For the holidays, I will give you the gift of two magnificent renditions of “O Holy Night”. The first one is by the legendary Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and the second one is by the famous Swedish tenor Jussi Bjorling:
Merry Christmas!
Monthly Archives: December 2012
Friday Blog Hops!
This week’s Book Blogger Hop by Crazy-for-Books is being hosted by Tea Time With Marce.
This week’s question:
What Book were you determined to read this year but didn’t?
Oh, wow, there are quite a few. My bookshelves are bulging with my TBR books and my Kindle is packed with unread books!Two books that I have downloaded but not yet read are City of Women and The Chaperone.
Both of these books are currently full price in the bookstores, but I paid $2.99 for each of them on Kindle Daily Deals! City of Women was a Kindle Daily Deal and I found out about it with 10 minutes to before the deal expired. I was so happy to get it at that price. However, I haven’t read it yet.
At the Friday Feature and Follow, hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read, the question is:
What have you learned from book blogging that you didn’t know before about the publishing industry?
I must admit that I knew nothing about Advanced Reading Copies and that I could get free books to read before they were published. I was vaguely aware that big time book reviewers from places like The New York Times must get books ahead of time, but I didn’t know that bloggers could get them!
I also knew nothing about book publishing conferences such as Book Expo America, which I attended last year!
9 Things That Bring Me Joy
List the top 9 things that bring you joy.
1. Reading – I can’t live without reading. What I’m reading now:
2. Writing – this includes making lists.
3. Taking photos of and writing about interesting places and things.
4. Eating a really good dinner that I didn’t cook – I don’t like cooking. I love going out to eat.
5. Having a totally clean home – this is a big accomplishment for me, because it’s such a rare occurrence. It’s a miracle!
6. Visiting a nice place we haven’t been to before. It doesn’t have to be fancy; it just has to be different.
7. Summer – especially in a really beautiful place like Cape May, New Jersey. I love warm weather and the beautiful Jersey shore.
View from the very top of the Cape May Lighthouse, taken by me this past summer:
Yes, I climbed all 199 steps!
8. Shopping – this is bad. I especially like antique shops and Home Goods.
9. Being with my husband. Even while shopping in Home Goods and he whines “Are we done yet?”, I still love him.
Written for Mama Kat’s Pretty Much World Famous Writer’s Workshop.
Feature and Follow Friday
This blog hop is hosted every week by Parajunkee’s View and Alison Can Read.
This week’s question:
What is the last book that made you cry? Tell us about the scene…
The last book that made me cry is The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. Not one scene, but the whole book.
This book is about a lighthouse keeper and his wife on a remote Australian island. The wife has suffered through miscarriages and stillbirths and longs for a baby.
One day a boat washes up on the shore with a dead man and a living baby. The wife begs her husband to keep the baby . . . and this changes both of their lives forever. A heartbreaking novel about the repercussions of the choices we make.