The Local Lit Scene

Valentines Day has come and gone, I hope that those of you who celebrate it were spoilt to your hearts content. And for those of you who don’t, I hope you felt the love anyway.

As for me, I am  not a great fan of Valentines Day, it seems a bit silly to only celebrate love on one day of the year, when there are 365 days in a year to celebrate it. But saying that, I am not averse to receiving gifts, at any time of the year, never mind on only one day of the year!

So, for Valentines Day, I bought myself a book and The Man bought me chocolate – Lindt pistachio and the book I indulged in was ‘Shades of Grey’ by Jasper Fforde. I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting until my birthday, I mean that is still a whole week away!

But, that is not the point of this post, the point is that, because I dont normally celebrate V day, I decided this year, to give away one book to a lucky commenter on the ‘Feel the love, but do it anyway’ post. I so wanted to fulfill all of your imaginary book wishes but alas only one could be fulfilled and that lucky person, chosen via random.org  is Paige from a million miles from normal with her book wish of ‘The Elegance of the hedgehog’ – Muriel Barbery.

Yes, a book from us  to you, free, gratis and the only thing that we ask of you in return, is to write a book review for The Book Club Blog.

We hope you enjoy the book, Paige and even though its a couple of days late, Happy Valentines Day!

So, you walk into a bookstore, your favourite book store. You know, the one you go to and the sales person knows your first name? The one you go to when you are feeling somewhat blue, or happy or just needing some alone time where you can wander slowly around the shelves,  picking up a book, reading the back cover, the blurb, putting it down because you haven’t felt ‘it’ and trying another. Where you can softly run your fingers down the spines and get that tingle of  ‘what and who will I discover today?’

Well, imagine going into this bookstore and after pleasantries from the sales person, and maybe a little discussion on the weather, said salesperson, says these words to you ‘

‘Today is free book day, you can choose any book you like, to meet and take home with you completely free of charge. Gratis. For today only.’

Imagine your surprise and delight in this unexpected gift. No birthday wishes required, no need to return the favour, just this unexpected gift, imagine the feel of this book weighted in your hands, then popped into a carrier, making its way home to your home.

Now, imagine what book this would be.

And leave a comment telling me what it would be.

You never know, your wish could come true…(and if it does, it will by Valentines day)…

Isn’t this just the coolest birthday cake? In a shape of a stack of books? I found it here…

So, it is almost that time of year again, when it is my birthday and I can request books to be bought for me on this most wondrous occasion *wink wink nudge nudge*. And what a fortunate time it is because I have just read a fantastic review about a book, well, a graphic novel, which are not my usual reading fare. In fact, I think the last graphic novel I read was by Neil Gamain and for the life of me, I cannot remember the name. What I do remember, is that the pictures were stunning and the colours inspiring.

But to get back to my topic, I read this review about this book

and I want to read it. As soon as I can get my hands on a copy.

As for other books, I am also itching to read this book

and this one

which I am hoping that I am going to win over here, AND  its a first edition signed copy. Oh be still my beating heart! *swoon swoon* and while we are on the Jasper Fforde topic, this one wouldn’t go amiss either..

I  mean, two of his novels in one go. Ooh, it is just too exciting to think about.

Now, wouldn’t those be fantastic additions to my growing library?

Here’s sending prayers to the birthday fairies!

Posted by imsonotablogger

I seem to be experiencing a severe case of ‘missing reading mojo’.

How should I embark on getting it back?

I’ve gone from devouring a book in a couple of days, to not having devoured one since the beginning of December.  Nothing seems to grab my attention and keep me captivated.

I’ve tried chick-lit, murder mystery, christian, psychological thriller, humour, self-help and even a classic.

Nada, niks.

Suggestions anyone?

Posted by timeout

So, the Exclusive Books Summer Sale is on this week! I am so excited, I have a voucher or two to spend and what better place than at the sale…

The preview for fanatics members is on the 27 January and for the rest of the public, the 28th January. I dont think Im going to make the preview due to Pilate’s, but Il def be there first thing on Thursday morning. Ooh, cant wait, I even have it book marked in  my calendar. Cant possibly forget such an important occasion, now can I?

Will you be going? If so, do let me know what bargains you picked up, you can be assured I will let you know what my loot contains.

Gorgeous Reading Tuesday to you all!

I am so excited and pleased to see that there is another South African Book Blog, Being Brazen Books, which I would love you to go over and visit here. Welcome!

She is attempting to up her reading and in order to inspire herself, she has started this blog. Which I think is awesome!  There is  reading list which is up for 2 months and a new one is put up on the 27 March, which means there is hopefully ample time to get some reading in. Even with the busyness of daily life.

These are the books she has chosen for the next couple of months:

Have you ever discovered an author that just tickles your fancy and your funny bone all at the same time? And once you have discovered that author do you remember how you discovered them?

Well,this is how I feel about Jasper Fforde! I discovered him through a friend of mine who also has an eclectic taste in books and wow, what a gift she gave me by doing that. I have read all of his books and have been waiting patiently for January 2010 to arrive in order to purchase his new book – Shades of Grey- which sounds like just the thing I need in my reading collection. Along with all of his others of course!

Heres an exerpt from Kalahari:

No one could cheat the Colourman and the colour test. What you got was what you were, forever. Your life, career and social standing decided right there and then, and all worrisome life-uncertainties eradicated forever. You knew who you were, what you would do, where you would go, and what was expected of you. In return, you simply accepted your rung upon the Chromatic ladder, and assiduously followed the Rulebook. Your life was mapped. And all in the time it takes to bake a tray of scones …Eddie Russett lives comfortably in a world where fortune, career and ultimate destiny are rigidly dictated by the colours you can see. Until he falls in love with a Grey named Jane, and starts to question every aspect of the Rulebook. Why are spoons illegal? And what actually happens to all those people who are sent to the Emerald City to Reboot?

So, imagine my surprise and excitement, when I found this blog, with the rather enticing name of ‘strange and random happenstance’ with this giveaway! So, if you fancy trying your luck (though if you do win, you have to let me read it…;-)) or if you just feel like holding fingers and toes that I win it, please head on over and check it out.

If none of that makes you want to read the book, check out this photo of Jasper Fforde himself, its enough to make a woman go weak at the knees, and may tempt you enough to give his books a go!

Thanks to random.org we have winners for our ‘A legal Alien’!

Pamela

and

Candi

If you could both send me a postal address for where the books need to go, I will get them winging to you as soon as possible. Congratulations to you both, I hope this gets the week off to a great start and you enjoy the book.

OK, so since I started this book blog in September I have been scouting around searching the net for other book blogs. And me oh mi,but there are many! Sad to say, that most of them are not South African, from what I can gather, most of them seem to be American and English. Anyhoo, on my scouting around I have picked up that ‘challenges’ are quite the in thing. Not that I mind, in fact I have joined a few. I like the idea of challenging myself in the books that I read. I tend to get stuck in ‘one author’ ruts and once I have finished all possible related books, I bemoan the fact that I have nothing to read! So, I have four reading challenges I have joined.

The first one, I joined last year,and it is finishing up on the 31 January.  My challenge was to read one  book of Japanese origin. Now, you wouldn’t think that would be at all difficult, would you? Alas, it is a short story book and I find it terribly difficult to read it all in one go (when I review it,more will be revealed as to why) and then once I have put it down, finding the right moment to pick it up again just never seems to come along. Hence this challenge: The Japanese Literature Challenge 3 as I had a Haruki Marukami  sitting in my bookshelf begging to be read. I still have 25 days to go.

The second one I joined was the 451 Friday reading challenge, and you can read my post about it  here.

The third one I have joined is the GLBT reading challenge. The basic idea of this challenge is to read books about GLBT topics and/or by GLBT authors.

And the fourth one I have joined is the Themed Quest reading challenge. With this one, you have to choose a word and find at least 4 books (1 non fiction) about your particular theme. My theme and word is Laughter.

So, that should keep me in books for  a while. I am looking forward to my next library visit which is coming up next week and I’ll let you know what books I have discovered for all the challenges.

(Today was the library visit and I found one book for the GLBT challenge: Armistead Maupins’ -‘Michael Tolliver Lives’. I read all the Tales of the City books and loved them and even though this one is not, strictly speaking, a continuation of those books, a reassuring number of familiar faces appear along the way.)

For the 451 challenge, while I was doing Christmas book shopping a couple of weeks ago, I managed to find ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ – Lionel Shriver.  I think this one will wait a little while as it seems rather heavy and I’m not in ‘heavy’ mode just yet.

How about you? Are any of you up for challenging yourself in your reading? If so, wander over and have a look at the ones I have chosen, maybe you will find something which tickles your fancy. And if you do end up joining anything, let me know!

Just an aside,please visit In the now, as his post today is all about books and which ones were life changing for you. I would love to know, so head on over or leave a comment here, Have fun!