Merry Wanderer of the Night [Search results for bookshelves] 

Last week’s Weekly Geeks, which may have gotten overshadowed by the 24-Hour Read-a-Thon (another event we have thanks to the amazing Dewey), was a guest post asking fellow geeks to share their bookshelves in honor of National Carpenter’s Day.

I thought this was a great topic because I, and as it turns out many of the other geeks, love to look at bookshelves when I go to a new house for the first time. I feel like a voyeur, but it’s so great to see what people are reading.

Anyway, Corey of Literary Transgressions – our awesome guest author – posted about her “ex pat” bookshelves that grew from the six books she brought from the United States to have plenty more titles. I can’t read any, but I do love the little elephant figurine!

Kate (also of Literary Transgressions) posted about her built-in bookshelves, and how she may have chosen her current apartment because of them. I know all about that!

We saw a couple pre- and post-move photos of Marineko’s bookshelves (The Gentle Madhouse). I love the way they went from being double stacked with books to long line of Billy bookshelves from IKEA.

Hannah at Among Stories also loves IKEA shelving, and shows off three very full bookshelves. She says she’s in the process of reorganizing them – aren’t we all!

And that was it for Weekly Geeks; stay tuned for a new topic tomorrow!

- Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness), guest wrap-up writer

This week has been a little jarring. It was the fourth week of classes, although it didn't really feel like it. Homework is starting to get heavier, and I have a midterm in a little over a week. I can feel the stress coming. When I'm stressed I like to clean, so on Thursday night I decided to reorganize my bookshelves.

I reorganized them by books I have read and books I haven't. I was actually quite pleased when I discovered I've read a lot of my books! The two bookshelves on the left are all books I have read, and the bookshelf on the right are books I have not. The book on top of the middle shelf are books I have not read yet, but those are the books I want to read really soon. The books on the top shelf of the unread shelf are books I'd like to read soonish, and then they decrease in importance as the shelf goes down. I thought maybe when I got to the bottom of the shelf I would find some books I want to get rid of, but I actually want to read most of them, just not right now. A lot of them are Victorian novels which I haven't been in the mood for recently.

Earlier this week I posted the start of a readalong for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. A lot of people have responded and said they'd like to join but don't have time. I've decided to extend the amount of time the readalong will go for. We will now discuss the book on November 1st, and hopefully this will give people more time to get the book and read it as it's rather long. I really hope some more people join! I also heard that the link I posted for Awesome Essays yesterday wasn't working for everyone, so I changed the link and hopefully now you can read The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf with ease. And after some request I've decided to bring back Children's Book Thursday, so check that out!

Okay- back to homework!

This weeks we have a treat, Corey from Literary Transgressions is taking over the reigns and sending us to not only have a look at our bookshelves, but to celebrate their creators.

From the keyboard of Corey:

As Weekly Geeks itself proves, we book-bloggers never get tired of talking about our books. We write about the genres we like, the favorites we have, those recommendations we hated, our preferred length, where we like to read, and even identify new illnesses associated with our reading habit, like B.B.D. (Blurry Book Disorder), P.A.B.D. (Post Amazing Book Depression), and S.B.S. (Shiny Book Syndrome.

Suffice it to say, we like to think about our reading.

But how often to do we stop and appreciate the more practical things that make our reading possible or easier? Things like bookmarks, book weights, cookbook stands, and, perhaps most importantly, the bookshelf.

Since April 8 was National Carpenter's Day (apparently), I thought it would be fun to take the opportunity to celebrate that piece of carpentry most cherished by those of a bookish persuasion: the bookshelf. If we have a National Carpenter's Day (and frankly national holidays for almost everything else under the sun), we should also have a National Bookshelf Day (or, heck, a whole week since this is "Weekly" Geeks!).

So join me this week in posting a picture of your bookshelf (or a selection of your bookshelves if you have more than one) and, if you're really into it, some stories about your bookshelf. Where did you get it? Do you have a love/hate relationship with how much or little it holds? And how did you choose which books to keep on this particular one? How do you organize your books on the shelf?

Share as much or as little as you like about your bookshelf, but don't forget to come back here and add a link to your post via Mr. Linky!

One of my favorite things to do whenever I'm in a new home is to check out other people's bookshelves, so this will be a great opportunity to do exactly that, but virtually. Once you've posted, take a wander around our cyberhomes, visit other Geeks, and leave them a comment, too.

I moved into my townhouse with three bookshelves and they were completely full right away, so I knew a new bookshelf was in my future eventually. I finally got sick of all the random stacks of books around the house towards the end of last semester and yesterday I bought the bookshelf. It's the biggest bookshelf I've got so far. Apparently I've become more realistic about my growing library. I'm amazed by how many of the books I own I've purchased since I started blogging. Apparently I just didn't know what books to buy before my blog and now I'm constantly bombarded with books I want to read plus I find ones on my own. Book blogging has definitely changed the way I approach shopping in a bookstore-- but that is a post for a different day.

The bottom shelf is games and children's books, two things that didn't really have a home in my house so it makes sense for them to go on a fairly empty bookshelf. Above that is about two shelves of unread books. Just by looking at my bookshelves it seems like I'm finishing one shelf of books for every shelf of new books, which means I'll never get past that one bookshelf worth of books I haven't read. I'm pretty okay with this ratio right now, obviously I would like to read more books than I'm taking in. The worst part is that I have two shelves of books that I've owned for a long time but still haven't read. When I look at the books I think I want to get to them someday, but I don't want to read them as much as the new books I bought in the last year. I should probably get rid of some of the books I haven't read but I honestly think getting rid of books is a humongous pain in the butt.

The second shelf from the top houses literary magazines which were previously under my coffee table. This collection is only going to get bigger in 2011 because I not only have a subscription to The Believer (my second year with it) but I have one to McSweeney's as well. The very top shelf has some beer bottles from Germany on it. Not much to do with books, I just thought they were pretty.

Have any of you gotten a new bookshelf recently? Do you need one? Are the stacks of books taking over your house?

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.

Wow, it's weird writing 2010 in my Weekly Geeks post title, but here it is a new year. With a new year beginning, I like to think this is the year I'm going to get organized. At least I'm starting out that way. So it's time to put a plan into action, clean out the closets and whatnot. Why shouldn't we do that for our blogs as well?

For some of us, this will not be so difficult as many bloggers are joining Bloggeista hosted by Maw Books this weekend, but if you are not up for 24 hours of blog cleaning you can still do something.

This week take a look at your blogs and do a little generally cleaning. Fix those broken links, straighten out those blogrolls, make some labels. Stuff like that.

Your blog is perfect, you say? How about your email? Time to delete some of those old messages. Have a look at your blog subscriptions in your blog readers. Maybe it needs a good going over. Are you a member of LibraryThing? Add those Christmas gifts to your virtual bookshelves. Upload your audiobooks to your ipod. Download some ebooks.

Nothing to do online? How about looking at your bookshelves at home? Organize them anyway you see fit. (Take some pictures.) Take unwanted books to the used book store or give them to charity. Get a library card.


After you've done your cleaning, write a post about it or vlog or haiku. Just let us know what you did. Come back see what others have done.

If none of this appeals to you, write a blog resolution post. Or a blog to-do list. Or tell us about your upcoming projects (a challenge you're hosting, newsletter, new blog).

Remember this is just a prompt. Take the idea and do whatever you choose with it. There are no hard and fast rules.

Have fun!

I'm really not that big a fan of summer. I detest hot weather. There are perks, however. Less traffic due to no school. I have more free time in the evenings since my oldest doesn't have homework. More time for reading makes me a happy camper!

Fall is definitely in the air, however. A welcome change to the sweltering heat! I've noticed that the mornings are cooler. The sun is rising later. I can almost feel Fall trying to scoot in. I love fall. It's probably my favorite season. I love the changing colors of the foliage. In the area in which I live, it's like driving through a watercolor painting. The colors are so vivid and bright. And I absolutely love back to school shopping! I loved it as a kid, and I love it still as an adult. We start early, in July, so we don' t have to deal with the horrible crowds and digging through the leftover supplies. And, oh how I wish it would be acceptable for me to carry a trapper keeper to work! Or use glittery pencils with multi-colored erasers!

A big thing we do at our house this time of year is reorganize! With the fall, not only does it bring school but it also begins my busy travel time of the year. So, buy organizing and decluttering, it helps make our days run smoother and our lives less hectic.

I was ecstatic when I was contacted by CSN Office Furniture inviting me to review one of their products. Several other bloggers were contacted and decided to review bookshelves. Now, I could definitely use another bookshelf, but keeping in line with this whole theme of organizing, I decided to review an item that would keep our family more organized. Because not only does CSN home office furniture sell bookshelves and other office equipment, it also sells some great organizational pieces! So I began to think of an area in our house that could stand a bit of organizing. I instantly thought of my son's room, specifically his video game console/collection.

The item I will be reviewing is the Four-Tier Wire Gaming Tower. I just love all the storage space it provides, and even more importantly, the hooks for the controllers! Currently, my son just throws them in a drawer and the cords get all twisted and bent. With this new system, I'm hoping my son will be able to keep this area of his room a little neater.

So, check back in a few weeks for my review. And, if my son is willing, I will post a before and after picture of his video game area!

The following people have participated in Weekly Geeks, either here or at Dewey's blog. Thanks for joining the community!

*Note: We are no longer regularly updating this list (as it is ginormous and time-consuming), but if you would like to be added, just send us an email with a link to one of your Weekly Geek posts. Thanks!

3M at 1morechapter

Aaron at That’s the Book!

Adrienne at Bookmark My Heart

Aerin at In Search of Giants

Adventures in Reading

Alessandra at Out of the Blue

Ali at Worducopia

Alisonwonderland at So Many Books, So Little Time

Alix at Not enough bookshelves

Alli at Books Fall Open

Alyssa at The Shady Glade

Amy at My Friend Amy

Andi at Tripping Toward Lucidity

Andrea at So Many Books

Angela at Acerebral

Anna at Diary of an Eccentric

Annie at reading is my superpower

Ariel Dalloway

Bart’s Bookshelf

beastmomma

Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews

Bernadette at Reactions to Reading

Betsy at Cream of Soup

Between the Covers

Bibliolatrist at Bibliolatry

Bonnie at Redlady's Reading Room

Bookfool at Bookfoolery and Babble

Booking It

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Bookwormans at Complete & Unabridged

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Bybee at Naked Without Books!

Calissa at Dancing among the stars

Callisa at SMS Book Reviews

Cam at The Cookie Crumbles

Cara at The Curvature

Care at Care’s Online Book Club

Cesia at At It Again

Chainletters

Chayenne at The Ax For the Frozen Sea

Chris at book-a-rama

Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made On

Christina at Jackets & Covers

Christina at Reading Through the Night

Christine at She Reads Books

Ciaralira at Ciara Stewart

CJHill at My Years of Reading Seriously

Claire at kiss a cloud

Darla D. at Books and other thoughts

Dave, The Cubicle Reverand

Debbie at Friday Friends Book Blog

Debi at Nothing of Importance

Debra at Reading Animals

DeSeRt RoSe

Dewey at The Hidden Side of a Leaf

Dizzy at gravity, avoirdupois

Dorte at DJS Krimiblog

Dreamybee at Subliminal Intervention

E.B. at The Reader’s Quill

Edgy at Books Are King

Erika Lynn at Kiss My Book

Erin at A Book Every Day

Erin at crazy comma momma

Erotic Horizon

Eva at A Striped Armchair

Fern at Booktrash

Florinda at The 3 R’s

Frances at Nonsuch Book

Gautami Tripathy at Everything Distils Into Reading

Gavin at Page 247

Gnoe at Graasland

Happyichigo at Ichigo Fields Forever

Harmony at Call Me Harmony

Harry~DD at Writing Chaos That Is Me

Heather at Belle of the Books

Heather at Book Addiction

Heather J. at Age 30+…A Lifetime of Books

Hope at Hope’s Bookshelf

Holly at Book Pilgrim

Icedream at Reading in Appalachia

Iliana at bookgirl’s nightstand

Imani at The Books of My Numberless Dreams

Infant Bibliophile

J at Thinking About…

Jackie at Farm Lane Books

Jackie at Literary Escapism

Jacqui at Words ‘n Wags

Jaimie at Bell Literary Reflections

Janicu at Janicu’s Book Blog

J.C. Montgomery at The Biblio Brat

J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet

Jeannie at I Like To Be Here When I Can

Jennie at Biblio File

Jenny at Read. Imagine. Talk.

Jessi at casual dread

Jessica at Wanderings

Jessica at The Bluestocking Society

JLSHall at Joy’s Blog

Jo at Ink and Paper

Jo at Peachybooks

Joanne at The Book Zombie

Jocelyn at Teen Book Review

Jodie at Book Gazing

John at The Book Mine Set

John at Notes of a book dreamer

Jordyn at Page Numbered

Joy Renee at Joystory

Jules at Jules’ Book Reviews

Juliann at Unwritten Reads

Julie P. at Booking Mama

Jupiter at crazy dumbsaint of the mind

Karin at Karin's Book Nook

Katherine at A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore

Katrina at Katrina’s Reads

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise

Kerry at Saving my Sanity

Kim at Bold. Blue. Adventure.

Kim at page after page

Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness

Kimifiction at CityLightLove

Kris at not enough books

Krisma at Bookworm’s Sweets

Kristen at Bookworm Kristen

Kristi at Passion for the Page

Kristina at Kristina’s Favorites

Kylee at Kylee’s 2009 Blog

LadyTink at Up Close and Personal with LadyTink

Lahni at Nose in a Book

Laura at State of Denmark

Lauren at Reading Comes From Writing

Library Mermaid

Lightheaded at everyday reads

Lilly at Reading Extravaganza

Linda at Silly Little Mischief

Literary Feline at Musings of a Bookish Kitty

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Lynda at Lynda's Book Blog

Louise (bogsider) at Lou’s Pages

Lu at Regular Rumination

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Maree at Just Add Books

Marg at ReadingAdventures

Margot at Joyfully Retired

Marie at Boston Bibliophile

Mariel at where troubles melt like lemon drops

Marina at Momma Writes About Books

Marineko at Dreaming Out Loud

Mary at This Book Is For You

Matt at A Guy's Moleskine Notebook

Meg at Literary Menagerie

Megan at Leafing Through Life

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Melanie at Cynical Optimism

Melanie at The Indextrious Reader

Melissa at Book Nut

Melisssa at Melissa's Bookshelf

Melissa at Page Turning Momma

Melissa at The Blog of Melissa Pilakowski

Melody at Melody’s Reading Corner

Melydia at It Never Stops

MFS at Mental multivitamin

Michelle at Fluttering Butterflies

Michelle at inthelouvre

Michelle at Master Musings by Michelle

Misa at This Redhead Reads

MizB at Should Be Reading

Mog at Mog’s Blog and More…

Molly at My Cozy Book Nook

Molly at Restless Reader

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Monica at Buy Books for the Holidays

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Moo at Moo’s Place

Mrs S at Blue Archipelago

Myrthe at The Armenian Odar Reads

Naida at thebookworm

Nan at anokaberry

Nari at The Novel World

Natasha at Maw Books

Nicola O at Alpha Heroes

Nicole at Linus’s Blanket

Nymeth at things mean a lot

Patti at Here Happiness Resides

Paxton at Cavalcade of Awesome

Penny at Penny's Pages

Phamie at Paula Marie: Switch Witch

Presenting Lenore

Rachel at American Bibliophile

Rae L. at A Writer’s Dream

Raidergirl3 at an adventure in reading

Reader Rabbit

Rebachin at Librain-ism-ish

Rebecca at Just One More Page

Rebecca at Rebecca Reads

Rebecca at The Book Lady's Blog

Renay at the deus ex machina complex and other theories

Retinna at Tales of the Looking Glass

Rhinoa at Rhinoa’s Ramblings

Rikki at The Bookkeeper

Robin at A Fondness for Reading

Robin at My Two Blessings

Sam at Wrong Decade

Samantha at Bookworms and tea lovers

Sandra at Fresh Ink Books

Sarah at Behold, the thing that reads a lot

Sarah at Books and Other Miscellany

Sarah at GreenBeanTeenQueen

Sarah at Puss Reboots

Sarah at Small World Reads

Sari at The View from Sari's World

Serena at Savvy Verse and Wit

Shana at Literarily

Shannon at Confuzzled Books

Shannon at Just Another Musing

Sharonanne at Sharon Loves Books and Cats

Shelley at Chain Reader

Sher at A Novel Menagerie

Sherrie at Just Books

Sherry at Nite Swimming

Skooter at Pink Blue Whale

SmallWorld Reads

Softdrink (Jill) at Fizzy Thoughts

Somer at SomeReads

Staci at Life in the Thumb

Stefania at Books of gold

Stephanie at Confessions of a Book-a-holic

Stephanie at The Written Word

Steven at Book Dads

Strumpet

Suey at It’s All About Books

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Susan at Black-Eyed Susan

Tammy at Tammy’s Book Nook

Tanabata at In Spring it is the Dawn

Tasses at Random Wonder

Tea at Living Life and Reading books

Ted at Bookeywookey

Teddy Rose at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

Terri (teelgee) at Reading, Writing and Retirement

Terri B. at Tip of the Iceberg

Terry at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub

Tez Miller at Tez Says

That's the Book

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Thom G at Surface Tension

Tiny Librarian at Tiny Little Reading Room

Tracee at The Review from Here

Tracy (Gentle Reader) at Shelf Life

Trisha at Eclectic/Eccentric

Trish at Hey Lady!

Trublu at Starry Night

Twiga at Books and Life

Un:bound

Uncertain Principles at another cookie crumbles

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Valentina at Valentina’s Room

Vasilly at 1330V

Violette at The Mystery Bookshelf

Wendy at Caribousmom

Word Lily

Yati at Fiddle-de-dee’s not English

Once again, here is a link up of all the Contemporary happenings I've stumbled across in the past week on blogs other than Shanyn's and my own! There are some seriously awesome things happening around the blogosphere, so click through the list and check it out!

And since it is absolutely impossible for me to really be aware of all that is happening everywhere, if you have seen or posted anything Contemporary related, Let me know! I will either add it to this list, or include it in next week's post!

Awesome Reading Challenge: The Keeping It Real Contemporary YA Reading Challenge hosted by Kat @ I Write, I Read, I Review. And, there will be prizes!:)

REVIEWS:

Sarah @ The Storybound Girl — Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

Candace @ Candace's Book Blog — Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler, Amplified by Tara Kelly, Vintage Veronica by Erica S. Perl, North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headly

L.L. @ The Story Girl — I am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak

Katelyn @ Katelyn's Blog — The Pull of Gravity by Gae Polisner and My Life Undecided by Jessica Brody

Melina @ Reading Vacation — Past Perfect by Lelia Sales and The Daughters Join the Party by Joanna Philbin (this is the third book in the series.)

Author Jessi Kirby — Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

Asheley @ Into the Hall of Books — We the Animals by Justin Torres

Samual @ Books for All Seasons — The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott

Danya @ A Tapestry of Words — Dear Bully by Various

Shannon @ Books Devoured — Looking for Alaska John Green and The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart

The Busy Bibliophile — Artichoke's Heart by Suzanne Supplee

Anna @ Anna Reads — Bunheads by Sophie Flack

Raquel @ The Book Barbies — Moonglass by Jessi Kirby

Page @ One Book at a Time — Lie by Caroline Bock

Emily @ Red House Books — Reasons to be Happy by Katrina Kittle

Giselle @ Xpresso Reads — dancergirl by Carol M. Tanzman, and Room by Emma Donoghue (probably more Adult than YA, but it is definitely a crossover book).

Somer @ A Bird's Eye View — Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Liz @ Consumed by Books — The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Nicci @ Paper Dreams — Perfect Cover by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez (she also wrote a fun — Five Reasons to Read Virtuosity post!)

Julie @ A Tale of Many Reviews — The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines

Chris @ Between the Covers — Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Ginger @ Greads! — Amplified by Tara Kelly

Carrie @ Stalking the Bookshelves — Saving June by Hannah Harrington and The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

Rowena @ The Book Scoop — My Life Undecided by Jessica Brody

Mindi @ Books Complete Me — Geek Girl by Cindy C. Bennett

Sarah @ YA Love — How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr

Jennifer @ Novel Thoughts — Saving June by Hannah Harrington

Aubrey @ holes in my brain — How to Save a Life — Sara Zarr

Mary @ Anxirium — Chain Reaction by Simone Elkeles

Lori @ Pure Imagination — Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Lisa @ The Garden of Books — Where She Went by Gayle Forman and Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

John @ Dreaming in Books — Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Kelli @ I'd So Rather Be Reading — Going Too Far — Jennifer Echols

Princess Bookie — Past Perfect by Lelia Sales and Pure Red by Danielle Joseph

For the Love of Contemporary — His Eyes by Renee Carter

Tiffany @ Tiffany Reads — The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder and Moonglass by Jessi Kirby

Ashley @ Bookaholics Anonymous — Raw Blue by Kirsty Egar

Hannah @ Paperback Treasures — If I Tell by Janet Gurtler, Calli by Jessica Lee Anderson and Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott.

Bailey @ IB Book Blogging — Past Perfect by Lelia Sales

The Book Faerie — The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder (WARNING — This review DOES contain spoilers)

Jenny @ The Mimosa Stimulus — Amplified by Tara Kelly and Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

Sophia @ The Book Basement — If I Stay by Gayle Forman, Just Listen by Sarah Dessen and The Duff by Kody Keplinger

Natalie @ Quirky Vintage — Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly (not completely Contemporary, but mostly & amazing, so...)

Karen @ For What It's Worth — Where You Are by Tammara Webber

Lisa @ The Garden of Books — Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott (this is actually a short — What on Earth could I possibly say about this level of intensity — post)

AUTHORS:

The Nerd Girls @ Books to the Sky Interviewed Janet Gurtler! (And there is a giveaway!)

For the Love of Contemporary spotlighted Sarah Ockler!!!

Candace @ Candace's Book Blog interviewed Anne Pfeffer (and there is an international giveaway!) and she also interviewed Stasia Kehoe!

The Contemps blog spotlighted new author Josie Bloss and her novel Faking Faith.

Sam @ Books for all Seasons interviewed Melissa Kantor!

Liz @ Consumed by Books has a fun This or That Interview with Hannah Harrington!

Hannah @ Paperback Treasures has a guest post from Megan Bostic about the songs that inspired her book!

Melina @ Reading Vacation has a guest post from Joanna Philbin.

Kristi @ The Story Siren has a guest post from Catherine Ryan Hyde (with a giveaway)

DISCUSSION TOPICS

Allison @ The Allure of Books vlogged about her favorite YA Contemporary Books
Mandie Baxter: Why I Love Contemporary
Rowena @ The Book Scoop: Why I Love Contemporary
Author Carol Tanzman: Why I Write Contemporary YA
Bee @ Dreamcatcher's Lair: Her favorite Dark YA books. (Not all are Contemporary, but most of them are!)
Author Abbi Glines: Her 11 favorite Indie Contemporary YA Romances

Tough Stuff in Contemporary YA: (again, many of these were written as guest posts and I am only identifying the author of the post, not the host blog)

Rie @ Mission to Read
Bonnie @ A Backwards Story
Candace @ Candace's Book Blog
Jacinda @ Reading Housewives
Katelyn @ Katelyn's Blog
Cara @ Chasing Words
Mandie Baxter
Nicci @ Paper Dreams
Shannon @ Books Devoured
Ginger @ GReads!

Again — If you have seen or written a post talking about Contemporary YA or reviewing a book, LET ME KNOW!! I'd LOVE to include you in the link up AND I personally read and comment on all of them. (It takes a while, but I'm LOVING It!) So leave me a comment, shoot me an email or send me a tweet and I'll add you to my list!:)

Last week Ali challenged us to think about the classics. She gave us four questions, and allowed us to mix and match.

1) How do you feel about classic literature? Are you intimidated by it? Love it? Not sure because you never actually tried it? Don't get why anyone reads anything else? Which classics, if any, have you truly loved? Which would you recommend for someone who has very little experience reading older books? Go all out, sell us on it!

2) A challenge, should you choose to accept it: Read at least one chapter of a classic novel, preferably by an author you're not familiar with. Did you know you can find lots of classics in the public domain on the web? Check out The Popular Classic Book Corner, for example. Write a mini-review based on this chapter: what are your first impressions? Would you read further? (For a larger selection of authors, try The Complete Classic Literature Library).

3) Let's say you're vacationing with your dear cousin Myrtle, and she forgot to bring a book. The two of you venture into the hip independent bookstore around the corner, where she primly announces that she only reads classic literature. If you don't find her a book, she'll never let you get any reading done! What contemporary book/s with classic appeal would you pull off the shelf for her?

4) As you explore the other Weekly Geeks posts: Did any inspire you to want to read a book you've never read before—or reread one to give it another chance? Tell us all about it, including a link to the post or posts that sparked your interest. If you end up reading the book, be sure to include a link to your post about it in a future Weekly Geeks post!

Many people chose to answer the first and third questions, although every question did get answered. Some geeks love the classics, while others are a bit more apathetic. But everyone had something great to contribute to the discussion. Here is a sampling:

Both Chris Voss and hagelrat from Un:bound answered this week’s challenge. Un:bound is a team blog, and in a possible history making event, more than one team member participated. Very cool. I also love this line from hagelrat: “it's my pet theory that a girl who has nothing but classics on her bookshelves keeps nothing but mills & boon under the bed.”

In another potentially history making post, Weekly Geeks appears in Danish! Dorte kindly translated her post into English, as well. For which I am forever grateful. I did a double-take when I first saw her post, but then I noticed the helpful arrow for us English readers directing us to look below. Thanks for joining Weekly Geeks, Dorte!

Frances at Nonsuch Book included a beautiful mosaic of book covers in her post. All of the covers are from the same book, The Damnation of Theron Ware. Although I’ve never heard of the book, I found the first cover with the windows to be quite appealing. Frances also reflected on the role classics played in her own development.

Puss Reboots admits that “many of the books I read are older than I am.” She also talks about how she compares Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to Jay and Silent Bob. Dude! Awesome comparison. Go check out her post and enjoy the links!

I will confess to letting out a little woo-hoo when I read Terri’s confession that she feels “pretty inadequate about classic lit, considering I have a BA in English.” Sometimes it’s nice to know that English majors haven’t read it all. Terri also made a wonderful comment about comparing reading the classics to music…”it’s a bit like learning music theory and getting a good base of classical music before journeying off into other styles.”

Sassymonkey discusses how different the classics are from each other. She also mentions the required reading list she made for her boyfriend. Inquiring minds want to know…did he make it through the entire list?

Finally, a note about Aunt Myrtle. Poor Myrtle, I’m afraid we were a bit harsh on her. Although she did get plenty of good books out of the deal. I kind of want to be Aunt Myrtle, just to get the books.

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In other news…

At the end of each month we’re going to attempt to give shout-outs to the other Dewey-inspired events that are going on. Many of these events already have links over in the sidebar, but a little more linky love never hurt anyone, right?

Chris and Robin are hosting the Dewey Books Reading Challenge, complete with monthly mini-challenges and nifty prizes. This event lasts all year, and just happens to be dear to my heart because I’m participating and reading some incredibly good books. Go check out the blog for more info. Or this site to read some of the reviews of the participants. Betcha find a book you wanna read.

Jackie has started a new blog to continue the Bookworms Carnival. Info on the upcoming themes and hosts can be found at that site, The Bookworms Carnival. The 23rd Edition of the Bookworms Carnival will be held by Jessica over at The Bluestocking Society, where the theme is Books to Movies. Submissions are due by February 13th.

Also, Jackie has made mention of a Facebook blog network for Weekly Geeks and the Bookworm Carnival. Since I know squat about Facebook, I’ll give you the link and hope you all know what she’s talking about. :-D

There has been chatter about the continuation of Dewey’s popular Read-a-thon. As far as I know there are plans to continue (yay!) and the next Read-a-thon would be held in April. We will let you know more info once the planning starts.

Well I survived most of the Readathon yesterday! I want to make it a little longer than I did during my last Readathon and I ended up going the same amount of time- but that's not what is really important. What was really important was that I completed my main goal, finish the Shelf Discovery challenge. Since I did that I feel like I was successful, and I also read more pages this time than last. I can't wait for the next Readathon, and next time around I think I might cheerlead and I also want to read for charity.

This week I posted a review of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Thomas Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. The rest of the week was pretty much all Readathon preparation and experience- but hey, it's a marathon! Because of the Readathon I have a lot of reviews to write, I'm probably going to be writing April reviews well into May, which may not be fun for you if you're curious as to my thoughts about a book but it's going to be really fun for me because I like to have review written ahead of time!

I'm at work right now and I'm folding pamphlets for moving out of the dorms. I can't believe it's almost that time of year! Next year will be my first year out of the dorms; I'm moving into my first apartment in August and I am so excited. I'm sure my dad and I will have fun loading up two bookshelves from my dorm room now and taking three to my apartment next year, all in about a three month time span. Muscles, muscles!

On another personal note, I can't believe I'm almost finished with my second year of college! I'm halfway through my undergrad years! It's insane, things that once seemed unforgettable are now becoming distant memories to me. It's sad but there are so many new and wonderful things happening in my life that I can't complain. Soon I'll be filling out applications for grad school... but let's not think about that right now. :)

Yesterday I came back to Iowa City (finally!) and I must admit I'm actually excited about starting classes again. I'm not really looking forward to the homework but I am looking forward to learning and having stuff to do. I came back to ten packages last night! All of which were books. Pretty sure the full time desk clerk was wondering what the heck I was doing ordering all of that stuff. I also attempted to put together the new bookshelf I bought over break for my birthday. Unsuccessful. Thankfully my boyfriend came to the rescue. This is what it looks like:

I also thought I would brag a little bit about my awesome new bookends! I also bought these for my birthday even though they were hella expensive. But trees and birds are my favorite things and they match the bookshelves my boyfriend and I made over the summer.

Pretty right?
So this week I didn't post any reviews (I know I was bad) because I wanted to save some up. I'm not going to get to read three books a week anymore because I'm going to be at school. I might be able to do two on a good week though. Instead I wrapped up my 19 Going on 20 Challenge and alerted everyone of my awards. Finally I shared my thoughts on textbooks with my other college blogging friends. This week I'm going to start actually following my fancy schedule that I have in the right hand column. Books that I'm going to review in the upcoming weeks are Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, The Virgin Queen's Daughter by Ella March Chase, and Rumors by Anna Godbersen. I really enjoyed all of these books and hope you all enjoy my review of them!

This week the geeks were asked to assess their hoarding behavior - specifically:

Share with us your habits, tendencies or obsessions when it comes to hoarding behavior.

• Post a photo (or two or three) of your books to-be-read
• Share your buying or book accumulating habits - how bad of a problem do YOU have?!?!?
• Do you keep all the books you've read, or do you give them away or sell them?
• Can you walk past a bookstore and not go in? If you go in, do you impulsively purchase?

Bart from Bart's Bookshelf did a photo montage of his TBR books and 'fessed up that he buys about two books for every one he reads. He also laughed at the idea of walking past a bookstore without entering!

Trisha from Eclectic Eccentric showed us an amazing collection of books in her library. She admits she is obsessive (she apparently came home with more than 100 books from the BEA!), but she is working on it - giving away books to her library and getting ready to sell some in a garage sale. Trisha's TBR pile numbers around 535 - whew, I feel better already!

Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise created an awesome graphic for her Mount TBR (which would provide her with great reading for about 10 years). Kerrie has a great attitude towards her hoarding behavior - she refuses to feel guilty!

Molly from the Restless Reader doesn't limit her hoarding behavior to just books - she collects magazines too. But living in a small apartment in NYC helps her keep things under control!

Zee from Notes from the North stores her books all over the world! She seems to have inherited her hoarding behavior from her parents who apparently have a library in the thousands...

Iris from Iris on Books writes:

My dream, ever since I was a little girl, has been to have a huge library of books when I grew up. And since I started living on my own, I seem to have made an effort to fulfil that dream. I am not quite ready to give it up.
And Melissa at The Blog of Melissa Pilakowski has a great motivation to hoard books:

Unlike my other hoarding obsessions—sunglasses, shoes, office supplies, costume jewelry—collecting books does come with a perk. As a teacher, I get a tax deduction every April for the books I put in my classroom library.
Check out the great stacks of books posted on Erotic Horizon, The Book Coop, and It's All About Books.

All the entries were wonderful - if you haven't already done so, please go visit them (you can find all the links here).

Thank you to all who played along this week - I know I, for one, felt so much better knowing my problem is not all that bad!!

I know the season of gift giving has just past – but, yes but, we all must have some unwanted stash of books lying around or at the least a mini mountain of hanging onto hoping to get to books that we have all meant to read but never found the time or the mood was never right or they are just plain impulse purchases that never got read.

Today I want you to pack a little care package of books for a friend. (you set your limit between 1 book and 10 books)

Something from YOUR EXISTNG STASH – nothing you are wishing for, hoping for, or in the post – it most already be underfoot in some way or the other.

Don't over think it – use my number one motto when it comes to weeding out books – If you have not looked at it in about 18 months or it's outside of the genre you read, or you know immediately that this is not the books for you – those are the books you need to make up your care pack from…

One word of warning….

There is no rush to complete this today – you have the whole week to put together this package. If you know straight off what you want to package, my hats off to you.

I am going to stroke some of mine and ummmm and ahhhmmmm over afew others for a few days…

Happy packing my Weekly Geekers, it will be fun to see some of the unwanted less loved books hanging around your bookshelves…

I am at home sick with the flu, but I have entertained myself by making charts of my reading habits. I reorganized my bookshelves earlier this week by read and unread, but then further by genre. I noticed some definite patterns taking place so I decided to see what the patterns looked like in numbers.

The first thing I looked at was how many books I had read my read shelf from each "genre."

As you can see, most of the books I have read are either general nonfiction or classic fiction, which didn't surprise me. What did surprise me is that I've read almost as many YA & MG books as I have essay collections. When I thought about this it made sense, since a lot of the books I have are from junior high and high school and several of those are YA & MG. I was really surprised by the amount of poetry I had!

I then looked at how many books in each genre were on my TBR shelf.

Once again, most of the books I own are general nonfiction with general fiction and classic fiction also making a large part of the books I own. Just by looking at these numbers it seems like I am extremely likely to read the YA and MG books that I purchase, but I'm less likely to read the historical fiction I purchase. When I first started blogging I was a lot more interested in historical fiction so I purchased more of it, but after awhile I became less interested and now I have some historical fiction I've never gotten around to reading. I've never bought much science fiction until recently, so it will be interesting to see how many of those books I end up reading.

The last thing I looked at was how many books in each genre I've read since starting my blog in October 2009.

Clearly I've spent most of my time reading general nonfiction and YA & MG. This, once again, surprised me. I never read many YA books before I started blogging and never thought I would. It must just be all the great YA bloggers out there! It's interesting that general fiction and classic fiction are evenly split, although I noticed most of my classic fiction is made up of books I read for class. If I wasn't in school I think general fiction would probably be a little higher.

How are your shelves organized? Are you surprised by the different genres you see there?

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.

Beginning today, I'm joining three teams of bloggers in The Game On Diet Challenge. We learned about this Challenge from Jennifer (aka Book Club Girl) when she embarked upon this challenge a few weeks ago. I haven't received my copy of the book yet, so I'm pulling information from Jennifer's blog:

The Game On! Diet is the brainchild of Krista Vernoff, head writer and executive producer of tv's Grey's Anatomy and Az Ferguson, winner of the Body-for-Life Challenge. When Krista returned to work after having her baby, she called on Az to help her lose the baby weight. He made her a workout regimen and eating plan that she, well, didn't follow at all. So Az went back to the drawing board. Knowing that Krista had a VERY competitive nature, he decided to present her with a healthy lifestyle plan in the form of a game, that she could play with a team, and that she could play to win. This appealed to her very much. Rather than the focus being on losing weight, the focus is on winning points, a far more tantalizing prospect.

So how do you earn points? You can earn a maximum of 100 points a day for doing the following:

1) Eating 5 balanced meals a day, every 2-4 hours -- 6 points per meal
2) Exercising for at least 20 minutes a day -- 20 points
3) Sleeping for a minimum of 7 hours per night -- 15 points
4) Drinking 3 liters of water a day -- 10 points
5) Adopting a healthy new habit that you practice every day -- 10 points
6) Dropping one unhealthy habit -- 10 points
7) Communicating with your team members every day -- 5 points

You earn penalties (points lost!) for:

1) stepping on the scale more than once a day
2) unsanctioned snacking (you can have as much celery and cucumber as you want throughout the day, plus 100 free calories of whatever once a day, no other snacking)
3) Colluding with the opposing team to get them to break a rule
4) Drinking alcohol (see exception below)
5) changing the healthy or unhealthy habit during the course of the game (you have to pick those and stick to them).

It's not about total deprivation as you get:

1) One day off a week, when you don't have to follow any of the rules
2) One meal off a week when you can eat what you want and have one unit of alcohol
3) each day you can have 100 calories of anything as a bonus treat

My habit I'm going to break is logging on to email/twitter as soon as I get home from work, even before we've had dinner. I will now wait until we've had dinner and enjoyed some time with my family before getting on my computer.

My new habit will be...gasp...reducing the size of my library. It really has become quite overwhelming. In addition to the 4 overflowing bookshelves I have, I have stacks of books all over the house. So, my new habit--with every new book that comes in, I have to get rid of one. By getting rid of, I mean giving away, swapping, etc. A manageable goal that will make my dear husband happy!

Ok, back to the challenge. Here is the line up of the three teams:

The Ding-Dongs:
Julie from Booking Mama
softdrink from Fizzy Thoughts
Amy from My Friend Amy
Jill from Rhapsody in Books
Ti from Book Chatter and Other Stuff

The Twinkies:
Beth F from Beth Fish Reads
Jenners from Find Your Next Book Here
ME!
Denise from M. Denise C.
Dawn from She is Too Fond of Books

The HoHos:
Kathy from The Brain Lair
two of Kathy’s IRL friends who will be updating their progress on Facebook

I will be posting a few times a week about this challenge. I don't want to inundate those that aren't interesting in this challenge, so after I post my first update, all you will need to do is click on the "Game On" button on my sidebar to view my progress.

Thanks for all the support...and wish me good luck!

I picked up No One Belongs Here More Than You

by Miranda July because it had a cool cover, it was desperately on sale, and I'd read some great reviews of it. I went through my bookshelves and this is actually the only short story collection I own now, and it's possibly the only short story collection I've ever read. That being said, it usually takes me quite awhile to get through collections, but I gobbled up Miranda July's stories in just a few days. And it seems like this collection is everywhere! A few weeks ago I did a post about my favorite book covers, and someone commented saying they loved the cover of this collection. About a week ago I posted the books I read in July (including this one) and two people got in a conversation about Miranda July's artwork. It seems like this collection has become a part of my generation's cultural footprint, and I can understand why, because the stories in this collection speak to me in a very generational manner.

I always find collections difficult to review and therefore usually avoid doing reviews of them at all, but this didn't really even seem like a short story collection to me. It just seemed like a series of stories about humans changing, not changing, failing, and learning. The first story that really caught my attention was the third, Majesty, with it's beautiful one liners, "We come from long lines of people destined to never meet" and "That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it." Miranda July as this amazing way of staggering her phrasing and then tucking a little gem, golden sentence in the middle of everything. This makes the stories easy to read and also a bit of a treasure hunt.

My only complaint with these stories is that towards the end she seemed to lose a bit of momentum. There were a few stories in a row where I was just not intrigued and I felt like she was relying too much on sexual intrigue to make her plots move forward. I can see that that was a theme in this collection, but it was just a little too much all at once for me. I felt like she should pick a different method. Overall though I found the collection enjoyable, funny, and sad, so I am giving it a B.

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.

So remember how I went on a book buying ban in March and everything went swimmingly? And then I bought quite a few books right after it but felt guilt free about the whole thing? Well in the last week I somehow managed to obtain 18 new books. Which is a lot and now I feel guilty and stressed about it. For awhile I've been trying to read thicker books in order to get another shelf of "read" books on my shelves but the length of most of these books is daunting for me. I've also been in a reading funk, which isn't helping. On Friday I picked up Juliet, Naked

because it was short and I knew I'd be pulled in right away since I love Nick Hornby. I ended up finishing the book yesterday and that is when I realized it. Short books.

After I finished Juliet, Naked I went to my bookshelves and pulled all the books that looked to be about 200 pages or less. I found eighteen books which comes out to about 2500 pages total. My goal is to read about 80 pages a day and finish all of these books in the month of May. 80 pages a day, that is totally doable. And in one month I can clear off a huge chunk of books sitting on my shelves. Another great thing about this is the selection of books. It's pretty evenly spread between books I've just gotten and books I've had for quite awhile. It's also pretty even between fiction and nonfiction, classic versus modern and so on.

Short books are great because they don't seem like a huge commitment. If I get fifty pages into a short book and I don't like it then I can put it down knowing I read at least a quarter of the book. Amazingly, I often put off reading short books because I think they'll be better for a week when I have a lot going on or when I'm doing a readathon. Short books are great for those things--but I never try to read them when I have a lot going on. I also buy short books a lot because I think there is no way I won't read it if it's only 150 pages. Obviously all of these assumptions are a little sketchy since ten percent of the books I own are of the short variety.

Anyone want to join me?

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to give Briana at The Book Pixie a shout-out. She sent me Capote in Kansas during April for Random Acts of Kindness. I'm looking forward to reading it around Halloween as it is a ghost story! If you haven't checked out Random Acts of Kindness you definitely should. I've really enjoyed sending others books and getting books in return.

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.

This is the season where we are not only battling to get the gifts we want in time for the big day but it’s also the time where we have to find the perfect hiding place to put said gift.

Some of us might be lucky enough to be able to use the same cubby hole year after year, but as the kids grow older or huddy or wife starts getting more ambitious with their searching so it becomes your mission to find a newer and better hiding place.

But what about those hiding place we use month after month, day after day that are just for those book that you don't want to leave on the bookshelves for the mother-in-law to see or those books that the kids are definately not ready for or even those books that are so near to your heart that you could not bear them being tarnished by the grubby little mitts of friends and family.

Are you using your sock draws as I am for some of my risqué material or do you use the row behind the main row on the bookshelf. Wherever you are hiding your stash of book – tell us?

Find out from your readers as well where they are keeping theirs, you might pick up a tip or two when your latest hiding place is the first place the kids look this weekend.

Wishing you all a great week.

Please add your links to comments - until Ms. Linky gets placed on the post.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading This Week?

This is a weekly event to list the books completed last week, the books currently being reading, and the books to be finish this week. It was created by J.Kaye's Book Blog, so stop by and join in!

Books Completed Last Week:

Sunday is typically my reading day. However, yesterday I got a cleaning bug and did a mega cleaning of my office, including my desk and one of my many bookshelves.

BoneMan's Daughters

by Ted Dekker (review will be posted this week)
Reunion by Therese Fowler
Speak

by Laurie Halse Anderson (powerful book. Review will post this week)

Currently Reading:
The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal (P.S.)

by Lilly Koppel

Firefly Lane

by Kristin Hannah (reread for book club discussion this week)

Angels of Destruction: A Novel

by Keith Donohue (almost finished, don't want it to end!)

Books to Read This Week:

The Nine Lessons: A Novel of Love, Fatherhood, and Second Chances

by Kevin Alan Milne

The 8th Confession (The Women's Murder Club)

by James Patterson

What are you reading this week?

Yesterday I actually went out and bought Barnes and Noble's nook. The nook and the Kindle are actually the same price, but right now Barnes and Noble is offering a $50 gift card to anyone who is buying the nook and that was an offer I just couldn't pass up. Plus I liked the fact that I could try out the nook in the store whereas with the Kindle I'm ordering it without trying it. And my local Barnes and Noble is offering a class on Tuesday night for people who want to learn more about their nooks. There are some features the Kindle has that the nook does not, but overall I'm happy with my purchase.

Over Christmas my parents were really adamant that I take another look at e-readers, but I told them I just couldn't give up on having physical books. I just love the feeling of having a book in my hand, turning the pages, and books are my favorite way to decorate. I just love to be surrounded by them. That was all well and good, until I moved out of my dorm last month and realized that my book situation is a little out of control. I had two bookshelves in my dorm room and then I moved back to boxes and boxes of books here. So in May I decided that an e-reader might not be such a bad idea, especially for mass market paperback books that I honestly don't really need to keep. Really most of the popular fiction books I need, I don't need to have the physical book. I still wasn't entirely convinced though, so what made me change my mind?

What actually made me change my mind was a Books on the Nightstand podcast with Melissa Klug who works in the paper industry and the company she works for actually makes paper for books. There was a really interesting exchange between Melissa and one of the hosts Ann Kingman about e-readers and paper in the age of the e-reader. What made me decide that I wanted to get a nook while listening to this podcast was Ann (I think) said there are some books she wants in physical form and some books that it's okay to have in digital format. This probably makes me look kind of stupid, but that comment really changed my thinking about e-readers. This whole time I've been thinking you either read everything on an e-reader or you read everything in book form, but it doesn't have to be that way. You can buy books in physical form and you can have an e-reader for the books you don't want to have forever. Essentially, you can have your cake and eat it too. This was a really exciting idea for me and so yesterday I finally took the plunge. I've had my nook for less than 24 hours so I still have a lot to explore on it. In a few weeks I'll probably post an actual review of the nook so be sure to check back for that.

Just in case you missed anything this week I reviewed Just Kids by Pattie Smith, This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson. I also did my second post in my Summer Internship series, a May Wrap-Up, and I had a guest post about how to read and review graphic novels. Overall it was a pretty eventful week at English Major's Junk Food so be sure to take a look at what you missed!

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.