On August 4, heavy rains caused flooding in Louisville, Kentucky and the surrounding areas. The Louisville Free Public Library’s main branch was hit hard and the damages are estimated at $1 million.

I’m putting to together a book drive in effort to help.

How you can help:
Everybody:

• Donations of new books, all genres.
• Information about monetary donations can be found at WFPL.

Authors & Publishers:

• Donations of both signed and unsigned books. All genres, from children’s books to romance to non-fiction, etc, etc.
• Signed books can be used in fundraiser purposes. Unsigned books can be used to help replenish the books that were lost due to the flood.

I have spoken with somebody with the library and at this time, they have no place to store books. However, I’m close and I will keep the books at my house until they are able to take them.

For those wishing to donate books, there are two ways you can send them. I can either receive them my post box address or a friend will receive them at her home.

If you wish to mail them via the USPS, send to:

Shiloh Walker
PO Box 976
Jeffersonville, IN
47131

For those wishing to use Fedex or UPS, send to:

LFPL Book Drive
C/O Jennifer Kennedy
20813 State Rd # 62
Marysville, IN 47141

Feel free to repost this information in it’s entirety.

Shiloh Walker

http://shilohwalker.com

http://shilohwalker.wordpress.com

I’ll be honest, I’ve never thought about joining one since I used to be so…picky about what I read.  I read because I love to and I really didn’t want to have to read something I wasn’t particular interested in.  I know a book club is completely volunteer, but if you’re going to join one, then you should participate, right?  Besides, if I wanted to join a book club, shouldn’t I join one that has similar tastes to mine?

So I’m thinking of starting, not one, but two different book clubs.  One virtual and one that does meet once a month to discuss a book.  The reason I’m thinking of starting two is easy – one is going to be sponsored by Literary Escapism and will be strictly paranormal/fantasy fiction and the second would be in conjunction with my mom’s group.

The virtual one is actually going to help launch a new feature at Literary Escapism – a forum.   I’ve been told I need a forum for the site (why, I’m not sure), but Jesse has been working in the background on getting one up and running and what better use for it than a book club?  I am such a book junkie (what?  You didn’t know?) and I love talking about books. I especially love talking about books that I’ve read that are spectacular.  So once the new forum gets launched (I just need to do a few tweaks yet), I’m going to start a virtual book club at LE.

For the other one, there’s been some interest with a couple of the other moms in my group about starting a book club, but it kind of fizzled out before it really got started.  However, it was brought up again and I thought – why not.  If there isn’t the interest through the group, that doesn’t mean I can’t invite other people to join.  It doesn’t have to be strictly a mom’s group either.  The plan is to meet once a month, so nothing that should disrupt someones plans too much and I wouldn’t mind finding a place to hold it, but if it means everyone trooping over to my house, whatever.  Granted, I know not everyone in my mom’s group is as gungho about paranormal as I am, so there’s going to be a mix of genres that we’ll be reading, but that’s okay.  It’s one thing to join a book club with people who I don’t know and reading something I wouldn’t vs joining with friends and finding out why they like certain books.  So I have no problem expanding my horizons with different genres as long as I have friends to talk about them with.  Besides, there isn’t anything saying that we can’t throw in a paranormal novel every once in awhile either.

So yeah, those are my new projects right now.

Anyway, we bought a house this summer and since the move, I’ve been wanting to go through and audit what books we have.  I found a used book store this summer, so I have been giving away and buying a few books over the past couple of months.  Plus with all the ones I’m getting for reviews, I’m not sure what I have anymore.  So I’m doing an audit. I’m not going to be able to do all of them simply because Jesse’s office isn’t unpacked yet.  We haven’t built his office downstairs yet, so his stuff is still in their boxes.

Here’s the first phase….what do I say I have at this point.  According to my records…

• Ian has 59 books (3098 pages worth)
• I have 317 books (131,305 pages worth)
• Jesse has 178 books (71,176 pages worth)
• and as a family we have 59 books (22,371 pages worth) – meaning books that all of us read, not just one of us.

That’s a collective total of 613 books (227,950 pages worth).  That’s a lot of books.  So here I go…once I’m done, I’ll let you know how it turned out.

I just finished Twilight and with all the hype that the movie version is getting, I’m starting to get a little worried about the movie. The novel was really good, so good that I went out bought the second novel, that I’m afraid that the movie won’t be as good. I’m a fan of the Harry Potter books and not all of those movies have been good to date. The third one (Prisoner of Azahban) was horrendous in my opinion. They left out or changed so much that it seemed like I spent the movie trying to figure out what they left out then enjoying it. Don’t get me wrong, the characters were great, but they butchered the novel. Could this happen with Twilight?

I think the problem with making books into movies is that fans tend to get a specific….vision of the book in their head and the film industry can’t compete with it. There’s no way to take everyone’s idea of who looks like what and all of the events and still make it an entertaining movie. Or at least something that will make money. Plus, there is definitely a difference between reading a scene and watching it play out. You can never get as descriptive in a movie as one can in a book. Everything doesn’t always match up in my opinion. Again, it goes back to that idea that everyone imagines the book differently.

So what does everyone else think? Are there movie versions of books that are good or have they completely flopped? Why do you think it’s hard to translate a book into film?

Tonight I took a drive to Ann Arbor and saw Laurell K Hamilton. My husband, Ian and I all went down there and waited for three hours so she would sign my two books. You heard right, she is so popular, that they started handing out wrist bands at 9am this morning and they alternated colors instead of doing numbers. Ever 50 bands, they changed colors. When I got there at 5pm (she was due to start at 6pm), they were on their third set of colors and I heard there was a total of 5 colors given out. That means there were over 250 people who drove out in rainy weather (did I mention we were getting hit with rain all afternoon and evening), who took the time to wait in line, to see her. I have to say, I knew she was going to have a bit more of a crowd than Kim Harrison, but I definitely wasn’t expecting this kind of showing. I really shouldn’t be surprised, but I think Jesse was. After two hours of waiting aroudn with me (and Ian running around the store), they decided to use the portable DVD player for the first time and watched the Muppets out in the car.

Laurell was actually really open when it came to answering questions. She took questions for about 20 minutes before she started signing books, but about 2 hours in, she ended up having to ice her arm because it was starting to crap. Instead of waiting around with nothing to do, she took more questions and these were kind of interesting. I didn’t get there in time to catch the first Q&A session, but the second one was good. I ended up meeting someone there who was filming it and she said she would email me the video clips, do we’ll see if I can get them. I haven’t been able to find my camera cord, but once I do (and get the pics from my cousin), I’ll add them to the post.

Okay, now I’m just rambling and it’s time to go to bed. Ian was so tired that he went straight to bed without taking a bath. Needless to say, I had a blast at the Hamilton appearance and I would definitely do it again. I had her sign Blood Noir and Strange Candy, so now I’m excited to add those books to my library collection.

The other part that is amusing, it seems that while Tycho was podcasting about this post, LK Hamilton was listening to him and started blogging about the comic at the same time.

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Whatever your tastes, I could probably give you a good recommendation. For instance, if you’re into the whole erotica paranormal genre, then you should probably check out Cheyenne McCray’s Magic series (Forbidden Magic). For the historical fiction people, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series (Outlander) is completely breathtaking (I actually can’t wait to get my hands on these books so I go straight for the hardcovers). For those fantasy buffs out there, Maria Snyder’s Study series (Poison Study) is quickly becoming one of my all time favorites. Another good novel is Wicked by Gregory Maguire and his other twisted fairy tales (although I’m still getting to them, so take this with a grain of salt). I used to read a lot of romance, so I could tell you to pick up a Nora Roberts book, she’s good for a contemporary romance, but if you want a really good historical romance, then I would check our either Amanda Quick (Lake & March series – Slightly Shady) or Jane Feather (Matchmaking – The Bachelor List or Kiss – Widow’s Kiss). They both tend to lean away from the whole simpering female, yet strong character, roles and have more of an independent woman in the lead. If you’re looking for something quick and funny, then the Stephanie Plum series (One for the Dough) by Janet Evanovich is a good bet.

However, when it comes to urban fantasy or just straight paranormal, I have a huge list of authors that I’ve come to love. They don’t all gravitate around the same idea of what vampires, witches, fae, shapeshifters, etc. should be like, so each story has their own unique qualities. I’ll be honest, I’ve actually come across a lot that I like, but I don’t consider all of them to be “buy worthy”. Mainly because I am on a fixed income and I can’t buy them all. So I generally take the ones that I can’t live without before buying the ones I simply like. I the books I can’t live without are as follows…

Because the list is a little long, I’m only going to include the title to the first novel in each series, but I’ll show how many books there are. If there’s a plus sign after the number, that means there are more books planned or being released soon.

Vampires & Werewolves:

• Anita Blake by Laurell K Hamilton – Guilty Pleasures (18+)
• Black Dagger Brotherhood by JR Ward – Dark Lover (6+)
• Cassandra Palmer by Karen Chance – Touch the Dark (3+)
• Dark-Hunters by Sherrilyn Kenyon – Fantasy Lover (11+)
• Kitty Norville by Carrie Vaughn – Kitty and the Midnight Hour (4+)
• Mercedes Thompson by Patricia Briggs – Moon Called (4+)
• Night Huntress by Jeaniene Frost – Halfway to the Grave (2+)
• Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong – Bitten (8+)
• Psy-Changeling by Nalini Singh – Slave to Sensation (4+)
• Riley Jensen by Keri Arthur – Full Moon Rising (6+)
• Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris – Dead Until Dark (8+)
• Werecat by Rachel Vincent – Stray (2+)

Demons, Fae, & Magic

• Aisling Grey by Katie MacAlister – Fire Me Up (4)
• Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews – Magic Bites (2+)
• Meredith Gentry by LK Hamilton – A Kiss of Shadows (6+)
• Morgan Kingsey by Jenna Black – The Devil Inside (1+)
• Nightwalkers by Jacquelyn Frank- Jacob (4+)
• Rachel Morgan by Kim Harrison – Dead Witch Walking (6+)
• Silver Dragons by Katie MacAlister – Playing with Fire (1+)

Choose a political or social issue that matters to you. Find several books addressing that issue; they don’t have to books you’ve read, just books you might like to read. Using images (of the book covers or whatever you feel illustrates your topic) present these books in your blog.

I’ve been a supporter of Net Neutrality for awhile now, but I never really thought about looking up any books on the topic until Dewey came up with this weeks theme. So I went over to Amazon and came across a couple books that caught my interest.

1. Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated by Thomas M. Lenard and Randolph J. May
2. Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age by Jonathan E. Nuechterlein and Philip J. Weiser

Net Neutrality has been going on for the past couple of years and still there are Congress members who have no idea what it is. I’m sure we’ve all seen the footage of Senator Ted Stevens calling the internet nothing but a bunch of tubes. However, I’m hoping that the Senator, and other non informed members, have learned what the internet is by now. Net Neutrality is a huge issue to independent website owners, like me, because if it isn’t passed into law, then the larger companies can pay to have their sites load faster, while mine would load up as if it was still on dial-up.

Already, there are a bunch of “Save the Internet” campaigns going on. I’ve been a part of the Free Press Media Reform newsletter for awhile now, and while I don’t religiously read it daily, I do keep my eyes open. While I do agree that the internet does need to be regulated, the speed at which sites are loaded should not be something that is. Afterall, if Literary Escapism took forever to load, who would read it? Would I spend as much time working on that site if it took forever to see it? Reading has saved my sanity over the last 15 months (can you guess how old my son is) and all of the reviews and work I’ve been able to put into Literary Escapism have kept me from going stir crazy. So, I’m going to say it, “Save the Internet has a write in campaign on their site that will automatically detect who your congresspeople are simply by putting in your zip code. Go over to the site and fill out their form and send it to your Congress representatives. Although, at the moment, it seems like the Free Press site is under construction, so go over there once it starts working (if it isn’t already working by the time you read this).

One other issue that is being discussed in Congress right is the Reading is Fundamental government program. I’m going to be shameless and plug it again, but they are talking about cutting all funding to this program and that would mean millions of children who were receiving free books will no longer be able to do so. Right now, there is a write in campaign going on and all it takes is a few moments to fill in some blanks. I’m urging everyone who reads my site, to write in and make their voice heard.

Just so people can get a clear understanding on what Net Neutrality is, the Daily Show has a pretty good explanation and here it is…

Now that I have a son, I’ve been finding all sorts of great children books. However, Ian’s attention span isn’t much bigger than mine, so we’re always looking for new ones. Suggestions anyone?