Choose Your Own Comment Adventure! (5)

Well, this year turned into a blogging/reading funk of epic proportions.  I've read fewer books this year than I have in a long time.  My enthusiasm for buying books hasn't waned, but I've been unsettled for months now in my life on the whole and when I'm feeling unsettled and restless, booking and blogging both turn into a struggle.

As always, however, I miss the creative outlet and keeping up with the latest and greatest of books, so I woke up yesterday thinking I should rejuvenate the best thing that happened to this blog in 2016 before 2016 got away - a Choose Your Own Comment Adventure.  Instead I sat down and unexpectedly churned out two decent quality book reviews and then wandered off to stream Mighty Ducks movies.  Thankfully, 2016 still has a few hours ago, and a few hours is more than enough for me to visit some blogs and share my adventure!  I'll keep those reviews in reserve for next year with the hope that they will help spur this blog on to activity and me into continued reading.

Anyhow, enough talk, it's adventure time!  Today, I'm starting with Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea because hers was the blog awaiting at the top of my feed when I had the idea to do this.  Also because I find Diane's taste in books is almost always a good match for mine.  Really, if she posted that the Greater Philadelphia phonebook was the best read of the year, I'd probably dash off to find a copy.  Lucky for me, her most recent post contains her top 10 favorite reads of the year.  I am duly gleeful that some of them are already on my (physical) TBR pile since the time of year where I put  my wallet on lockdown after the holidays is nigh upon us.  Can't wait to read Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard and All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood - and so many more!

(OK, this could take a while if I keep pausing to add a million books to my wishlist)

Next up it's a December Monthly Round-Up with Sarah's Book Shelves.  Sarah's post is full of links to her 2016 favorites and links to interesting posts from other bloggers that I'll certainly have to come back.  For now though, I spot a 2017 debut that Sarah loved that I'll undoubtedly have to get my hands on We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter.  I'll definitely be stopping back at Sarah's to help my wish list get even more out of control.

And on the third link of my adventure, I've found a blog that's new to me and from the looks of it, a blog that I want to be reading on a more regular basis.  "Toady" at B.B. Toady's most recent post is a review of the January release Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, which sounds sooo good.  The titular character is an octogenarian taking a walk around mid 1980s Manhattan, and this sounds like just the sort of reflective book that I have the potential to love. 

Off I glacier to my next destination after pausing to peruse and add yet more books to my wishlist.  Next up is another new to me blog - Novel Visits.  I admit, I may have slinked (slunk) around a bit collecting more Best of 2016s for my wish list before settling in to read Susie's most recent post a review of Leave Me by Gayle Forman.  Susie had some mixed feelings about this story where a mother leaves her family after having unexpected open heart surgery but ultimately enjoyed it.  Another book for my wish list?  Don't mind if I do. 

Sue at Crushing Cinders is taking part in Sheila's First Read of the Year event by planning to read Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.  It sounds like she's anticipating and dreading it in equal measure.  Anticipating because of all the hype and dreading because what if it doesn't live up to the lofty expectations?  There's a problem I'm sure we all recognize!   

Two on a theme - would you believe that the next stop on my journey is a review of Illuminae at Rebel Mommy Book Blog?  Grace thinks she may be the last to read Illumine, but turns out Sue and I have rescued her from this certainly dubious honor.  ;-)  Anyhow, this book sounds like it's filled with futuristic apocalyptic goodness that I ought to enjoy in hard copy and now it's doubly on my radar. 

Next stop is at Greg's Book Haven where Greg is taking part Kimba's Sunday Post.  I shake off my confusion about what the heck day it is in time to peruse the miscellany of Greg's post and take in the preview for movie incarnation of The Lost City of Z which looks worth a watch.

Onward and forward to A Magical World of Words where Amy has modified The Perpetual Page Turner's end of year reading survey to accommodate her movie watching, too.  This reminds me that I always wish I had tracked my movie watching at the end of the year.  Maybe 2017 will be the year I track my watching alongside my reading!

My last visit is to Laura at Beautiful Books who is reviewing her reading year.  She has failed her yearly reading challenge despite reading, er, more than double the amount of books I read this year. I huddle beneath my desk in shame for a moment before emerging to add more books to my wish list from Laura's favorites.  This is the first post I've come across where I've actually read a favorite (!!) - Like Water for Chocolate, a book I read and loved long times ago. 

That's all for today.  Hopefully I'll get back to making this a regular thing in 2017. 

Here's wishing you a safe New Year's Eve and a very Happy New Year filled with good times and great books!

Choose Your Own Comment Adventure! (4)

This month has been a struggle between me and my computer.  I started the month on call for work, and it didn't go particularly well.  I logged a lot of screen time trying to fix one problem or another and after that sitting at the computer just didn't seem too alluring.  I actually started a few comment adventures, wandered off and never finished them.  So commenting has been happening (free comments for all the strangers!), posting not so much.  Anyhow, I made up for my lack of adventuring this weekend, at last.  Here's my latest jaunt around the book blogosphere, now with Linky so if you're keen to play along, you can now do so officially!

Today's adventure begins with Sue at Book by Book who has the magical power of making me want to read more middle grade fiction. She reviewed Pax by Sara Pennypacker, the story of a boy and the fox he saves who are separated by war. Both boy's and fox's point of view are written. Sounds great!

My next stop is with Vicki at I'd Rather Be at the Beach who is participating in the Cook the Books book club, where they apparently read the book for the month and cook something mentioned in its pages. This month's selection is Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy which Vicki liked well enough, but not probably not as much as the paella it inspired, which sounds delish!

It doesn't surprise me much when I end up on familiar ground at BermudaOnion's blog when I'm on my commenting adventures, what with Kathy being a famously prolific commenter. Middle grade fiction seems to be the special of day. Kathy reviewed When Friendship Followed Me Home by Paul Griffin, the story of a boy who's spent too much time in the foster care system but has finally found a friend. Maybe I *should* be reading more middle grade...

Mystica has been reading The Provincial Lady Collection by E.M. Delafield which while humorous and providing social commentary, also seems like great comfort reading!

Cleo at Cleopatra Loves Books has signed up for a challenge to read 20 books this summer and shares the rest of her selections for the challenge. I haven't read any of her choices, but they sound good!

Jacqui at JacquWine's Journal penned a tantalizing review of a book by an author who is by no means new, but is certainly new to me. This is my first time hearing of Mary Hocking, but Jacqui's review of The Very Dead of Winter, a book about a dysfunctional family spending Christmas together that's not short on black humor, sounds like something I might like!

Marina Sofia at Finding Time to Write usually shares a "Fun Friday" post, but this past Friday's post was replaced with a photographic moment of silence in mourning for the tragedy that took place in Nice. 

The next stop on my adventure is at A Haven for Book Lovers. Diana posted a review of The Step Mother by Claire Seeber, a mystery/thriller that while not totally satisfying, did keep Diana guessing throughout. I do love a good mystery where I can't figure out the twist...

I found another book to add to my wish list at A House of Books, The Museum of You by Carys Bray. This story of a father and a daughter grieving their lost wife/mother sounds very poignant.

Eloise at Eloise in Wanderlust is moving out of a house where she technically doesn't live anymore anyway. Her books are dreading the "getting rid of books" moment before the moving. (Mine dreaded the same last year, but have happily sunk back into a sense of security since I've been stationary for a year now.). Certainly her future roommate can't object to another bookshelf!

I had to backtrack a touch to get my comment adventure back on track, and I landed at Art and Soul where I may have unintentionally uttered a breathless "Oh my God" at the topic of Claire's most recent post - a recipe for caramel Rolo fudge. After a few moments of gathering myself and mopping the drool off my keyboard, I manage to leave a comment about mopping the drool off my keyboard.

Pssst, don't tell, but I did 11 instead of 10 this time.  Because I can't count.

Here are the very loose "Rules" for Serendipitous Comment Adventuring:

1. Start with a book blog, any book blog (I usually pick the most recent post in my feed reader).
2. Leave a comment.
3. Visit the first commenter on that post.
4. Leave a comment on their most recent post.
5. And so on, until you've adventured through 10 blogs (or however many seems good to you).  Adjust as needed to stay on the trail of book blogs (if you so choose) or find commenters that are different from ones you already visited.  You get the idea. 
6. Write up a post about your adventure and link it up below!

Choose Your Own Comment Adventure! (3)

It's been a little longer than I planned since my last one, but it's time for yet another Choose Your Own Comment Adventure where I let the comments lead me on a little book blogosphere adventure and write it up for you to follow my wanderings.  You can read more about my "rules" for adventuring in this post, if you so desire.

My latest comment adventure starts with Ti at Book Chatter, who claims that her life is slowing down for the summer but still has a busy day planned that includes seeing Darryl Strawberry at church and going out to an Automotive Museum. Ti is also plugging and participating in a readalong of Joe Hill's The Fireman, which I really should take part in. Decisions, decisions.

The comments lead me to JoAnn at Lakeside Musing who has been celebrating Father's Day all weekend long. In an ironic twist, I add a book to my wishlist that she DNFed, Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. I might just have to try out the recipe for the delicious turkey burgers she's been cooking, too.

Audrey at Books as Food is jumping the gun to celebrate Margaret Kennedy Day a day early with an excerpt from Lucy Carmichael that made me chuckle. I'm not familiar with the author, but it seems like I ought to be!

Next up is Lisa at TBR 313 who gives a glimpse into what she's a reading, Harriet Tubman by Catherine Clinton. I'll admit I have a 5th grader's level of education when it comes to Harriet Tubman, so it should come as no surprise that I learned a few things just from what Lisa shared!

Onward to Lark Writes. Lark has gamely re-read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome despite not liking it very much the first time, a courageous feat that I would never attempt, preferring generally to avoid classics, most especially ones I didn't enjoy on the first go. Happily Lark emerged with a greater appreciation of the book!

Jenclair's at A Garden Carried in the Pocket is reviewing something a little newer, Age of Myth by Michael Sullivan. I think I'll keep this one on file for those times when I need a little high fantasy in my life. They exist! I swear!

Ooo, up next is Kelly whose Instagram I heartily enjoy but whose blog, The Written World, I don't pay near enough attention. Unfortunately, she's struggling with post broken ankle depression that's taking a toll on her reading, something I can easily relate to, having an almost year old repaired ankle of my own. Stupid things take a second to break and forever to get better. I distract myself from the slippery slope of rejoining the broken ankle depressed by once again ogling the cool pics of colorful cement houses I recognized from Instagram!

Katherine at I Wish I Lived in a Library made me laugh out loud with her post about some home improvements that may involve taming some of the bedroom "book creep." You know how unread books tend to just fill up empty spaces, right?

My next stop is with Laura at fuonlyknew who is contemplating how her pets have changed with age which leads her to reflect on how *she* has changed with age.

Last but not least is Deborah at Debbish.com who has a most fantastic header image for her blog. This week she finished Wuthering Heights on audio and had less than glowing things to say about it, like me. She's also got a book review published in the newspaper. Fun branching out!

As always, I invite you to take your own comment adventure.  You'll be surprised, like I always am, but the amount and diversity of book blogs out there for the viewing.  I'm debating throwing  a linky on these posts for people to officially join in, but if you do before then, please leave your link in the comments!

Choose Your Own Comment Adventure! (2)

I had so much fun the first time around, and had so much glorious free time during this past long holiday weekend that I gleefully embraced the opportunity to go on another spontaneous commenting adventure.  If you haven't been watching, this is part of my plan to plug myself back into the book blogosphere, visit some old friends, and maybe even make some new ones.  The premise is, I start with the first blog in my feed reader that has a post with a comment, and then follow the comments on subsequent posts on an unpredictable journey around the book blogosphere, with only minimal cheating to avoid duplicates and/or wandering too far afield from bookish blogs.  Then I post my journey here so you can see who I discovered and what they're up to!

 

My first stop (look, if you pay attention you'll see who I've been neglecting on Feedly all this time!) on this week's adventure was It's All About Books where Suey is playing along with Jenni's Thirty Days of Books, but she's getting more bang for her buck by doing a few prompts at a time. Suey unexpectedly loved a book by one of my favorite authors - Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. My Internet Explorer is inexplicably not displaying the blogger comment box, but I will not be foiled. Happily it shows up in Firefox!

Next up is Jenni Elyse herself who is, unsurprisingly, playing along with her own Thirty Days of Books. Today's prompt is "a book you hated." Jenni hates the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia Series - The Last Battle. I didn't...hate it, that is, but Jenni's got some solid reasoning behind this choice, nonetheless.

Onward to more 30 Days of Books with Laura at Blue Eye Books who is sharing her favorite classic, The Great Gatsby, which is one of those classics I should really read again now that I'm not being required to read it for 9th grade English.

Guess what's next? More Thirty Days of Books with Jenny at Alternate Readality! Jenny's packing multiple prompts into one post like Suey. Jenny chose Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge for her "book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving." Cruel Beauty is a Beauty and the Beast retelling that is languishing on my Kindle, where cheap e-book deals go to die. Sounds like I'd better get to reading it!

My streak of Thirty Days of Books ends at Bookmark Dragon. The first thing I notice is Melissa's awesome header graphic, but once I get done with being distracted by shiny things, I'm wooed into putting both The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty and Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff onto my wish list.

I may or may not have paused my journey for the night before continuing on to Literary Exploration where Anna is spotlighting YA novel Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee which happens to have a beautiful cover. I think I'll enter her giveaway for a signed copy.  Wish me luck!

Renee at Two Peas in a Pod is Waiting on Wednesday. She's looking forward to The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa coming out in October, and now I am too!

Leeanna at leeanna.me is reviewing If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo, a book about a trans teen trying to fit in at a new high school. The author is also trans which makes this book that much more attractive for its authenticity. Wish list! In other news, I'm the first comment on the post (I kind of love being the first comment), so I'm bouncing to an older post to pick up the next link in my comment adventure...

Things are a little less than lighthearted over at Happy Indulgence where Aila is imploring people to pause before they rashly ruin friendships with something so trivial as a difference of opinion about a book on social media. While I may not know the whole story from just one post, I know that posting a thoughtful, respectful negative review should never be grounds for personal backlash.  Again I find myself glad to not be involved Twitter drama.  Yuck.

And last on today's journey is In Love with Handmade where Pili is sharing her unboxing of May's Illumicrate, a UK based quarterly bookish subscription box. Looks like the box contains one book and lots of other bookish goodies. Fun!

Thanks all for your support of my venture, and as ever, I invite you to join in the game for a good commenting time.  Graphic is free for the borrowing, and I'd love to hear about it if you go on a comment adventure of your own!

What's one great blog post you read today?

Choose Your Own Comment Adventure! (1)

Today's the day that I bring my comment crusade to life.  If you were reading yesterday, you'll know I've decided to make a feature out of my going on commenting escapades wherein I follow the comments from blog to blog, meet some new folks, pop in on old friends, you get the idea.  Basically, I started with the first post in my feed reader that had comment, left a comment there, then visited the first commenter leaving a comment on their most recent post, and onward like so for 10 blogs, with a minimum of backtracking and cheating to avoid duplicates and/or leaving the book blogosphere completely.      

In honor of the event, I made the above wretched graphic.  It just felt like it needed a picture to be a real feature.  Unfortunately, I have no real photo editing skills, in case you didn't take note of that already.  Oh well, bear with me anyway.  Here's where I went on my commenting adventure! (Full disclosure: I actually went on my "adventure" on Saturday morning, so these aren't the most recent posts anymore!)

I started off at Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking post, all about cookbooks and foodie non-fiction she discovered on her trip to BEA.  I duly added one of the spotlighted books to my wishlist - Pancakes in Paris by Craig Carlson (coming in September).

It didn't take me long to discover a new (to me) blog with another Weekend Cooking post.  Tina at Novel Meals reviewed the 14th Inspector Banks novel from Peter Robinson, Close To Home.  In the process, she spotlighted a few delicious food references from the book that made me hungry!  Series mystery/thrillers aren't usually for me, but drawing the inner foodie out of a not food related book totally is!

Uh oh, I fell out of the book blogosphere.  Jackie's blog, Junkboat Travels, is a lovely travel blog with a beautiful cover image that makes this a detour well worth taking. However, I think I'll step back to the next comment on the last blog to stay on a book bloggerly track...

Joy at Joy's Book Blog is also linked up to Weekend Cooking, but just my luck, she's also got some Saturday Snapshot action going.  Joy's post features some beautiful shots from her trip to Cuba and a bowl of tasty looking squash soup.

The next post I visited was from Christine at The Book Trunk Blog whose post is also linked up to Saturday Snapshot.  Christine shared some lovely photos of resurgent wildflowers called snake's head fritallaries.  Along with the pictures, Christine summarizes some really interesting background on these unique looking flowers.

I'm starting to get off the bookish track again (because memes), so I backtrack a little and end up in a familiar place.  Kathy at BermudaOnion's Weblog reviewed one of my favorite books from recent years - The Book Thief.  Good news, she loved it as much as I did!

Elizabeth at Silver's Reviews is celebrating her niece Elizabeth's (who is named after her!) graduation today.  Congrats, other Elizabeth!

Maria at A Night's Dream of Books responded to the Book Blogger Hop prompt, "Do you keep a blog roll list?" Spoiler alert: she gave up on hers because of the overwhelming amount of blogs she was following.  I can relate!

Kim at Bookworm Book Reviews featured a pair of Friday memes.  She shared the beginning and a blurb from My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni, which sounds like a very interesting mystery/thriller.

Lauren at Always Me loves time travel books and shared a tempting teaser excerpt from her current (much anticipated!) read, Future Shock by Elizabeth Briggs.

There you have it - my maiden voyage in serendipitous blog commenting.  If you need more commenting (and serendipity) in your life, give it a try yourself!  There are no rules except the ones you make.  Of course, I'm more than happy to lend you my delightful graphic...if anybody else would dare to besmirch their blog with that poor thing.  ;-)



A Cure for What Ails the Disconnected Book Blogger

Greetings all and welcome to my fair and neglected blog!

I've been having blogger guilt lately, but not the usual blogger guilt. You know, the guilt that says, "You should write more book reviews! You should have clever features and pretty pictures and stop planning to do bloggy community things and then failing to follow through!" I know if I applied myself, and sacrificed some Netflix time, I could fill this blog with lovely content. What's been bothering me lately isn't that I'm not really doing a stellar job of blogging but more that I'm doing an even worse job of commenting. I might be able to fire a post or two off into the void every now and then, but I've been dreadful about commenting back, meeting new people, everything except fulfilling the bare obligation to breathe life into my languishing blog once in a while.  Happily I have a few stalwart commenters that despite my considerable lack as a blogger, don't leave me alone to shout about books into nothingness. (Thanks, guys!!)

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in this boat.  It seems like half the blogs I visit have so few comments these days. I sometimes feel like we (er...I?) traded in book blogging community for shouting into the emptiness in the name of getting a few new books. That or we're so overwhelmed by the wealth of social media that we've traded in trying to have meaningful blog exchanges with each other for 140 character chatter or that perfectly posed coffee and a book picture on Instagram.

This was nowhere more apparent to me than when the decision was made to no longer cheerlead on blogs for the 24 Hour Readathon and only do the cheering on Twitter.  There's nothing wrong with Twitter cheerleading (I've done it, it's fun, especially late in the evening when everybody's getting punchy), and I mean no offense to the organizers who do such a great job of wrangling such a large event into submission. Alas, when I saw that, a part of me felt like a little bit of the heart fell out of the Readathon.  It was too time consuming, too difficult for us to engage one another on the very social media that spawned the Dewey's Readathon to begin with....blogs.  Book blogs. 

I wish I could say I handled myself maturely, but the most maturity I could muster was to not sign up to cheer and if I couldn't say something nice, I decided I would say nothing at all.  Today I was all ready to whip up some primo content (read: a few clumsily worded book reviews), and I said to myself as I too often do these days..."Self, what's the point of writing these reviews if you're going to carry on being such a half-assed member of the book blogging community?" 

At that point, instead of dejectedly going to clean the bathroom or some other only marginally rewarding domestic chore that I claim takes up so much of my time that I can hardly spare the time to write blog posts....instead of that, I had an idea.  I daresay it may even be a good idea.  In fact, this post was supposed to actually embody the fruit of that idea, but it's already grown too long under the weight of my musings, so you may have to wait a day or two to see....Choose Your Own (Commenting) Adventure!  A way for me to plug myself back into the book blogosphere, put a fire under my butt to comment more, and have content for my blog!

Instead of being constrained by the dutiful emptying of my Feedly, another place where blogging fun becomes a joyless obligation, I decided to leave a comment on the first post in my reader this morning that had a comment, then visit the first commenter on that post and so on until I had visited 10 blogs linked by their commenters.  Admittedly, I cheated a bit to keep my journey in the book blogosphere and out of niches where I genuinely didn't have much to say. 

Tomorrow or the next day, I plan to write up my short adventure around the blogosphere in that old "blog carnival" style.  Just a little link and a blurb for everyone I visited (in addition to my comments on their actual blogs).  It was great fun - I really read people's posts instead of just skimming them on my phone.  I thought of something at least semi-worthwhile to say to each.  I found a bunch of new to me blogs and stopped by a few old friends.  With any luck, it's something I'll start doing and writing about on a regular basis.  With any luck, maybe a few folks will join me in choosing their own commenting adventure.

What do you think?  Is commenting and feeling like a part of the larger book blogging community something you struggle with?