Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday, brought to you by the masterminds over at The Broke and the Bookish!
This week, we’re picking book recommendations for people who liked a certain book, and while I’m sure my choice is going to be popular, I’m doing it anyway because when I finished this book, I could have used a list like this. Don’t get me wrong — this list exists, all over the Internet, and I’m sure many more versions are going to pop up today. But the ones I found led me wrong. They suggested books I didn’t like. So I’m making my own.
[Disclaimer: I have not read this book, but I hear the plot is very similar to Hunger Games. I’ve also read interviews with Suzanne Collins where she said she didn’t know this book existed prior to her writing HG, and I believe her. Sometimes people just have similar ideas. It’s happened to me. It could happen to you. But I also think this list would be incomplete if it didn’t include the book that Hunger Games is most often compared to.]
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Today’s question is simple:
What started you Blogging?
As you’re probably aware, I haven’t been book blogging all that long. I started this blog at the end of March, a scant 3.5 months ago. I have, however, run a personal blog for years, the content of which was ravenously consumed by members of my immediate family. They wanted to read about my kids, and I provided oodles of info on that subject, and they were appeased.
Yes, I still write that blog. No, I’m not going to tell you where to find it. Sorry.
But I’m assuming this question is referring to book blogging. So as far as that goes, I started this blog for several reasons:
1) I was consuming too much television and felt my brain turning to mush (even though I watch awesome television). And I was all like, “Hey, self, remember when you used to read all the time and be semi-intelligent? How’s about you start that up again?”
“In my day, television was called books.“
Name that movie.
2) I feared that if I simply made the resolution “I’m going to read more” without any accountability, I wouldn’t read more. So I set up a blog. Voilà, accountability!
It’s the same reason I got a running partner. But the problem there is that she is about as motivated to run as I am, so on our most recently scheduled running day, we went to go see Spider-Man and I ate almost an entire bucket of popcorn. But it’s okay, because Spider-Manrocked my world almost as much as repeat visitors.
3) Most books I read are not the same books my husband or friends read. And I always wanted to talk about books when I finished reading, and was always disappointed that I didn’t have anyone to discuss them with. I thought writing reviews would be a good way to get all my thoughts out into the world, and then maybe people would even read them and we could talk about them. But even if no one read them, just the act of writing helped me process my thoughts about a book.
4) I would be lying if I didn’t admit there was a bit of a draw in the idea that if I actually could dredge up some readers, publicists might want to send me advance copies of books I really wanted to read. For free. Before they were released.
No, I didn’t start the blog “for the ARCs,” but if you don’t see the appeal in the idea of being able to read a highly-anticipated book before release, then you must have that crazy thing called “patience” that I’ve heard about but never really possessed. And I envy you.
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So there you go. That’s why I got started.
Of course, if you wanted to ask why I’m still blogging — yes, a whopping 3.5 months later — the answer would be slightly different. It would involve the awesome bookish community, the great bloggers and authors I’ve met (either in person or online), the way it’s gotten my creative juices flowing, the way it’s inspired me to come out of my shell and share more of my passions than just reading (like So You Think You Can Dance. And comic book superheroes. And other things that may or may not be just as nerdy).
So this past Tuesday, I wrote a post of (fake) book pitches inspired by So You Think You Can Dance routines. And I was totally blown away by how awesome the feedback was. Turns out there’s a lot of SYTYCD fans among us bookish types! Not only was the feedback amazing, but it also became my most-viewed post and my highest-traffic day ever, all within 24 hours of the post going up. Now, I’m not expecting lightning to strike twice, but it seems to me that this dance+book thing is a thing that people seem to like.
So considering the feedback, plus the fact that I absolutely loved writing that post, I tried to think about how I could incorporate something like it into my regular blogging routine. And here’s what I’ve come up with.
Each week, on the day after the show, I’ll put up a post selecting one dance from the night before, and I’ll do a book pitch inspired by it, complete with an author I think could pull it off. It won’t necessarily be my favorite dance of the night, or the best-executed dance; it’ll just be the one that inspires me the most to come up with a story idea.
Although for this week, let me just state for the record, I loved this dance. Loved. I want Christopher Scott to come choreograph my life.
And then I’ll need someone to dance it for me too, because I’m woefully uncoordinated.
Song:Architect of the Mind by Kerry Muzzey
Choreographer: Christopher Scott
Dancers: Top 20
Pitch: A teen prodigy is pulled out of his high school classroom and thrown into a top-secret think tank with one mission: find a way to prevent the imminent end of the world.
It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.
You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.
Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!
Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.
Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!
PSA: Mandi is taking some time off from blogging, so she won’t have a Throwback Thursday post up today, but still be sure to link back to her blog as one of the hosts. She was, after all, the original mastermind.
Yup, I’m going old school this week and featuring a series I loved as a kid. The Boxcar Children is the story of four orphans — Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny — who strike out on their own in an attempt to stay together. They wind up taking shelter in an old abandoned boxcar, which they decide to make into their home. And while living in the boxcar, they solve mysteries.
Okay, so this is not the best-written series ever. The plots are far-fetched. The characters are pretty one-dimensional. And there’s nary a shred of realism to be seen.
But you know what? I don’t care. When I was a kid, I loved reading about their chipped dishes and their meals of blackberries and milk. I loved their loving sibling dynamic. I loved the cute little mysteries they’d solve. They were great books to hone my reading skills on, with an interesting story (to an early elementary-schooler, anyway) that kept me working my way through the series.
So no, I’m not recommending you pick this series up as an adult. Few books that appealed to me as a 2nd grader would impress me much now. But if you’ve got an early reader in your life — like I do — this is a great series to introduce them to the wonderful world of chapter books.
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! This week is a FREEBIE topic, which is good because I’ve been cheating the last few weeks anyway. Best let me get it all out of my system at once so I can go back to playing by the rules ASAP.
I’ve been a little like a kid in a candy store trying to come up with a topic, but I kept coming back to the same thought after I saw Victoria Schwab mention on Twitter that her upcoming book The Archivedwas inspired by this dance from one of my favorite TV shows, So You Think You Can Dance. Then Myra McEntire threw more fuel onto the fire by letting me know that several characters in the Hourglass series are based on dancers and choreographers from the show.
And I started to think, what if more authors used this show as inspiration for their books? There’s certainly enough inspiration to choose from.
And thus I bring you my Top Ten list this week, in which I let my imagination run wild. I even pitch a plot for each book and pick an author that I think has the chops to pull it off (disclaimer: that doesn’t mean that the author has ever written anything like these pitches; I just think their their voices and strengths would lend themselves well to these stories).
Authors, feel free to take me up on any of these. My world would be a happy, happy place if you did.
My Top Ten Book Pitches Inspired by So You Think You Can Dance
(additional disclaimer: I could either have picked 10 dances, or done 10 book pitches. I did the latter, because that lets me use more dances)
1. Collide/How it Ends/My First Kiss, Season 7
Premise: After having his heart broken when his high school sweetheart is stolen by his best friend, an introverted teen begins an awkward and ill-fated relationship with his teacher.
Premise: Renegade wood nymphs decide to leave their forest home to live among the humans, but their mischievous ways and mysterious powers make them a target for dark forces that would harness their powers for evil.
5. Heaven is a Place on Earth/Battlefield/Coming Home, Season 7/Season 5/Season 8 (yes, I know the gender of the soldier changes throughout these dances, but that’s why they’re inspiration and not a literal representation)
Premise: A young couple’s relationship struggles after one of them enlists to serve overseas, has an affair with a fellow soldier, and finally returns home to battle PTSD.
6. Ramalama (Bang Bang)/Paris is Burning, Season 2 (this is actually the 100th episode version, which has the S2 dancers + choreographer Wade Robson)/Season 7
Premise: In an alternate Victorian London ruled by the undead, a small group of young aristocrats struggles to hide a dangerous secret: They’re still alive.
8. Every Little Thing She Does is Magic/The Dance, Season 7 (sorry, I couldn’t find a higher quality video that allowed embedding, but if you want to go to YouTube, there’s a high quality version here)/Season 4
Premise: A teenaged Alice returns to Wonderland and joins forces with the Mad Hatter to raise an army and overthrow the Red Queen’s reign of terror.
Premise: After being dumped by her boyfriend and shunned by her classmates following a vicious rumor, the most popular girl in school finds the only person that she can truly be herself around is her neighbor, a boy she has ignored since elementary school.
10. Bleeding Love/Mad World, Season 4/Season 7 (This is the tour version of the performance, because I couldn’t find a version of the original that I could embed)
Premise: After his relationship with his wife falls apart because of his workaholic ways, a successful businessman re-examines his life when he discovers the beggar outside his office is his college roommate.
If you liked this topic, I told my friend Shannon over at Stalking the Bookshelves that I was going to do this topic this week, and she asked if she could join on the SYTYCD fun. And of course, my thoughts were the more the merrier! We didn’t tell each other which dances we were picking, so head on over to her post and see if we picked any of the same ones!
Also, if you’ve never watched SYTYCD but now you want to (and you SHOULD want to), now is a great time to start! The first performance episode airs tomorrow (7/11) on FOX at 8 EST.
Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!
