Wow. This will be the last Sunday Salon before Thanksgiving comes.. that was fast! I can't decide if this week went so fast because I was so busy, or perhaps my brain is just fried. It is probably for both reasons I feel so scatter-brained. This Thanksgiving will mark the first anniversary of my father's death. Despite the grief in my heart, I am going to try and celebrate the fact that I have a loving husband and two healthy kids. Christmas presents have been bought for the kiddos, I just need some ideas for my mom and my husband, the other important people in my life. I am drawing a blank. A big zero on the creativity scale. Sure, there are gifty type items I can just run and buy for them, but I want to do something "from the heart", but the heart is not speaking to my brain right now. HELP!
In my little book world this week, a Facebook friend wondered if I ought to create a new Facebook profile in order to separate out my book news from my personal status updates. Aside from being a little affronted.. I told her most of my Facebook friends were fellow book fiends like me so that I felt that wasn't necessary. Anyway, all anyone has to do on the Facebook news feed is to set different settings for different people. Like one guy kept posting to the news feed all the almost pornographic quizzes he would take, and it was one after the other for hours. I found the little 'options' link in the top right corner of each quiz post and I was able to modify the settings so that he would be hidden. So, if you want to hide my bookish posts on Facebook, you can do that to me too, and I would be none the wiser. I only have like two posts a day I would think on my Facebook profile, which is why I was a little shocked at my friend's request. Quite frankly, I think my bookish posts would be so much more intelligent than my every other day status updates of whatever frustrations I am having at that time. So now that Facebook friend has set her settings so that she will only see that the toddler got milk on the carpet today, (BORING!) as opposed to seeing perhaps a Book Review or various book meme posts etc. But a drawback to being my Facebook friend this week was I hit by a spam/hacker/someone who has nothing better to do, and my "profile" spit out lots of spam by making stupid wall posts on many of my Facebook friend's walls. Mighty frustrating and I apologize again. I changed my password and it stopped. Twitter is another social utility that is frequently hit by these useless people who like sending out fake direct messages from unsuspecting users.
In case you are not my Facebook friend (find me at marie.burton) and you missed my totally annoying bookish posts, this week I spotlighted Kathryne Kennedy, author of the December 1 release My Unfair Lady. If you are in the mood for a Victorian romance, enter for your chance to win your very own copy of this book, sponsored by Sourcebooks. And don't forget to stop by my review of My Unfair Lady.
I finished reading O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell, and I really loved it! You will be privy to a flurry a reviews this January in preparation for its February release, so you'll just have to wait for more information until then. This selection will be our first event at the new website Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table, which will be the new central meeting point for these spotlight events. We had a lot of fun for our September event which coincided with BBAW, and our lovely group of Historical Fiction bloggers have all agreed to move this party forward into 2010 with a spotlight a month for our favorite Historical Fiction authors who are lucky enough to have a new book coming out. Check out the new website, but keep in mind it is still in the organizing stages, but it already has a list of the books we have scheduled to spotlight in 2010! See some of my posts from the previous event so you know what kind of historical madness is in store.
I have begun to read Her Mother's Daughter: A Novel of Queen Mary Tudor by Julianne Lee, which releases December 1. This is a novel of Mary Tudor, King Henry VIII's eldest daughter, who was also known as Bloody Mary. As the book jacket states, Mary was England's most 'vilified' queen. I have never had much sympathy for her, but I have not yet a read a fictional account focused on her, so perhaps I can be swayed with this new read. Time will tell!
How are you doing on your Christmas shopping? Are you buying books? If so, check out my Amazon store! In the top left corner you will see different categories, so that you can see selections of other genres by clicking the corresponding links in that corner.
And one more shameless plug, I wrote a little article for the Examiner concerning the newest awards given out this week. Check that out here!
Onwards to a news topic of this week. Kathryn aka Alianore of the fabulous Edward II blog has written a heartfelt but informative post about her hometown of Cumbria. Kathryn stated on her Facebook status "..after the heaviest rain EVER recorded in Britain. The Environment Agency is calling the rainfall and floods a once in a thousand year event. Thank God both my parents live on high ground and are OK, but thousands of people are not, and lots more heavy rain is forecast over the next few days. Thinking of you all xxxx". I second her sentiments, I hope all ends well, and my prayers are with the people in Cumbria. Visit Kathryn's post for some great photos.
That's all folks! See you in blogland, and I am off to stir the pot! (I mean the chili that I'm simmering!) Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter for your chance at the December Blogoversary giveaways.
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