Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts {4}

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts is a random posting of what's on my mind bookish and otherwise. Sometimes 10 things, sometimes less, always hosted by Bookishly Boisterous.

1. Oy, my life is so swamped with life stuff instead of all of the reading of the books right now. The only reading time I've gotten (other than reading to my kids at bedtime) is the middle of the night insomnia reading resulting from the life stuff. It's not quality reading time folks. Anna Dressed in Blood is the book winning my attention, though, and making it even harder to fall back to sleep. That book is turning out to be a surprise win for me. Could my heart be opening up to YA horror? We'll see.
   
   
   
   
   
2. So the Divergent trailer was released yesterday. Are you excited? I'm actually a little disappointed, but it's entirely possible my disappointment in the series is affecting how excited I am for the movie now. I feel like something is missing. The trailer wasn't tense enough for me. Those initiation scenes in the book - like having to jump off the wall - were so tense. I was most looking forward to those moments in the movie and without any build up, just a jump in the trailer, I just didn't feel it. I'm hoping the full version will be a different story.
   
   I got very emotional watching the Hunger Games trailer the first time. "I volunteer as tribute!" Who cares if that little sister crap was a gimmick. Gimmick me up, folks. I didn't have any moments watching the Divergent trailer. Well, other than the moments with Four... but those aren't the moments I'm getting at here. Here is the trailer if you missed it:
   
   
   
   
3. Speaking of Hunger Games, did you see where Entertainment Weekly asked the Hunger Games cast to name their favorite YA books? Of course we could count on Jennifer Lawrence to love Harry Potter. Peeta... Peeta loves Catcher in the Rye. That's just another reason to be team Gale.
   
   
4. The USPS is going to start delivering Amazon.com packages on Sunday. I'm all confused why people think this is a bad thing so I'm just going to let you read about it here at NPR and here at NYTimes.
   
   
5. I'm on the hunt for some great book related podcasts. Do you have any favorites?
   
   
6. A gigantic Harry Potter group read starts next week on Goodreads. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up the very aggressive one a week schedule, but I'm going to try. I'm planning to revisit these books on audio because I love Jim Dale's recordings of HP, and I don't think I've even heard the last two on audio yet. I tried to listen to The Night Circus on audio this past year and Jim Dale's voice kept making me think everything was happening at Hogwarts. I may be ruined for other Jim Dale recordings.
   
   
   
   
   
7. I'm hoping to have my internet (and my cable TV!) hooked up this afternoon. No more tethering to my cell phone. I will make up for my lack of blogging/participating SOON!
   
   
8. Thanksgiving planning is in full force. My niece has requested pumpkin pie this year so I am in need of a great pumpkin pie recipe. The only recipe I have ever used is from the back of the Libby's can. It's actually not a bad recipe, but I'm not an expert in pumpkin pies.
   
   
   
   
   OK, you know what - I just stole that picture from Libby's website, and it is totally making me want to stick to the Libby's recipe. PIE.
   
   
9. A lot of the stores are starting their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving day this year. That's pretty crazy stuff. I feel bad for retail employees having to work through Thanksgiving dinner. I, on the other hand, am one of those frugally coupon people and this whole Black Friday on Thursday thing is luring me out of my nest.  I usually stay away from the Black Friday crowd, but Mama needs all the things. What are your thoughts on Black Friday shopping? Do you partake? I usually only do my Black Friday shopping online.

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts {3}

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts is a random posting of what's on my mind bookish and otherwise. Sometimes 10 things, sometimes less, always hosted by Bookishly Boisterous.

1. We are finally moving into our new house so I will have very limited internet for a while. This is greatly affecting my posting and commenting. We are out of city limits so I won't find out if we can get service soon until tomorrow.
   
   
2. I've been spending all of my spare time moving and sleeping so I've read pretty much nothing all week long. I need to download a new audiobook at the very least before the weekend.
   
   
3. Entertainment Weekly is trying to crown the best YA novel of all time. "We’re pitting 64 young adult books against each other in a March-Madness style game to determine which you think is the best of all time." Round one is HARD already. At least A Wrinkle in Time (one of my favorites) is up against Dune (one of my least favorites). That was an easy vote. You can vote on each of the round one brackets here.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. The Opening Round of the Goodreads Choice Awards is also happening. I hate these awards just as much as I love them. The only categories I feel comfortable voting in at this point are horror and middle grade. I'm contemplating voting in the memoir category (for The Spark) even though I still have I Am Malala on my TBR. Do you guys only vote if you are well read in the category or do you feel comfortable voting regardless? I usually only vote if I've read at least all the books I want to read out of a particular category.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. While we are on a role with book awards, Publisher's Weekly has revealed their 101 best books of 2013. I'm not sure why the Children's Fiction won't be posted until next week, but you see the best books broken down by category here. It looks like a good list, but I don't think I've read a single one of their selections.
   
   
   
   
   
6. Liam Hemsworth was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno promoting Catching Fire. You can watch the first clip of Catching Fire at the end of his interview:
   
   
   
   
   
   Team Gale *cough*
   
   
7. I'm wondering if anyone has signed up for Oyster yet? It's the "netflix for books" service that allows unlimited book downloads for $9.95/month. When I first heard about Oyster I thought "isn't the library already a netflix for books?" but I can now see a lot of merit in using Oyster. I do get free access to ebooks from my library, but I have to wait in line for them. I think Oyster could be an awesome asset for voracious readers. The only issue I see is whether or not the books I really want to read will be available on Oyster (which is pretty much the only issue I have with Netflix as well). You can get your first month free at Oyster. If you decide to try it out or have tried it, let me know what you think.
   
   
   
   
8. Best of luck to those participating in NaNoWriMo. For those of you who may not know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words during the month of November. I used to love participating in NaNo, but over the years I've fallen off participating. I was hoping to jump back in this year just for fun, but the move has made it pretty impossible to keep up. Are you participating this year?
   
   
   
   
   
9. Author John Hornor Jacobs tweeted about a site called I Write Like this week. It's fun site where you paste in something you have written and the site tells you who you write like. I took what I wrote for NaNo this year (before I decided I couldn't keep up) and pasted it in to I Write Like. My result: Stephen King. First of all, I'm pretty certain I don't actually write like Stephen King, but what a badass answer. I can't imagine a better answer given my taste in books. Play around with it and see who you get. I apparently wrote this blog post like Chuck Palahniuk.
   
   
10. That's it for this week. I'm sorry if you haven't heard from me much in a while! I'm hoping things will start getting back to normal next week.