The Writing Slump

For those of you who don’t know, I’m turning the big 3-0 this year. I’m being a little bit cliche and have made a list of 30 things to do before (ish) my birthday in June. One of these things is to write. It’s been at least two years since I’ve really sat down and written anything for my personal enjoyment. So I decided to challenge myself to write a short story. It doesn’t have to “end” at a short story but I’d like to hit that mark starting off.

It’s been six months since I made this resolution. I’m an expert at procrastination so I will share some of my “excuses” with you in the hopes that you, dear readers and fellow bloggers, can help me overcome them.

1) I write for a living. Every day from 9 to 6 I am writing for a marketing company (about automobiles). So by the end of the day the last thing I want to do is boot up my laptop and put my fingers back to the keys.

2) I need to read. I read so much and have such a large TBR pile that writing consistently gets pushed to the back burner in the search for the next best story.

3) I’m overwhelmed. I have possibly 3 different stories in my head and don’t know which one to start with or really where to start.

4) I’m critical of myself. I’ve always been my own worst critic and in the case of writing that mentality usually stops me before I even start.

So, here’s my call for help. Help!!! I need some guidance from my peers on this one. Where does your drive come from? How do you discipline yourself? Where does your inspiration come from? Any tips, tricks, suggestions will be helpful and welcome! Thanks in advance.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone! This year, here in upstate New York, we’ve been having record high temperatures so it’s been especially difficult to get into the spirit. I’ve had to employ the use of my favorite books, movies, music, and activities to get myself into the celebratory mood. Now I don’t know about you but every year there are some books, movies, and of course music that I have to read, watch, or listen to during the holidays.

First of all, books. I might not get to it every year, but Harry Potter is kind of a must-read for me. The majority of the books came out in the summer but the winter trips to Hogsmeade, the blustery towers, and the homemade sweaters from Mrs. Weasley make me want to curl up next to a fireplace with some hot tea. I also like to read The Polar Express and The Snowman, they might be children’s books, but they are classics.

Next up, movies. There are so many Christmas movies that I really have to pick and choose which ones I want to watch. There are four must-watches, however. Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Elf, and Love, Actually. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas until I watch them.

As for music, while there are hundreds upon hundreds of holiday songs out there sang by just as many artists and bands, I cannot get into the spirit without hearing Dominic the Donkey. Forget Silent Night, Little Saint Nick, Christmastime Is Here, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and all the rest. It’s just not Christmas until I hear the joyous bleat of Dominic helping Santa deliver gifts. Often times this means that I have to go searching for the song but I will not rest until I hear it.

As for activities, there are two that never fail to remind me that it’s Christmas. The first is decorating gingerbread houses with my best friend. We make it into a competition and have our friends vote on Facebook and choose the winner. Loser has to buy the winner a drink. And finally, the Elf on the Shelf. The terrifying, dead-eyed, little mischief maker that haunts my facebook news feed. Starting December 1st, I need to approach Facebook with extreme prejudice. His glazed-over eyes and sociopathic smile never fail to make me wish that Christmas would just hurry up and get here already!

Now that you know mine, what are some of your holiday musts?

Wimps Can Enjoy Scary Books Too!

If you're like me and scared of pretty much anything that goes bump-in-the-night, then Halloween might not be your favorite holiday. (But the fact that there's free candy and dressing up saves this holiday from being ranked dead last for me.) I hate being scared, I'm not a fan of horror movies, and I'm terrified of the dark and of spiders (both of which are pretty much synonymous with All Hallows Eve). And yet, I love books that are able to put me on edge. I haven't read many "traditional" horror books, but I have read a fair amount of creepy, thrilling, dark books that make you want to look over your shoulder or check under your bed. I'll call them horror-esque. And while some of them aren't considered horror, they still have that element of gore or scare, or "oh my gosh turn around it's right behind you TURN AROUND!" element to them. So here's a short list of books that I've read and liked (but aren't too scary for those wimps out there like me) that you might want to give a try:

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (Aliens invade! But they look like humans.)

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton (People suddenly die from a mysterious cause.)

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (An environmental anomaly consumes all who enter.)

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (The only survivor of a mass killing tries to find the real killer.)

Day Four by Sarah Lotz (Cruise ship stops dead in the water. Very strange events begin to happen.)

Fiend by Peter Stenson (The only way to stave off the zombie apocalypse is with... drugs?)

Fragment by Warren Fahy (Jurrasic Park + Reality TV show)

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (Young girl wonders why she's hated and why people suddenly smell so tasty.)

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (Based on real-life events of a close encounter with Ebola in the US.)

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Family buys house. House reveals terrifying secrets.)

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Scandanavian child vampire seeks a friend.)

One Second After by William R. Forstchen (Scary-real account of what could happen after an EMP detonation.)

The Passage by Justin Cronin (Epic tale of how an immortality experiment turned most of the population into blood-thirsty killers.)

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson (Exactly what the title sounds like. AI becomes self-aware. Decides to take over.)

The Three by Sarah Lotz (Three children survive unsurvivable plane crashes. That happen at the exact same time in different parts of the world.)

World War Z by Max Brooks (A "first-hand" account of the survivors of the zombie apocalypse.)

Out of these, I'd have to say that House of Leaves is the scariest one for me. If you've never heard of it, I urge you to go to your nearest bookstore and just take a look at it. It's unique in that there are stories within stories, footnotes that go on for pages, passages that are written in spirals (literally) and more. It takes commitment to read and is certainly not for everyone. It can be very confusing at times and gives the sense of what "going mad" must feel like. It's a book that stays with the reader (I'm getting goosebumps as I think about it) and has a cult following intent on breaking a supposed code that is written within the stories. It may not sound like a horror book from my description, but it leaves you feeling extremely uneasy every time you put it down.

Have you read any of these? What are some of your favorite horror books and why? What is the scariest book you've ever read?

Banned Book Week

While banned book week is nearly over, it’s still a very important topic to mention. In a world where a large portion of the population seems to be offended by one thing or another, tensions (and opinions) can run high when discussing anything from politics to baby names and religion to what we choose to eat. Thankfully, we (well those of us in the U.S. and parts of Europe) are lucky to live in a place where we can exercise our freedom of speech. Mostly.
I say “mostly” because there are still parts of this country (referring to the U.S. from here on out) where it is thought to be acceptable to ban or prohibit people from reading certain books and learning about certain topics. And while there’s a wide spectrum on how people feel about banning books, reading and writing books regardless of content is protected under the first amendment of the constitution.
Many books are banned because the behavior and language is incongruent with the personal beliefs of the group that is doing the banning. Banning typically means that the book is not to be made readily available to community members via schools or libraries. Most of these challenges/bannings are initiated by parents or guardians and for reasons pertaining to sexual explicitness or offensive language. And since 1990, the year of 1995 had the most challenges/bannings with a total of 762 books. Below is a list of frequently challenged or banned books in the U.S. and their reason(s)...

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank) - Too Depressing
Harry Potter Series (J.K. Rowling) - Witchcraft, Bad Behavior
Howl (Allen Ginsberg) - Homosexuality
Eleanor & Park (Rainbow Rowell) - Profanity, Sexual Content
And Tango Makes Three (J. Richardson, P. Parnell) - Homosexuality
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky) - Inappropriate Behavior, Sexual Content, Offensive Language
Lady Chatterley's Lover (DH Lawrence) - Sexual Content
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) - Sexual Content
Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller) - Sexual Content, Homosexuality
The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie) - Blasphemy
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov) - Sexual Content
Animal Farm (George Orwell) - Goes Against God (talking animals is unnatural)

...and perhaps the most ridiculous of all…

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Bill Martin Jr.) - Banned because an author with the same name as this book’s author (Bill Martin, no relation)—who, to be clear, is an entirely different person—was a Marxist who wrote a different book about Marxism and people don’t know how to check their facts.

For more information on banned books please see http://www.ala.org/bbooks/.

How do feel about banning books? Which banned books have you read and do you agree or disagree with their decision to be banned? Remember to please keep the conversation friendly and respectful!

Hester Prynne, Jay Gatsby, Ethan Frome. Oh My!

Ahh yes. September. It’s time to go back to school! Fresh pencils, crisp loose leaf paper, immaculate folders and binders, and of course… new books! I’m sure many kids (current and former) had a love/hate relationship with back-to-school time like I did. You get to see all your friends, but you have homework, you aren’t bored, but you do have to sit through that one class where you don’t know anyone, you get to goof off in study hall, but you have to run laps for gym class. Summer reading was behind you… and a whole year of new reading material was ahead… wait. Who am I kidding? I LOVED both of those things!

While many of my classmates were still recovering from the near fatal speed-reading of the summer reading selection I was eager to crack open the first book of the school year, whether it was a novel or a textbook, it didn’t matter to me!

Each year there was always something I was looking forward to reading.
My biology textbook (yes, I was THAT nerd).
The Scarlet Letter.
The Great Gatsby.
Ethan Frome. ….What the eff?

Because of my epic nerdiness I never truly understood why many of my classmates hated school reading. But then I was forced to read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton in 10th grade English. Oh. My. Gosh. All I could think about during class discussions was “What have I done to deserve this?” And if I was struggling with boredom how were my normally bored classmates still breathing?  Why would anyone think it was a good idea to make teenagers read this book in high school? Not only that but the teacher dragged it out for two weeks! I’m pretty sure we watched a movie adaptation starring Liam Neeson, but the details are fuzzy...

Thankfully To Kill A Mockingbird was next…

Which required reading books did you love? Hate? Which ones did you just totally skip out on? Have you gone back to reread any of them to see if they were really as good/bad as you remember?

Back Jacket Hack-Job #4: Day Four

So here’s my attempt at the Back Jacket Hack Job! For the last three days I’ve agonized over which book I would do my hack job for. I didn’t want to do something obviously easy to tear apart *cough*Fifty Shades*cough* (I kid. I read them all and I can see the appeal. Please no comment flames) and I didn’t want to do something that might be considered sacrilegious like To Kill A Mockingbird or something and... clearly I was really overthinking this. So I decided just moments ago to do the last book I finished: Day Four by Sarah Lotz. Full disclosure: I really enjoyed this book. Not as much as I loved her first in this kind-of-series (The Three) but Ms. Lotz is a fantastic writer and really knows how to write a page-turner! So since I liked it so much I figured it would be ok to poke a little fun. OK here goes!!...

Buy me!

Are you afraid of ships? Stranded ships out at sea? Do you “hate people” and maybe find it difficult to be in a secluded area with them for any length of time? DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

Just imagine being STRANDED on a cruise ship full of NEEDY people who completely LOSE their MINDS and revert to the most depraved versions of themselves when they no longer have access to electricity or fresh running water. There’s also a (psychotic?) psychic, a murderer, and *gasp* possibly children on this 21-and-over only cruise. Is there no end to the madness?!

Told from multiple points of view and over the course of a few days, Day Four is a mystery, I guess? A paranormal mystery? What would you categorize this as? There’s some weird dialogue and slang. I think the author is from somewhere other than the US and maybe wrote another book before this that might possibly tie into this one. Oh… that would explain a lot…


So there you have it! Can I give you my real review now? It’s really good. If you like mysteries that have a weird “Twilight Zone” twist to them then this, and the previous book “The Three”, are ones you should check out. Read The Three first. You don’t HAVE to, but there are events that happen in this book that allude to events from the first. The writing is really well done. As (poorly) stated above, there are multiple points of view and each is unique and distinct. Both are great books for when you are on the beach, or just want to pick up something that is compelling and won’t take you forever to get through. You’ll fly through them. Enjoy!

And now for my first trick - Predicting this summers’ bestsellers!

Summer is hands down my favorite season. I love the sun, the warmth, and being outside with a cold drink and a great book. Summer is the season of cookouts, beach days, and road trips. It’s also the season of the “beach read”. But what exactly is a “beach read”?

This + Rum = Happy Tara! Yay!

My personal definition of a beach read is a book that is easy to read, doesn’t take a lot of concentration, and is something that, despite many interruptions, can be devoured in one or two sittings. Beach reads are those books that you can take on airplanes (and leave for the next passenger), get sand between the pages, and spill your margarita on and not have the world end. It’s one that you’ll happily lend to your friends when they ask for a book to take on their vacation. I like to think of them as peacocking-books; you read them at beaches and public pools in the hopes that maybe the good looking lifeguard or the sunbathing hottie next to you will ask you about it.

You’ll probably see a movie or tv adaptation of these books in a year or so, thanks to their popularity and general relatable-ness. Probably not award winners but most likely have some pop culture relevance. Maybe an A-List actor in the starring role. Beach reads are lovely because they can be guilty pleasure books that you aren’t “embarrassed” to get “caught” reading. (Note: Never be embarrassed about something you like to read. Haters gonna hate.) “Oh, this? I just picked it up at the airport bookstore on my layover since I had already read everything else there.” Great ice-breaker books.

But really the definition of a beach read is totally subjective and open to interpretation. It doesn’t have to necessarily be of any one genre either. It can be romance, mystery, sci-fi, even a memoir. Each genre has its own beach read.

Past beach reads include Beautiful Ruins, The Paris Wife, Fifty Shades of Grey, Gone Girl, Orphan Train, The Longest Ride, Me Before You, Inferno, Orange Is the New Black, The Boys in the Boat, The Tipping Point, The Help, Water For Elephants, and One Day… just to name a few.

Now I’m no fortune teller or foreseer of the future but I have been selling books for the last 10 years and I like to think that I can spot trends when it comes to reading material. So with nothing but my gut instinct and a bunch of two sentence descriptions here’s a list of books that I think will be this years popular beach reads and ones that I will most likely be recommending to my friends and customers.

The Martian by Andy Weir (Sci Fi)

The Vacationers by Emma Straub (Fiction)

Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell (Fiction)

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North (Fiction)

The Rocks by Peter Nichols (Fiction)

Local Girls by Caroline Zancan (Fiction)

Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica (Mystery/Thriller)

Hugo and Rose by Bridget Foley (Fiction)

China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan (Fiction)

Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten (YA Fiction)

The Hand That Feeds You by A.J. Rich (Mystery/Thriller)

Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow (Humor)

The Rumor by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)

Killing Monica by Candace Bushnell (Fiction)

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume (Fiction)

...and of course…

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee (Fiction)

What do you consider to be a beach read? What book(s) are you looking forward to reading this summer?

Hello! My name is Tara and I have a reading addiction.

Being a “reader” doesn’t seem like an active choice that one makes in his or her lifetime. It’s something that most people, I suspect, become naturally and gradually. Not me. I remember the exact moment I knew I wanted to be a reader. There were actually four very important books in my life that solidified my love of books and love of getting lost in them.

The very first time was while I was reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. Looking back on it, this is the first book that I remember getting the “feels” during. I was in fifth grade and we were learning about the Holocaust. To make it more relatable for our young minds our teacher had us read Number the Stars and write an essay about whether or not we would help a Jewish family during this terrifying time. This was also the first and only time I’ve ever “stolen” a book (from a school no less). I was so in love with this story that I had to have it for myself. (I was unaware of bookstores at the time and thought the library was my only option.) At the end of the year I did return the book after I got a copy for my birthday.

The next book, or series rather, was the Animorphs series. These were the books that started my love of series and of science fiction. I remember waiting anxiously for my dad to get home on the first Tuesday of every month with the newest book in his hands for me. I was amazed that a book could turn into multiple books (I think 54 was the last one I read) and that storylines and characters could develop over time, that people and plot lines could be resolved and new ones created. These were also the books that introduced me to the concept (and lie) that was “just one more chapter”.

The third book that blew my mind was The Giver by Lois Lowry. The ending of this book completely turned reading on its head for me. Because I was a reading nerd by this point I read ahead and finished the book a good week before most of my classmates. When I got to the end and the story just ended I was devastated. I thought that my copy must be missing pages. I went to my teacher and asked for a different copy so that I could find out what happened; the anticipation was killing me. When she told me that that was the ending, that there was no resolution, I was outraged. Why would she pick such a book?! What author wouldn’t tell the reader exactly what happened to the characters? There were so many questions going through my young head at this point that I spent my entire lunch period in her classroom discussing the book. At the end of our talk she told me to do something unimaginable. Write my own ending. (I did and she gave me extra credit, not that I needed it. I passed seventh grade English with a 107. Yes, I was that girl.)

I won’t go into the last book in detail because I’m sure many of you already know this story. I was in seventh grade and I met a boy. His name was Harry Potter.

So why am I boring you all with this? (I hope I’m not boring you! This is only my first post!) To demonstrate my love, addiction, and obsession with books and reading. Having succumbed to this addiction at a youngish age I was able to cultivate and nurture my love of learning everything I could from books. Books had the answers to almost every question I had even the ones my parents and teachers didn’t have the answers too. (This was also before the internet and the instantaneous answers one could get from Google. I had to actually work at finding the answers and I’m so grateful that I had this opportunity to live in a time where the internet wasn’t there to be used as a crutch.) Not only was I exposed to facts about the world but I also learned about other cultures, other parts of the world, about situations I hadn’t been exposed to yet, about people I hadn’t heard of, etc. It was a way of exploring the world without leaving my house.

So as your newest resident reader I hope to be able to recommend books to you that you’ll like and find interesting. I read just about everything with a noticeable bias towards fiction (as opposed to non-fiction) and will try any genre at least once. And even though it’s early in my blog writing days I have a feeling that most of my posts will be about reading (as opposed to writing) and things going on in the book world. (I am currently in my 10th year of being a bookseller, so I feel like I know my stuff.)

Here’s a VERY SHORT list of some of my favorite books, in no particular order. I hope this gives you some insight into what I enjoy and that it opens the door for some conversations. I’m always happy to give recommendations!

• Wool (series) by Hugh Howey
• The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins
• Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• Red Rising by Pierce Brown
• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• The Passage by Justin Cronin
• The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Lexicon by Max Barry
• World War Z by Max Brooks
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• 1984 by George Orwell