This week’s WeeklyGeeks prompt involves planning my year in reading and wrapping up last year. (It also involves linking book blogs that I read regularly but since I’ve fallen out of the loop of keeping up with others’ blogs, I can only link the ones I read regularly two months ago… So I’ll just go for the summary post.)

Last year started out as a reading year and I was going really well with that until the end, when I got distracted by shiny things and my writing. (I can’t blame Nanowrimo entirely, but thinking of my own novel definitely distracts me from other novels.) Read across the spectrum and gathered a few new favorites, namely:

• Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Julie Kaewert
• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
• I Sing the Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury
• The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
• Erin Hunter
• The People’s Act of Love by James Meek
• The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
• Diana Gabaldon
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

This year my expectations are not so high. I want to focus more on my writing and finish my novel (so that I can write the second in the trilogy this November!), so I’m – gasp – only shooting for two books per month. I’ll, of course, read more than that… But so as not to set myself up for mass disappointment, I’m not going to make it a goal of 50+ books or anything like that. I’m in a book club, so that’s one of them for every month; the other will be for my personal Year of Nonfiction challenge. I’ll probably also finish up all of John Connolly’s books and get through at least up to the latest Outlander book too, of course. (See, Hev! I haven’t forgotten!) Then, of course, any books I happen to be reading for review… Since I still enjoy doing that so much!

2009 is going to bring a lot of changes for me. I might be moving to a different state (PA) with some friends, I’m hanging out with people a lot more, and I’m generally taking life as it comes at me. Embracing it, you might say; I’m not sitting around waiting for things to happen. I’m still cautious, mind you, but not in the way I used to be. Books are still my passion, absolutely, and I’ll never stop reading, but waking up on the morning of January 1, 2009, was waking up to a new way of living. I’m loving every moment of it.

That said, I’ve been going through my books. That’s always a scary thing to admit. “Going through my books.” I’m sorting, making piles, cleaning shelves (no, literally, I’ve got a surface cleaner and some paper towels). If I’m going to move to another state, I’ll need to minimalize a bit. Separating my books from Richard’s, making a pile of books I don’t want to keep, another pile of books I want to keep but will probably never read, another pile of books that are on my imminent to-be-read pile but which I’ve somehow ignored the past few years… And so on. Piles galore!*

It’s a big step for me to do such a thing. I’m more of a collector; I bring it in, stack it, then ignore it until the next book comes in (though not much time usually passes between books). Even though I plan on storing the majority of my books at my parents house (and thus still keeping them until I can get more space), they’re still going to be out of my line of vision. 2009 is doing weird things to me! I’m becoming less cluttered in all aspects of my life, but for a packrat to actually willingly let things leave her house!? I must be going reverse-insane.

*Have I mentioned how painful this is? Separating books? Wow. Who knew that I was that obsessive about it.

For this week, Dewey has asked us to create a book tour using photographs (of course). I’ve been browsing through a few and I really like what I’ve seen — Joanne shares a plethora of book-photos, Kim has tons of photos of her family reading, and Suey has TONS OF BOOKS and I am jealous of all her wall space!

Dewey is also giving away tons of books… Just thought I’d mention that. ;)

Anyway, thought I’d be a little creative with my tour… I’ll start out here but continue under a cut. Enjoy!

Here’s where most of the antique/old books go…

And since this is right next to the kitchen, here is where my cookbooks live.

This is the “library” (it’s really a dining room, but what makes you think we can fit a table with all those books there?).

We only have a small selection of books in the bedroom, mostly because that stupid bed takes up most of the room. We can sleep on books, right?

Okay, this is actually an entertainment center (holds the TV, record player, records, stereo, and video game equipment), but Tolkien lives on the top of it.

I love my magical floating books!

As per the Weekly Geeks meme this week, I’m going to post some photos of some authors. It’s your job to guess who they are!

My Favorite Authors

Authors of Books I’m Reading

Author of the Book I Most Recently Finished

Hottest Author

(What? He wrote a book, I promise.)

Comment away!

As I’ve mentioned somewhere in another post (I’ll link it when I’m not exhausted and thus have the ability to search archives to find it), I don’t always review the books I read. Either I didn’t intend to read it in the first place, or I simply didn’t get that special “reviewing vibe” while I was reading it. Either way, I have quite a few books from this year that I haven’t reviewed which some of you might be wondering about. This week’s WeeklyGeeks is all about bringing those books to light a little bit. I think it’s a brilliant little meme.

Dewey’s “How To:”

1. In your blog, list any books you’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet. If you’re all caught up on reviews, maybe you could try this with whatever book(s) you finish this week.

2. Ask your readers to ask you questions about any of the books they want. In your comments, not in their blogs. Most likely, people who will ask you questions will be people who have read one of the books or know something about it because they want to read it.

3. Later, take whichever questions you like from your comments and use them in a post about each book. I’ll probably turn mine into a sort of interview-review. Link to each blogger next to that blogger’s question(s).

4. Visit other Weekly Geeks and ask them some questions!

So get ready! There’s quite a few to look through in this list here… You can ask any question!

1. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
2. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
3. The Bookwoman’s Last Fling by John Dunning
4. Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix
5. Four Letter Word ed by Joshua Knelman
6. Unsigned by Julie Kaewert
7. The Gladiator’s Honor by Michelle Styles
8. Unsolicited by Julie Kaewert
9. I Sing the Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury
10. Lover Enshrined by J.R. Ward
11. The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter
12. The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter
13. Unbound by Julie Kaewert
14. Warriors: Into the Wild by Erin Hunter
15. Warriors: Fire and Ice by Erin Hunter
16. Warriors: Forest of Secrets by Erin Hunter
17. Warriors: Rising Storm by Erin Hunter

And if you want to be ambitious, I plan on finishing Publish and Perish by Sally Wright and Warriors: A Dangerous Path by Erin Hunter this week…

Because I didn’t ever plan on reviewing these books, instead of including your questions in my “review post” for each of these; I’ll instead compile them all together to make one long “unwritten reviews” post which will address each of these books in a little bit of detail. Sound good? Ask away!

Well, I don’t usually have a problem “catching up” on reviews, but lately I’ve been so busy and/or sick that I haven’t had the time or motivation to sit in front of a computer screen. Unlike a lot of “book bloggers” I don’t ever intend to review every book I read. I can usually tell after the first 20-30 pages whether or not I’ll get a “reviewing vibe” for a book, and sometimes I’ll have so much to say about one book that I feel it’s better left unreviewed. (No sense in making posts that say “it was good, okay?” just as there’s no sense in saying “omg this this this this this and this were all the things I LOVED about this book, but it also made me think of this this this and this, and are you confused yet? because I have tons more topics to talk about.”)

That said, I only had two books to “catch up” on this week – Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, which I finished some time in April, and The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, which I finished earlier this week but completed a book and started another between then and now. I usually try to write my reviews as soon as I’m done with the books, as all my ideas are fresh in mind and I don’t have “other influences” getting in the way. Like right now all I want to do is complain about the writing style in The Book Thief, so I was a little distracted while praising The Time Traveler’s Wife.

I also have the fortune of a busy life, so I don’t finish quite as many books in so little time as other people seem to (not to say that others’ lives aren’t busy, but I tend to lean towards thick books which take a week or longer to read with my schedule)… Though I’m sure if I read and intended to review shorter books, I’d have a lot more to say in this post.

This post is being composed because the WeeklyGeeks were asked to post a summary of their experiences with the second challenge. If you recall from my last post: Basically, my readers were instructed to send in permalinks to their reviews that they’d done of books that I’d reviewed so that I could link them from that review, thus connecting a bunch of reviews on the same books all at once. I loved the idea (still do), but haven’t found it to be very successful.

However, I did only just post that on Tuesday, so I suppose there weren’t a lot of days to participate… Yet, I’ve read on several blogs that posted on Tuesday (or afterward) that they received several reviews. I suppose it depends on the popularity of your blog as well as which books you’ve reviewed, as when I went out searching for common reviews to submit myself to, I found very few. In other words, my contributions are limited as I’m not reviewing the same books as everyone else is.

In any case, I think I’ll keep it as a feature on my blog; I’m set to make a page about it in my “Library” section soon. I won’t openly advertise it with annoying posts (such as this one), nor will I keep a link in my sidebar, but it’ll be there if anyone is interested. I much more like the idea of people coming to me with their posts, rather than having to snoop around blog archives looking for places to submit myself. I’m much too lazy for that!

In the course of this, though, I also found a link to Book Bloggers Book Reviews, a website which seeks to bring together a plethora of book reviews all in one place. I submitted several books to it and recommend that you do as well – it’s a good read and a good way to learn about other book bloggers.

Unrelated: I am going to try displaying this page with the last 5 posts on the index. I don’t generally like doing this, because I like to have just one post up; it motivates me to write a really good post next so as to be worthy to replace the last one. However, I find myself posting more and more often these days with entries that are actually useful. Soon I am going to start participating in weekly memes that occur on the same day (Sunday, for example) and I don’t much like the idea of combining the posts. I want to give each its proper due (unlike what I’m doing now – updating about something entirely different than what my subject line says).

With that said, things might look a bit wonky for the next few days while I figure out exactly how I want things to look. I hope that my site will be much more browsable and easier to read for those who visit on a less-than-regular basis!

Weekly Geeks Challenge #2 adopts a particularly attractive idea from Books and Other Thoughts. Basically, I read and review a book, you read and review that same book (whether by my influence, out of your own interest, or otherwise), you email me with the link to your review, and I add that link to my review post. It’s a wonderful way to bring together different perspectives on single titles, and I’d specifically love to see some negative reviews counter my positive ones (or otherwise). I don’t normally read based on recommendations or reviews (as, I believe, I said in my last WG post), but that doesn’t mean you don’t. This is an excellent way to give my readers a well-rounded view on the books I’ve read, so I’ve decided to participate. In fact, if things go well, I’d like to adopt this as a feature on my blog indefinitely.

So! You can access the books which I’ve reviewed by visiting my library page or by browsing the Bookmobile category, though that also includes all other book-related posts in this blog. The opportunity is open to the reviews which have comments enabled. (Some of my earlier ones do not allow commenting, as they were imported from an earlier blog which had no reason to allow commenting as it had no visitors, and I lack the motivation to go through and enable commenting. :) )

If you would like to submit a review to be linked, you can either use the contact form, comment on this blog post, or comment on the blog post for that particular review. (If I decide to implement this as a feature on my website, I’ll probably think of a much better way to do this. For now, however, this post is here for the purpose of the Weekly Geeks challenge and thus I feel no need to go about coding a new form and all that jazz.) Remember to send me the permalink to the blog post containing the book review and not just a link to your blog! :)

Now on to other less interesting things… a six things about me meme! I’ve been tagged by this redhead to tell you more about myself than you’ve already gathered from my “about” page. I must also tag six people, apparently, so I’ll be doing that first.

I believe that Hev once tagged me for a meme similar to this (perhaps it was this same one), but she’s going to be my first tagged blogger anyway, because I feel I can never learn too much about her! I’d also like to tag Amanda so she can prove she reads this blog (just kidding ;) ), Christine who makes cute comics and who is crazy enough to like my writing, Renay who I’m sure will say very interesting things, and for kicks and giggles, I’ll invite two of the book bloggers I’ve been reading since I discovered WeeklyGeeks to see if they’ll find me in their referrers and participate in a silly meme which lets us get to know each other better: Bookworm and When Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops. Good luck and godspeed.

Without further adieu, here are six very unimportant things about me.

• I have tried several million times to stop biting my nails, a habit I formed sometime in elementary school and never got over. It annoys me that I still do it and sometimes I bite them down to intense pain, but none of those “remedies” (gross tasting polish, gum, etc) seem to ever work.
• I sometimes browse the “rants and raves” section on Craigslist for my nearest city just to reassure myself that my life is fulfilling enough not to lead me to trivial arguments on the Internet with complete strangers.
• I can’t stomach horror movies. Sometimes I won’t even be watching them and I’ll feel queasy; instead, my face will be buried in my boyfriend’s shoulder, or I’ll be in an entirely different room – but the sounds coming from the television are enough to frighten me to bits.
• All of the leather-bound antique books that I own are titles which are actually interesting to me and which I may read one day once I learn how to properly handle them. In other words, I don’t collect books just because they “look cool,” though I do appreciate a finely made tome.
• I stay awake much too late and wake up much too early most of the time.
• I have a large and impressive collection of cow-related things, from printed fabric to stuffed animals, porcelain figurines to kitchenware. It is almost entirely in storage at my parents’ house but some day, when I have room, it will come out and people will think I am crazy.

I’m also going to cheat and tag the same six people (even though I only have to tag five) for this sentence meme; I was tagged by Angela. What’s with you people tagging me lately? My ‘memes’ category was happy with just the one post. ;) I’ve done one of these sentence ones before, but this one’s a bit different – you are instructed to post a comment on the blog of the person who tagged the person who tagged you with your answer. An interesting way to network websites. In any case.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment on Angela’s blog (she’s the one who tagged me) once you’ve posted your three sentences.

“She’s a feeder,” said Linny. “Gets it from her mother. Both of them devotees of the philosophy that the world’s ills can be cured if you through enough food at them, although Cornelia would probably not admit that.”

This from Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos, which I haven’t read but have heard delightful things about.

Every so often I make a post in one of my journals (usually my writing journal on LJ) with links to blogs that I’ve recently discovered. I spend hours blog-hopping, reading articles, getting to know the posters, and sometimes falling absolutely in love with posts and ideas, then I take five minutes and share those loves with my friends. Thus, I’ve found Dewey’s WeeklyGeeks challenge for this week to be right up my alley. I enjoy browsing blogs – not least reader blogs – and sharing them. I hope that my visitors will find these five to be as interesting as I have!

Bookworm caught my interest in the first post, as it mentions Philip Roth. Philip Roth is one of those authors I collect, and though I have only read one of his books, I own seven. As I read further, I found an intriguing, intellectual blogger who writes when she has something to say, rather than to fill time (that is always a plus to a reader). Plus, I really like the footer, which is so simple but totally perfect.

Bookworms and tea lovers is simply designed – straight forward with centered content and roses. Who doesn’t like roses? I like roses. I can’t deny that design helps keep me at a website longer if the first post doesn’t satisfy, but I didn’t have to worry about that with this blog. I found myself reading the first post, and the second, and the third… All the way down to the bottom, and only when I got there did I realize how long I’d just spent at this blog!

There is a redhead who reads, and her blog is called This Redhead Reads. I enjoy her style, her miscellaneous bookish links, plus she reads very quickly, which means she has a lot of books to recommend. Plus, you have to admit, the red hair is pretty awesome!

I am a big fan of corny jokes, especially ones that involve chickens, so I couldn’t resist the allure of Bibliolatry after I read this post. It was the one and only time I said LOL and meant it, and when I read the joke to my boyfriend he shook his head and smiled as if to say, “oh, you.”

Two words: Literature Quizzes. Though The Books of my Numberless Dreams has more to offer than just those, those are really quite awesome and I’ve found myself eager to figure out the answers before I look at them!

I tend to like blogs more if they talk about books, not just about books. They have reviews, yes, but they also include thoughts on reading, different kinds of books, bookish ideas, etc. Every so often, there may even be a personal post thrown in there. It’s more interesting to me to read about the experience of reading than it is to read some straight-forward book reviews. Don’t get me wrong – I love reading those too, though I never read based on a single recommendation (I have to get many from different perspectives), just as I don’t reject a book based on anyone else’s distaste for it. Reading book reviews is fun, but I don’t generally get a lot out of them.