"What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake...."
I hope my fellow Americans had a pleasant Independence Day. The only family we have close by is my mother, but she worked the closing shift so we managed to occupy ourselves with a zillion kids DVD's. We can't go in our backyard because we have new grass growing so we were pretty much sheltered till we went out to watch the fireworks show.
This past week I finished reading and reviewed Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman who Helped Hide The Franks by Miep Gies. I loved that book very much, it was quite poignant and thought provoking for me. I strongly recommend it. You can find it on the Amazon UK site for now, and they just got it on the Simon & Schuster UK site. I cannot wait to read more WWII accounts, from the personal memories to the more military history ones. I am very intrigued by the history of it.
Also courtesy of Simon And Schuster UK, I read and reviewed Crowner Royal by Bernard Knight, which is the thirteenth in a Crowner John Medieval Mystery series for this author. He received high reviews on Amazon for this one, and my own review is posted here.
I just started Valeria's Last Stand by Marc Fitten which I received as an ARC a while ago and just couldn't get around to it. Better late than never, and it is definitely different. A bit crude but the story is interesting that it has a lot of potential to be a page-turner as soon as I have a moment's peace.
Mo at Unmainstream Mom Reads posted the other day that she lost her reading mojo. She's in a slump. She only read 20 books as opposed to her norm of average 33 and she is upset by the decrease. I commented that it's okay to give it your best shot, and what results from that is what was meant to be.
But of course it got me thinking, because I feel a bit of the same way. I do enjoy reading, and now that I have been blogging about reading (*& reading other blogs) I definitely am not using my time wisely. I follow along on twitter when you wouldn't even know I'm there, and I also do the Facebook thing, for which I just figured out how to sync my tweets to post to my Facebook status so I can annoy more people elsewhere. I have the Google Reader on which I think I stay up to speed on. but today I just deleted over 1,000 posts. When did I sign up for all these subscriptions?! So now I'm starting fresh again.
For the Bloggiesta a few weeks ago I spent like 15 hours doing minor updates to my blog that were barely noticeable. Why did I spend so much time doing that?? I thought there would be book awards, but I only saw one winner out of all the mini challenges. I definitely would not have spent so much time on it if there was only one winner out of all the participants. But .. then again, maybe I would have. I am addicted to this laptop, and learning new tweaks is always invigorating.
Some people read 20 books a month and easily write a thorough review on it immediately. And although anything more than 5 books a month for me is awesome, I also hate it when I feel like a book is holding me back.. particularly when I am reading specifically to review it and I'd rather just throw it against the wall. Marireads just mentions this quandry which everyone has been in the situation before. As for myself, I work Full-time, I have a 7 year old and a 2 year old, a house that they are destroying.. and reading was my one little enjoyment that was mine all mine!! Now that I have shared that passion with the entire Book Blogging Community and the publishers or authors for whom I agree to review a book, I feel a bit like it's a struggle. It is summertime, the kids are out of school, I should be enjoying life with them but I am obsessed with checking out what everyone else is blogging about and what new book is out there that I must add to my shelf.. And I am still swamped with my own pile of books that I have yet to review. Before I started this reviewing thing it seemed like I was reading about 10 books a month. I guess that was because I didn't have to stop in between books and compose a thoughtful and concise review on it. And then of course the main thing is that I obviously had hand-picked the books out and they were not offered to me by anyone else. These were books that were specifically and only in the 'I really want to read this' genre, and therefore seemed to be devoured quickly.
I posted my Friday Fill In and NO Fill-In Meme participants (of which there were at least 71 that day) came by to check it out. So why do I bother? I guess because this blog is still Mine All Mine and if I enjoyed creating that post then it should have been worthwhile to me.. which I thought it was pretty special. And so did Ms. Lucy who must be my biggest fan, I love her to pieces for her support.
Am I feeling a little extra crappy because OH MY GOD I am freaking 36 today?!! Yes, probably so. Where did the fun skinny blond haired (other days red or brown, depending on my mood) girl go? Reincarnated into my light-brown haired daughter, who has 110% of my attitude and who unabashedly flings it back at me 100 times a day. I once was the girl that could not gain a pound if I ate McDonald's and pizza all day long, and then boom! I hit 30 and I think of McDonald's and I immediately gain a pound, and yet I still eat there an insane amount. INSANE. My face has teeny wrinkles, my freckles aren't cute, my once non-existent boobs have turned into droopy ex-milk producers, and even my toes don't look as pretty in those cute strappy sandals. But it's my birthday, I have the day off, so I should be happy and excited, right?
{And I will be once my husband shows me what he bought for me!! teehee}
:)
And here is a picture of some of my Birthday Presents!
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