Six Feet

Today's news title is brought to you by Patent Pending, SIX FEET, which I've been jamming out to a lot on my Spotify playlists. [implied dance motions]

Anywho. So, I have been trying a few things out this past year for blogging. I was rushing towards the end of the month for a bit to make sure I published the blog post within the same month that I finished the book, so it led to a sudden onslaught of book blog posts being published at the end of the month. ...then I would just kind of not do anything for a while, and then repeat the same process. Which was obnoxious, probably for you as well as me.

Then I started keeping track of what days I finished the books, and I would retroactively post to those days instead. I like this idea, since I mostly write this blog for myself (so I can keep track of everything I've read, like geez). But, I don't know if you, the readers, get any kind of notification if I schedule posts for the past. I don't know if you get notifications now when I actively post things instead of scheduling them. So, since I don't know, I'm just going to do what I want.

I had also toyed with the idea of using a Twitter account to post about new blog posts, but I don't really like the idea overall. Seems like a weird route to go to get news about when new blog posts are up. I also really like just saying what I want to about books in a relatively unstructured way, and leaving the comments section open if anyone has comments about my posts. I don't want commentary on blog posts to wander into Twitter. Seems messy. Maybe I'm just overthinking. I also don't want the temptation of tweeting at an author that I yelled about their book on the internet.

I've also been told I should just start a youtube channel since I'm a good storyteller.... but I don't want to. I like talking about books in this format. Plus, I suspect it's a much less time consuming method than a youtube channel (video editing, obsessing that every second lands how I want to, etc... where here I don't even spellcheck my posts. I'm just like WHOOOOOOOOOO all over my keyboard until I feel done, and then I hit publish).

So, in summary, I'm still kind of playing around with it. I also find myself with a stack of three books to blog about as I'm about to start the fourth... and that's when I sit down and blog about books.

I know I mentioned once before somewhere about back blogging some books that I read while I wasn't actively blog posting, and that's still a desire of mine. I think at this point I would like to reread books to post about them rather than just wing it from memory. Or designate somehow that I was just winging it from memory with very minimal notes on my end (because I kept a list of sorts. Several, which I still find sometimes). That would be kind of fun.

.....yeah, so here's a new year update of some variety.

Happy reading?

The Last Of The Real Ones

Today's news title is brought to you by another Fall Out Boy song (they may be my favorite band or something (Whattttt?!?)): THE LAST OF THE REAL ONES. Enjoy!

You may have noticed I started blogging again in the last few months. Surprise? Surprise! I have returned. Well, I'm working on it. There are a lot of books I've read in the past few years that I just didn't blog about at the time for various reasons.

Which means, I'm running into a lot of situations where I'm reading book 4...but didn't blog about the first 3... yep. I've been making posts in the past to remedy this, which means some of my post dates are a little all over the place. I'm going to be slowly but surely filling in books from the past few years.

I'm concentrating on the book reviews for now, but I would like to do something more with all the comic books I read. I'm still trying to figure out what I want that to look like, or how I would want to go about formatting it.

I think that succinctly covers where I'm at right now. Feel free to leave comments/questions, I like reading them.

Happy reading!

Fourth of July

Today's news title is brought to you by Fall Out Boy: FOURTH OF JULY. ENJOY!

Where did you go?!

...I've been around. I'm still reading, I just haven't had much patience to sit at my computer and blog.

What does that mean?!

I'll start posting short & sweet blog posts of the 11 or so books I've read but have been silent about. They're going to be back posts but new to the blog? You're news updates/feeds/whatevers might get a little crazy. Heads up - not an apology. ;)

....I guess this is good.

Yes. Yes it is good.

Are you going to leave us again?!

Maybe? Who knows!?

I enjoy blogging, especially because it helps me keep track of books I'm on the look out for sequels to....although I still derp out about that sometimes. Hmm. Meh.

I'll probably be around, but I'm probably going to stick with shorter blog posts for a bit.

If I get less exhausted by the process....I'll probably write more blog posts.....am I write?! Hehehe.

...will you stop making puns? :|

Nope. :D

Anything else?

You betcha! I'm going to updating THE COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES section because I've also been reading a ton of stellar graphic novels lately and should share.

That's it.

Happy reading!

Uptown Funk

Today's news title is brought to you by Uptown Funk. You're welcome. Maybe. ENJOY MY EAR WORM.

Comic Book Chronicles

There's a little tab towards the top of the page called THE COMIC BOOK CHRONICLES where I get my love of comic books out in the open. It's a giant list of comics I've read AND shown a favorable response to.

I just updated it. Whoa man. I've read a lot of comics lately (and I have a stack of 14 to get through still, YESSSSSS).

So if you're into that, go check it out.

Book Hunt

I've read the last two books on the book hunt list, In the Afterlight and Waistcoats & Weaponry but I'm still muddling through the reviews for them. So fear not, those are in the works and will be released before December ends.

Recipes

I don't know, do you folks still like food? Do you want more recipes? I have a few where it's three ingredients that I haphazardly put together (because what is fancy cooking) that I love and are super easy and whatever. Those might come. Book blogs take priority. So. There's still a chance for that.

Year End Wrap Up

I've read quite a few good books this year. I've been staring at past blog posts and the debate has been edge of the seat real. Although, spoiler alert, no adult fiction will be involved in the creation of the best books of 2014 list.

Expect that list on December 31, 2014 like WHAT UP.

Miscellaneous Extras

I've been playing a lot of board games lately, the steam winter sale is happening, and I've got a couple 'nerd' movies to watch that I've never heard of before.

Also, holiday madness. Wat.

I'm in the midst of reading a book with a few other books in the 'To be blogged' queue (quiet weeping - WHY AM I SO FAR BEHIND).

It's a good thing December only comes around once a year....because it'd be silly to have two months of December in one year. Clearly.

Happy reading!

75 Years of Batman

Today is the 75th anniversary of Batman.

When I was young, I was introduced to Batman by a treasure trove of comic books that my parents had collected and saved from their childhood. Comics books were my venue that threw me into the book world.

I watched Batman: The Animated Series on TV and collected it on DVD as soon as I was old enough.

I watched Justice League and Justice League Unlimited on TV and collected it on DVD as soon as possible.

As much as I love books, my love of Batman is probably greater.

Over the years, I'm continually inspired by the different portrayals of Batman.

One of my favorite depictions of Batman is from a Justice League Unlimited episode titled "Epilogue". It was about the origins of Terry McGinnis (Batman in Batman Beyond). Terry found out about Amanda Waller having a hand in his inception. But that's not the part of the episode that really tugs on my heart strings.

Amanda Waller recounted a time when a villain, Ace, was dying. Ace's telepathic abilities could wipe out the city, but Batman went in alone to her fortress. He found her on a swing set, sat on a swing, and comforted her as she died. No one could have saved Ace, but Batman did what he could. He showed compassion and stuck by his refusal to take a life.

Over the years, I've continued to follow the different depictions of Batman. I've read as many comic books as I can get my hands on (the No Man's Land series being a favorite as well as Hush). 

To you, dear blog reader, if you haven't had the chance to see anything about Batman, I encourage you to look at something in the mountain of his media legacy.

Happy Batman Day!

ALA Loot

Potato camera action!

As if I couldn't shut up about the 2014 ALA Conference...I just wanted to show you the 113 books that finally made it through the mail to me (in some significantly damaged boxes - like WHOA I'M HAPPY MY BOOKS MADE IT THROUGH THAT DISASTER).

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

...undoubtedly, I will not want to read every single one of these books.

...I just, I just have other books that I also need to read.

And some of them are accidentally about law/business. Whoops (I had grabby hands at the conference, NO REGRETS).

And some of them just don't appeal to me (like scary/suspenseful books).

All books will find a good bookshelf, because I'm sweet like that.

.....

IN SUMMARY.

MORE BOOKS.

MORE BLOGS.

ALL THE YAY.

Happy reading!

ALA Conference 2014

URMAGAWD VEGAS

VEGASSSSSSSSSSSS

The ALA Conference was quite a trip.

I arrived on Thursday and managed to make it back to Michigan on Sunday.

I attended the Conference on Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday.

I also did some other Vegas things.

The first night I arrived, we went to see the Jabbawockeez show as it was conveniently at the hotel we were staying at. It was an amazing show. I also tried my hand at gambling ($1 bet) and came out with $1.32 - before I tried again and got down to $0.03. The house always wins and I get really bored with gambling (because let's face it, they're not books).

The first day of ALA (Friday) was madness as the exhibits were only open from 5:30pm - 7pm. Not a huge window to get everything done in.

We checked in and waited with everyone else for the doors to open and as soon as they did, the crowd surged forth in a merry WANT BOOKS kind of way.

In the hour and a half, I gathered close to 40 books with the help of a couple of book buddies (which included my sister and a best friend from college).

FIRST DAY HOARD

Now from my past experience with ALA Chicago WHICH YOU CAN READ ABOUT HERE I knew that there would be a post office area to ship books home in (so you don't have to lug them around the plane).

....however, the post office was not open on Friday. All of the books, bags, and book goodies rode in a taxi with me back to the hotel. Not an A+ way to start the conference, but it made sorting easier.

That night, we went to a Cirque Du Soleil show (Zarkana) and called it an evening.

POST OFFICE

We returned to the conference bright and early on Saturday and immediately went to the post office. It was full of other folks who had the same idea and I crossed paths with many cool people as we waited in line. But the lines. THE LINESSS. The preferred method for getting boxes through lines was putting them underneath the barriers and waiting to move them again until you reached that point on the other side. Or...you shoved the box along the floor with your foot until reaching the front (like I did). I really appreciate the post office for being open and there and sending all my books back home.


After the post office, I waited in HUGE lines for books to be signed by the authors. It was awesome to see how many other people care about literature and can get super excited about meeting the creator of said literature.

Shout out to my book buddies, yes the lady creeping
behind us is part of the book entourage.

I definitely appreciated having my book buddies there as we could rotate who waited in what line when so we made sure to get one copy of each book we wanted so we could share them with each other (WINNING!).

As the conference wound down for the day, I sent another box of books out, and headed back to the hotel.

Where I promptly took a nap. Because I'm old and get tired.

We went out to see the Divas show and ride the high roller that night. It was a blast!

The line for Ally Condie was HUGE
(it wrapped around a few booths).

On Sunday there was a lot of grogginess and exhausted noises as we forged through the morning routines and made it back to ALA for one last Hurrah of getting books. I randomly bumped into Scot Westerfeld while waiting to have a book signed and he was very nice.

Sunday was mostly waiting in lines to get books and a few here or there (another box full though - a last trip to the post office was mandatory).

I packed it in, wished my book buddy who was staying a bit longer well, and made my way to the airport.

It was a good trip and I'm very excited for all the books that will be arriving in the mail over the course of a couple weeks (hopefully).

I'm kind of glad that the conference happens only once a year (I know there's a winter meeting but it's my understanding there are less book giveaways and author appearances) as I'm pretty freaking exhausted.

Book blogs are in the near future...maybe in a couple of days so I can catch up with my life outside of books.

Until then, HAPPY READING!!!

ALA Madness

....
....

THERE ARE MORE BOOKS OVER THERE?

This post comes to you from the past! BWAHAHA! [/scheduling post genius]

Anywho, I'm at ALA right now. My face probably looks like it froze somewhere between excitement and panic and questioning why I didn't play Tetris more to maximize book storage space.

Books by day, Vegas antics by night.

I might even be bumping into one of you! I don't know! This is the past!

There will probably be an obnoxious amount of blog posts in the near future because I'll be on a plane for an extended period of time...with books...see what happened there? Productivity!

When I get back on June 30 I'll give you the run down on how ALA went. Maybe take a photo of my hoard. Who knows?!?

Until then, happy reading!

Va-Va-VOOM!

I googled Joy Puke and this is what I got.
Not disappointed.

VEGAS IS LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY.

I'M SO EXCITED FOR ALL THE BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

SOMETIMES I GET TOO EXCITED TO READ.

IT'S GOING TO BE A SLOW MONTH FOLKS.

SORRY NOT SORRY.




......but on a less yelling note....

I'm super stoked for Vegas and all the books.

I'll be traveling with folks and probably overwhelming them with my joy (although one of them is studying to become a librarian (all of the envy) and the other is related to me) so neither of these party members will be unnerved by my antics.

SUCH EXCITE.

I don't think there's any other random, irrelevant information I can impart on you besides the STEAM SUMMER SALE HAS BEGUN.

AWW YEAH.

I like all this good life stuff.

....

Randomness out.

HAPPY READING!!!!

Sissy That Walk

I'll be honest, I've been entirely distracted by movies this month.

First, there was The Amazing Spiderman 2 (WHICH WAS AWESOME).

Second, there was Tulip Time (which isn't a movie but I had a bunch of guests over to enjoy the festivities).

Third, there was Godzilla (WHICH WAS FUN).

Now, there is X-Men: Days of the Future Past.

I'VE BEEN SO EXCITED IT'S BEEN HARD TO READ OKAY? [/first world problems]

So today, I'm off to watch X-men. I'll probably watch it tomorrow too because I'll want to see it again with a few groups of people I know.

Plus I have family visiting this weekend...so I'll be all sorts of distracted.

May has just been a weird month for reading.

In summary, I'll have a blog post scheduled every day for this weekend. I hope everyone enjoys!

Today's blog post title is inspired by: Sissy That Walk by RuPaul. I love Ru Paul's Drag Race and the music video has the top four drag queens from this season in it.

....uhhh....I don't think there's anything else that's random about my life that's worth sharing.

....34 DAYS UNTIL ALA IN VEGAS!!!!

...that's all.

Happy reading!

ALA Conference 2014

This is my badge thing from ALA Chicago.
Such magical memories.

I'm officially going to be at the ALA conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA this summer.

The conference is from June 26 - July 1, 2014. MORE INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND HERE

If you bump into me, that's cool! We could do not creepy things! Like talk about books! YAY!!!

To celebrate this awesome, most awesome event, I will be doing five book reviews over the next five days.

YAY!!!!

Disclaimer: You do not have to be a member of the ALA to attend the conference, you can sign up to do whatever you'd like on their website. Yep. It's open for anyone that has a ticket!

...

Happy reading!

LE WHOOPS

So.

Last week I reported that I would be posting every Friday about Tamora Pierce in honor of March being reading month and that I would be joined by Brittany.

Well, Brittany is AFK to some extreme measures right now (she's okay, she's just away from keyboard for a bit), and I am about to go away for the weekend to visit some old friends for their birthdays.

SO.

A Tamora Pierce post will not be happening today.

BUT IT WILL BE SOON.

It will probably appear early next week.

....


HAPPY READING MONTH!!!

Some inspirational reading images from around the internet:

Pretty sure this is from a pinterest somewhere.

someecards.com I suppose

Pinterest or reddit. Unsure.
BUT IT STILL APPLIES.

Tonight You're Perfect

So first, I absolutely love this video by Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers. RANTING ABOUT BOOKS is probably my most favorite video to come out of youtube about books in a long while. I share a lot of his anguish about books.

It's seriously funny.

...moving on.

I've reached a point in life where I read a lot, but don't have as much time to sit and churn out a blog post. Despite how unedited the posts come across, I do spend a bit of time on them.

In summary, I get the chance to write every so often and end up writing about three or four books at once.

That's why there's suddenly a string of blog posts at once and then sudden gaps in between.

Mystery solved?

Which means...there's a string of blog posts coming up.

This might be a continuing trend until I figure out a better system.

Today's title is brought to you by (besides me) this song I heard on the radio once and suddenly it is my new JAM. TONIGHT YOU'RE PERFECT by New Politics.

...that's all I got.

SPOILER ALERT: March is going to be INTERESTING. Because REASONS. Stay tuned! :D

Happy reading!

Two of my passions got together...

...and this glorious poster happened.

Brittany at Summerland Sushi sent this wonder to me today.

I adore it.

...that is all.

Happy reading!

Art Prize: Grand Rapids

Art Prize: Grand Rapids.

Don't know what Art Prize is? CLICK THIS FOR INFORMATION.

I like going to Art Prize and I just thought I'd share some of the art I came across when I went to visit and some thoughts I had about it.

Sadly, I don't know the names of most of the pieces, but they're pretty awesome.

This was one of the first pieces I saw. I was up on a bridge, glanced over, and there was this fish that seemed
to be shouting, "HELLO!"

This piece is actually from 2011 Art Prize but it's made out of crayons. CRAYONS. The faucet might be there to remind me of how HUGE it was.

I don't know what it is, but it looks pretty wicked.

I like this one. I'm not entirely sure what the intention was behind it, but it made me stop and look at it for a while.

This is made out of wood. The artist was standing next to it and knocked on it. Like a door.

A fun floating piece in the fountain by the Ford museum. I'm pretty sure it's made out of metal.

Another floating metal piece!

I just loved the face on this because it seemed to be the perfect confused, "What," face.

Those are just a handful of pieces I saw, but they were definitely some of my favorites.

Happy art hunting!

**Note: this was supposed to be posted on 9/28/13, but I accidentally scheduled it for 10/28/13, so this is a retroactive post I suppose.

Banned Book Week

Banned Book Week-This is the short version of my thoughts & feelings on banned books with a small story from my childhood.


Books are banned for many reasons, many silly reasons.

Before I get any further, I'm completely against the banning of any sort of book.

It doesn't matter what topic it covers, how it is written, or anything.

A book is a book plain and simple.

There should be no one who tries to dictate or stop the publishing of any book.

It is up to the readers what they take away, gain, or ignore in a book. What they fall in love with, what opens their perspectives, what they outright hate, or how they react in general.

To me, it's not right to dictate someone else's reading experience.

So I'll share a story of a parent mentor who was 'looking out' for me when I was a child.

Once upon a time I was part of a girl scout's troop when I was very young. There were several parent volunteers who helped out with the group. Even at a young age, I read frequently and was notorious to have a book in hand wherever I went.

Now, usually during girl scout meetings, there was a snack time and a down time of sorts when we waited for our parents to pick us up. During that time I usually opted to read my book because I loved to read. Sometimes I went out on the playground, but mostly I preferred to read.

There was a parent mentor who was upset about my reading, during down time, and proceeded to hide my books from me until I was picked up by my parents. I treated it like a game because if I found my book, I would happily read it, but if I did not find my book, I was able to hunt around for it because it was 'lost' (although all of the parents probably knew what was going on).

Inevitably, the concerned parent mentor was concerned with a book I was reading. At the end of that meeting, the book was not returned to me.

I was pretty upset, but managed to shrug it off in the hopes that I would get it back next meeting.

I had plenty of books to read, although I wanted to finish that story, I had others I could read.

The next meeting, my book was not returned to me.

Upset, I confronted the concerned parent mentor who told me 'gently' but mostly sternly that the book I had been attempting to read was 'way too old for me'.

The book in question was Little Women by Louisa Alcott.

When I first started to read my parents had sat me down and had a talk with me of sorts on the difference between the realities of books and the real world. If I had questions, I could ask them.

They never told me what I could read or what I couldn't; I was a very accelerated reader and if I couldn't handle a book, I just stopped reading it. I had a perception of my own limits; usually if I didn't understand what the book was talking about, I gave up. Plus I had plenty of help from librarians to pick out books (I suspect they usually steered me away from the 'older' material).

I also had a bit of a temper as a kid so if someone told me I could not or should not read a book, I was going to read the whole thing to find out WHY they would tell me that. Curiosity is a good motivator.

It got a little nasty when I proceeded to refuse to participate in girl scouts until my book was returned to me.

I don't quite recall exactly how the mess ended besides my book was returned to me after the concerned parent mentor had some words with my mother when she came to pick me up. I also believe that I tried to hide when I read my books after that so no one would take them.

The irony for me is that after she returned it, I got incredibly bored with the language of the writing and stopped reading it.

What I want to say about the whole ordeal is that people should be able to read whatever they like to read. They should be allowed to experience things that might be 'scary' or 'uncomfortable' through the safe medium of a book.

I've always suspected that if someone doesn't want me to read a book, there's probably something within the book that they don't want me to find out.

OR they would be absurdly uncomfortable discussing whatever the book in question is with me.

If you're uncomfortable with the material presented in a book, fine, just don't read it.

Don't ban the book.

Don't ruin other's reading experiences.

Just don't read it if you don't want to.

Simple.

Make choices for yourself, not for others.

Happy reading!



**Note, this was supposed to be posted on 9/25/13, but I accidentally scheduled it for 10/25/13, so this is a retroactive post I suppose.

Alone Together

Alright, so this month is going to be chaotic for me because my personal life has just gotten a bit more awesome.

What that means for this blog is, I will most likely have burst of blog posts and then some time without. I might try to cram a bunch of blog writing in one day and then schedule them to be released through out the month. HELLO? POTENTIAL WEEKEND SPAM OF BLOG POSTS?

I don't know. As with everything with this blog, I'm just playing it by ear.

I've got a few recipes I'd like to post this month because they're DELICIOUS. I'm just tinkering with the process on some so it doesn't turn out weird.

I will be posting a blog post about The Fault in Our Stars by John Green as the movie is being filmed right now and the book is AMAZING so I think it's about time I made a blog post about it. I'm also going to be rereading the book to ensure I talk about everything well. YAY.

When that blog post will happen is hard to say. I've got a couple of books that need to be read before then, so we'll see what happens.

I'm also going to be rereading Divergent and Insurgent as Allegiance is going to be released this October. I did post about both books before, but it's always nice to reread things. Maybe I could do a new segment, REREAD: IS IT STILL GOOD? Hehehe. Again, I don't know when that will happen, but hopefully SOON. Ish. Let's put a soonish on that.

Still.

SO EXCITING.

Today's blog post title is brought to you by ALONE TOGETHER by Fall Out Boy. It's what I've been rocking out to in my car lately.

...

I went back and edited this post because I got a couple emails pointing out some mistakes I made. WHOOPS. It is now fixed. Enjoy!

Happy reading!

It's been a year!

HELLO. THIS IS MY FACE.

Yay!

I've been blogging for a year!

...it really doesn't seem that long. Whoa.

Honestly, if I didn't have the dates labeled on my posts, I probably would have had no idea.

A year! Yay!

I'm going to continue to read, find and fiddle with recipes to share, and spend more time updating that Comic Book Chronicle page (because I also read a lot of comics in graphic novel form (I'm not trying to hold out, I just forget to periodically update it!)).

That sounds nice.

It's been a good year of rambling about books, and while sometimes I wonder if I should work within some form of format (such as interviewing myself about the book), I tend to like the rambling for now.

Thanks for reading my enthusiasm about books!

I might enjoy books a lot. So much that I forget to
 look at the camera and eye that book on the other side of
the room that I've been reading.SOON.

It's wonderful. :)

So whoo! Stick around! There will always be more to read, ramble, and write about. :)

 If you have any suggestions about things you would like to see (more recipes, certain books, more labels on posts, etc) feel free to leave a comment below!

If you have a recipe you'd like me to try (and potentially fail at), or a book that you'd like me to review (for better or worse) leave me a comment below!

In case you're wondering, my shirt says 'The book was better.' I got it from HERE.

Happy reading!

Skeptical reading face. Although I love The Fault In Our Stars.

Otherside

I haven't done a real news update in a bit so here is what is happening.

I have three books waiting for me to write reviews on them (one unreadable, one I've read and am still struggling what to say about it, and a third which is just being a hassle).

Brittany and I are working on making the cross blogging discussions happen with some frequency. It might be once a month, it might be more; we're not quite sure yet. This is something that we would both like to continue to do. We're still playing around with what content we'll discuss (limit it to a book or branch out to talk about authors, genres, etc; there's a lot of potential). If you haven't checked her blog out, you totally should. It's called Summerland Sushi and you can find it HERE. She might not update as much as me (haha, I blog a lot...whoa), but what she says is pretty awesome.

I've been working a lot on a book and I might just have that lead into what I write for NaNoWriMo this year. I haven't quite decided what to do with it when I finish it, I just know that I need to write it.

Everything else I want to say would be weirdly out of context.

So here's the song that inspired today's blog post title, (IT SWEARS IN IT SOMETIMES, SORRY) OTHERSIDE, by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. It's one of those songs that has captured my imagination of the human experience in relation to drug addictions. Something that is so foreign of an experience to me, yet I have no desire to experience it. I'm just so curious as to the emotional turmoil that lies there, the motivations behind it, the during, and if there is, an after.

Surprise! I'm ridiculously curious about weird things!

On a side note, I still have a giant stack of books from ALA that are just waiting for me.

They're just sitting there. So tempting. I don't have the attention span to read multiple books at once, but if I did, I TOTALLY WOULD. Although it might take me four times as long to get through them then. Huh.

...I think I should be done here.

More books coming.

I am writing a lot.

I am working on neat discussions to do on here with Brittany.

...I just summarized myself.

...

Happy reading!

ALA Conference

My slightly modified badge.

Right now, in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States of America is the ALA conference!

I was lucky enough to attend the conference on Saturday, June 29, 2013 for the day and meet many authors, receive many advanced readers copies, and spend the day with my best book buddies!

I was able to tour the exhibits with the wonderful Lynn Rutan and amazing Cindy Dobrez of the Bookends blog on Booklist. They also happen to be my librarians from when I went through school. They also run a book club right now which they still refer to as BBYA (Best Books for Young Adults) for their students at West Ottawa which they graciously allow me to attend as an Alumni of the club. They're very wonderful people and they also mentioned me in a blog post on their blog which you can find here. For the record, sometimes the books need to be about thirty pages less. Haha!

Now you know where most of my books come from and where my love of books was nurtured.

BOOK LIFE.

At the conference, I was probably lugging around close to forty books that I managed to pick up and my shoulders suffered a bit for it. I discovered that a bag had actually left it's mark on my shoulder, pictured below. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

For most of the convention I was excited, met a bunch of authors, and maybe I met some of my viewers (hi!). I had a BLAST!!!

I've mentioned it to a few people who have asked, "Don't you have to be a librarian to attend?"

NOPE! Although I would incredibly love to be a librarian, but I am not right now! I was welcomed into the fold!

I purchased an exhibits only pass on the ALA website which let me tour the exhibits of the convention center. There are also presentations you can attend and a lot of other neat, field related events that take place. I was there for the exhibits because books, authors, publishers, and and, well if I did much more my shoulders probably would have committed mutiny on me.

A snapshot of the conference. :)

I currently have some family from across state visiting so I'm going to be a little slower in blogging this week, but I look forward to finish my current stack from the library and then embarking on all my goodies from ALA! As I process everything I got from ALA, I'm thinking of posting pictures of it as I start to conquer books from the conference. Be warned, I have at least seven books I'd like to read before beginning the conference books (potentially ten, but I might have grabbed a few unreadable books).

Happy reading!