Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by myself and Eva that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!
For Week 4 of the Blog Improvement Project, Kim has us at work on improving our blog basics: updating our contact information, About page, RSS feed links, blogroll, and so on.
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by myself and Eva that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!
I've started devouring books again. Thank goodness, I was starting to feel there was something deeply wrong with me. In the last few days I finished Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho, then Kindred by Octavia Butler, then Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips, and finally When it Happens by Susane Colasanti. Two library books, two books in translation, three new authors, in case you were wondering what I'm doing with my challenges. And three of them featured romantic love between two of the main characters, so I suppose they could count towards Naida's Romance Reading challenge.
For this week's edition of Weekly Geeks, we're going to take a closer look at character names. What are some of your favorite character names?
Go to Google or a baby name site like this one or this one, and look up a favorite character's name. What does their name mean? Do you think the meaning fits the character? Why or why not?
If you'd like, look up your own name as well and share the meaning.
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by myself and Eva that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!
The first time I heard about Angela Johnson was on the author list posted at Color Online for the celebration of Black History Month. I found a book by her at my local library, and couldn't wait to pick it up. It was A Cool Moonlight in the Italian translation by Daniela Liconti. Although I don't often read books for children, I was immediately grabbed by the easy, beautiful writing and tender rendering of the protagonist's everyday and inner life.
Week 3 of the Blog Improvement Project is all about writing different kinds of content. It’s easy to get into a pattern of writing the same kinds of posts over and over again, but sometimes it can be fun to spice it up, or at least have ideas about other ways to present your ideas.
I did a search about kinds of blog posts and came across many articles about kinds of blog posts: 20 Types of Blog Posts, The 5 Types of Blog Posts that Experts Write, and All 13 Types of Blog Post, just to link to a few. What I learned in doing this was something I should have known in the first place — there are no definitive types of blog posts. However, there are some types of posts that can be the bread and butter of a successful blogger, and knowing some of these forms can help if you feel like you’re in a rut.
This week it's all about judging books by their covers! Pick a book--any book, really--and search out multiple book cover images for that book. They could span a decade or two (or more)...Or they could span several countries. Which cover is your favorite? Which one is your least favorite? Which one best 'captures' what the book is about?
This one on the left is probably the most common cover: the candle going out. It actually took me a while to understand it (I'm a bit slow on the uptake, apparently), but I find it very striking. The black background gives it all a "dark" feeling.
This one on the right is another popular book cover (UK?). I love the white daisy on the black background, as well as the sentences "First friend, first girl, last words". It captures well the essence of the book, I think. On the other hand, it's maybe too "feminine". This is a book told in a boy's perspective. It's not feminine at all. Is this only me thinking it?
This cover on the left, with the eye and the hair strand, is very striking too. Here we have a light background and a prevalence of warm colours. The closed eye, though, gives it all a melancholic feeling. This cover, too, is quite feminine, I think (or maybe it is only the fuchsia font for the author's name).
The cover on the right is probably my favourite. We have the same fonts as in the previous cover for the book title, and the same sentence ("First friend, first girl, last words"). The image on the backgroung is different, though: here we have a car with people in it. I feel this is the best cover because it represents freedom, young people, having fun - and that's what Miles, the Colonel, Alaska, and their friends do. It also doesn't look very tragic, which is good in my opinion - we don't want the book cover to give everything away, do we?
In addition, there are also covers from other countries:
This is the Spanish cover, I think. I like the navy blue background with the white band at the bottom - I don't know why, but together with the big "A" it suggests the idea of boarding school to me. Very nice.
On the right, we have the German cover. This is very different from all the previous ones. I like the blue part (because I like everything blue, really) and the picture of the girl holding her knees. On the other hand, I can't remember if there are swimming pools in the book. I guess not. Why the swimming pool? Enlighten me, if you can.
This on the left is the Dutch cover. Blue background with a love letter/joint. It is true that there is a lot of smoking in the book. But I wouldn't have chosen to display it on the cover. Uhm.
Last (and least), the Italian cover. The one I like the least, I mean, and the one I can understand the least (even though it's the book version I've actually read). There's a huge doll on the front, with a hand over its mouth. I find it slightly creepy. If I hadn't read about Looking for Alaska on the Internet, there's no way I would have picked up the book at the library. I would have left it there on the shelf! I should probably mention that the words below the title read, "Who are you? Who were you? Why are you gone?". Spoilers spoilers spoilers, I hate you! If you add that the major event in the book is told on the book jacket, the result was that I was spoilered right at the beginning. Tsk.
And these are all the covers I could find. What do you think of them? Which one is your favourite? Can you understand why the Italian publisher felt the need to choose such an ugly cover?
To look at a lot of pretty covers chosen by other Weekly Geeks, click here.
One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school he was surprised to find Maria, the family maid - who always kept her head bowed and never looked up from the carpet - standing in his bedroom, pulling all his belongings out of the wardrobe and packing them in four large wooden crates, even the things he'd hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody's business.
Both Korianne and Erotic Horizon tagged me for the Happy meme. Here are the rules:
- Link to the person who tagged you
- List 6 things that make you happy
-Post the rules, tag 6 others and let them know you did
-Then tell the person who tagged you your entry is finished!
Then, six things that make me happy (in no particular order)
The award says: “These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by myself and Eva that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!No new books for me from the library this week, as I'm still in the middle of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party. Maybe I'll manage to finish my library loot in time for next week's post!
(I totally forgot to post this yesterday... sorry! I'm terrible at hosting memes)
Click here to add your post to Mr Linky.
In the fourth WG activity of 2009, we're exploring our own passions, other than reading and blogging.#1. What are you passionate about besides reading and blogging? For example, are you crafty (knitting, woodworking, scrapbooking, model building)? Do you cook? Into gaming (computer or board)? Sports (player or spectator)? Photography? Maybe you like geocaching, rock climbing? Or love attending events like renaissance fairs, concerts? Music? Dancing? You get the idea.
Tell us why you're passionate about it. Post photos of what you've made or of yourself doing whatever it is you love doing.
#3. Visit other Weekly Geeks. Link in your post to other Geeks who've peaked your interest in their passion. Or maybe you might find a fellow aficionado among us, link to them.
