Meme, WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays, Feb. 2, 2011



To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?

  • I’ve actually got two books going right now, one fiction and one non-fiction. First, I’m about 200 pages into Divine Justice by David Baldacci. This is part of the Camel Club series, I have just loved these books! This one is no exception so far. And second, I’m reading a very short book about the JonBenet Ramsey murder. I have two other books about her murder on my shelves, but wanted to get to this one first because it was the earliest published book on this topic on my shelf and figured that would be a good starting point as far as the overview of the facts of the case is concerned. Plus it’s short 🙂

* What did you recently finish reading?

*What do you think you’ll read next?

  • I wish I could honestly say. I had said last week that I was going to pick up I, Alex Cross by James Patterson next – that didn’t end up happening. So I have no clue, and don’t want to make a prediction that I will have to say I didn’t follow through on next week!
Monthly Wrap Up

January 2011 Monthly Wrap-Up

I feel as if I started January out pretty solidly. I was able to finish 5 books this month.

Here’s a visual of the books I read (clicking on the individual books will take you to my review).

I read three Patterson books this month, something that I don’t usually do with his books. However, I am close to catching up with this series and I would like to get caught up with a series before I start a new-to-me series (and I’m itching to start a new series!)

Briefly:

  • I worked on two series this month – Alex Cross and Taylor Jackson
  • I read one author debut (Where Are the Children?)
  • Although I had two books that I rated 5/5 this month, I highly doubt either of them will make my Top 10 books at the end of the year.

Statistically:

  • Books Read: 5
  • Pages Read:  1,869
  • Rating Breakdown:
    • 5/5 – 2
    • 4/5 – 1
    • 3.5/5 – 1
    • 3/5 – 1
  • New Authors: 0
  • Fiction: 5
  • Non-Fiction: 0
  • Favorite For the Month: Where Are the Children by Mary Higgins Clark
  • Least Favorite For the Month: Cross Country by James Patterson
Meme, Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011

Top Ten Best Debut Books (of any year..just your favorite debut/”first from an author” books. If you want, you can focus on debuts of a specific year but it’s open to debuts of any year).

In order by debut year:

  1. Carrie by Stephen King (1974)
  2. Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark (1975)
  3. When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman (1985)
  4. Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell (1990)
  5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (1997)
  6. A Perfect Evil by Alex Kava (2000)
  7. The Double Eagle by James Twining (2005)
  8. All the Pretty Girls by J.T. Ellison (2007)
  9. The Osiris Alliance by Jack Ford (2009)
  10. 31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan (2010)
Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday – Jan. 31, 2011

Mailbox Mondays

Mailbox Monday is still on tour, with January’s spot being at Rose City Reader.

This week has been good 🙂 On Tuesday I received 6 books! Five were from a PBS Box-of-Books, and the other was an ARC courtesy of Simon & Schuster UK as a welcome to the Book Chick City’s Mystery & Suspense Challenge 2011!

From Simon & Schuster UK:

In his first hour back from a six-month leave of absence, Detective Jacob Striker’s day quickly turns into a nightmare. He is barely on scene five minutes at his daughter’s high school when he encounters an Active Shooter situation. Three mean wearing hockey masks – Black, White, and Red – have stormed the school with firearms and are killing indiscriminately. Striker takes immediate action. Within minutes, two of the gunmen are dead and Striker is close to ending the violence. But before Striker can react, Red Mask flees – and escapes. Against the clock, Striker investigates the killings for which there is no known motive and no suspect. Soon his investigation takes him to darker places, and he realizes that everything at Saint Patrick’s High is not as it appears. The closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous his world becomes. Until Striker himself is in the line of fire.

From the PBS BOB:

Every Move She Makes by Robin Burcell
Gruesome slasher murders are spreading terror in San Francisco. The pressure is on the police force to track down the killer before another young woman is found, throat cut, body abandoned. Homicide Inspector Kate Gillespie is picked to lead the search with her partner, old-timer Sam Scolari. This is the case that could make Kate’s career. But the next victim stops her in her tracks – and all evidence points to her partner. He goes underground, leaving Kate alone to prove his innocence, or guilt. Kate has to find the killer before the cops find Sam. Complicating matters is Mike “Torrid” Torrance, the sexiest Internal Affairs officer ever to carry a badge. He’s watching Kate, an assignment that brings them far closer than they expected. Without a partner she can trust … with a killer and a cop watching her every move … can Kate find the truth before it’s too late?

Messiah by Boris Starling
The first victim was found hanging from a rope. The second, beaten to death in a pool of blood. The third, decapitated. Their personal backgrounds were as strikingly different as the methods of their murders. But one chilling detail linked all three crimes. The local police had enough evidence to believe they were witnessing a rare – and disturbing – phenomenon: The making of a serial killer… Investigator Red Metcalfe has made national headlines with his uncanny gift for tracking killers. Getting inside their heads. Feeling what they feel. He’s interviewed the most notorious serial killers in the world. He knows what makes them tick. But not this time. The killer’s motives and methods are so elusive, so brilliant, that Red is forced to search the darkest corners of his own soul – and face the guiltiest secrets of his past – to see the truth. This time, the life he saves could be his own…

The Devil’s Footprints by Amanda Stevens
In 1922 a farmer in Adamant, Arkansas, awakes to a noise on his roof and finds his snow-blanketed yard marked with thousands of cloven footprints. The prints vanish with the melting snow … only to reappear seventy years later near the gruesome killing of Rachel DeLaune. Years after her sister’s unsolved murder, New Orleans tattoo artist Sarah DeLaune is haunted by the mysteries of her past. Sarah has always believed that her sister was killed by a man named Ashe Cain. But no one else had ever seen Ashe. He had “appeared” to Sarah when she needed a friend the most, only to vanish on the night of her sister’s murder. The past bleeds into the present when two mutilated bodies are found near Sara’s home, the crime scene desecreated by cloven footprints.

Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart
The job was supposed to be dead easy – hand-delivery some legal papers to billionaire philanthropist Harry Van Dorn’s extravagant yacht, get his signature and be done. But Manhattan lawyer Genevieve Spenser soon realizes she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that the publicly benevolent playboy has a sick, vicious side. As he tries to make her his plaything for the evening, eager to use and abuse her until he discards her with the rest of his victims, Genevieve must keep her wits if she intents to survive the night. But there’s someone else on the ship who knows the true depths of Van Dorn’s evil. Peter Jensen is farm more than the unassuming personal assistant he pretends to be – he’s a secret operative who will stop at nothing to ensure Harry’s deadly Rule of Seven terror campaign dies with him. But Genevieve’s presence has thrown a wrench into his plans, and now he must decide whether to risk his mission to keep her alive, or allow her to become collateral damage…

Until the Day You Die by Tina Wainscott
When Maggie Fletcher’s sister is murdered, presumably by stalker Colin Masters, Maggie is left devastated – and furious. There isn’t enough evidence to prove that Masters did it – unless Maggie falsely claims, under oath, that she saw him leaving the scene of the crime. Maggie’s testimony puts Masters behind bars – but also wrecks Maggie’s life. When she and her son moves to a small New Hampshire town to start a new life, Maggie can’t help but feel that she’s being shadowed. Someone is slowly, stealthily invading every part of Maggie’s world, turning everything and everyone against her. Now Maggie fears that a faceless, merciless pursuer wants to make her pay for her lie -with her life.

Sunday Wrap-Up

Sunday Wrap-Up, Jan. 30, 2011

It’s been a good week for me. I managed to get a lot done on my blog. I was able to clean up some of my pages that needed cleaning desperately. I also finally activated a new blog format. I had been wanting to do that for quite some time, but was just nervous about taking the plunge and making the change. I personally find this new format to be a lot cleaner and nicer. I hope my readers enjoy it as much as I do. Anyways, here’s what went on here at the blog, in case you missed it:

I posted two reviews:

And I participated in two memes this week:

3.5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, P, RATING, Read in 2011, READING CHALLENGES 2011

2011.5 REVIEW – Alex Cross’s Trial by James Patterson

Alex Cross’s Trial
by James Patterson

Copyright: 2009
Pages: 380
Rating: 3.5/5
Read: Jan. 24 – , 2011
Challenge: TBR Dare
Yearly Count: 5
Format: Print

First Line: A few months after I hunted a vicious killer named the Tiger halfway around the world, I began to think seriously about a book I had been wanting to write for years.

Blurb: From his grandmother, Alex Cross heard the story of his great-uncle Abraham and his struggles for survival in the era of the Ku Klux Klan. Now, Alex passes the family tale along to his own children in a book he’s written – a novel called Trial. A lawyer in early-1900s Washington D.C., Ben Corbett fights against oppression and racism – and risks his family and his life in the process. When President Theodore Roosevelt asks him to return to his hometown to investigate rumors of the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan there, he cannot refuse. In Eudora, Mississippi, Ben meets the wise Abraham Cross and his beautiful granddaughter, Moody. With their help, Ben discovers that lynchings have become commonplace. He vows to break the reign of terror – but the truth of who is really behind the killings may break his heart.

Review: This is not your typical Alex Cross book, so if you’re looking for that, this installment might not be your cup of tea. First of all, this particular book is actually a book within a book. It starts out with a brief introduction from Alex Cross about how there’s a story in his family history that he’s always wanted to tell, and that the subsequent book is that story. Then the reader is taken back to Mississippi in the early 1900s. Lynchings have become a way of life in the small town of Eudora. But the President, Teddy Roosevelt, wants all of the violence to stop. Unable to step in because of his role as President, he sends Ben Corbett down as his “spy.” Ben then embarks upon an unforgettable journey. This is the story that Alex tells of, Ben Corbett’s time in his hometown of Eudora, trying to fight all the racism and violence. I was a history major in college, so the Civil War era and anything to do with racism, Ku Klux Klan, slavery, etc., will immediately attract me. That being said, this book will not be for everyone. The violence experienced by the black people of Eudora is not at all sugar-coated or covered up in this book. I found it to be a good historical story. But as I stated above, if you’re looking forward to another good Alex Cross book, you might want to skip this book.

Friday Fill-Ins, Meme

Friday Fill-Ins, Jan. 27, 2011

I haven’t participated in a Friday Fill-Ins in ages. Since I had nothing else to post today, I decided to give this a go again. Here goes:

1. Up is a good direction to go in.

2. The flu is going around (my office).

3. Coats and scarves, mittens and boots: oh my! I’m so thankful that we don’t get a lot of snow around here.

4. I don’t really care for getting a nice back rub.

5. I’m thinking about not wanting to take the dog outside because it’s cold.

6. I’ll be his, forever.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing, maybe watch a movie with the husband, tomorrow my plans include going to Evansville to watch the Salukis play the Aces and Sunday, I want to catch up on my sleep!

Meme, WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays, Jan. 26, 2011



To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?

  • Just started Alex Cross’s Trial by James Patterson

* What did you recently finish reading?

*What do you think you’ll read next?

  • I don’t know. I might pick up the next Alex Cross book on my shelf (I, Alex Cross) simply because I don’t’ want to start a new-to-me series until I get caught up with one and this is one that I’m the closest to catching up on.
Miscellaneous Ramblings

Random Tuesday Ramblings

So this week instead of participating in the Top Ten Tuesday (because this is the second week in a row where the topic just didn’t speak to me), I want to line out some things that I hope to accomplish on this blog in the next couple of weeks. I was unable to participate in the Bloggiesta this year because I was out of town (very disappointing to me). But I really do need to clean some stuff up on this blog and get it back into tip-top shape. So the next few weeks I’m going to be working on some things around here that will help me make the most out of my blog.

  1. Find a new theme! I’m sick of this layout. I prefer the three-column set-up, but I kind of feel as if a two-column layout would be neater. This is definitely a priority, but not an immediate one. COMPLETED 1/24/11
  2. Clean up my blog roll. I don’t think it’s necessarily out-of-date, but it’s definitely not as extensive as it should be. I’m contemplating getting rid of the sidebar blog roll, and instead making a whole new page for it. Haven’t decided yet. (Also need to go through my Google Reader.)
  3. Clean up my book series pages. I have them separated into three different pages, one for ones I’m working on, one for ones I’m unsure about, and one for ones that I want to try. I need to try and condense more and make it neater. I’m not sure where I want to go with this just yet, but I need a new direction for it. COMPLETED 1/26/11
  4. Clean up my past reading challenges pages. I’ve got them separated by year, and I like the way that I’ve done that, but I don’t really like the format that I’ve used, I need to tweak that a little bit. COMPLETED 1/25/11
  5. Find out how to get buttons. For Facebook, Twitter, PBS, you get the point. Right now I’ve just got links, I want the cute buttons everyone has!
  6. Tackle the TBR list. Oh my. I need to re-organize my shelves anyway, so I’m going to take an inventory as I go and then re-do my list on the blog.
  7. I want to tweak my past year’s reading logs. I’ve evolved it over the past couple of years, but I need something new. I love seeing other people’s blogs with all the book covers included in their reading lists. I need to figure out something new.

Well there it is, I have 7 things that I really want to work on in the next couple of weeks to make my blog not only more user-friendly for others to navigate, but also nicer to look at. I have no idea where this will take me, but I’m definitely looking forward to spending some time with my blog and really getting it set up more the way that’s in my head than what’s on the site 🙂