The Apps: From the Cybils Shortlist

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Young Adult /

I’m not going to commit to reviewing these next year. Not because they aren’t good, most are. But it doesn’t make sense to me to pay for apps that nobody in my house is going to use after I’ve played with them for a few hours. I’ll have to wait til JMP is stateside (and a little older) before I consider reviewing these again…

But, here’s what I thought about these:

Be Confident in Who You Are – This was my least favorite app. I’m not sure I’ve met a pre-teen or teen who would do much more than roll their eyes at this one.

BoBo Explores Light – This was fun and an app that some of the older kids might want to play with a little bit.

Harold and the Purple Crayon – I didn’t get to review this. I’m not a Harold & the Purple Crayon fan so I put it off til this month, only to find that the app is not available for download in the US. Oh well. 😉

Hildegard Sings – This was amusing but not THAT amusing. I found it a little hard to know which items you could manipulate within the pages so I was just touching everything.

Pat the Bunny – I loved this one. Could be that it’s because I love Pat the Bunny but I don’t think so. I was prepared to DISLIKE this app because in my head you need to be able to touch all of the different textures in the book. Which is true, but this app is so nicely done that it’s fun to interact with. I also love that you can record your own voice reading the book. If only I’d downloaded it on Jenn’s phone while I was in Hawaii… sigh.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore – This was a fun book for the iPhone. I won’t be uninstalling it.

The Monster at the End of This Book – I had this one installed before the shortlist came out, it was a free download from Starbucks and that’s the only reason I had the app. I am not a fan of this book so I didn’t expect to like it. I LOVE IT. The big kids all love it. GREAT fun app — better than the book ever was.

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221 Books in 2012

Daily Dose /

I beat last year’s total by 21 books. I’m a little surprised, or I was until I flipped through my year of posts. The travel guides helped, since I read almost nothing the entire month I was in Hawaii meeting JMP. The graphic novels helped, too.

Here’s the breakdown:

Audiobooks: 13 (seemed like more!)
Graphic Novels: 19 (seemed like more!)
Non-fiction: 54
YA: 62
Books I Hated: 1 (but, this is big –I quit a good dozen books this year, a big change from previous years.)
Books I Loved: 91

For the challenges:

* I read all of the Cybils Shortlist books.
* I didn’t read a single Nancy Drew. (Gah!)
* I read books three about adoption, but only two were those I specifically read because I knew they were about adoption and would be great for the adoption challenge.
* I read 8 steampunk (I could have sworn there were more… I wonder if I mis-tagged?)
* I really need to read more queer books. 22 is a lot better than 6, so I shouldn’t beatmyself up … still… it shouldn’t be this hard.
* From the Stacks? hahaha. Three, that I didn’t buy in 2012. Sheesh.

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Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary

2012, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Queer, Women /

I  saw these on some  book blog, or maybe on some gay blog, or may be on some gay book blog and was thrilled to see our library system had Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary.  Lesbian pulp fiction – there’s NOTHING better. Really.

Our library doesn’t have Bobbie Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher so I’m gonna have to buy it, lol.

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The Fresco

2012, Books in Bed, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Lorena recommended The Fresco and when Joe Haldeman’s niece recommends SCIFI, you should really take that recommendation seriously. It took me weeks to get around to reading it but I’m glad I did.

The Fresco was … really interesting.

I can’t decide what my reaction might have been if I was in Benita’s place.

I also can’t decide whether the ETs plans to resolve some of our (all of our?) problems are good ideas or not so much, heh.

The ending – fabulous. Not so much the last chapter, but the way Benita convinced folks to resolve the problem – totally brilliant.

Ya gotta love strong female characters, particularly in SCIFI, and there were several in this book.

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The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

1 Comment / 2012, Books in Bed, Bookstores, Non-Fiction /

I kept seeing The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap on the shelf at the library. First on a shelf when you walk in the door. Later on the “recommended” shelf. Then, on the Large Print shelves. It just kept appearing. Since I had an Adriana Trigiani book checked out the last time it jumped in front of me, I took it as a sign and checked it out. Large Print.  

TW’s mom read it and didn’t say anything about it.

TW read it and really liked it. Liked it so much that she bought a copy for Erica, Wild Iris Bookstore co-owner.

I read it and also really liked it. TW did freak me out by telling me that “the store burns down in the end”. I thought she was serious and was really upset about it. TW can be a pain in the butt sometimes. Bookstores should not burn down. People’s houses should not burn down, forcing them to have to replace their books, either.

I can’t decide if the book made me want to own a bookstore or convinced me that I don’t really want to own a bookstore, lol.

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A Fake Readathon Day

1 Comment / 2012, Books in Bed, Christmas, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk /

The kids are gone, all five of them, and it’s quiet now. I’m not quite ready to say it’s too quiet, that will happen sometime tomorrow. Except, we’re going to celebrate the quiet and regroup from the holiday mayhem with a fake readathon day.

We stopped at Fresh Market this evening and spent too much on specialty junk food, (mmmm cheese straws), and we’ve got stacks of library books to read. We’re not getting dressed tomorrow and we’re going to lay in bed with books (and the darn dog) and just read — and nap — and take long, hot baths.

This seems like a really good way to end a fun, but very loud, holiday and keep the “gosh, it’s quiet… too quiet” thoughts away.

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Perry’s Killer Playlist

1 Comment / 2012, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

Perry’s Killer Playlist is Killer… the actual playlist (which I think I’m going to have to create on my iPhone and on Spotify) and the book.  If you haven’t read Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick, read  that first – and then read Perry’s Killer Playlist. Read before the movie comes out.

The Santa Claus convention, nice touch. Lol

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Two Fun Children’s Books

2012, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites /

We love the Ladies #1 Detective Agency (and we prefer it on audio) so I thought it would be  fun to grab  The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe’s First Case on audio. And,  it was fun. The voices weren’t  “right” and it tries a little too hard to be a “teaching” book – re-pronouncing  “hard” names,  stuff like that. I’m guessing Alexander McCall Smith may not really know any 8-10 year olds? But it was fun.  A lot of fun for fans of Precious Ramotswe (and the great Obed Ramotswe).

Riordan’s The Mark of Athena was excellent. I’ve had some trouble really getting into the Greeks vs Romans or Greeks + Romans series but book three has helped a good bit with that. I’m falling into the flow of it and getting comfortable with the Romans. Poor Annabeth. Poor Leo. Poor everyone, pretty much. No happy ending quest in this book, which is a big change and now we have to wait how long for the next one? (Well maybe not that long since this book has been out for awhile and I’ve just now gotten around to reading it, lol. October 2013… I can wait that long and read it at this time next year!)

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Hilah and BlogHerTV in Real Life

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Foodie /

When I saw Hilah’s recipe for Gougeres aka cheese puffs, I knew I had to try and make them. Then, I got the brilliant idea that Chris and I would make them together because he loves Hilah as much as I do. So… we did.

Here’s Hilah’s video, if you haven’t seen it.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

And you can see our version, in several parts because I’m no video production person and it’s Christmas Eve and I don’t have time to figure out how to turn all of my videos into one big video, lol.

The most important thing for you to know is that these were a huge hit with all 11 people in the house — and one dog.

Also, Chris’s balls are bigger than Hilah’s so it only made about 16 balls instead of the 30 Hilah said it would make. We liked them this size, but we’ll have to double the recipe in the future because there were NOT enough.

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