Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!
  

I nearly didn't do Teaser Tuesday this week, because I am still reading a couple of books that I have been going with for a while, simply because they are both very big books!

The Terror by Dan Simmons is a really long book at 769 pages. I am enjoying it a lot but I will be glad when I can close it for the last time and say 'done'. I do have another book by this author on my bookshelves to read soon as well (Drood), which is even longer! The other book I am still reading is Cross Stitch which is another huge novel at 863 pages. I was so tempted to just go through and pick out some of my favourite quotes. The problem with this book is choosing which quotes to use as there are so many great lines!

This week's teaser comes from page 498 of The Terror. I am posting a whole paragraph because I think it works much better for this teaser:

I know that Captain Crozier is especially Devestated by the Loss.. His face was so Pale when He came into camp this morning sometime after 2:00 a.m. that I would have staked my Professional Reputation on the opinion that it could not grow any paler. But it did upon his hearing the News. Even his lips became as white as the ice-pack snow we have been staring at now for the better part of three years.

An Offer You Can't Refuse by Jill Mansell

A new bestseller from one of the UK's biggest authors.

Seventeen-year-old Lola has no intention of accepting when her boyfriend's snobbish mother offers her a huge bribe to break up with him. Then Lola discovers a secret that makes her think again, and the only way she can help one of the people she loves most in the world is to take the money and break Dougie's heart.

Ten years later, when Lola meets Dougie again, her feelings for him are as strong as ever. She'll do almost anything to get him back, but she can never tell him the truth. Can she overcome his bitterness and win his heart? She's attractive, persuasive, and endlessly optimistic, but even Lola's got her work cut out for her this time.

A number of years ago I was given at least two Jill Mansell books to read. I read them, enjoyed them, but then didn't really continue reading any of her books. So when I was offered this book for review, I jumped at the chance to renew my acquaintance with Mansell's work.

This is one of Jill Mansell's later books, having originally been released in the UK last year. It is the first of the books that Sourcebooks are planning to release into the US market this year. One of the things that I did wonder was how some of the more British language would translate to the US market. I lived in the UK for a number of years, but there were still a few terms that I didn't easily recognise. For example, what on earth are Toasta Bags? If my interpretation of what they do is correct, I want some, if you can toast a sandwich in the toaster without making a mess!

In terms of the actual story, the characters follow a fairly typical chick lit arc in the storyline. Lola is a young woman who is desperately in love with Dougie. When his mother offers her a sizable amount of money, Lola would ordinarily have said no, but due to an unexpected situation she realises that this is a chance to make someone close to her happy, even if it means that she must never see Dougie again.

Fast forward a number of years and Lola has just returned to the UK after living overseas. She has no way of knowing that by helping out a woman who is being attacked in the street, that she is going to bring herself into contact with Dougie, and his family again.

Whilst the story does focus on Lola and Dougie, the author also manages to fit in secondary stories for Lola's friend Gabe (his adventures in his new career as a paparazzi are both funny and poignant), Dougie's sister, Lola's mother and at least one other person from her past.

If there was one small criticism to be made of this book, it is that all the loose ends were so completely nicely tied up at the end, but that is a small thing really. If you want a fun chick lit read, then from my experience, both with this book, and with the other books I have read from this author in the past, you can't go wrong with Jill Mansell.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for sending me this book for review.

Rating: 4/5


Other Blogger's Thoughts:

Bermudaonion
My Friend Amy
Booking Mama
Savvy Verse and Wit

An Anzac Day tradition

Today is Anzac Day, a day when we celebrate the sacrifices made by our soldiers during conflict. The reason why it we celebrate on this day, is because on April 25, 1915, our soldiers arrived a Gallipoli, the first time that we had fought not as British soldiers, but as Australians. The word Anzac stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, and this is a day that we share proudly with our New Zealand comrade.

This day is a day I actually get very emotional and very proud to be an Aussie. There are the inevitable documentaries about various actions, either the debacle at Gallipoli itself or the conflict on the Western Front. If you are really keen you can go to the dawn service, or there are generally services later in the day, and a big parade in the city as well.

Over the last few years I have posted poems, and videos and stories of sacrifice, but today I thought I would post about something a little different.

It has often been said that Aussies will bet on just about anything, and on Anzac Day especially, if you want to throw some money away you might do it by playing Two-Up. It is actually illegal to run a Two Up game for money anywhere outside of a casino any other day of the year, but on Anzac Day two-up schools (which is what a game of two-up is called) pop up all over the place.

So what is two-up? Basically it is a betting game when you toss up two coins (traditionally pennies) and bet on whether they are going to land on heads, tails or odds (where the coins land with one head up and one tail up). Among the rules are the stipulation that the coins must be flipped up more than 1 metre above the head, and the spinner (the person flipping the coins) wins if they can throw 3 lots of heads in a row.

I was trying to find some video where the noise didn't just sound like a rabble, but one of the thing that goes hand in hand with two-up for many is drinking, but here is a short video of a veteran being the spinner (warning there is a little swearing at the end), and the second video is some radio announcers at a Brisbane radio stations learning how to play two-up.

They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Library Loot!

There's something just a little bit different about this week's library loot! The obvious difference is the widget showing the covers. The other thing is that there are again lots of library books out, but the difference is that they are from two different libraries!

At one point I was actually a member of four library districts. There were two different libraries over near where I used to live about 4 years ago and that is about 45 minutes away from where I live now, so it isn't exactly easy to get to either of them. On the weekend just gone, I made the big step of getting rid of my library cards to both of these as the likelihood of me borrowing something from them again is remote really.

The other two libraries that I am a member of is the library district near my house, which I visit at least once a week, and then there is a library less than 10 minutes walk from where I work. I joined that library a few months again, but I hadn't borrowed anything from there until this week!

So the books that I borrowed from my normal library were:

Night Train to Memphis by Elizabeth Peters
Lord of the Silent by Elizabeth Peters
My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding anthology
Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas
Web of Love by Mary Balogh
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom DVD
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
Tomorrow when the War Began by John Marsden (audio book)
The Terror by Dan Simmons
The Boat by Nam Le

Now you may have noticed in previous posts that I was actually reading The Terror. I got really stuck on it last week, not because I wasn't enjoying it, but just because I couldn't seem to read! I have left it in the Currently Reading section of my sidebar as it is my intention to pick that one up from where I left off last week when I finish the current book that I am reading, perhaps tomorrow.

As I need to try and figure out how to do a slideshow for a craft blog that I help out with, I have come up with the following display of covers for the books listed above.

From the other library (near work) I picked up Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry and Her Only Desire by Gaelen Foley. I couldn't borrow the Foley from my main library because it appears as though their copy is lost. As for Lonesome Dove, it turns out that if I had of realised, I actually didn't need to borrow it from the library anyway! When I finished Comanche Moon, the first thing I tried to do was request the next book in the series. I thought it was really odd that my main library had the first two books in the Lonesome Dove series but didn't have the third, and most famous, book, Lonesome Dove.

One of my work colleagues asked me if I owned a copy of Angels and Demons that she could borrow. I came home and was just about to go to bed when I remembered her request so went in to scour my bookshelf to look for it, and ended up creating a big mess of books that I will need to fix, probably on the weekend. I didn't find Angels and Demons, because my brother borrowed it years ago I think, but I did find my own copy of Lonesome Dove that I bought when the mini-series originally was shown on TV, which I guess makes back in the 80s some times!


****Library Loot is a weekly meme hosted by Alessandra from Out of the Blue and Eva from A Striped Armchair****

Teaser Tuesday and a little Star Trek fun

It's not very often that I put a photo of myself up on the blog, but this widget looked like so much fun when I saw it over at Scifichick.com that I just couldn't resist!

Yes, I really am hiding underneath there!

Onto more serious business - Teaser Tuesday!


Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!
  

Two teasers this week, both from books I am enjoying immensely!

The Swan Maiden is the latest book by Aussie author Jules Watson. It is a retelling of the Irish Celtic myth about Diedre and so far is very enjoyable. I had to be very careful this morning to make sure I didn't get so engrossed in my reading that I went past my train station! This teaser comes from page 369:

As he spoke to them, he had been filled with the memory of what it felt like in a great mass of warriors, and his long-dammed passion had fired his words.

And so the Epidii felt a glimpse of it, at last.

The second teaser comes from an old favourite. I don't really do rereads, but I decided that it was time for me to reintroduce myself to Jamie and Claire and so I am rereading the first book in the Outlander series, which was published here under the title Cross Stitch. This teaser comes from page 400:

Now, listen. Ye understand me, ye say, and I believe it. But there's a difference between understandin' something with your mind and really knowing, deep down.

The end has come!

So the read-a-thon is over for this time! I have to say that I don't think it was my most auspicious effort for a first time, but there was too many other factors involved. I don't think that some of those factors are necessarily going to go away any time soon either. One is the child factor - in this weekend's case it was sport and also wanting to watch a movie together. The other factor is really the times. In less than 8 hours I need to be up and going to work, and there is just no way that that would be enough recovery time if I hadn't slept for the last 24 hours. I still had fun, I am just a bit disappointed that I didn't get to participate more in mini-challenges, or to get around to visit anyone else who was participating at all. Last time the read-a-thon was on, I was a cheerleader and I literally didn't move away from the computer for about 12-14 hours. This time, as a reader, I really struggled to string together more than a couple of hours at a time for reading.

I did end up fitting in some more reading time, but it wasn't exactly quality as I was reading whilst my son was watching Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Ark in the same room, and so I kept on getting distracted!

I did end up getting about 150 pages into Cross Stitch. Not as much as I would have liked, but still it is a start! All up my stats for the read-a-thon were:


Running totals

Minutes read: Approximately 320

Pages read during official readathon: Approximately 500

Pages read so far this weekend: Approx 700

Books completed during official readathon: 2

Books completed so far this weekend: 3

The books I completed on the weekend were Don't Bargain with the Devil by Sabrina Jeffries, Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. I also started The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, The Swan Maiden by Jules Watson and Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon.

Now I need to go and check my emails, check into the forums I am supposed to mod on but haven't logged into for 36 hours, check Bloglines (I hate to think how many feeds there are to read given that I was already behind before this started), and think about cleaning up my kitchen and finishing my laundry. Maybe I need to take another day off tomorrow just to catch-up!

And the answer to how many Bloglines entries I currently have - 1830!

So it's going well...or not!

In the last 3 hours I have spent 45 minutes preparing dinner, 90 minutes sleeping, oh, and 45 minutes reading! During those 45 minutes I managed to read about 55 pages, but still! It seems the spirit is willing but the mind and body are weak!

Running totals

Minutes read: Approximately 200

Pages read during official readathon: Approximately 380

Pages read so far this weekend: Approx 680

Books completed during official readathon: 2

Books completed so far this weekend: 3

Just got back

I am hoping to get some solid reading time in now, other than when I have to cook dinner.

There is a distinct possibility that I might fall asleep though!

I am hoping to have some photos and maybe video of the first game soon!

This hour's mini challenge is about rereads, which is timely because I am planning to start rereading Cross Stitch now, which is known in other parts of the world as Outlander, the first book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. This is one of my favourite series ever, but because I don't really do rereads normally, I haven't ever reread this book at all. I am really looking forward to going back to the beginning of the fantastic story which feature Claire and Jamie!

Mid event survey!

1. What are you reading right now? The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

2. How many books have you read so far? 2 or 3 depending on how official you want to be.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I really want to sink my teeth into Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? I wasn't really able to given the time zones and also my son's sporting commitments.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? I've had more interupti0ns than reading time, if you count the need to sleep!

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? I would try and make it a weekend event as opposed to set hours so as to give the people who have trouble with time zones a bit more flexible! I have just changed what I needed to change so that I could participate but I get that that probably isn't really the intention behind the whole concept.

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? I would try to clear the day out a bit more!

9. Are you getting tired yet? No, I just got out of bed a couple of hours ago!

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Not really. I haven't really been able to get to visit anyone else or participate in any of the mini-challenges or anything like that.

Update

Today is a big day in our house. My son plays his first ever game of real football. Not just doing skills but actually competing to win. He is very excited, and is already to go, so this will be my final update before we leave to go and play!

I will be back to reading in a few hours time!

Running totals

Minutes read: Approximately 160

Pages read during official readathon: Approximately 330

Pages read so far this weekend: Approx 630

Books completed during official readathon: 2

Books completed so far this weekend: 3

Morning!

It has taken me ages to log in this morning. I think there is something wrong with my modem, but eventually I have managed to get in.

Since I last updated I have slept for about 8 hours, been to the shops, done some dishes and some washing, and now I am having some breakfast.

Reading wise I finished Tales from Outer Suburbia, which I really loved. Shaun Tan is an amazing artist/storyteller. Now I am about 40 pages into The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner.

I only have an hour or so before I need to start getting ready to go out, so I am planning on reading for at least some of that time, and then when we get home I will be having a concentrated reading time. That's the plan anyway.


Running totals

Minutes read: Approximately 115

Pages read during official readathon: Approximately 280

Pages read so far this weekend: Approx 580

Books completed during official readathon: 2

Books completed so far this weekend: 3

And I'm off ...

This time to bed!

I have just finished reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman which was deliciously fun to read, and I am taking Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan to bed with me. Not sure how much I will read, but I might get at least a few pages read.



Running totals

Minutes read: Approximately 75

Pages read during official readathon: Approximately 200

Pages read so far this weekend: Approx 500

Books completed during official readathon: 1

Books completed so far this weekend: 2

Good night everybody!

And we're off!

Actually it's a bit of a stuttering start for me! Because it is 10pm on Saturday night and I have been up since 6am, I am not going to get a lot of reading done tonight, and then I will have a few hours out tomorrow because of a prior commitment, but I should be able to read for a few hours in the morning and then again tomorrow afternoon. That's the plan anyway.

I did read for a couple of hours this afternoon. It probably won't count officially for the read-a-thon, but I really wanted to use the whole weekend to get some books off my TBR list. This afternoon I read about 280 pages and finished reading the ARC I had of Don't Bargain with the Devil, which is the new book in the School for Heiresses series that is due out soon by Sabrina Jeffries.

I started reading again about 45 minutes ago and got through about 45 pages of The Swan Maiden by Jules Watson, and I have read the first couple of chapters of Coraline by Neil Gaiman. That is probably the book I will concentrate on now before I go to bed!

To everyone just starting and reading through our night time - good luck and have fun!

More Susan Boyle!

Susan Boyle seems to have taken the whole world by storm!

Here's a link to a recording of Cry Me a River that she did 10 years ago for a charity recording!

Absolutely beautiful to listen to.

Editted to add a Youtube Video - the link and the video are of the same song

D'Oh!

So it turns out that 8am Saturday on New York time is not 10pm Friday night our time - it is in fact 10pm on Saturday night! I actually knew this but was obviuosly having a moment when I was thinking things through!

This actually changes things quite a lot for me in terms of participating in read-a-thon because my day on Saturday is pretty clear, but Sunday I have a bit on, so while I will read as much as I can on Sunday, I am also going to try to take advantage of my clear schedule on Saturday and do some of my reading today. I am not sure how we are going to go though. I already woke up tired which isn't really conducive to reading.

My Read-a-thon books

I thought that I had my list of books for the read-a-thon set in my mind, but then I went to the library to pick up several more books, and I am now having to rethink! This list is therefore my list of possible reads, and may yet be subject to change:

Emma by Kaoru Mori
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon
Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint

I know a lot of people are suggesting reading shorter books and so it may be a bit of a surprise to see Cross Stitch in the list, but I know that Diana Gabaldon's books are books that I find very difficult to put down and where I get lost in the words quite easily. Sounds like a perfect book for long term reading spells to me!

I've hit the wall ...

Reading and blogging wise at least. It isn't often that I find myself not reading, or blogging, but at this point in time I haven't finished a book in over a week! I have at least at 3 posts that I need to write, about half a dozen posts that are half written and if I just finished writing would have new content and I am hundreds of feeds behind in Bloglines.

Part of the reason that there was no Teaser Tuesday post this week was because I am still reading the same books as last week. I guess I don't have far to go with Silver Phoenix, but I don't think I am even a third of the way through The Terror, despite the fact that I am really enjoying it. My problem is that the book was due back at the library a couple of days ago, so now I need to decide whether to keep it and hope I finish it soon (no one else has it requested), or to take it back and then try and reborrow it straight away.

I will however do a Library Loot post! I took a whole heap of books back unread this week, and only picked two up:

The Wedding Officer by Anthony Cappella - Thanks to a mention from Rosario

Away with the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood - I did have this out on audio book but had to return it because I bought a new MP3 player but can't figure out how to get to the stuff that I save on it!

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner - Thanks to a rave review from Jenclair at A Garden carried in the Pocket.

What is the best thing to do when you are not reading. Buy books? Or perhaps contemplate signing up for the read-a-thon that is happening this weekend? I know straight up that I won't be completing the whole 24 hours, but I am definitely thinking about doing as much as I can. I have been thinking about what books I might want to read. I am pretty sure though that my eyes aren't going to cope particularly well with long stretches of reading - not until I go and get my eyes checked and new glasses at least! The other thing is that it officially starts at 10pm on Friday night here, but I am going out, so I will probably start on Saturday morning, and try and fit in stuff like house cleaning etc to give my eyes a break!

Who else is doing the read-a-thon?

Incredible Voice

Part of this clip was shown on one of our morning TV shows today, and then I saw it posted on 1morechapter.com. By the end of it, I was moved to tears - an absolutely amazing voice!

A close shave

I have mentioned before about the DVD player that I own that is obsessed with Richard Armitage. I bought it early last year and the first DVD I played in it was North and South (over and over and over), and then I followed up with repeated viewings of The Vicar of Dibley Christmas special (where Dawn French marries Richard Armitage) and the first season of Robin Hood (featuring Richard Armitage as the dastardly Guy of Gisborne). I never had any issues with the DVD player until I tried to play a DVD where there was no Richard Armitage. After another couple of months of trying to watch other DVDs, the player gave up the ghost completely and wouldn't even play RA movies.

There was nearly a very scary outcome yesterday - a very close shave!

A couple of times a year we have a hard rubbish collection where you put out all those items that you no longer want but that are too big to put in your normal bin. As I was looking around thinking about what I should get rid of, I spied the DVD player and thought that there was no reason to keep that anymore, so gave my son instructions to take it out and throw it out on the pile. He was just walking out when I said to him that we should just check to make sure that there was no disc in there. He gave it a shake, and yes there was definitely a disc in there. Only problem was that it was no longer on the disc tray. It was now rolling around inside the housing. So in order to retrieve the disc, I had to dismantle the whole case. And what do you think the disc was? Yep, a Richard Armitage disc!

I had mentioned on someone's blog a few weeks ago that I haven't been able to locate disc number 1 from North and South for a while now, but I have now got my complete set back again. I haven't quite been brave enough to try the disc in the replacement DVD player. What happens if that one gets obsessed as well?

There is no doubt that the original DVD player had impeccable taste, but I will definitely sleep better at night knowing that something that gets so obsessed is now out of my house!

Blue Diablo winner!

Whoops! I am running a couple of hours late. I was busy, erm, watching Australia! You judge whether it was worth the delay or not!





Anyway, I allocated everyone a number in order of the comments that have been left, fed that info into a random number generator, and the winning number was 8, so our winner is:

Limecello!

Congrats to you Limecello. Hope you enjoy the book!

Don't forget to keep leaving your comments about what makes a keeper as there is still a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift certificate. Entries for that giveaway close on Friday.