NaNoWriMo Post #8

I did it guys and with a day to spare!

Yeah, I actually finished last night but in all honesty I do not want to see my keyboard for another week - or I will not be held responsible for my actions. ;)

So want to know what my last word count was?


Woohooo.

I have not finished the story - I am no where near done - but I feel like I have achieved something.

Waaaaah, so happy.

Anyway, yes, because I will be avoiding the laptop and the keyboard like the plague for a little while - in case I do something drastic and take an ax to it (don't really want to do that - can't afford a replacement laptop) - the blog will not be back to 'normal' until next week and then the book reviews and everything else will be back to normal.

Hope you are all having a fabby dabby week and had a good and safe weekend. And for everyone else who was participating in NaNoWriMo this year I hope you all had fun and met your goals. :)

See you all next week. :)
x

Tune in Tuesday (12)

Tune in Tuesday is a snazzy feature that you can find at GReads and gives you the chance to show off some of your favorite songs or new finds!

This song needs no introduction!

Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?Late at night I tossand I turnand I dream of what I need.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Giveaway

I have a magic word for you all...

GIVEAWAY! Yay!

An INTERNATIONAL giveaway - double YAY!

BRAND NEW BOOK that has not came of my shelf (unlike the last lot) giveaway - triple YAY!

And, in keeping with the time of year I wanted the giveaway to be a winter themed book.

So, what better that the Classic ghost story.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

*sings* there goes Mr Humbug, there goes Mr Grim
If they gve a prize for being mean, the winner would be HIM!

Sorry guys, having a wee Muppets Christams Carol moment there.

CLASSIC!

Moving on. 

Entering is easy peezy!

> Be a follower here on the blog via GFC
>Leave a comment below along with a way for me to contact you (yeah, I am being too lazy to make a pretty form right now)
>Contact info can be email or twitter etc - just as long as I can say, 'hey, you've won' somewhere so I can get your posting info.
>Giveaway ends Friday 2nd December 2011 at 9pm

Sad it is Only a CD Cover...(16)

This week cover yells Stargate at me. Yeah I know I am totally showing my geeky/nerdy tendencies here aren't I? First the BORG and now Stargate.

Anyway, moving on. Here's the cover.

Other world, sci-fi me thinks :) Come on guys, surely it gets extra points for being called 'Visions of Atlantis'? Yeah? :)

Tune in Tuesday (11)

Tune in Tuesday is a snazzy feature that you can find at GReads and gives you the chance to show off some of your favorite songs or new finds!

Got to love the 80s :)

 

Updates :)

Just a few quick updates.



of all the giveaways. All of the winners have been contacted and the books are on there way to you - if they have not already arrived. So I hope you enjoy. Hopefully there will be a few more giveaways in the near future, so keep a look out.



I have reached my goal of reading 100 hundred books this year and now I am actually over that number. *happy dance*  *happy dance* Party popper and fireworks time everyone :)



and last but not least in the next month or so I will be merging my other book blog with this one. :) So some posts may pop up dated last year or last month - you get the gist. So just a little heads up for when that starts to happen.


Cool. So that is that. I hope everything has/had/is having a fabby dabby Monday.

:)

Written? Kitten!

I should be writing some more for my NaNo story in an attempt ti catch up right now but I had to tell you guys about this in case you don't know about it already.

Written? Kitten!

This works kind of like Write or Die, but instead of having your computer start screaming at you, flashing red or eating your words you are rewarded. Well I suppose it is only a reward if you like cute fluffy animals. But still...Kittens guys.

So the idea is that you set the word number to 100, 200, 500 or 1000 and then when you reach so many words you are rewarded with a kitten picture. So if you set it to every 100 words you get a pictures every time you hit the 100 word mark etc.

Cute idea huh.

So thank you to whoever I am following on Twitter who made the link to this site pop up on my feed. :)

Off to do some more writing :)

NaNoWriMo - Insentive

Halfway through November, halfway through NaNo.

And I am kinda failing. OK, not failing that is awfully negative sounding, I am experiencing some hiccups, yeah that is better - sounds more fixable. Right now I am sitting at just under 20,000 words. So yeah, it is redeemable yet. :)

How are you guys all doing?

Do any of you have an incentive to get you to finish? Not that the happy glow of having completed 50,000 words isn't reward enough, but anything else.

Have you sworn of chocolate until you reach 50,000? - I flirted with that idea but I figured that things would be stressful enough. Promised yourself a new game, dvd, cd... The list is endless.

Well I have decided on my personal reward to me - since no one else is going to get me anything lol.

As you may know I am a die hard, geeky, nerdy Phantom of the Opera fan so my reward is going to be a Requiem Mask travel mug - Requiem Mask is an online comic based on Phantom. And it as the funniest picture EVER on it.

I will reach  50,000 words!!! I will!!!

Do you have a reward/incentive?

Sad it is Only a CD Cover...(15)

CD Cover time again.

And this week there is one word for this cover.

Vampire fiction - OK that's 2.

See ya all next week :)

Alien Proliferation Extravaganza!

There is an fantastic giveway going on over at Alien Collective HQ to promote Gini Koch's latest book in the Alien Series. Head on over for a chance to win one of FIVE copies. :)

Alien Proliferation Extravaganza!

Cover Crazy #5

Cover Crazy is a weekly meme hosted at The Book Worms and gives you the chance to show off your favourite covers:)


I love this cover coming up and hopefully you will understand why when you see it. It is just so...well, cute. 

Hehe, I love the look on her face. Classy. 

Tune in Tuesday (10)

Tune in Tuesday is a snazzy feature that you can find at GReads and gives you the chance to show off some of your favorite songs or new finds!

This is one of those songs that I stumbled across by accident and then I couldn't top listening to it. Over and over and over again :)

Kinda sad but good all the same.

I love the way her voice goes when she sings

lay me down on a bed of roses

In My Mailbox (12)

Lookie, Lookie. Aren't they pretty.

So I ordered the Hunger Games trilogy from the Book People...last week I think - and I had actually forgotten all about them until an hour or so before they arrived this afternoon.

And finally. The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall dropped through my letter box this morning. So excited. I am a bit of a Phantom nut (see:Phantom Novel Reviews  ) so I was mega, super happy when I picked that of the floor. And tomorrow or the day after the CD should be arriving.

 Happy dance :)

That's What YOU Think! Reading Challenge

<a href="http://thebletheringbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/11/thats-what-you-think.html"><img src="http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee508/phantomlit/ThatsWhatYouThink.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>"/>

You may remember a few years ago that the BBC published a list of 100 books that they believed the majority of us have only read 6 off - personalty I think that the list is a little off as there are whole collections (e.g. The Complete Works of Shakespeare) listed and then individual works from the collection listed (obviously Hamlet isn't part of the Complete Works of Shakespeare :/).

I for 1 hate being told what is expected of me (when it comes to this kind of thing) and slotted into a nice little box.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series –
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo


 So the purpose of this challenge will be read  more than 6 of the books that are on the list and if you have read some of them already, all the better! :)

You can set yourself a personal goal or just take each book at a time as it comes your way through the winds of chance. Whatever you prefer.

Every month staring January 1st I will put up a post so you can link to your reviews, comments or rants on the book you have tackled.

And remember that if you have already read books on the list you can still take part. How about picking 6 that you haven't read yet?

And most of all guys have fun!

Giggle Time :)

Hi everyone. So tomorrow is Monday and although I am looking forward to it because something will be dropping through my post box - I will let you know about that tomorrow - it is the beginning of a whole new week. The weekend is over and it is time to change out of your PJs that you have been in all day Sunday and crawl onto the bus or into the car and head to work or school. Woe that sounds depressing. So time for a giggle.

I don't actually have a clip to show you this week so I thought I would tell you something that happened to me a few weeks ago. This is a story that is better to tell than type but never mind. This had my mum in stitches.

Right so one point that has to be remembered through this story is that my grandmother lives in sheltered housing - you know where there is a warden and buzzers/speakers in the flats etc. Yeah you guys know what I am talking about. So keep that in mind.

Since my grandmother suffered a few heart attacks last year there have been a few things she hasn't been able to do herself. You know, heavy stuff like the hoovering and things. So I go and help her once a week.

This week I was in the house alone because she was off at a doctors appointment.

So I plugged myself into my ipod - as you do - and started belting out some songs - once again, as you do - as I danced around her kitchen with the mop and bucket.

So I was in the middle of Les Miserables "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" when I thought I heard someone call my name so I stuck my head out of the kitchen. No one. No gran and no one else.

*shrug* must be my imagination.

*back to singing*

Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

*muffled* "ALEX"
Ignore, you know as I am obviously hallucinating.

Drop the mop, spread out arms

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me

"Alex!"
Ignore again and start thinking about making that doctors appointment to see about this voice calling my name.

What your sacrifice was-

"ALEX!!!!"
Ok now this is just weird.

*Take out my earphones and stand very still*

"Alex, it's the warden"

Whoops.

Act. Casual.

Yeah it was the warden on the intercom doohickey who had just had the pleasure of listening to my melodic tones over the intercom for however long she had been trying to get my attention - and no she was not calling because someone had complained about the noise ;).

So that was my embarrassing moment. Kinda funny now but at the time it was like 'let the ground open up and swallow me'. I have no illusions about my voice - probably makes nails going down a black board sound like an angelic chorus lol.

You know how it is. In your head you feel like this

 While in reality you are this













LOL. My life is officially one embarrassing situation to another.

New Posters! Snow White and the Hunstmen

I am seriously looking forward to this film next year guys. Hopefully it will actually be out in the summer here in the UK and I won't have a depressing wait til Christmas for it to hit the cinemas. UK peeps don't you just HATE that!?

But anyway, here is some pretty darned pretty posters :)

Totally SCREAMS at the top of its papery lungs ALICE IN WONDERLAND. But it is from the same producer so that may have something to do with it. :)

Ravens on the poster AND in the trailer. Could this be a nod to the original Disney version...Pretty snazzy pic though. Love the dagger in her hand. 

    

Boooo Hissssssss Bad Lady! And her dagger is totally lame I think compared to Snow's (IMHO).

*Sigh* And this be the Huntsmen of the peace I do believe. 

And now for them all together in a poster of EPICNESS!

Woohooo. How good does this look! I cannot wait! (sorry have a said that all ready).

I am still living in hope that the Huntsman and Snow will be an item in this. And I am hoping even harder as the prince ain't in this poster. Hmm... Promising. :)

x

Follow Friday

Follow My Book Blog Friday


Follow Friday is a weekly Blog Hop that can be found over at parajunkee.com. - who has one of the most funky blog designs I ever did see (just thought I'd add that :))


Q: In light of 11.11.11 and Veteran’s Day tell us about your favorite soldier and how he or she is saving the world. Fictional or real life.

Hmm...I don't know any real life soldiers. The only soldier I ever 'knew' was my biological father who went AWOL from my life when I was a baby so yeah I don't really have a high opinion of him. 

Hmm...in fiction... Sorry but I don't read war/battle/whatever fiction. 

Wait. Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility. Now HE was an officer and a gentlemen if ever there was one :)

Sad it is Only a CD Cover...(14)

Woohoo! It is Friday again everyone. And you know what that means? It's CD cover time.

This weeks pick is a little eerie I think.

So...Artificial Inelegance, machines trying to take over the world maybe...I Robot style.

Oh my goodness. It's the BORG!!!! That is totally what this cover is it is the picture of a BORG factory!

Thought?

See you all next week.

It's Here! Snow White and the Huntsmen Trailers

*Happy dance!* *Happy dance!*



 Waaaaaaaaaaah!

Different huh.

But, but, but does that mean that Snow White and the Huntsmen aren't going to be together. *sob* that's rubbish.

Can't wait!

What do you guys think?

Skulduggery Pleasant Short Stories by Derek Landy

These are both quick, easy and FREE kindle reads from the author of the Skulduggery Pleasant series.

I have read the first 3 books in the Skulduggery series but - as happens - I took too long in getting to the next in the series and had lost interest. But these were good and reminded me why I devoured the first 3 in 3 days.

They are novella length and only take a short time to read.

Great for a wee break from more series reading or if you are wanting to read a short story about characters that you already know.

And how brilliant is the title 'The Lost Art of World Domination'? It't great :)

:)

Cover Crazy #4

Cover Crazy is a weekly meme hosted at The Book Worms and gives you the chance to show off your favourite covers:)

Wow, it has been AGES since I have done a cover crazy. But I am fixing that now :)

Evil is most assuredly afoot—and Britain’s fate rests in the hands of an alluring renegade . . . and a librarian. 

These are dark days indeed in Victoria’s England. Londoners are vanishing, then reappearing, washing up as corpses on the banks of the Thames, drained of blood and bone. Yet the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences—the Crown’s clandestine organization whose bailiwick is the strange and unsettling—will not allow its agents to investigate. Fearless and exceedingly lovely Eliza D. Braun, however, with her bulletproof corset and a disturbing fondness for dynamite, refuses to let the matter rest . . . and she’s prepared to drag her timorous new partner, Wellington Books, along with her into the perilous fray. 

For a malevolent brotherhood is operating in the deepening London shadows, intent upon the enslavement of all Britons. And Books and Braun—he with his encyclopedic brain and she with her remarkable devices—must get to the twisted roots of a most nefarious plot . . . or see England fall to the Phoenix!

I fell in love with this cover when I saw it. I will admit that I am painfully ignorant of Steampunk...stuff (another little thing I am working on - honest - so watch this space) But I fell in love with this cover when I saw it. I just think it is brilliant that the lady on the front is the one ready to shoot you while the guy is drinking tea. Haha. Love it! And let us not forget to mention the trademark goggles.

Dating a Cougar by Donna McDonald

Ok, I had a perfectly logical explanation for reading this. Honest!


Somethings Gotta Give - you know, the film. Is one of my favourite films. It just struck a cord with me but I could not help but want Erica to get together with Julian (the doctor) which she does YAY but then she ends up with Jack BOOO!

<-----------------------YAY






BOOOOO--------------------------->



So that is why I grabbed this book - figuratively speaking as it was a Kindle read.

Now, on a side note I am a bit dim and wouldn't have even known what the term 'cougar' referred too if some months ago it hadn't come up in a conversation with my aunt - believe me, you do not want to know what kind of a crazy conversation THAT was. 

Moving on. 

Maybe some spoilers coming. Ye be warned. 

So we have our main leading lady who is an ex-model, who's husband turned gay and now owns her own design business and our guy who lost his wife two years previously and has a leg injury from service and is living with his cousin (I think it is his cousin...). So there we have our characters and why they are alone.

And how do they meet. Well our ladies daughter is dating the cousin isn't she. Obviously!

So...what do I have to say about this book...

Focuses A LOT on the physical - that reminds me there will be another rant coming soon my minions. I like my books on a more emotional level but that is just a personal preference.

Casey (our dude) is a bit of a prat at some points (as is traditional really) and has a few jealous fits and 'how dare you be smiling at other men' moments. And all I could think was, 'oh for pities sake grow up man!!! You are 38 for crying out loud!!!' So yeah those bits did annoy me, a tad.

Honestly I don't have an awful lot to say about this.

It was okaaaaay but it didn't quite live up to what I was hoping it would be. I mean, I got what I wanted in that the older woman stayed with the younger guy but I don't know *shrug* it just missed the mark for me.