TTBA Weekly News and Mailbox Monday

This feature was inspired by It's Monday! What are you reading? hosted by Sheila at Book Journey and The Sunday Salon.

I'm officially back from vacation.  I had a fun, fun class reunion.  It was great seeing people from school again.  And I had a great visit with my Sis and her family.  It's a shame that we usually only get to see each other once a year.  I do miss them so much when I don't get to see them. =O(  It is good to be home though.  Just wish I could have came back without this summer cold or whatever it is.  I've felt like crap for days! The upside...I've lost eight more pounds since my last appointment with the diet doctor so the weight loss is going well.  Yay!

I apologize for my lack of visiting blogs.  I took my computer with me, but had very little time to actually visit blogs and now I'm home and Google Reader is a monster.  I hate to say that I was so overwhelmed that I marked everything older than a day as read.  I'm starting a work-at-home gig this week and I'm just not going to have time to read through everything.  I will still visit last week's Cat Thursday posts.  Please forgive me for being behind.  I will try to catch up with everyone.

I did work on that project I mentioned in my blogoversary post.  It's a new blog! I came up with the name and searched backgrounds and then finished up (somewhat) yesterday and today.  So I am now officially announcing the launch of my new horror blog! I hope you will stop by and check it out.  Keep in mind that it's still under construction, but if you love horror then you should definitely follow.  I'm planning some good stuff in the future.  To go take a look at Castle Macabre, go HERE.

Speaking of my blogoversary, I'm having a huge giveaway that runs until the end of the month.  If you haven't already, go HERE to enter.  It sure has been a wonderful two years of blogging!

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia and is currently on tour.  This month's host is Staci at Life in the Thumb .  (want to read a book description?  Clicking the book covers will take you to the book's page on Amazon)



WON:
Wildthorn by Jane Eagland...from Kristin at My Bookish Ways
Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie...from Jen at Devourer of Books (for read-a-long discussion on August 22)
Lagan Love by Peter Murphy...from Star at The Bibliophilic Book Blog
One Day by David Nicholls (prize pack included signed movie tie-in edition, a clear make-up bag, and two purple and pink moleskine journals)....from Alyce at At Home with Books
If Sons, Then Heirs by Lorene Cary...from Tea at Book Page 
Christmas Keepsakes by Mary Balogh, Julia Justiss, and Nicola Cornick...from Martha at Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf

FOR REVIEW:
The Companion of Lady Holmeshire by Debra Brown (signed)...from the author
The Reindeer Keeper: Believe Again by Barbara Briggs Ward (signed)...from the author

GIFT:
Territory by Emma Bull...from my Sis  =O)

BOMC2 (purchased):
Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution by Holly Tucker

MCKAY USED BOOKS:

On Writing Horror: A Handbook by The Horror Writers Association edited by Mort Castle
A Christmas "Write It Down!" journal (not pictured)
Messiah by Andrei Codrescu (free bin)
A Little House Collection: The First Five Novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder (free bin)

Cat Thursday--Authors and their Cats (2)

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! (share your post in the Mr. Linky below)

The second Cat Thursday of each month is Authors and their Cats Thursday.  Each time I will feature an author and their cat(s).  Today I have for you....

Ernest Hemingway and his cats

Here's the linky:

A Midwife's Tale Read-a-Long

I know I'm on vacation and I'm not really supposed to be posting. ;O)  However, I am participating in Wallace's (Unputdownables) read-a-long of A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.  We can always count on Wallace to make excellent literary choices for her read-a-longs.  Sadly, I have failed at two of them.  One was John Adams, which I was enjoying, but fell way behind.  I will finish it, but it's a backseat project at this point.   The second was To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, which I hate to admit I was having tremendous difficulty with.  It is not a vacation kind of read.  I will pick it up again when I have more time to read it slowly and to absorb the words.  I am determined to stay caught up on this book and complete this read-a-long.  It is a historical book, my favorite subject, so I know it will prove to be interesting.

About the book:
Drawing on the diaries of a midwife and healer in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier.  Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. (from Goodreads)


If you would like to join in on the read-a-long, visit the start-up post HERE.


Wish me luck!

Two Year Blogoversary Celebration!

I'm two today....or should I say the blog is!!! It has been a wonderful two years of discovering great books and meeting a group of awesome fellow bloggers.  I hope to continue this journey for many more years and I couldn't do it without the wonderful people who take the time to visit and read my blog...my loyal followers/subscribers.  I'm actually on vacation right now so I don't have a lot of time for this post (I was going to schedule it before I left, but alas...), but I wanted to share an exciting giveaway with you.  Also, I have something cooking in my mind that I'm hoping to bring to fruition soon.  Details will be coming up in the near future.

For the giveaway, I will be giving away a $10 BetterWorldBooks gift certificate.  They have free shipping worldwide so this will be an INTERNATIONAL giveaway! (One winner)

I also have for you today a giveaway that was donated by Nicole at Tribute Books.  I want to thank Nicole for her generous donation.  What is being given away are the following five eBooks.  This giveaway is also INTERNATIONAL and there will be five winners.

Industrial Pioneers by Patrick Brown

Read an excerpt


Buy it on Amazon

Patrick Brown was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated Magna cum Laude from Georgetown University, where he won the Morris Medal for best senior history honors thesis. He currently teaches high school social studies in the Mississippi Delta through Teach for America. 

Visit Patrick on Facebook


Pegasus at the Plow by Patrick Walker

Read an excerpt


Buy it on Amazon

Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on April 9, 1958, Patrick Joseph Walker has always been a seeker of truth in all things. His earliest perceptions of life were colored by familial devotion to Irish clan and the Catholic Church. An early scholar, he attended Scranton Preparatory School and was later accepted into the Special Jesuit Liberal Arts Program at the University of Scranton. During a hiatus from formal education, he worked as a staff writer for the Legislature in Saipan. When he returned to the United States, he was awarded a Philosophy Fellowship at Fordham University. Today, he "works" as an editor and proofreader of educational materials for a local correspondence college. His "real" work, however, involves studying the works of Blaise Pascal and Friedrich Hayek. He lives in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, with his artist POSSLQ, Ginger Cody, her daughter Anna, and the family's two dogs, Lilly and Rosie.

Visit Patrick:  Blog | Facebook


The Evolution of an Identity by Diya Das

Read an excerpt


Buy it on Amazon

Diya Das was born in India on 24th September,1991. She is currently a senior at Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School at Kingston in northeast Pennsylvania. She lives in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania with her parents.

A National AP Scholar and a member of Johns Hopkins University's Study of Exceptional Talent program since 2004, Diya attended the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences in the summer of 2007. She is currently the co-editor-in-chief of her school newspaper, The Opinator, and a member of her school's chorale and orchestra. In her free time, Diya figure skates and plays piano and violin.

Visit Diya on Facebook


Call Me Kate by Molly Roe

Read an excerpt


Buy it on Amazon

Molly Roe is the pen name of Mary Garrity Slaby, a veteran language arts & reading teacher at Lake-Lehman Junior Senior High School. Mary holds a Ph.D. in education from Temple University, and Pennsylvania teaching certification in six areas. She has pursued the hobby of genealogy for the past decade. Mary was born in Philadelphia, raised in Schuylkill County, and currently lives in Dallas, Pennsylvania with her husband, John. They are parents of two grown children, Melissa and John Garrett, cover illustrator of Call Me Kate. Digging into the past has given Mary newfound respect for her ancestors and a better understanding of history. Call Me Kate is the first in the author’s trilogy of historical novels loosely based on the lives of the strong women who preceded her.

Visit Molly:  Blog | Facebook


Thumbing through Thoreau by Kenny Luck, Jay Luke, and Ren Adams

Visit the book website


Hardcover
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 9780982256541
Pages: 320

Buy links:
Amazon
Kindle
Nook
Google
iPad

Kenny Luck's  Bio:Kenny Luck is a graduate student at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa., and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in History and Political Science from the same institution. He writes for The Weekender – an arts and entertainment weekly – and The Independent. He is currently working on his second book. He enjoys recording music, book browsing and travel. 


Visit Kenny on Facebook

Jay Luke's Bio:
Jay Luke is a musician and artist from Throop, Pa. A graduate from Marywood University, Jay is very active in all things art, whether it be through painting, performing with his band, or through his day job as a graphic designer. As a project engineer of the Olyphant Coal Miner Memorial Association, he has delved deeply into the origins of the area and the forgotten histories of the towns around him.

Passionate about not letting future generations forget their local origins, he took on this project to reconnect readers to the past. As writer and poet Wendell Berry once said, “The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”

Visit Jay:  Facebook | Twitter

Ren Adams Bio:
Ren Adams is a professional artist and writer currently living in Albuquerque, N.M. The bulk of her work is done with traditional Chinese brush painting techniques, a centuries-old practice of using ground charcoal and water to create delicate worlds on paper. An ideal brush painting captures the spirit, or “Qi,” of the subject, not just what it looks like. Ren also teaches art & Eastern philosophy courses through the University of New Mexico Continuing Education department. She has been painting and sketching for over 20 years and is a southern California native. 

Visit Ren:  Facebook | Twitter

Visit Tribute Books:  Website | Facebook | Twitter


Giveaway Guidelines:

• For this giveaway, I am trying out Rafflecopter for the first time.  If you've never filled out a Rafflecopter form before, you can check out this quick tutorial:  http://blog.rafflecopter.com/2011/07/how-to-enter-rafflecopter-giveaways/  If the form happens to not be working, please let me know in the comments and complete your entries there.
• You do not have to be a follower, but if you do follow you get five extra entries.  You must complete the first part of the form (leave a blog comment) in order for the other entries to work. 
• If the form will not let you add your daily tweet, please fill out the main entry again with “DO NOT COUNT”  in the Extra Info box. It will then let you complete the daily tweet.
• This giveaway will have six winners.  The first place winner will receive the gift certificate.  The subsequent winners will have their choice of one of the five eBooks.
• Giveaway ends on August 31, 2011

Cat Thursday

Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite LOL cat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Enjoy! (share your post in the Mr. Linky below)


I'm a huge Dr. Who fan so when I saw this, I had to share it.  Isn't it awesome?!

And check out this crazy little guy I found at HistoricLOLS.com.

Click here to enter your link:

TTBA Weekly News and Mailbox Monday

This feature was inspired by It's Monday! What are you reading? hosted by Sheila at Book Journey and The Sunday Salon.

--The High Summer Read-a-Thon was a big success! I had over 20 participants and several people read 5 or 6 books.  The ladies at The Book Monsters read a ton.  Kate read 10 novels and 9 manga and Kristen read 8 novels and 12 manga! Julie at Knitting and Sundries read a ton as well....a whopping 13 novels! Wow! I'd like to say great job to all who participated and to thank you all for joining me.  I hope you will be with me for my Fall read-a-thon in October.  I have a scary theme planned for the spookiest month of the year!

Winners of the mini-challenge and the participant giveaway (winners were all selected by Random.org):

Mini-Challenge winner was #5...Sherrie at Just Books

She won 5 autographed original digital art prints from Michelle Franklin's Haanta Series, drawn by Twisk.

Participant winners were:

1st Place:  #4 Mervi at Mervi's Book Reviews
2nd Place:  #7 Melissa at Must Read Faster

Mervi gets first choice of the two prizes so I will email her first.  Melissa will get the other prize.  (Prizes can be viewed at the original post HERE)

Announcing the one year blogoversary celebration of literary publicist Stephanie Barko! She is hosting a month long event of exclusive blogoversary interviews from national bestselling award-winning authors, an entertainment attorney, a literary agent, a review journal editor, a book club founder, PLUS signed book giveaways.  Check out the schedule of the important dates for this month long event HERE.  I, for one, can't wait to read all the great posts!

TuesBookTalk...what are we reading next?  Our August selection is Captivity by Deborah Noyes.  Join us on Twitter (@tuesbooktalk #tuesbooktalk) and/or on Goodreads.  Our discussion starts Tuesday, August 16 on Twitter at 10:30pm ET/9:30pm CT or you can always share your thought in the Goodreads group if you can't make the chat on Twitter.  Get the full reading schedule HERE.

I'm going on vacation on Wednesday...visiting my hometown to stay with my sister for a week and a half and to attend my 25 year class reunion.  Yes, I'm that old! I am taking my computer with me since my sis has wifi, but I'm not planning on being on much (must. be. strong.).  I have this week's Cat Thursday already scheduled and I will also be scheduling my 2 year blogoversary post.  Yes, it's on Friday!!! Can't believe it has been two years! I will officially be back at home on Sunday, August 14.  Boy, I need this vacay...let's just hope I don't come back and get sick again like I did last year! No thank you!

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia and is currently on tour.  This month's host is Staci at Life in the Thumb .  (want to read a book description?  Clicking the book covers will take you to the book's page on Amazon)




WON:
The Devil's Company by David Liss...from Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist

2011 Book Blogger Cookbook by Christy Dorrity (Kindle for Android)...from Chrystal at Snowdrop Dreams of Books

$30 PayPal in the Flash Follow giveaway from Sonya at BellyCharms.com with which I went over to BetterWorldBooks.com and ordered the following:

The Queen's Dollmaker by Christine Trent
The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent
Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell
King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett
The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform your Fiction by Brian Kiteley
and two other books for my Mom's birthday.  Can't list them 'cause she reads my blog. =O)

Jane Austen notepad made by North South Creations (Etsy) from Carla at Library Mosaic
(image is poor quality--sorry)

Cover says: In vain I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be
repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
Mr. Darcy

PURCHASED from BOMC2:
A Novel Idea (Tyndale Publishers)

PAPERBACK SWAP:
The Once and Future King by T.H. White

High Summer Read-a-Thon Wrap-up

The High Summer Read-a-Thon has come to an end. *tear*  It was not a productive reading week for me.  Add read-a-thon with my life and it usually equals failure.  I'm not sure why.  One of these times, I'm going to stay at a hotel during a read-a-thon and see if a total distraction free environment makes a difference.  I'm betting it will! However, I'm not counting it as a total failure because 1) I did get some reading done and 2) I really enjoyed hosting and interacting with all of the participants! We had some quite enthusiastic read-a-thoners this time.  I know that at least two people read 6 or more books.  Wow...I'm ultra impressed!

So, here is what I ended up reading this week:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson....finished (255 pages)
The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks...read 100 pages

I'm glad I finished Dragon Tattoo...it was SO good!

Please include the link to your wrap-up post in the linky below.  You will need to do this to be eligible for the participant giveaway.  I'm giving everyone until 6pm CST (U.S. time on Monday for our international readers) on Monday to complete your wrap-ups and enter your link.  I will then draw the winners for the participant giveaway and the mini-challenge giveaway.  I will announce the winners in my TTBA Weekly News and Mailbox Monday post.

I hope you all enjoyed the week! My Fall read-a-thon (week long again) will be in October so be thinking if you want to join me again and if you might want to host a mini-challenge.  I'm thinking of making it a scary Halloween theme.  I think that would be fun!