Dana Swier Huff's Blog, page 84

BBAW: Future Treasures

The goal for Thursday's blog theme for Book Blogger Appreciation Week is to share what you enjoyed about BBAW and also what your blogging goals are for the next year.

My favorite part was interviewing Jenny from Take Me Away. I love to get to know other bloggers, and it was really fun for me to think of question to ask, and it was fun for me to answer her questions, too. I think no matter what choices are made for next year, interview swaps should always be a part of BBAW.

My goals for next...

BBAW: Unexpected Treasures

Today's topic for Book Blogger Appreciation Week is to share whether or not I've tried a new book or genre because of the influence of a blogger. In a roundabout way, yes, I have. I follow a lot of readers on Twitter, although they don't necessarily all have blogs. I picked up Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy because of all the tweets and reviews of Mockingjay. More than bloggers, however, Valerie Jackson's show Between the Lines has convinced me to read a book, including John Burnham S...

Interview with Jenny from Take Me Away

Happy Book Bloggers' Appreciation Week! I will catch up with the festivities soon, I promise. Meanwhile, I interviewed Jenny who blogs at Take Me Away as part of the BBAW book bloggers' interview swap, and I'm so happy to have found a new blog to read! My questions and her answers appear below.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

I live in Central Florida with my husband and dog. I work as a social worker and am also doing an internship as a mental health therapist, so I'm pretty...

BBAW: New Discoveries

The first day of Book Blogger Appreciation Week invites last year's participants to discuss book blogs they've discovered since last year's BBAW. Some of my favorites "new to me" book blogs:

Bookish Nose: Jordan often reviews books I've never heard of. He was one of the folks who made me want to check out The Hunger Games trilogy.DeRaps Reads: Hattie is a fellow English teacher and frequent commenter on my other blog. I like to keep up with what she's reading, too! I love learning about new...

To Stieg or Not to Stieg

It seems like virtually everyone is reading Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. I saw it tucked under the arms of people at work. Book bloggers were reviewing it. It appeared in ads for Amazon's Kindle. I began to wonder if I should read the books. Some reviews tend to tell me that perhaps they wouldn't be my thing, but others rave about the books. Who to trust? Who to believe?

Then this link went out over Twitter, and I forgot who tweeted it, but it's some pretty harsh criticism of Larsson a...

Reading Update: September 11, 2010

It feels each day like fall is just around the corner. Fall makes me think of tea. I truly wish we had a little tea place like this, where I had a great pot of tea several years ago. We have a few branches of Teavana, but none close by (that I know of) have a little place to sit. Sort of like Starbucks, but for tea. Because Starbucks' tea is only OK.

What goes with a great cup of tea? Books, of course! So I finished The Hunger Games series, and am currently experiencing the withdrawal...

Hunger Games Withdrawal

What am I going to do now? I finished Mockingjay, and I don't have another Hunger Games series book to snatch up and gulp down. The folks over at Forever Young Adult have a name for this serious condition. They call it TEABS—The End of an Awesome Book Syndrome. I have a bad case of it. In fact, I think it's why I was grumpy for absolutely no discernible reason yesterday. After all, I had the day off. I should have been pretty happy. Instead I was surly and snappish. One of my Goodreads

Mockingjay

Mockingjay is the third and final book in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. I can't talk about this book without spoiling it for folks who aren't finished with it yet, so please read on after the jump if you are finished. If not, come back later so we can talk about it.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Oh. My. God! I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a series as much as I enjoyed this one. What a pleasure to find myself lost in a fully realized alternative reality—or dreary future, take y...

Reading Challenge Update

I have participated in six reading challenges this year. This late in the game, I probably won't be adding more unless they run over in to 2011.

Crossed out challenges and books have been completed.

All About the Brontës: Charlotte and Emily , Wuthering Heights (audio), The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë Bibliophilic Books Challenge: Charlotte and Emily , A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 , The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë , Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare , Thursday...

Catching Fire

This review might be a bit spoilery if you haven't read the first book in this series because it's difficult to talk about events in this book without revealing the end of the first.

Suzanne Collins's second book in The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, picks up the story of Katniss Everdeen after she and fellow District 12 resident have become popular winners of the 74th Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta must tour the districts, where they are greeted with signs of unrest—and Katniss seems t...