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Book Give Away: A Prayer For Owen Meany

Apr 23rd, 2012
by Wendy.
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A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving
ISBN: 9780062204097
Imprint: William Morrow Paperbacks (4/3/2012)
Format: Trade PB
Pages: 656

I am thrilled to be able to offer one of my United States readers the opportunity to win a repackaged, newly released edition of John Irving’s classic novel: A Prayer for Owen Meany. Originally published in 1989, William Morrow Paperbacks has released the book (with a redesigned cover) to coincide with World Book Night (April 23rd, 2012).

It is no secret that I love John Irving’s work…and this novel is one of my favorites (read my review). A Prayer for Owen Meany was John Irving’s seventh novel and went on to become a #1 bestseller with over a million copies sold.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the publisher:

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys-best friends-are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary.

Read more about the book and get a look inside it by visiting the publisher’s page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times-winning once, in 1980, for the novel The World According to Garp. In 1992, Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Learn more about Irving and his work by visiting the author’s website.

ENTER TO WIN

  • Contest open to US postal addresses only.
  • Contest open from April 23, 2012 through April 30, 2012 at 5:00 pm PST.
  • One entry per person.
  • Please complete the survey to enter: Click here to take survey
  • I will draw one winner randomly and announce their name on my blog by May 1st, 2012.

Good luck!!

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Posted in: Give-aways.

Mailbox Monday – April 23, 2012

Apr 22nd, 2012
by Wendy.
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Welcome to this week’s edition of Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Cindy at Cindy’s Love of Books.

Go to the dedicated blog for the meme to see the complete tour schedule in the left hand sidebar.

I was TOTALLY psyched about the books that came to my home this week:

Simon & Schuster sent me John Irving’s newest novel, In One Person, which goes on sale May 8th. Those of you who follow my blog know I love John Irving and I can’t wait to read this one. Here is what the publisher says:

A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp. His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers—a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”

Watch John Irving talk about In One Person:

John Irving has written twelve previous novels. The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award in 1980, was Irving’s fourth novel and his first international bestseller. His novels are now translated into thirty-five languages, and he has had nine international bestsellers. Learn more about Irving and his work by visiting the author’s website.

I also purchased two new quilting books:

Quilting Modern: Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts by Jacquie Gering and Katie Pedersen (Interweave, April 2012)  is a book I have been eagerly waiting for ever since I saw it was due for publication. This is an amazing book on modern quilting. The quilts and projects in this book are wonderful – and the quilting is so inspirational. I have already sat down and read through about half of the book and I am so excited to try some of the techniques.

Jacquie Gering serves on the executive board of the National Modern Quilt Guild and is founder of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. Her work has been featured on Apartment Therapy.com and in Stitch magazine. She lives in Chicago, Illinois. Visit her amazing blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio, to see her work.

Katie Pedersen is a founder of the Seattle chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild. She teaches quilting locally and is a featured artist for Amy Butler’s Software. She lives in Seattle, Washington. Pedersen blogs at Sew Katie Did.

Dancing With Thread by Ann Fahl (C&T Publishing, 2010) is a fabulous guide to free-motion quilting. I especially love her notes about marking a quilt top: “I do very little marking on m quilt top. There are a few exceptions. Usually I practice a motif or pattern on a sample and then begin quilting the same design on my quilt when I feel I am ready. On some occasions I want a certain line, angle, or shape in a specific area of the quilt. With a marking pencil I lightly mark the area or place for that special design. Other times I will use a series of straight pins to mark an area for my stiching, blue painter’s tape, or narrow 1/4 inch quilter’s tape.”

I love the organic designs in this book. Fahl’s idea of quilting appeals to me – it is about freedom and creativity and following one’s instincts about design. I have a feeling that this book is going to help me take the next step in my free-motion quilting skills!

See other works by this author.

Ann Fahl is a quilt artist living and working in Racine WI.  Early in her career she worked for Gimbels, Marshall Field & Co., and two different chains of fabric stores. In 1978, she took the beginning quilting class that changed her life forever. Fahl has been teaching since 1981. She now travels across the US working with guilds, symposiums, retreats and quilters of all ages and experience. Her work has been exhibited in competitions, solo exhibits and invitational shows across the United States, France and Japan, and has been included in the collections of Northwestern Mutual Insurance Co., Neiman Marcus, Quilts, Inc., Ripon College, Winona Lake Restoration and many private collections. Learn more about Fahl and her work by visiting the author’s website or visit her blog for inspiration.

Did any wonderful books arrive at YOUR home this week?

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Posted in: Mailbox Monday, Weekly Event.

Sunday Salon – April 22, 2012

Apr 22nd, 2012
by Wendy.
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April 22, 2012

Good morning and welcome to The Sunday Salon!

I woke up to a gorgeous day with the sun shining through the pines and a cool breeze blowing through my open windows. Our pair of redtail hawks have returned to their nest in the top of a huge cedar next to the house and their plaintive cries floated on the air. It is too nice to be inside, so I’ll be out in the yard today and enjoying the spring weather.

I continue to struggle with my reading mojo. This has been a painfully slow month of reading. This past week I read The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey for the Bookies Too Yahoo group discussion. I really wanted to love the book which it seems like everyone is talking about. The story is based on a Russian fairy tale. Ivey is a strong writer, and the early part of the book was wonderful. But then it faltered for me (read my review) and I ended up just feeling so-so about it by the end. I’ve read some 5-star reviews of this novel, so maybe it is just me. I would not discourage you from giving it a try.

I have been slogging through The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and will be up for discussion on BOOK CLUB this Tuesday on Nicole’s blog. Here is another book I had hoped to love. It centers around a young girl and is set in the future. It is definitely a dystopic novel…and perhaps that is my problem with it. It is just such a downer. I am not relating to the narrator. I’m half way through the book, and I am seriously considering giving up on it.

Last night I picked up a 2010 Edgar Award nominated book: A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn. This book is set in South Africa and revolves around the murder of a white police captain in the early 1950s. The novel immediately pulls the reader into the underlying mystery. I read 50 pages last night before turning out the light. I’m hoping this book will get me out of what is beginning to feel like another reading slump.

What about you? Have you been reading some great books these days? Do you have months where everything you pick up seems to disappoint?

In other reading news, we’ll be featuring Overseas by Beatriz Williams (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, May 2012) on the Chunkster Challenge blog in May which will include a giveaway of this debut, romance novel. I’m getting a copy as well and, although I don’t read a ton of romance, I hope to enjoy this one. I totally love that cover!

Speaking of the Chunkster Challenge blog – we’re asking readers to give us some recommendations for nonfiction chunksters. Check out this post, and consider leaving us a recommendation in the comments! Then in June, we’ll be having our second Chunky Book Club discussion for The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna. I hope you’ll join us!

Tomorrow is World Book Night - and on Thursday I picked up my box of books to give away. I’m giving away The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak which is probably my favorite book of all time. I’ll be posting about this event probably on Tuesday this week (and I hope I’ll have photos too!).

Are you participating in World Book Night? If so, which book are you giving away?

I hope you are having a wonderful day today and my wish for you is a great week with some memorable books in it!

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The Snow Child – Book Review

Apr 21st, 2012
by Wendy.
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Was that why they had come north – to build a life? Or did fear drive her? Fear of the gray, not just in the strands of her hair and her wilting cheeks, but the gray that ran deeper, to the bone, so that she thought she might turn into a fine dust and simply sift away in the wind. – from The Snow Child, page 32 -

It is 1920 along the Wolverine River in Alaska. Jack and Mabel have left their comfortable life in Pennsylvania and traveled north to make a new home in the wilderness. They hope to leave behind their longstanding grief of losing a child and find solace alone. But as the days grow shorter and the snow begins to fall, both are left with a feeling of despair and loss. Then, in a lighthearted moment, they play together in the snow and construct a snow child, wrapping a scarf around her neck and carefully filling in the details of her face. When morning arrives, they discover only a pile of snow where the snow child once stood, and tiny footprints leading off into the woods. Have they created a real child from their sadness and longing? And if so, where is she and will she survive?

Eowyn Ivey’s novel The Snow Child is a story of recovery from grief, about re-finding love between a husband and wife after a devastating loss, and about the fragile nature of life against the backdrop of an unforgiving landscape. Set in the 1920s, the novel recreates the Alaskan wilderness and the struggles of settlers well. Ivey has a good grasp of what it is like to live in the wilderness where survival is sometimes dependent on one’s neighbors and the ability to keep going in the face of immense challenges. I found both Jack and Mabel, as well as their neighbor Esther, to be sympathetic characters who were well drawn.

The first half of the story is, perhaps the strongest. It is here where Ivey’s writing shines as she shows the desperation and sadness of Mabel and her estrangement with her husband, Jack, while they struggle with their grief in the solitude of the wilderness.

What fun Christmas would be with a household full of little ones, they told each other their first quiet winter together. There was an air of solemnity as they opened each other’s presents, but they  believed someday their Christmas mornings would reel with running children and squeals of delight. She sewed a small stocking for their firstborn and he sketched plans for a rocking horse he would build. Maybe the first would be a girl, or would it be a boy? How could they have known they would still be childless, just an old man and an old woman alone in the wilderness? – from The Snow Child, page 44 -

The Snow Child was inspired by a Russian fairy tale, and I enjoyed the magical aspects when Jack and Mabel first begin to suspect that the little girl running through the woods with a fox by her side is actually someone they have conjured up from their imagination and desire for a child.

A faint memory emerged again and again – her father, a leather-bound fairy-tale book, a snow child alive in its pages. She couldn’t clearly recall the story or more than a few illustrations, and she began to worry over it, letting her thoughts touch it again and again. If there was such a book, could there be such a child? If an old man and woman conjured a little girl out of the snow and wilderness, what would she be to them? A daughter? A ghost? – from The Snow Child, page 86 -

Despite the strengths of the novel and my early enjoyment of it, I did not end up loving this book which spans many years in the lives of the characters. Survival in the Alaskan wilderness depends on the ability to hunt one’s food – it can be brutal and difficult. Some of the hunting scenes felt a bit gratuitous to me and, as an animal lover, I found myself cringing. The book also lost its focus in the latter half of the story, veering away from some of the magical elements (which I found so appealing) and shifting to more realism. At times I felt like Ivey was not clear about the direction in which she wanted the story to travel. Because of this, the ending fell flat for me.

I believe The Snow Child will appeal to those readers who enjoy some magical realism and literary fiction. It is a bit of a modern day fairy tale and would have been more successful for me had it remained firmly in the fairy tale genre. The strengths of the book include wonderful descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness and the early character development.

  • Quality of Writing:
  • Characters:
  • Plot:

Overall Rating:

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.


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Mailbox Monday – April 16, 2012

Apr 15th, 2012
by Wendy.
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Welcome to this week’s edition of Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Cindy at Cindy’s Love of Books.

Go to the dedicated blog for the meme to see the complete tour schedule in the left hand sidebar.

Two (unsolicited) books arrived this week from William Morrow/Harper Collins:

Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed – and Why It Still Matters by Andrew Gumbel & Roger G. Charles (William Morrow, April 2012) takes another look at the Oklahoma City tragedy from 1995. Veteran investigative journalists Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles lay to rest the myth about what happened on that day. Working with government documents, a voluminous correspondence with Terry Nichols, and more than 150 interviews with those immediately involved, “Gumbel and Charles demonstrate how much was missed beyond the guilt of the two principal defendants: in particular, the dysfunction within the country’s law enforcement agencies, which squandered opportunities to penetrate the radical right and prevent the bombing, and the unanswered question of who inspired the plot and who else might have been involved.”

Andrew Gumbel has worked for more than twenty years as a foreign correspondent for British newspapers the Guardian and the Independent, including assignments in the Balkans, Italy, the Middle East, and, since 1998, the United States. He has won awards for investigative reporting and political commentary, and written widely for U.S. publications including the Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic.

Roger G. Charles is a retired lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Marine Corps and an award winning investigative journalist who has worked with a wide variety of media outlets, including Newsweek, Vanity Fair, ABC (Nightline, Primetime Live), CBS’s 60 Minutes II, and the BBC. In 1996 and 1997 he was a consultant on the Oklahoma City bombing for ABC’s 20/20. He also worked as an investigator for Stephen Jones and the legal team defending Timothy McVeigh in his federal trial. Born in Texas and raised in West Virginia, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1967.

Sacre Bleu: A Comedy D’Art by Christopher Moore (William Morrow, April 2012) is the bestselling author’s newest novel. I am almost ashamed to admit I have never read a Christopher Moore book…so maybe this will finally be the one I pick up. Sacre Bleu is “a rollicking tale that features special printed map endpapers and more than two dozen masterpieces of art throughout the book.” Here is the description of the book by the publisher:

“In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. Or did he? Why would an artist at the height of his creative powers attempt to take his own life . . . and then walk a mile to a doctor’s house for help? Who was the crooked little “color man” Vincent had claimed was stalking him across France? And why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain shade of blue? These are just a few of the questions confronting Vincent’s friends—baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec—who vow to discover the truth about van Gogh’s untimely death. Their quest will lead them on a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the art world of late nineteenth-century Paris.”

Check out this video which shows this gorgeous book inside and out:

Christopher Moore is known for his satire, imagination and originality. He is the author of twelve previous novels. Moore was born in Toledo, Ohio. He attended Ohio State University and Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara.He currently lives in San Francisco, California. Learn more about Moore and his work by visiting the author’s website and blog.

Did any fabulous books arrive at YOUR house this week?

 

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Posted in: Mailbox Monday, Weekly Event.

The Sunday Salon – April 15, 2012

Apr 15th, 2012
by Wendy.
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April 15, 2012

Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of The Sunday Salon. Grab your beverage of choice and let’s talk books!! To view more posts from the Sunday Salon – visit the Facebook Page.

This week I finished reading Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson which is the popular blogger’s new memoir. This book had me laughing through much of it. Lawson’s humor is dark, bizarre, inappropriate and profane so it may not appeal to all readers. Get a sense of who Lawson is by reading her blog, The Bloggess to see if her humor is something to which you can relate. Personally, I found the book hilarious (read my review).

My current read is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey which I hope to have finished by Tuesday when my online book club starts to discuss it. This novel is set in Alaska in 1920 and was inspired by a fairy tale (Little Daughter of the Snow from Old Peter’s Russian Tales). Ivey’s writing incorporates a bit of magical realism, but also captures the reality of the Alaskan wilderness in the early part of the twentieth century. So far, I am enjoying the book and finding it an easy read. Watch for a review later in the week.

Next up in the stacks is The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (due for release in May through Harper Perennial). This book will be discussed as part of BOOK CLUB on April 24th on Nicole’s blog. This looks like a dystopian-type novel with a sixteen year old girl at its center. I have come to trust the BOOK CLUB selections, so even though this is a novel a bit outside of my usual fare, I hope to love it!

I should mention, I drew the winner of the personalized copy of The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye this morning (congratulations, Sand!). If you entered and did not win, I would encourage you to pick up a copy of the book on your own – it is a tremendous read!

Today is a gorgeous, sunny day here in Northern California after a week of cold, rainy weather. I hope to get out for a walk later, and if it warms up enough, maybe sit on the porch with Ivey’s book this afternoon. I hope you have a wonderful day planned!

I’ll leave you with my latest quilting effort – a Kool Kaleidoscope quilt which just needs some borders to finish off the top:

 

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Posted in: Sunday Salon, Weekly Event.

Winner of The Gods of Gotham personalized book

Apr 15th, 2012
by Wendy.
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The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
ISBN 9780399158377
432 pages
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam (March 15, 2012)

Thank you to all who dropped by to enter the give away for Lyndsay Faye’s fabulous novel, The Gods of Gotham. There can only be one winner and I let Random.org choose.

Congratulations to:

SAND from The Half-Crazed Hedge Shaman

I have your mailing address and how you’d like your book personalized, Sand – and will be sending that information to the publisher. Enjoy your book!

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Let’s Pretend This Never Happened – Book Review

Apr 13th, 2012
by Wendy.
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Women scare me enough, but bloggers can be even more frightening to deal with. Most bloggers are emotionally unstable and are often awkward in social situations, which is why so many of us turned to blogging in the first place. Also, they are always looking for something to write about, so if you fuck something up it will be blogged, Facebooked, and retweeted until your death. It would be a lot like Lindsay Lohan spending a weekend with TMZ and National Enquirer, and I suspect that one day my gravestone will simply read: JENNY LAWSON: SHE WAS MISQUOTED ON TWITTER. – from the ARC of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened -

Jenny Lawson is anxiety-ridden, inappropriate, flawed…and outrageously funny. In her new memoir (released this month through Amy Einhorn Books), Lawson takes a no holds barred approach to memoir writing. She invites readers back to her childhood in a small town in Texas where her father (a taxidermist) routinely brought home wild animals like bobcats, and cooked animal skulls in a cauldron in the backyard. Together with her sister, Lisa, Lawson grew up bathing in water from a cistern and wearing winter shoes made out of used bread sacks. These early years made an indelible mark on Lawson whose humor often borders on the dark and bizarre.

[...] my dad was always bringing home crazy-ass shit. Rabbit skulls, rocks shaped like vegetables, angry possums, glass eyes, strange drifters he picked up on the road, a live porcupine in a rubber tire. My mother (a patient and stoic lunch lady) seemed secretly convinced that she must’ve committed some terrible act in a former life to deserve this lot in life, and so she forced a smile and set another place for the drifter/junkie at the dinner table with the quiet dignity usually reserved for saints or catatonics. – from the ARC of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened -

Lawson includes hilarious entries from her journal when she worked in Human Resources, shares the story of how she met and married her husband, Victor, and shows readers the pain and devastation of several miscarriages before she was able to have her daughter, Hailey. Readers are also treated to the now infamous interactions Lawson has with her husband (I believe Victor must be a saint!) which have been blogged about on Lawson’s fabulous (and popular) blog, The Bloggess.

Lawson’s prose is often like a stream of consciousness – sometimes tangential, and frequently flitting between subjects within the same paragraph. Under the humor is a glimpse of the shy, insecure woman who worries about being a good mom, grows homesick for small time life, and grieves the loss of her dog (while fending off a flock of vultures with a machete). The title of the book – Let’s Pretend This Never Happened – refers to those awkward human moments and the times when anxiety lurches from the pit of one’s stomach, all of which Lawson fearlessly reveals to her readers. Through the laughter, she shows us her vulnerability… like when she travels to California to meet a group of female bloggers. Prior to the trip she is filled with fear about fitting in, being dressed appropriately and making conversation. Once at the retreat, and despite her propensity to blurt out non sequiturs and bizarre tales of vampire cougars, Lawson discovers friendship and learns that some girls can, indeed, be trusted.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened is the kind of book which will appeal to readers who share Lawson’s irreverent, remarkably inappropriate and sometimes profane sense of humor. I laughed my way through the book, often forcing my husband to listen while I read aloud certain sections. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened is a gut-busting vicarious ramble  for anyone who has ever wanted to blurt out whatever comes into their mind, or who has ever found themselves thinking outrageous thoughts in the middle of serious social events. Jenny Lawson lacks filters, and that is what makes her so very, very funny.

Recommended.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher.

Readers wishing to purchase this book from an Indie Bookstore may click on the book link below to find Indie sellers. As an Indiebound Associate, I receive a small commission if readers purchase a book through this link on my blog.


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Mailbox Monday – April 9, 2012

Apr 8th, 2012
by Wendy.
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Welcome to this week’s edition of Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Cindy at Cindy’s Love of Books.

Go to the dedicated blog for the meme to see the complete tour schedule in the left hand sidebar.

A couple of books found their way to my home this week:

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash (William Morrow, April 17, 2012) arrived via a Shelf Awareness offer. This book looks especially good to me as it is being compared to the work of Tom Franklin, John Hart, and Pete Dexter – all writers who I enjoy. This debut novel is a literary thriller set in North Carolina. From the publisher: Told by three resonant and evocative characters—Jess; Adelaide Lyle, the town midwife and moral conscience; and Clem Barefield, a sheriff with his own painful past—A Land More Kind Than Home is a haunting tale of courage in the face of cruelty and the power of love to overcome the darkness that lives in us all.

Read the first chapter.

Watch the author talking about the novel:

Wiley Cash is from western North Carolina. He has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and teaches English at Bethany College. He lives with his wife in West Virginia. A Land More Kind Than Home is his first novel. Learn more about Cash and his work by visiting the author’s website.

The Stolen Bride by Tony Hays arrived unsolicited from Tor Forge (April 10, 2012). This novel is the latest book in Tony Hays’ Arthurian mystery series. From the publisher:

Malgwyn ap Cuneglas is counselor to Arthur, High King of the Britons. When he accompanies his liege to the West to broker a deal between warring tribes they come across a scene of utmost depravity and murder to sicken even the most battle-hardened warrior. Things don’t get any better when they finally arrive at their destination to discover that King Doged is fighting to keep his kingdom safe from both Saxons from abroad and younger nobles vying for power. Doged loses that fight when shortly after Arthur and his counselor arrive, he is murdered. His young wife, defenseless and alone, appeals to Arthur to find her husband’s killer. Arthur quickly agrees and Malgwyn is given this almost impossible task.

Tony Hays has written three previous books in this series. In addition to fiction writing, he works as a journalist for the Tennessee Press Association and earned that newspaper the Public Service Award in 2000 for his coverage of narcotics trafficking. He has also written articles about political corruption, Civil War history, and the war on terror. He currently lives in Tennessee. Learn more about Hays and his work by visiting the author’s website.

Did any terrific books arrive at YOUR home this week?

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Posted in: Mailbox Monday, Weekly Event.

Sunday Salon – April 8, 2012

Apr 8th, 2012
by Wendy.
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April 8, 2012

Good morning and welcome to The Sunday Salon (check out other bloggers’ posts by visiting the Facebook page). It is a stunning spring day here in Northern California with azure blue skies and a crisp feel to the air. Later today I’m cooking up an Easter dinner with plenty of leftovers for the rest of the week.

I thought you might enjoy this photo of Raven with her bunny ears on. She was very good while we snapped many pictures trying to get the right one – but then, once we told her we were done, she ripped the ears from her head and shook the you-know-what out of them!

Last week I told you about some of the books I had read, although I did not have reviews up. The reviews are up now and, if you’re interested, here are the links:

I am also happy to tell you that the publisher (Amy Einhorn Books) for The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye is offering a signed, personalized copy of the book to one of my US or Canadian readers. I’m running the giveaway through April 14th (5:00 pm PST) and you can enter by visiting this post.

I am currently laughing my way through Jenny Lawson’s memoir: Let’s Pretend it Never Happened which is on sale this month. She is so totally inappropriate and outrageous. If you want a taste of her writing, check out her very funny blog. I will warn you, however,  if you are put off by bad language you might want to steer clear of both the book and blog (clearly, potty mouths and inappropriate humor don’t offend me in the least). I hope to have this one read and reviewed soon.

In quilting news, I have now posted my goals for the Finish Along for the second quarter. I gasped a little when I realized just how many projects I am currently working on…but it is all good! And I am really happy to tell you that I managed to finally finish my ginormous Swoon quilt. You can see all the photos here, but I thought I’d also post a teaser:

So, that is all the news for this week in both reading and quilting. I hope you have a wonderful Easter Sunday and a terrific week ahead!

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Posted in: Sunday Salon, Weekly Event.

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