Top Ten Tuesday

Today's top ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish is Words/Topics That Make Me Not Pick Up A Book.

These were just what came easily.

Books where the main characters are powerless - Sometimes these are great, but they are so hard to read I tend to shy away and they stay on my TBR shelf forever.

Road Trips (I OD'd on these - your fault John Green)

Fairies

Stalkery male leads - the current trend of codependent men who stalk the girls they like just make me cringe.

Sequels to Romantic Comedies - the point of these books is the happy ending.  There is no way to so a sequel without going "gotcha...everyone wasn't that happy".  These generally end up ruining the original for me.

Blogging Challenge: Describe how you shop for books

I’m onto day 6 of the book blogger’s challenge…and I’m WAY behind, but it’s all good J

Today’s question is:

Describe how you shop for books?

(1)     There are several authors (John Sandford, Rainbow Rowell, Claire Lazebnik) that I keep track of their next release date and either order from Amazon or stop at a book store on release day (although I never pre-order).  

(2)    If I’m in the mood to read and nothing I own sounds particularly appealing I start scouring Amazon for Kindle books that sound good.

(3)    I periodically go to the half price book store looking for book club books and inevitably end up impulse buying a bunch of books I never considered before.  Last time I was there (7 days ago) I came home with 6 books – none of which were why I went in the first place.  Two by Norman Mailer (evidently I was feeling ambitious), Stephen King’s 11/22/63, and three random clearance books.

Blogging Challenge - Recommend a Tear Jerker

Day 5 of the Book Blogger's Challenge

I cry about a lot of books, so it's hard to distinguish between an actual tear jerker or something that will only make me cry.

I'm going to go with Come Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine.

Mia ran away from home at 15 and this book is written like the combination of her journal and her mother's journal as she hit rock bottom and then went through rehab.  I've read it several times and cry through large portions of it every time.

Blogging Challege - Book Throwing

Day 4 (Skipped Day 3) - What's the last book you threw across the room?

Jessica by Bryce Courtenay

One of my all time favorite books is The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, and about 25% of the way through Jessica I though I was going to add it to my faves list.  Then it just got frustrating, and more frustrating, and finally I felt like the characters were all behaving out of character to force the plot to go where Bryce wanted it to go.  Fair enough, it's his book, but to me it felt contrived and at the halfway point I threw it across the room never to pick it up again.  I'll admit I still want to know how it ends, but I just couldn't get there.

Blogging Challenge- Bedtime Reading Ritual

Day 2 of the Book Blogger's Challenge

I actually don't have a Bedtime Reading Ritual.  I'm a binge reader.  I either read from the moment I get home from work or I don't read at all.  I need my sleep and I know if I start something good at 9:00 at night I'll be up until I finish it I won't start a book after 7:00 PM.

I probably could have skipped today's Challenge question ;)

Blogging Challenge - 15 Bookish Confessions

Day 1 of the Book Bloggers Challenge

I actually already posted my Top 10 Confessions last year in this post.  So I'm just going to add five.

Bookish Confession #11 - I don't think I ever read Anne of Green Gables.

Bookish Confession #12 - I am currently at least 25% into 4 different books, haven't given up on any of them, but haven't picked them up in 1-4 weeks either.

Bookish Confession #13 - I bought Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell from Amazon UK about a year before it came out in the US and then purchased the kindle version when it came out in the US, but I love the US cover so much I have to fight myself not to buy a third copy everytime I'm in a bookstore. 

Bookish Confession #14 - There are 167 books on my Goodreads to-read shelf.  At least half have been there over a year.

Bookish Confession #15 - I have major book indecision this year.  I can never decide what to read next and end up rereading something I already have memorized.

I'm Baa-aack..

For a few posts at least. 

So quick explanation of my blogging hiatus.  Changed jobs (same company, different responsibilities) and the new job requires quite a few more hours and has been very mentally invigorating but taxing at the same time.  My brain is exhausted.  The extra hours won't change, but I believe that as I adapt to it I'll have a little more brain space to resume reviewing. 

I've had trouble starting and finishing any books of substance lately.  Seriously I've read some terrible romance novels over the last couple months...I was aware they were bad as I was reading them, but they required zero brain power and that's EXACTLY what I was looking for.  Unfortunately that means that the few times I've sat down to write a post, I've discovered I had no books worth reviewing.

April over at Good Books and Good Wine put together a 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge that I decided to participate in.