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 saw this meme over at Carrie Vaughn’s blog and the whole idea of it makes me want to do it.  Here’s the details: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

So here’s my fifteen:

1. Amber Flame by Hannah Howell
2. The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop
3. Charlotte’s Web by EB White
4. Dark Elf Trilogy by RA Salvatore (series)
5. Daughter of Fire by Quinn Taylor Evans (series)
6. Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison (series)
7. Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur (series)
8. Grimspace by Ann Aguirre (series)
9. Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K Hamilton (series)
10. Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost (series)
11. Midsummers Night Dream by William Shakespeare
12. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (series)
13. Poison Study by Maria Snyder (series)
14. Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
15. Wicked by Gregory Maguire

These are the ones I’ve gone back and have read multiple times.  Typing up this list has made me want to go back and read them again too.  Quite a few of these are the beginning of some great series and more often than not, the entire series stays with me just as much as any single novel does.  So I’m really including the entire series in this list, but using the first novel as  starting point.

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.

Entrees:

1. Sloppy Joes
2. Macaroni Salad
3. Biscuits
4. Watermelon
5. Tostidos with Salsa & Guacamole
6. Potato Salad (provided by Marcia)
7. Veggie Tray (provided by Lori)
8. Ham Muffins (provided by Adrian)

Deserts:

1. Chocolate Cheesecake
2. Peanut Butter Cheesecake (recipe to follow)
3. Dark Chocolate Cake w-German Chocolate Cake type filling (recipe to follow)
4. White Cake w-Lemon filling (recipe to follow)
5. Oatmeal Cookies
6. No-Bake Cookies

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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