Happy Sunday! Pull up a chair, click the above pics to see other virtual reading rooms.. what are you reading this week??
The Sunday Salon.. again.. this might look familiar to some because when I was composing this during the week, it published and posted and was live for a few hours before I realized it. Then I took it down again. So here it is again.
OK so I don't normally post about awards. And I haven't in like.. forever.
But I am bored so here we go:
I received the Honest Scrap award from Sheri at A Novel Menagerie. She is one of my blogger buddies that is always there in the shadows just waiting for me to cry on her shoulder. She's a good buddy. I think I've done this before but honestly.. who cares.
2. I've always preferred older men. Then I married one. I did good.
3. I hate cliques. Despise them. I am always right there to lead an opposing clique.
4. Even though I complain a whole lot, I hope I am in the same place ten years from now.
5. I don't do house cleaning. Laundry and the-must-do-to-stay-sanitary stuff I do, grudgingly.
6. Sadly, I have never read the classic classics like Tolstoy, Faust, Faulkner etc.
7. I write with my right hand but throw with my left.
8. Sometimes I skip showers in the AM's when I hit the snooze button too many times.
9. I am a girlie girl and like pretty things. Pink, florals, bright but pastels within my surroundings. Most days I wear a lot of black. I'm odd.
10. I had many pen pals when I was a kid. I would write to some mail order place and they would send me a list of potential pen pals. I had one guy from Africa. It was such a learning experience! And of course I had the normal gal-pen pals with lots of stickers and sweet smelling paper flying across the states back and forth. I loved it. Sharla from OK where are you?!
And then.... Life After Jane honored me with the Beautiful Blogger award...awww. Be sure to visit Life After Jane, she has an awesome blog going.
If you are awarded, here are the rules:
1. Make a new post and add a link to the person who gave it to you
2. Pass this award on to 15 bloggers you've recently discovered and whom you think are fantastic.
3. State 7 things about yourself!
SOOOO
instead of yammering on about inane facts about me that I cannot seem to conjure up with my usual witticisms anyway... I'll spare you any more fun facts of Marie.
I am going to award both these awards to .......................... drum rooooollllll pllllease.....
Newly discovered blogs that you should check out (there may be veterans here but I just found them recently):
Muse in the Fog
Ann Lauren
Back to Books
Bippity Boppity Book
Padfoot and Prongs
Scuffed Slippers and Wormy Books
The Secret Dreamworld of a Jane Austen Fan
And I am making a new addendum to all the rules, you can acknowledge the award or not. Your prerogative. I still love you.
So go off and read those blogs.. And thanks for the nominations from my awardees.
So what have I read this week outside of blogs?
I read The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom in a day. A Long Day. But a great day.. I read and shushed the kids all day last Sunday. When I finished the book, my poor little brain was utterly completely fried so much so that I was over stimulated, yet exhausted, and I could not fall asleep. I checked on the snoring kids a couple times. I had slave babies going through my head and ultimately my dreams.. after reading that one. It was intense.
So the next day came and I couldn't read. I shut down until I write a review of the previous book, I simply cannot go on until the required review is written. It's in the blood, it's not a rule. I carried a new book around with me in hopes I would crack it open. Couldn't do it.
And I see on other blogs that they read like 40 books in a week (exaggeration) and they are starting on 40 more, and they have yet written reviews for the last 40.. and I can't help but wonder how they don't get confused by having 80 books swimming in their mind at the same time? My brain just doesn't work that way. Don't ask me what I ate last night because it'll be taxing on my brain.
I tried reading Jane Austen's unfinished novel Sanditon and stopped at Chapter 7 of 12. My version contained not a single line break. It felt like one huge run-on sentence, and my feeble brain just could not adjust to reading dialogues and narration in one big blob. Sorry Jane. Since you didn't finish your novel, I won't either.
So now I am going to try and get further into The Founding by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. You may have seen the post at Amy's Passages to the Past. First off, the new brand new release by this author is #33 in the series (?!) and coming in November. Sourcebooks though is going back and reissuing some, so that's why I have #1, The Founding on my shelf. And #2 The Dark Rose. Then Amy posts about the entire series, and she explains simply the timeline of each book. Book one starts in 1434: War of the Roses and Richard III and Book 33 ~ The Dancing Years comprises of 1920 and the Irish war of independence, releasing in November 2010.
And it is a fabulous idea. If I enjoy the writing in #1 and #2 I might have to collect the series. But being on Chapter 3 as I write this, I am not sold yet but I do hope to be. We shall see what happens.
Coming up courtesy of the Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table group is the Elizabeth Chadwick event. My review of The Greatest Knight, Book one in the William Marshal series, can be found here which I posted this week. We will have our reviews of Book 2 The Scarlet Lion coming up as well as creative posts and guest posts that discuss William Marshal and different aspects of the story. There are even a few guest posts by Elizabeth Chadwick herself. So even if you have read the series already, you will want to stop by our blogs and the main site to see what more you can learn of William Marshal and his family.
I also reviewed a touching story called Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it. Coming up will be the review and giveaway for the aforementioned The Kitchen House, this is one book you do not want to miss! It was so awesome that it might even make it to my Best of 2010 List!
A BRAND NEW HalfPrice Books is opening in my neighborhood and the Grand Opening is Monday! I am very excited, and I have a gift card and coupon ready to go. I am tempted to call in sick to work. But I will probably end up scarfing down french fries on the way to the bookstore during lunch.
I also wanted to mention that an author who has been featured here several times before, Kate Emerson, has an announcement. Lizzy at Historically Obsessed also mentioned this week that Emerson's third novel in the Secrets of the Tudor Court series is coming in December. But Kate specifically wanted to make her readers aware of an obsession of hers that has finally born fruit. What was once only on a website, we now have a searchable Who's Who of Tudor Women, for $5.00 in E Book Format! This is my first purchase ever in pdf format, which is now available as an e-book original of 355 pages exclusively from the new e-book store at http://www.awriterswork.com/
It is an easy Pay Pal checkout process of $5.00 total, and after the paypal is complete you get to a Download screen and you can download the book from there.
Here's what Kate writes:
"Although the WHO'S WHO still exists in html files at my Kate Emerson Historicals website, this text-only e-book offers the convenience of having all 622 entries (the number as of the end of February 2010) and the list of titles used in Tudor times in one, easy-to-search electronic file. A WHO'S WHO OF TUDOR WOMEN completely replaces my very out-of-date and inaccurate WIVES AND DAUGHTERS: THE WOMEN OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND (1984), which is no longer in print."
Just so you get a fair taste of what you are getting, one of the 622 entries shows as the following:
ANNE OF CLEVES (September 22, 1515-July 16, 1557)
The daughter of John, duke of Cleves (d.1539) and Mary of Berg and Juliers (d.1543),
Anne of Cleves married Henry VIII of England (1491-1547) on January 6, 1540 but was
persuaded to accept an annulment granted on July 9 of that same year. She retired to
Richmond and Bletchingley, properties granted to her in a generous settlement, and was
thereafter treated as the king's sister. A false rumor, circulated in 1541, claimed she'd
given birth to a child. She was present at ceremonial occasions during the reign of Mary I
and when she died at Chelsea she was buried in Westminster Abbey. Biographies: Mary
Saaler, Anne of Cleves: Fourth Wife of Henry VIII; Elizabeth Norton, Anne of Cleves,
Henry VIII's Discarded Bride (2009); chapters in Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry
VIII, Alison Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and other collective biographies of Henry
VIII and/or his wives; Oxford DNB entry under "Anne [Anne of Cleves]." Portraits: two
by Hans Holbein the Younger, one a miniature; one by Barthel de Bruyn the Elder.
And I still have two giveaways up .. so check the top left sidebar for the links.
Happy Sunday!
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