's New York in Beverly Hills.
Mail Online has spoken to the picture agency Xposure who confirm that the pictures were not altered in any way.
'We never doctor pictures to make anyone look fat, thin, pregnant, and so on. We have not doctored these pictures,' Xposure's David Taylor says.
Only child: Katie and Tom dote on daughter Suri, five
Pregnancy: Katie pictured with Tom Cruise while she was pregnant with Suri in 2006

Katie has struggled to revive her acting career since marrying Tom, pictured with her last week
source:dailymail

VIA I'm not pregnant! Katie Holmes denies reports she is expecting baby number two

VIA The Lazarus Pit?

I am participating in the Dewey Readathon today! My readathon mornings are always messed up. I always oversleep, and it seems like I'm always going to my parents' house for the weekend. This readathon was new different. I got started about two hours late, nine o'clock my time. I haven't wasted much time though, one and a half books finished. Jason and I made a little pit stop in Pella, Iowa on the way home to meet some of family for lunch. Now I'm at my parents' house to read for an hour before we go get our engagement pictures taken.

Time spent reading: 15/21
Pages read: 704
Hours listened: 3
Books completed: The Walking Dead Volume 2 by Robert Kirkman, Welcome to My Country by Lauren Slater, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Pharmacist's Mate by Amy Fusselman
Activities completed: None
Trees planted: 8

I'll be returning to update this post throughout the day. You might be wondering about trees planted. For each book I finish during the readathon I am planting two trees through Eco-Libris.

Update: My engagement pictures are complete! We had a lot of fun getting out pictures taken and I read a little Shakespeare during the photo shoot. I'm sure I'll share some of those later. For now I will just say The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a fantastic book. A really quick read too! Also, I didn't fill this out during hour one, so I'm doing it now.

1) My parents' house in Altoona, Iowa. Started at my house in Iowa City, Iowa and read on the road in between.
2) I love essays, almond macaroons are my favorite cookie, and I'm probably going camping next weekend.
3) 10
4) I don't really have any specific goals this time around, I'm just hoping to get a lot of reading done!
5) Relax and have fun. Try to get some actual reading in instead of checking up on everyone else's blogs!

Update: It's now 11:18 here. I went and got some dinner, took a nap, and started two books. I was originally planning on reading Molly Fox's Birthday, but decided it wasn't really working for today. Right now I'm reading Welcome to my Country by Lauren Slater instead. I've been working on some art projects for school while listening to Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World, which has been a nice break from reading and a good opportunity to get some work done. Now I think I'm going to get back to some real text reading for a few hours. Who is still out there? Are you hanging in there?

Update: A few hours have gone by since my last update. I'm officially starting to get tired. I've accomplished a lot more in this readathon than I thought I would. I've finished four books and made a pretty good dent in the beginning of an audiobook. I even managed to get a little homework done. In the last few hours I read a graphic novel to give my eyes a rest from all the text. In the next couple hours I think I might listen to some audio while trying to get some more homework done and then see how I feel.

Update: This will probably be my final update for the readathon. My eyes are heavy and I'm at the beginning of a book which is making it difficult for me to keep up with it. I might try to get up after a little nap to read just a little bit more-but I am basically done for this readathon. I also keep thinking about the paper I have to write tomorrow and how I should probably be a little coherent for that!

How is your readathon going? If you're not participating then how are you spending your Saturday?

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

During the readathon I had to spend a couple hours getting my engagement pictures taken. A few of you expressed interest in seeing the results of these pictures. I've only seen about six of them so far but I'm really happy with the results. My best friend from high school took them. She has a great photography business called Katharyne Dunn Photography-- so you should check her out if you are so inclined.

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Price was dressed in a pair of tight jeans and an off-the-shoulder cream knitted jumper which emphasised her extremely dark tan.
Lovebirds: Price and Penna dress down for their night out in Soho. Price's boyfriend appears very protective of her
The mother-of-three had her bleached locks loose around her shoulders and added a flash of colour with bright pink nails.
Penna, 26, was wearing a grey jumper and ripped grey jeans and appeared extremely protective of Price. He held her hand tightly and ushered her into their car as they headed home at the end of the evening.
Toned down: We are more used to seeing Price in full make-up, as at her novel launch last year, left, compared with her natural look last night
It was at this point that Price turned her own camera on the paparazzi.
She picked up a camera, and after working out how to take pictures on it, wound down the window of the car and snapped a few shots of the photographers as they took pictures of her.
Snap happy: Price turns her camera on waiting paparazzi at the end of her night out with Penna
So no upcoming nuptials? Price gets to grips with the camera. She appears ring free, having sported a large sparkler on her engagement finger last week
Price had sparked rumours, albeit with a large helping of scepticism, that she and Penna were engaged when she wore a huge ring on her engagement finger at a book signing last week.
But while she was ring-free last night she kept her new tattoo, which she had completed on her most recent visit to South America, under the sleeve of her jumper.
source: dailymail

VIA Is that really you Katie? Make-up free Miss Price looks fresh faced

Weekly Geeks 2009-15 comes from animal lover Wendy of Caribousmom:

How many of us remember a favorite pet from our childhood? Or have enjoyed visiting the zoo? Or relish in walking in the woods and hearing birdsong, or seeing a deer leap away through the brush? How many of us have been thrilled by a soaring eagle? How often have we sought the comfort of a dog or cat, or wept tears of loss when forced to say good-bye to a furred friend?

This week you are asked to share books (fiction or nonfiction) and/or movies which center around an animal or animals.

• Which are your favorites?
• Which touched your heart the most?
• Which have found their way onto your wish lists or TBR stacks?
• Is there a childhood favorite?
• Have you ever named a pet after an animal from a book or movie?

Please stop by the original Weekly Geeks post to see who has signed Mr. Linky and participated in this week's theme! Meanwhile, here are a few posts that caught my eye; please keep in mind that I'm a dog person, so it's possible I'm showing some favoritism.

Molly at My Cozy Book Nook shares her love of Labrador retrievers - Marley, of course, and a couple of her own - which perseveres despite her allergy to dogs.

Lizzy of Booking It named her Yorkie after author Douglas Adams, and the dog's toys are all named for characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

On her blog Kiss a Cloud, Claire shares animal-themed picture books and pictures of her brother's beagles. In a similar vein, Infant Bibliophile offers a round-up of all of the children's books about animals (and there are a LOT) that he (and his mom) have reviewed on their Chronicle.

But just to show that I'm not dog-ist, I'll point you toward a few other Geeks and their favorite critters:

Sarah of Puss Reboots is all about - go on, guess - cats!

Frances at Nonsuch Book raves about ravens

It's All About Books and animals at Suey's, where she has posted pictures of her pets and a list of her Top Ten Animal Books

Thanks to all the animal-loving Geeks who joined in this week! Look for the new theme to be posted tomorrow.

Hello blogging world! I am officially back in my own house in Iowa City. I'm still not freshened up from my trip, there is laundry and unpacking to do, but I couldn't wait another day to write a blog post. I had every intention of posting more while I was absent, but if I'm being totally honest I loved the break from blogging. I think I really needed it. And now I'm back to bombard with you with pictures from my trip. Jason and I hit up four countries and five cities in seventeen days. It was crazy.

We landed in Amsterdam first, and that was the only place I blogged from. It was also my favorite place we visited. I loved biking around the city and how Amsterdam is a city yet really feels more like a small town.

Favorite Amsterdam moment: Absolutely everything was closed on New Year's Day, so we ended up renting bikes and just riding around all day. It was frustrating at the time because none of our plans worked out, but now that I know we got to do everything we wanted (pretty much) I look back on that day with a great fondness.

From Amsterdam we took a short day trip to Brussels where there is a comic strip museum. Count me excited! Brussels also has a ton of amazing food and was probably the best food we had over the course of our trip.

Favorite Brussels moment: My mouth is still watering over the mulled wine and scalloped potatoes with ham and cheese. What a delicious snack. The comic strip museum was a lot of fun as well, although their gift shop was a huge letdown. Their English selection was one shelf. So yeah, the food wins.

Our next stop was Berlin, which is must say is one of the strangest cities I have ever visited. There is so much street art and punk culture there, which I really loved, but I found that the people were very abrupt. Not rude, just a little harsh. The way Berlin exists today is also about as old as I am, which was weird. You can really see the history of WWII and Communism there, which only makes the city feel harsher.

Favorite Berlin moment: I really loved this particular section of the Berlin Wall, but it's not my favorite moment. I'd have to say the best thing we did in Berlin was visit this bar called Kaufbar. You could buy the vintage furniture in there and they played awesome music. It was a very relaxing environment and felt more like a normal coffeeshop in the United States than a bar.

We took a day trip to Prague from Berlin. All we really had time for was a tour of the city and then some time at bars that evening. This is where we met one thousand Australians because they are all on summer holiday right now. I've met one Australian my whole life and I go to Europe and meet all of them. Crazy.

Favorite Prague moment: We stayed a night in Prague and after having a crazy day where we tried to see everything it was really nice to wake up the next morning and just wander around. Prague is a really beautiful place and the train ride there was even more beautiful.

Our final stop was Munich. We were getting fairly tired at this point but we still did quite a bit. We visited Hofbrauhaus, Dachau, Neuschwanstein, and did some shopping. They love their beer in Munich, so it was a pretty fun place to turn 21 for an American.

Favorite Munich moment: Even though it's not in Munich, the best day we had was my birthday (at least I think it was the best day). I was super hungover but visiting Neuschwanstein was so much fun. Pictures really don't do justice to the beauty of the snow covered forest on the walk up to the castle. It was a fairy tale birthday.

So that's my trip in a tiny nutshell. I had an amazing time and got just the break I needed. Jason and I are already talking about where we want to visit next!

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

I attended the National Book Festival last Saturday. It was amazing to see all of the people that showed up! I was excited to see so many children there as well.

I didn't end up getting any of my books signed. However, I did manage to get pictures of Salman Rushdie as he was hurriedly rushed away after he spoke at the Fiction Pavilion; Katharine Paterson, author of Bridge to Terabithia, among many others, as the staff attempted to pull her away from a flock of young children, begging for authographs; and finally, Dionne Warwick, who spoke to at the Children's pavillion about her book, Say a Little Prayer (Running Press, September 2008), a picture book that encourages kids to find their best talent in life and embrace it. I just missed seeing Geraldine Brooks and Philippa Gregory.

Want to know why I didn't get my books signed? Well, I thought ahead and brought copies of the books with me. However, the book signing lines were forever and a day long! Each author signed for an hour, and I don't think many of them even made a dent in the lines of people waiting. And let's not even talk about the lines in the book sale pavilion. I don't know why people stood in line so long to buy books that they can get at their local book store. Perhaps they wanted to get them signed...but after standing line to buy the book, and then stand in another line to (maybe) get the book signed by the author is just not worth it to me. Granted, I'm cheap, almost never buy books at full price and have no problem writing my favorite authors for their autographs.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience. We got copies of official 2008 National Book Festival posters. I may (hint hint) be giving one away. My friend Jackie and I decided to make it an annual tradition to to to the National Book Festival together.

So, have you ever met one of your favorite authors? Share the details!

Side note: I'll be posting the pictures I took as soon as I figure out what I did with my camera!

What better bookish memory to talk about on Halloween than R.L. Stine?! Seriously. When I was a kid he was the big deal. In 5th and 6th grade, all the kids I knew were reading R.L. Stine. We were too 'old and mature' to read the silly old Goosebumps books, but those Fear Street stories were deliciously creepy and freaky, especially because really, for the most part, it was stuff that could actually happen. No creepy nasties under the bed. Oh no. We are talking psycho crazy best friends, stalkers, wannabees and more. Some of them did dabble a bit into the paranormal, but it was all much more subtle in the Fear Street series than in Goosebumps.

I remember reading his Seniors series. One of the girls in the Fear Street senior class has a vision, of all the seniors lying in coffins by graduation day. Some people believe her, because apparently (if I'm remembering right) her family has a history of eerily accurate visions, but a lot of people scoff. And then, one by one, the seniors do start dying. The beginning of each book includes a 'yearbook page' with all the senior pictures. And with each new book, more and more of their pictures are altered as the students die.

There were 12 books, and I read 10 of them. This is the only series to date that I remember knowingly reading out of order. The books were in such high demand by all the morbid 5th and 6th graders out there, just itching to get their hands on the books that if you waited to read them in order, you'd never get a chance to read them at all. But I did resist the last book in the series, wanting the conclusion to be the actual conclusion. But book 10 never came and never came, and then I moved and no one in Idaho seemed to be as consumed with the thrill of R.L. Stine the way the kids in Western Washington were and the library didn't carry the series and I couldn't find the books and so I just... never finished reading them. I still don't know if the whole senior class ended up dead. I have no idea how it ended. And ya. It bugs.

Any of you read R.L. Stine? What about the Seniors series? For how popular I remember them being as a kid, I have met very, very few people since then that have heard of them, let alone read them. Makes me wonder if I exaggerate their popularity in my mind, but somehow doubt I could be misrecollecting the annoyance when non of the books were on the shelves, or the only one you could find was the one you'd read three books ago or who incredibly exciting it was to find a new one sitting there, just waiting to be snatched, read and inhaled by you!! Don't ask my why, when I had my library card memorized by age 9 because I put so many book on hold, I didn't think to put these books on hold, because I couldn't tell you. But I can tell you that the searching, the looking and the finding was so exciting, almost as much fun as reading the books themselves. This is definitely a series I'm going to have to revisit. Maybe I'll actually read them in order this time. At the very least, now that I can't remember any of their names or stories, at least I'll know if someone manages to escape the vision.

Oh bookmarks...how we love thee. This week, our assignment from Ruth was to discuss bookmarks:

Do you use bookmarks or just grab whatever is handy to mark your page? Do you collect lots of different bookmarks or do you have a favorite one that you use exclusively? If you're not someone who uses bookmarks on a regular basis, have you ever used anything odd to mark your place?

If you make your own bookmarks or have a bookmark collection, please feel free to share some pictures with the rest of us.

Many of you decided to share pictures of your collection:

• part of Hagelrat's collection
• Kim's favorites
• Claire's collage
• Gnoe's reincarnated bookmark (and a link to a photo of her collection)
• Christina's representative bookmark
• Suey's handmade bookmarks
• and just a small sample of nymeth's gorgeous collection

Thanks to everyone for participating and to Ruth for such a fun topic!

Over winter break I posted some pictures of a book wreath I made. Even though I got some cringes I'm still going to post the pictures of a book flower I recently made. I'm actually going to make two of these for a floor vase I'll use in the townhouse I'm moving into (in five weeks!).

Some people are against crafting with books, and I get that. In my case this was a romance novel I had already read and the options I had for getting rid of it were taking it to a used bookstore that might by it and getting a quarter or turning it into something beautiful I could enjoy. I chose the latter.

So remember last Thursday when I said there was someone taking pictures of me? During that video about The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Well now you get to find out why- it was for an article about me! I was featured in The Daily Iowan today. Emily Busse (the reporter) and Laura Willis (the photographer) both followed me and asked me about the day in the life a book blogger. It was a really fun experience and I'm so glad I got the chance to be in the newspaper. You can read the article even if you're not in Iowa City too! Just go to The Daily Iowan's website to read the article, you can view extra pictures of me that weren't featured in the newspaper as well.

* Sorry I had to use Photobooth for my picture! You get the idea.

VIA Miss Trinidad and Tobago World 2011 is Lee-Ann Forbes - More photos of Miss Trinidad and Tobago World 2011

VIA Miss Dallas 2011 is Shannon McAnally & Miss Dallas Teen USA 2011 is Breanna Young - They will advance to compete in the state finals

VIA The Official Photos of 15 Miss Universe Japan 2011 Finalists

Right now I'm still having that experience you always have at the beginning of the semester where everything is new and exciting and awesome. Today has been extra great because my first class is about comic books, my second class is taught by a professor I love, and my third class is piano. And I got home at 3:40 which is earlier than I ever got home last semester (I actually get to make dinner for my fiance for once!) so I just have good feelings all around. I didn't even mind buying textbooks this afternoon, see pictures below for happy faces with textbooks.

To be fair, I had to buy The Best American Comics 2010 and Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book

for my comic book class and I actually wanted the books, so I didn't mind forking over the cash for them. I will be less enthusiastic about purchasing my entrepreneurship books tomorrow. I'll probably be pretty cranky about the whole thing.

This is also the post where I say my brain is still scrambled from my trip, so I probably won't be on my normal schedule again until next week. I need a few days to write posts, get organized, figure out how exactly my post schedule is going to go this year. All fun stuff I know. But now I'm off to enthusiastically do my homework before the excitement wears off!

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

VIA Miss Universe Canada 2011 Contestant - Venessa Facciotti

I'm pleased to announce the first author to be featured is Elizabeth Massie. First, a bit of information on Elizabeth, taken from her website.

Elizabeth Jane Spilman Massie was born and raised in Waynesboro, Virginia, a town in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. Tended by a newspaperman/journalist father and watercolorist mother, she and her two sisters and one brother grew up surrounded by words, paintings, pets, open-minded attitudes, and wild senses of humor. She was a dreadful student; she rarely paid attention in class and frequently got bad marks on her report card for not "working to her potential." Little did the teachers know that the daydreaming, the goofy drawings, and the angst-ridden stories she was doing in class instead of the assigned science/social studies/math, would some day have some relevance.

She taught in public schools in Augusta County, Virginia from 1975-1994. During those years she married Roger Massie, had two children (Erin, born in 1976 and Brian, born in 1979) and sold many of her wacky pen and ink/watercolor pictures at art shows around the state.

This was also the time she began writing in earnest. Her first horror short story, "Whittler," was published in The Horror Show in the winter 1984 edition, along with the first published story by good friend and horror author, Brian Hodge. Many other story sales followed, in mags such as Deathrealm, Grue, Footsteps, Gauntlet, Iniquities, The Blood Review, After Hours, The Tome, and many more, as well as anthologies such as Borderlands, Borderlands III, Best New Horror 2, Dead End: City Limits, Women of Darkness, Best New Fantasy and Horror 4, Hottest Blood, New Masterpieces of Horror, Revelations, and many others. Beth's novella, Stephen (Borderlands) was awarded the Bram Stoker Award and was a World Fantasy award finalist.

Elizabeth added horror novels to her repertoire in the early 1990's, and has since published the Bram Stoker-winning Sineater, Welcome Back to the Night, Wire Mesh Mothers, Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (co-authored with Stephen Mark Rainey), Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Power of Persuasion, Twisted Branch (as Chris Blaine), and Homeplace. She has also had four story collections published: Southern Discomfort, Shadow Dreams, the extensive The Fear Report, and A Little Magenta Book of Mean Stories. Her bizarre poetry is included in the early 2004 anthology Devil's Wine, along with poems by Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub, and more. Presently, she is at work on a new novel about a haunted farm house and a bunch of new short fiction for various publications.

In the mid-1990s, Beth was divorced. She also branched out with her fiction and began to write historical novels for young adults and middle grade readers. She has said, "There is a great deal of horror in history, so moving from one to the other wasn't that big a step for my creative thought processes. I love the idea of putting my mind back in time to experience what people years ago might have experienced. And damn, but some of that stuff was creepy!" Her works include the Young Founders series, the Daughters of Liberty trilogy, and The Great Chicago Fire: 1871.

On the side, Elizabeth also writes supplementary materials for educational publishers (both fiction and nonfiction) and continues to wield her inky pen and watercolors to create the characters of Skeeryvilletown. In her free time, she likes hiking and camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains, digging through antique stores, traveling roads on which she’s never traveled. She is also an active member of Amnesty International, the human rights organization to which she’s belonged since 1985.

Elizabeth still lives in the country in the Shenandoah Valley.

Be sure to check out my review of Massie's Bram Stoker Award winning novel, Sineater.

If you are a Virginia author, or know of one that would like to be featured, please contact me at jennsbookshelfATgmail.com or fill out my Contact Me form.

VIA [VIDEO Trailer] Real Steel (2011)