Second quarter round-up, a winner and the tiny fluffball in our house

April to June were all average reading months for me, quantity-wise, but I read some fantastic books. 

April

41. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Therese Anne Fowler

42. The Clover House - Henriette Lazaridis

43. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum

44. Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline

45. Things We Couldn't Say - Diet Eman with James Schaap

46. Itch - Simon Mayo

47. Pain, Parties, Work - Elizabeth Winder

48. Thinking of You - Jill Mansell

49. What a Mother Knows - Leslie Lehr

50. Reboot by Amy Tintera

51. The Illusion of Separateness - Simon Van Booy

May

52. If He Had Been With Me - Laura Nowlin

53. Baker Towers - Jennifer Haigh

54. Henri, Le Chat Noir - William Braden

55. Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence - David Samuel Levinson

56. The Cat That God Sent - Jim Kraus

57. The English: A Field Guide - Matt Rudd

58. A Certain Summer - Patricia Beard

59. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

60. The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey

June

61. Ten Little Aliens - Stephen Cole

62. The Kings and Queens of Roam - Daniel Wallace

63. The Registry - Shannon Stoker

64. The Firebird - Susanna Kearsley

65. Festival of Death - Jonathan Morris

66. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

67. We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo

68. Astor Place Vintage - Stephanie Lehmann

69. To Be a Cat - Matt Haig

70. She Rises - Kate Worsley

71. The Keeper of Secrets - Julie Thomas

Links lead to my reviews, except for The Illusion of Separateness by the ever-awesome Simon Van Booy, which I haven't yet given a full review (the link leads to my initial thoughts).  I have just finished rereading The Illusion of Separateness. This time I took notes and drew arrows to show how the characters were connected -- not that I needed to, for the sake of reviewing, but I thought it would be fun to see the connections drawn out. A full review should appear, soon.  

A winner:

Random.org chose Chris as the winner of the Dr. Who book Festival of Death.  Congratulations, Chris! I've sent your address to Lisa at TLC Tours to forward to the publisher.

And, about that kitten:

I think everybody I know is going to be steamed if we're not able to keep this little gal, if only because they're enjoying the cute kitty photos.  She is awfully cute and photogenic; I can't deny it.

However, so far introducing her to the other kitties is not going well at all.  I'm keeping her in her own room, hoping that backing away from exposing cats to kitten for a bit will help.  Prissy has a lot of room to play, plenty of toys, a West Elm sofa to sleep on and a window, along with her litterbox, water and food.  But, she gets lonely, poor thing, and when I go to play with her or read near her to keep her company, the other cats wail outside the door.  I'm going to buy some of the calming spray that I used when we introduced Isabel to Fiona to see if that will help with the spitting, hissing freakouts we're having when they're exposed.  Wish me luck!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Winners of Simon Van Booy's Awesome Books

And, the winners are . . .

Love Begins in Winter:

Shari Dash Greenspan

Lover of Books

Kookie

Cynthia

The Secret Lives of People in Love:

softdrink

Marisa

Paula

Erin in Boston

Congratulations! I'll be in touch with all of you by email, but if you don't hear from me (because sometimes email is hinky), please get in touch with me via my email in the sidebar -----> by Wednesday morning. Thanks to all who joined in and especially those who very kindly followed my nitpicky rules!!

Winners of How to Lower your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food by Chef Alain Braux

The winners of How to Lower Your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Food are . . . .

Kris

Janet Ruth

I'll be in touch with both of you to get your mailing addresses. If you don't hear from me by tomorrow morning, please send your mailing address to the email in my sidebar post haste because Chef Braux wants to mail them out by Saturday morning in order to make sure they arrive before Christmas. Is he terrific, or what?

Congratulations!! I know you're going to enjoy this nutrition/cookbook. My husband and I absolutely love this book and have our fingers crossed that a major publisher will someday figure out that it deserves a huge audience . . . and publish it and make Chef Braux scads of money and Americans healthier. I was not paid, urged or held at gunpoint in order to say that. (<------just in case the FTC was wondering)

A Climate for Change - Drawing winners!

The winners of A Climate for Change are:

jenclair
jhjumper
Christy
Lover of Books
Nelsby

I'll be in touch with you, soon. If you don't hear from me, please send your mailing address to the email in my sidebar by Friday morning Sunday (<---because someone forgot to send out an email, last night . . . sorry. Will be in touch will all of you, tonight).

I hope you all love this book as much as I did! I think of all the books I've been able to give away in Hatchette-sponsored drawings, this is my all-time favorite. I learned a lot about climate change and feel like I can finally speak about it with a bit of intelligence. I had no idea there are so many rumors and misconceptions about global warming floating about; this book clarified a lot for me. Congratulations to the winners!!!

Can God Be Trusted? - Drawing winners

Goodness, the odds were good if you signed up to try to win this one. The winners of Can God Be Trusted? are:

Emma

Carmen7351

enyl

David R.

Colleen

I'll be in touch with you, soon. If you don't hear from me, please send your mailing address to the email address in my sidebar by Friday morning.

In the contest rules, I asked everyone to answer this question: Do you think it's harder to maintain faith in the face of personal tragedy or simply when surrounded by those who don't believe in God?

The answers were pretty mixed. 6 people said it's harder maintaining faith in the face of personal tragedy, 2 said it's harder maintaining faith when surrounded by nonbelievers, 2 said "neither" and one said "both". Which, I suppose, just goes to show that we're all different but many of us do get a little wobbly when something bad happens to us personally. Many thanks to those who entered and answered the question. I always enjoy reading your answers! And, congrats to the winners!!

Mosaic Bible Winner

I'll bet you thought I'd forgotten I had a drawing, today, right? Well, um, I did but fortunately I remembered just in time to draw a name before toddling off to bed and the winner is:

Bellezza

Cool, someone I know! I'll be in touch, Bellezza. Congratulations!

Winners of Life After Genius!

The winners of Life After Genius by M. Ann Jacoby are:

Bonnie
bison61
Marjorie
walkerd
Rebecca Graham

I've just emailed you. If you don't receive an email, please send your mailing address to the email address in my sidebar---->

Congratulations!

Winners of *The Bible Salesman* Giveaway!!!

I almost forgot I had to pull a few names out of the hat, today. Whew! You might have had to wait a day if I hadn't taken my vitamins.

And, the winners of The Bible Salesman are . . .

Megan
traveler
Noelle
Pam
Madwomandoingcartwheels


I'll be in touch, but if you don't get an email from me and you're a winner, please send your mailing address to the email in my sidebar by Wednesday morning.

I asked whether the fact that Christianity, beliefs and Bibles play an important role in this book had any effect on your desire to read the book and only one person said she was "totally put off" by the Christianity aspect. The rest said it either piqued their interest or didn't matter a bit. And, a lot of you love that cover! I haven't yet received a copy of this book, so there's no review to link up to but I do plan to read it, eventually. Congrats to the winners!

Winners of Hispanic Heritage Month Giveaway!!!

Break out the champagne if your name is on this list because you've just won a big, fat box of books to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month!!!

Marjorie

Diane

olduvai

CherylS22

Shawna

Congratulations!!! Winners will be notified by email and y'all have till Sunday evening to send me your mailing address. If you do not hear from me by email, write to me at the address in my sidebar ---->

I asked entrants to tell me, for an extra entry, the title and author of a recent read that was unputdownable (although I didn't use that non-word . . . but you can imagine a gal who came up with the fake word "bookfoolery" has no problem with recently-invented words). Here are the books you found hard to put down:

Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk

The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness

Still Life - Joy Fielding

The DoppleGanger Chronicles - G.P. Taylor

Labor Day - Joyce Maynard (2 people mentioned this one)

The Unit - Ninni Holmqvist

Love Begins in Winter - Simon Van Booy (YES!!!! Ding, ding, ding - me, too!!!!!)

The French Gardener - Santa Montefiore

Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same - Mattox Roesch

Love Walked In - Marisa de los Santos

Grave Goods - Ariana Franklin

Eleanor Rushing - Patty Friedmann

Not Quite a Husband - Sherry Thomas

The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown

The Crying Tree - Naseem Rakha

Tell Me Something True - Leila Cobo

An Elegy for Easterly - Petina Gappah

All 6 Sookie Stackhouse books - Charlaine Harris

Poppy & Ereth - Avi

Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson

The Trial of Robert Magabe - Chielo Zona Eze

Sharp Objects and Dark Places - both by Gillian Flyn

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

The Land of Silver Apples - Nancy Farmer

The Swan Song - Robert McCammon

According to Jane - Marilyn Brant

Sunday at the Pool in Kigali - Gil Courtmanche

For One More Day - Mitch Albom

Wow, what an interesting list! Lots of variety. I hope it doesn't get everyone else in as much trouble as a list of gripping books tends to stir up in this household. Sorry about the wacky spacing in this post.

Coming up soon . . .

More giveaway posts

A review of The Maze Runner by James Dashner

My selections for the Dystopian YA challenge

A day devoted to reviews of 4 children's books

There are not even enough days in the week for all I have to babble about. Hmm. For now, though, I'm off to clean house because my husband is going to Germany without me for the 5th time, soon. Ask me if he'll make it out the door alive. The answer is "yes," but only because he swears he's going to take me somewhere, next year. I suppose he has to live in order to do that.

Happy thoughts to all!

Bookfool

The Smart One and The Pretty One - Winners!!

Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Time to draw some names, my smart pretties!! The winners of The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik are . . .

SnjDebdeb
Jo-Jo
Silent Evil Person
Stacie
holdenj

And, where would you like to go if you were able to hop a plane to any place on the planet? Well . . . you guys are very, very fond of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland) as well as Italy (Tuscany, Rome) and Greece. Other spots that interest those of you who signed up for this drawing are Mexico, Africa, all of Europe, New Zealand, Fripp Island, and the Lowcountry of South Carolina. I'm rather fond of the British Isles because I love the people and . . . yes, I confess . . . the sheep. I love sheep. But Australia, New Zealand and Italy are at the top of my travel wish list, at the moment.

I will write to the winners. In case my email to you goes astray, you have until Wednesday noon (U.S. Central Time -- that's Greenwich Mean Time minus 5, according to the glorious internet) to write to me. You can whip out a note and send it to me at the email in my sidebar, if necessary -------------------->

Congratulations to the winners!!

Winners of The Way Home by George Pelecanos, plus the answer to that burning question . . .

I know you're all dying to know my cat's favorite vegetable but first let's draw a few names, shall we? And, the winners are [drumroll]:

Daniella

Luvdaylilies

Beth

Aliya D.

Sherry

Congratulations!! Several people got extra entries for tweeting, posting and, of course, guessing my cat's favorite vegetable, broccoli!!! Yummo. Bonnie even left me a link to one hilarious video of a kitten eating broccoli.

Your guesses were ridiculously fun reading (mostly because you guys are funny!): corn, cauliflower, asparagus, tomato, carrots, sweet potatoes, celery, green beans, artichokes, string beans, peas, beets, avocado, lettuce, lemon cucumbers, red onion, kohlrabi, peppers and parsnips. Whew!

Thanks to all who entered! I'll contact with the winners by email.

Winners of The Imposter's Daughter!

I used a random number generator to pull two names out of a virtual hat and the winners of The Imposter's Daughter are:

Nicola
Rosemary

I'll email both of you to get your information, shortly.

I asked for those who have read graphic novels to share a favorite title and the answers are:

1. Death - The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman
2. Persepolis (mentioned more than once - not surprising)
3. Rapunzel's Revenge
4. Victorian True Crime series by Rick Geary
5. French Milk by Lucy Knisley
6. Maus (1 & 2 - mentioned several times)
7. Epileptic by David B. (? - looks like a last name is missing)
8. Blankets by Craig Thompson
9. Pyongyang - A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle

There are several I've never heard of. Many thanks to those who shared favorite titles and congratulations to the winners!

Winners of that baby book . . . too tired to type the title

Oh, what a day. My kiddo is not so young as the child at left and he dragged me to Transformers 2, probably the most exhausting movie I've seen in a long time. So, I'm a bit late, but the winners are . . .


Andrea
Amy
Pam
Jake Lsewhere
Tasha


Congratulations! And, please be patient with me. It might take me a couple of days to contact you because I have a busy weekend ahead. I may be offline for a few days.


Here's what you guys would have named the baby (with a few of the cute comments made by participants:


Noah - See how nicely NOAH goes with "Noah! NO SIR! That is ICKY."

Theopolis Leroy

Maynard...there was some old commericial on TV and the kid wasn't sure if he wanted to eat the product in question and the dad said: "Good stuff, Maynard."

His name is Carter Hagan- and he will be a football player - strong with no emergencies.

I think the child looks like a little girl named Lexie.

I like Cathy as a name for the kid. Sort of upbeat and not fussy!

It's definitely a boy...I'll call him Little Lord Fauntleroy

I think the baby is a boy and I am naming him Biblio Babalasariuas

Mikey. As in "Hey Mikey! He likes it!" from the old cereal commercials.

That's definitely a little boy named Ernest.

Oh, that baby is definitely a Rupert.

Laurence is what he should be named.

It looks like a boy to me...Clarence Hofflemyer of the Rhode Island Hofflemyers. His family is very wealthy and are horrified to find him regularly chewing on furniture, etc. when the nanny is chatting on the phone instead of watching him...

I think it's a girl. And since she reminds me of my niece who can't keep her mouth off anything...I'm calling her Rachael.

Kid looks like a Dory to me.

I'm going to go with a boy named Norman.

It looks like a boy and I would go with the name.....sticky!

I think the kid's a girl, and I would name her Stella. She looks like she'll be a star one day with a cute face like that!


I'm particularly fond of Theopolis Leroy and Clarence Hofflemyer. I have no idea why.


Thanks to all who participated! That was fun. :)

Winners of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

The winners of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti are:

Melissa Palmer

quelleheure4

cstironkat

jemscout 425

Gentle Reader

Congratulations and happy cooking! I'll get in touch with you soon (probably tomorrow -- be patient with me) so I can collect your addresses.

Drawing - WINNERS!!! - A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal

The winners of my drawing for 5 copies of A Lucky Child are:

Marie
Christine
Lover of Books
Paula
Jo-Jo

Congratulations!! I'll get in touch with you to acquire your addresses.

Want to know the titles of memoirs suggested by entrants? There were quite a few. Some folks were unsure whether their favorites qualified as memoirs and I removed a couple that I knew for sure were not, but the list was humongous. There were quite a few very enthusiastic responses. Thanks for sharing your favorite memoir titles! Here they are:

1. The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls (this one was mentioned more than any other title)
2. A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson (mentioned at least twice; I liked it, also)
3. Catch Me If You Can - Frank Abagnale
4. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel
5. Walking Through Walls - Philip Smith
6. All Over But the Shoutin' - Rick Bragg
7. 50 Acres and a Poodle - Jeanne Laskas (this was mentioned at least twice)
8. Wait till Next Year - Doris Kearns Goodwin
9. Dispatches from the Edge - Anderson Cooper (another one I'll noisily second)
10. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight - Alexandra Fuller
11. A Year in Provence - Peter Mayle (one thumbs up, one down)
12. The Non-Runner's Marathon Guide for Women - Dawn Dais
13. How Starbucks Saved My Life - Michael Gates Gill (I liked this one, too)
14. Auncun de nous ne reviendra (None of us will return) - Charlotte Delbo
15. Confessions of a Counterfeit Farmgirl - Susan McCorkindale
16. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
17. I Was Told There'd Be Cake - S. Crossley
18. The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II - Edvard Radzinsky (bio, not memoir)
19. Hope's Boy - Andrew Bridge
20. Marley and Me - John Grogan
21. Angela's Ashes and
22. Teacher Man, both by Frank McCourt
23. Hana's Suitcase - Karen Levine
24. I Am the Central Park Jogger - Trisha Meili (just read this one and I thought it was good, too)
25. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
26. Up Till Now - William Shatner
27. Here's the Story - Maureen McCormick
28. Night - Elie Weisel (mentioned numerous times)
29. Clear Springs - Bobbie Ann Mason
30. Lucky - Alice Sebold
31. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah (mentioned at least twice)
32. The Diary of Anne Frank
33. A Lotus Grows in the Mud - Goldie Hawn
34. I Feel Bad About My Neck and
35. Heartburn, both by Nora Ephron
36. West with the Night - Beryl Markham
37. I'm With the Band - Pamela des Barres
38. 501 Minutes to Christ - Poe Ballantine
39. The Hiding Place - Corrie Ten Boom (mentioned more than once and I agree, this is an old favorite)
40. One Child - Torey Hayden
41. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
42. A Girl Named Zippy - Haven Kimmel (yep, I loved that one, too)
43. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson
44. Comfort - Ann Hood
45. Memoirs - Pablo Neruda
46. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
47. Couplehood - Paul Reiser
48. On the Road - Charles Kuralt
49. Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs

Wow, that's one heck of a list, isn't it?

Drawing Winner!

The winner of any one of Colleen Gleason's Victoria Gardella Vampire novels is . . . .

malleycc

Congratulations!! I'll be in touch.

Drawing winner

The winner of the Love is in the Air drawing is:

mebeingrandom

Congratulations! I'll be in touch with you, tomorrow.

Winner of the Big Box of History Rocks drawing!!

The winner of my Big Box of History Rocks drawing is . . . .

Megan

Congratulations, Megan! It's late and my eyes are bleary but I will be in touch with you, tomorrow. Thanks to all who signed up, left jokes and told me what you'd like to see changed.

The changes requested sort of stunned me:

1. More photos
2. More Poppet pictures
3. More frequent posts

You guys just want more, more more! Seriously, I'd have expected everyone to tell me to put a lid on it and quit babbling so much. Thanks for all of the kind remarks and the laughs. It was loads of fun reading all those comments! I will do my best to fulfill your wishes.

Winner of the YA drawing

Bookfool just tripped over to Random.org and Mr. Random pulled #2 out of the hat. The winner of three YA books is:

Debs (Debi in New Jersey)

Congratulations, Debi! I'll email you shortly.

In other news:

I haven't finished any books. I'm tired and sore from walking and doing those ucky squat things. The cat is sleeping on my bed (I'm pretty sure she has the right idea) and I'm sort of behind on a couple of tour books. But, I hope to finish them soon.

I'm halfway through Never Say Diet by Chantel Hobbs. It's part memoir, part "how-to" and I'm finding it a pretty quick, enjoyable read. I just need more reading time. I hope to finish Never Say Diet before the end of the week.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be a First Wild free chapter day. The featured book is Grace for the Afflicted by Dr. Matthew S. Stanford. The moment it arrived, I sat down and read a portion of the book that I'd call the most relevant to me because of an acquaintance, and it was soooo good. Grace for the Afflicted describes different mental illnesses and what the Bible says about them. The section I read is absolutely perfect. The author outlines the symptoms of the condition and how it's treated, shares a couple of examples from his experience with patients who have that illness, and then tells the story of a character in the Bible who suffered from the condition. The chapter is written with compassion and is extremely encouraging. The author even tells you how best to behave around someone with that particular illness. Wow. Excellent, excellent book. I'll do a full review when I finish it.

Thursday, I'll review Recovering Me, Discovering Joy by Vivian Eisenecher, another book that has a bookmark sticking out of its mid-section, which just means I need to shut up and focus.

Oh, no. There's more! I am also still yearning to spend some time with The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter . . . thinking maybe I should work on writing shorter sentences if I want to hunker down with Charlie. Not to mention that awesome Canadian book, The Coasts of Canada by Lesley Choyce, which I haven't managed to touch since the day my son had his wisdom teeth extracted. I keep thinking, "I need a very long, very quiet stretch." Snort. Like that's going to ever happen.

I took a walk in our National Military Park after the Inauguration, today. The photo above was snapped in the park last year, but it seems apropos for Inauguration Day.

Since I'm rather booked, this week, my current plan is to post about my next 100,000-hit drawing on Friday.

All of this meticulous planning strikes me as somewhat surprising. If you'd told me a year ago that I would have my life so carefully scheduled in January of 2009, I'd have called you something akin to "nuts". I'm actually relishing the sensation of knowing what's coming up next. Weird. I mean, that is just so not me. I guess it just goes to show you that my college speech teacher was correct when she described Irrational Assumption #4: Things Don't Change.

Off to read because even scheduled reading has not dampened the joy of bibliophilia.

Bookfool with calendar and pen