October 9, 2011

Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Salon, a place where readers meet to talk about books. Check out the Facebook page to get more links to other Sunday Salon posts and to join us.

This week I finished reading Marisa de los Santos’s latest novel: Falling Together. Many bloggers have been disappointed with the novel, but I loved it (read my review and enter to win a copy of the book). Once again, Santos creates wonderful, warm characters and writes with a poetic charm. I found myself completely immersed in the world of Pen, Cat and Will. I was sorry to see the book end.

Next I picked up Me Again by Keith Cronin for a TLC Book Tour. I have read about 75 pages, but have now put the book aside. This may be a DNF for me – and if it is, I won’t be reviewing it. There are many reasons why I am not relating to Cronin’s novel, but if you are interested in the book, check out other reviews on the TLC tour because this is a book which is getting great reviews. After reading through other blogger’s thoughts, I am wondering if my professional position as a physical therapist is interfering with my ability to just “go with the flow” of the book.

For my next read, I decided to pick up State of Wonder by Ann Patchett which is being discussed over on the Bookies Too Yahoo group this month. I’m only 35 pages in, but I am liking the book so far. Look for a review by mid-week.

I won’t be reading much today. My sister, Paula, is here for a ten day visit and we are having so much fun working on our collaborative quilt project (watch for some photos and updates as we begin to put our quilts together). We’ll be heading up to Ashland, Oregon for a two day trip early this week which should be wonderful. So if you don’t see as many posts from this week, you’ll know why!

I should also mention that I appreciated all your kind words and get well wishes after my bee sting adventure last week. I seem to be mostly back to normal now with just a little bit of redness still around the bite…I’m still looking out for that bee, however!

What are YOU doing today? Whatever it is, I hope it involves a great book!

Here is the clip of Jodi Picoult answering my question about music therapy during the Livestream Interview with the Atria Literary Salon back on March 7th (you can watch the entire interview here).

My apologies…but the spam in the last two days has gone out of control on my blog (130 spam comments for today alone) and I have decided to close comments on articles which are older than 30 days for now. I will consider reopening comments to all articles in a week or so.

Thanks for your patience.

I am delighted to announce that Caribousmom has been selected by Awarding The Web as one of the 2010 Top Book Blogs. There are some great blogs that are sharing this award with me…many of which I regularly read and can attest to their awesome content.

Here is the list of the blogs which were chosen.

Here is an explanation of the award process:

The 2010 Top General Book Blog Awards are brought to you by Online PhD Programs & Awarding the Web.

The award winners for this category were announced on July 15, 2010.

Nominations and Voting for next year’s 2011 award have already begun.

This award highlights the very best blogs about books and general book reviews on the internet as selected by our judges, and is designed to thank the authors for their contribution toward the world wide web we all use & enjoy.

Awards candidates are selected using two methods:
- Audience nominations
- Our team of research associates scouring the web

After a list of candidates is compiled they are each scored by our panel of 5 judges. Each judge rates each blog across 20 different attributes providing it with a ‘subjective’ score. These ratings are combined into an aggregate, and the aggregates of the 5 judges are averaged to give the blog its final rating.

The ratings are then compared, and awards are given out to blogs in the 99% percentile (meaning the top 1% of blogs receive awards).

Thanks for those of you who nominated or voted for Caribousmom – I’m honored!

Today, the 14th of February 2010, marks exactly five years I have been blogging! I did not start out as a book blogger – instead my early posts were all about my life and the people and animals who shared it…and my very first post was a photo of me, Kip, Argus and Caribou. Here is a look back at my blog over the years:

• My very first book review was on May 7, 2005 when I reviewed Dreamer by Sand Pilarski. But it wasn’t until the end of 2006 that I converted my blog to what it now is…a book blog.
• The 2006 Winter Classics Challenge was my first venture into the wonderful world of reading challenges (I completed the challenge on February 11, 2007); followed very quickly by the 2007 TBR Challenge.
• Here is my best books of 2006 list … I only reviewed one of them!
• My first review of 2007 was Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• My first hosted reading challenge was the 2007 New York Times (NYT) Most Notable Challenge…which continues today in an expanded form: The Notable Books Challenge.
• I started participating in The Sunday Salon (the first real weekly “meme” or event that has become a habit on my blog) in early December 2007.
• In March of 2008, I moved my blog to the current site – it was a big step for me and allowed me to grow my blog the way I wanted it to grow.
• I participated in my first 24 Hour Read-A-Thon in June of 2008…an amazing experience that I returned to again in October 2008 and 2009.
• I was thrilled to win Best Literary Fiction blog during the first Book Blogger Appreciation Week in 2008 thanks to my loyal readers (YOU!).
• I went to my first book expo in San Jose in October 2008…and finally put some warm bodies and smiling faces to the names I had found online (Trish and Jill!)
• By the numbers: 222,954 visitors (since February 2007 when I first started tracking visitors to my blog), 10,261 comments, 1,098 posts, 47 pages, 38 categories and 51 tags.

I have enjoyed the journey:

• Along the way, you have celebrated with me when my family expanded to include two cats (Gizmo and Maia)…and of course, Raven. And you grieved with me when I  had to say good-bye to Caribou and Argus.

• I’ve met hundreds of like-minded people from all walks of life and from all over the world. I’ve discovered the world is not as big as one might think – and I have grieved at the loss of other bloggers…first Nattie, then Dewey.

• I have lost track of how many books I’ve given away…and how many I’ve won over the years. My stacks have grown larger; the books I read have become more numerous. I have met some wonderful publishers, publicists and authors … and discovered so many new books and authors by reading other blogs (now over 300 on my Google Reader).

The world of book blogging has changed in five years…Twitter did not exist in 2005 and ARCs were not coming to bloggers in the volume we see them today. This spring, the first Book Blogger Convention will occur in the same venue (and affiliated with) the largest book publishing event in North America – the BEA. And many book bloggers will finally meet face to face.

I am grateful that I found my way to book blogging five years ago. I am grateful to have connected with so many readers. My life is richer, more interesting, and much busier thanks to my blog.

THANK YOU to all of you who have taken this journey with me. And to make that thank you just a bit more tangible, I’m giving away a couple of books (because, really, what would an anniversary be without presents?!?!?).

Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor – soft cover, brand new (read my review)

The Glimmer Palace by Beatrice Colin – Advance Readers Edition, never been read

This giveaway is open to EVERYONE (no geographic restrictions). I will choose TWO winners (one for each book).

To Enter:

Simply leave me a comment by February 21st, 2010 by midnight PST. I’ll announce the winners on February 22nd.

Good Luck!!!

Well, I emailed Maddie and gave her more than a week to respond…and she hasn’t. SO, I decided to draw another winner. Once again I used Random.org and the winner this time is:

Teresa W. who wrote: “This would be a new author for me, sounds good!“

Teresa, I’ll be sending you an email – please respond within 7 days to that email with your snail mail and then I can send your information to the author so he can send you the book!

Faced with over 100 spam comments twice a day (all of which I feel I have to look at because once in a while a REAL comment is captured by my filter), I have been forced to shut off comments on several posts which seem to be the ones targeted. Unfortunately, some of these are recent posts. I will wait a few days, then turn comments back on.

Is anyone else out there getting this many spammers? It seems to be rather recent for me in terms of this volume.

My apologies to all those who have left me comments in the last week. I am WAY behind on responding to comments and just wanted to let you all know how much I appreciate your visits to my blog and your thoughtful and kind comments. I promise to get caught up this week!!

Due to a rather rabid spammer who has somehow figured out how to get around my very good spam filter, I have turned on moderation for those commenters who are new to Caribousmom. Once I have approved a first time commenter, they will be free to post comments unmoderated.

I have been deleting spam comments over the last two days, and hoped that my spam filter would “learn” how to identify them…but this morning I had to delete about 20 comments. I’d rather moderate comments than allow any spam to get posted to my blog (even if it is only for a day). The other option I had was to close old posts to comments – which I decided against because every now and then I get a really wonderful comment on an old post.

Thanks for your patience!

For those of you who enjoyed my recent post on the Mt. Shasta Lavender Farm…I just wanted to let you know that The Piker Press is running it this week on their site. My book reviews are also reprinted there on a weekly basis. I have other work which has been featured on this weekly ezine – just visit my author page to read everything posted there.

I hope you’ll visit The Piker Press for all of their great short stories, photos, and articles!