Sunday Sidelines

Welcome to another Sunday Sidelines! I have so much to talk about today. It has been an exciting week and another exciting week will be coming up!

I hope that you will take some time today to visit the blogs who are participating in BlogFest 2010! Over 200 bloggers are offering giveaways on top of the opportunity to visit their wonderful reading blogs. The host, A Journey of Books, has created a tracking site where you can keep up with which ones you have visited. It all ends at 11:59 pm tonight, so start visiting!

Another fun thing I do every week is Unconscious Mutterings, hosted by Luna Nina! It is so much fun to see answer these free association suggestions and go back and see how others have answered. Participation has been down a bit so I hope you will go play her game so that she continues to do this!

Singapore :: Nights
blah blah blah :: Seinfeld
Stall :: bathroom
Bowls :: 300
Entrance :: Exam
Antique :: dresser
Elizabeth :: Bennett
Hook :: line and sinker
Width :: and depth
Photo journalism :: Viet Nam War

Next week starts another big event in the world of blogging. Book Blogger Appreciation Week will be full of wonderful surprises - blogs with awards, interviews with other bloggers - so I hope you will stop by for a visit throughout the week. On Tuesday, I will be posting my interview with Heather J. from Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books. It is oh so exciting!

Blog Fest 2010

Oh my goodness - BlogFest 2010 has some amazing blogs and some amazing giveaways - you really have to go and visit! I think the best place to start is at A Journey of Books. And it only lasts for two days, so you better get moving - over 250 blogs to visit!

Book Blogger HOP

This week's question/topic comes from:

Anne @ My Head Is Full of Books

Post a link to a favorite post or book review that you have written in the past three months.

And your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to COMMENT ON THAT PERSON'S POST! Spend some time getting to know each other's blog and writing!

Note: If you have already commented on this person's review, find another one that you haven't commented on! The point is to read a post on their blog that isn't a HOP post! :)

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly meme hosted by Crazy-For-Books. If you hop on over to her blog, you can find Mr. Linky and link your HOP post to the other 300 who link up every week. It is always fun to see the different books and blogs which are highlighted each week.

My Answer:

I think you might enjoy What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. I liked it alot and it was outside my normal reading genre. Great question and great challenge!

Cherry on Top Award

Oh my goodness! The wonderful blogger, CCL at Crazy Cat Lady's Library, gave my blog the Cherry on Top Award. This award is meant to go to "beautiful blogs with that little bit extra!" While I am not sure my blog is beautiful, I always try to give a little bit extra and I really appreciate her sending me this award.

The Cherry on top Award Rules are:

1. Answer this question: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you, and what would it be?

I think maybe there are two things - one I might change, the other I would definitely change. When I was in college, I had the opportunity to go to Italy and study for two years - completely paid for by a scholarship. For a variety of reasons, I did not go. How. Insane. Is. That?? But who knows, things do and don't happen for a reason. So I might change that.

The thing that I would definitely change would be the birth of my first child - she was born two weeks late in a time when they just did not induce. She had terrible problems as a result and almost died. Her life has been a blessing for me, but I would change that because of the pain it has caused her - through no fault of her own, just that people can be quite mean. Wait, maybe if I am being given power to change things - I would leave my daughter just as she is - a wonderful blessing - and change everyone else!

2. The second thing you have to do is, pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have gotten this award.

I have chosen the following 6 blogs to pass this award along to:

1. CMash Loves to Read
2. Caroline Bookbinder
3. Rose City Reader
4. The Blue Bookcase
5. Notes From the North
6. Thinking About Loud

3. The third and final thing is: thank the person who gave you the award.

This is the easy part!! Crazy Cat Lady, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

BAN THIS and BANNED BOOK CHALLENGE

BAN THIS - check it out!! Visit Donna at Bites to join in this celebration of our freedom to read. If you are planning on posting anything about Banned Books Week on your blog, please visit her and leave a link so others can check out what you have to say.

BANNED BOOKS READING CHALLENGE -

While you are thinking about this very important topic, please visit Steph Sue Reads and join the reading challenge that goes along with Ban This! You should pledge to read seven banned books in seven weeks. You provide a link on her blog and then post links to your reviews and any other information you might have on this one link...anyway, sounds like a great challenge. Here is my initial list:

• Go Ask Alice
• TTYL
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Olives Ocean
• TBA
• TBA
• TBA

So everyone who wants to show support for librarians, book store owners, publishers, principals, teachers, friends, and readers - sign up now and read some banned books!

Donna also provides this fantastic proclamation and as a librarian I think I should also make the pledge:

Banned Books Week Proclamation

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is essential to our democracy, and reading is among our greatest freedoms; and

WHEREAS, privacy is essential to the exercise of that freedom, and the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others; and

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is protected by our Constitution; and

WHEREAS some individuals, groups, and public authorities work to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries of materials reflecting the diversity of society; and

WHEREAS, both governmental intimidation and the fear of censorship cause authors who seek to avoid controversy to practice self-censorship, thus limiting our access to new ideas; and

WHEREAS, every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of American society and leaves it less able to deal with controversy and difference; and

WHEREAS, Americans still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression, and can be trusted to exercise critical judgment, to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, and to exercise the responsibilities that accompany this freedom; and

WHEREAS, intellectual freedom is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture; and

WHEREAS, conformity limits the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend; and

WHEREAS, the American Library Association's Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year as a reminder to Americans not to take their precious freedom for granted; and

WHEREAS, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat celebrates the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, September 25th to October 2nd, and be it further

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat encourages all libraries and bookstores to acquire and make available materials representative of all the people in our society; and be it further

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat encourages free people to read freely, now and forever.

Adopted by Donna at Bites
8/14/10
Connecticut

Adopted by Donna at LibrarysCat
9/3/2010
Florida

Blog Hopping Time Again

ABOUT THE HOP:

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list at Crazy-For-Books!!

The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, go back later and join the fun! This is a weekly event! And go back throughout the weekend to see all the new blogs that are added!

This week's question comes from Sarah Reads Too Much!

Do you judge a book by its cover?

Is this a bad thing? Oh, right, my mother always told me "you can't judge a book by its cover"! Well, then I have to confess that sometimes I do. Especially if I am wandering around the book store with no particular book in mind. I just walk up and down the aisles and - all of a sudden, I am drawn in by a cover! Now I don't just willy-nilly buy the book, I do have sense enough to read a little and decide if it is for me - but the awful truth is that I probably would not have picked it up without the cover.

If you are visiting from the Hop, welcome and I hope you will take a look around. This past week I posted reviews on Knit in Comfort: A Novel and The Eternal Ones. I also participated in a brand new meme - Table Talk Tuesday hosted by CMash Loves to Read.

Wishing you a wonderful Labor Day weekend filled with lots of fun, lots of reading, and of course, LOTS OF HOPPING!

Knit in Comfort: A Novel

Let me begin this review with thanks to LibraryThing and Avon Publishers for providing me with the opportunity to read this book. Knit in Comfort: A Novel by Isabel Sharpe is one of many books published recently which are centered on a group of women who share knitting as a common hobby. I wanted to love this book, and while I found it engaging enough, I only liked it.


The story revolves around two women. Megan Morgan lives a settled life in Comfort, North Carolina with her husband, children, and mother-in-law. She belongs to the knitting club, Purls before Wine which meets weekly. Even though this is the life Megan wanted, she never really seems content. Needing to supplement the family income, Megan rents out the small garage apartment behind the house to Elizabeth Detlaff. Elizabeth lived in New York City with her boyfriend. In a dream, Elizabeth heard her grandmother tell her to go find “comfort” and she believes that is what she has done! She views Megan’s life as blissfully happy until she sees beneath the surface and realized things may not be the way they seem. And isn’t that true of everyone’s life?




The part that made this story a little more interesting was the introduction of Megan’s stories about her ancestors from the Shetland Islands in Scotland. Fiona, Megan’s great-grandmother, knitted beautiful lace that seemed to tell her story. (This little sample of Shetland Island lace is just one of many beautiful examples I located - oh, if only I could tat lace like that!)
In the beginning, I was more focused on this story until I could figure out who was who. The two stories, Megan’s and Fiona’s, seem to flow together over the course of the book just as Megan and Elizabeth’s stories do.



TITLE: Knit in Comfort: A Novel
AUTHOR: Isabel Sharpe
COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 320
TYPE: fiction
RECOMMEND: This was an easy book to read and it kept my attention - bonus twist as you learn family secrets. I didn't love it, but not really my cup of tea.