Brown Paper Packages Tied Up with Strings...

randomness...feed your mind and your blog
Week of March 25: A Few of My Favorite Things

what's your favorite.....

1. food: I'll break this one down into two categories. Fave healthy food? Yogurt. Especially now that I've discovered the delectable goodness of Activia's apple meusli & nuts. Now, fave food in general? CHEESE! Ohhh I *heart* cheese. Give me a chunk of bread and a hunk of cheese and I'm in heaven.

2. movie: Stealing Home (Mark Harmon & Jodi Foster) Something about this movie just gets me every time. And for anyone who's seen this one, you'll know what it means when I say, "Goodnight Mrs. Paaaaaaarks!" :-D

3. song: Grace Kelly by Mika, but as far as music goes my favourites change frequently. But ooh, Mika's album is released in Canada tomorrow! I've been looking forward to this one...he's a great blend of Elton John, Scissor Sisters, and Queen. What a combination. Big Girl is a great anthem for us fluffy girls out there. :-D

4. color: Brick Red (with glitter!)

5. outdoor activity: Walking. Am I boring yet?

6. season: Fall is indisputably the most beautiful season, in my opinion. Nothing greater than the changing colour of leaves, the crisp autumn air, breaking out your sweaters, and curling up by the fireplace with a cup of cocoa and a good book.

7. book: Oh, now this isn't fair. There's no possible way in the universe that I can narrow it down to one fave. So I'll give you my latest one: The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald. Her previous book, Fall on Your Knees was an Oprah pick, but this one grabbed me on a more personal level. Perhaps it's my childhood fascination with Bugs Bunny, just like the main character, Madeleine McCarthy. Or maybe it's something else.

8. store: One word - IKEA. I know, some people look down on it because it's "cheap" stuff. But hey, why should I spend 3x the money at a fancy furniture store, when IKEA stuff looks great and holds up just fine in my house? More money for me to spend on books. And shoes.

9. car: I've only had a few cars in my lifetime, but so far the best has been my Honda Civic (06)!

10. animal: This guy:



till next time....

Visual DNA

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Boys and Their Muddy Boots

I'm the only girl stuck in the middle of six boys who spend most of their days poking, laughing and wrestling together as they trip and drag their muddy boots through my life.

Dora Rare, The Birth House by Ami McKay

Random House has Insight

When you're surfing the net for your next great reading purchase, do you ever read excerpts before you decide to buy? It's one of my own personal favourite ways of determining whether a book will capture my interest or not. I love to read the first line. If it grabs me, I'll read the full first paragraph. And sometimes I go even further and read the entire sample that's available.

As I surf through the various book blogs out there, I enjoy reading what people have to say about the book they just finished. But it's usually not enough for me. I still have that little nagging voice that says, "browse inside the book first!" But then I usually have to go to the trouble of following a link to the publisher or to Amazon, finding out if there even IS an excerpt available, getting into the reader, taking a peek, then if I decide to buy it, I have to get back to the main page...yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, now there's a cool little gadget that will make that whole process a lot quicker and easier. And it's snazzy too!

Random House has introduced Insight - a digital distribution tool, and a neat little widget that lets you take a sneak peek into many of their books with a Browse & Search function. It's an online book reader that shows you what the actual pages look like, and gives you a decent chunk of the book to get a good feel for it.

Know what's even cooler? They've designed it so that you can add the widget to your website or blog. Check this out: (You will need Flash 9.0 to view this, and it's available for free here.)




See that little binoculars icon at the top right corner? Click on that, and you can search the contents of the ENTIRE book (not just what's here in the preview). So let's say, you're doing research for a term paper, and you're looking for a book with lots of information on...oh, I dunno...agoraphobia. You've found a book on phobias, but you're not sure if agoraphobia is covered. Problem solved...do a search for agoraphobia, and you'll find all the instances of that word in the entire book.

And for my fellow audiophiles out there, they've also got samples for audio books too, so you can have a little listen before you buy:



(There's even a wee little audio version too...great for your sidebar!)


You can read more about Insight here, and check out the available titles with Browse & Search here.

This new little goody makes me giddy. :) Can't wait to get to my next book that has Browse & Search available.

My sidebar will be widgetylicious.

Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult

***Potential SPOILER Alert***

This is the second novel by Jodi Picoult that I have read, (The Pact was the first) and I have enjoyed both of them. Her common themes of teenage angst and unrequited love make for easy curl-up-with-your-book reading.

In Salem Falls, Jack St. Bride has developed a bad reputation that follows him wherever he goes. You see, Jack was wrongfully convicted for statutory rape of one of his former students who had a crush on him and made it all up. Following a prison term, Jack moves onto a new town, a new life. There, he meets Addie Peabody - a slightly odd woman who runs the Do-Or-Diner and who hasn't been able to completely get over her daughter's premature death.

The people of the town eventually discover that Jack is an ex-con, and begin the brutal campaign of running him out of town without a thought to his rights.

The real trouble begins when one of the local school girls (who is involved in witchcraft) cries rape and points the blame at Jack. Yep, the poor guy was accused again.

An investigation and trial ensues, and Jack is defended by none other than Jordan MacAfee (who also appeared in The Pact).

I won't spoil the ending for you, but you can guess how it all works out. They always do.

It doesn't matter though...the point is, this is a good, quick, pleasurable read.

Short Stories Vs. Novels

Booking Through Thursday

1. Short Stories? Or full-length novels? I never really was a fan of short stories for the longest time. Until I read "The Kittens" by Dean Koontz. (Yeah, I know, this is my third Koontz post in a row. Sheesh.) But that story was amazing, and proved to me that short stories can have the same profound effect on you that full length novels can.



2. And, what's your favorite source for short stories? (You know, if you read them.) I still don't read a lot of short fiction, but when I do, it's usually in an anthology like this or this.

Book Trailers the New Marketing Tool?

Something that seems to be building in the book marketing world is the creation of book trailers. I have to say, I'm really keen on this idea. It's been a long-time effective marketing tool for movies, so why couldn't it work for books too?

Random House is turning the idea into a contest, which is brilliant, IMHO:

Dean Koontz needs you to direct the trailer for his upcoming book, The Good Guy. Use your video cam, cell phone cam, or whatever else you can think of to create a 30 second trailer based on the 2 chapter excerpt they've provided. Upload your masterpiece to YouTube for all to see, and you'll get a groovy t-shirt that proudly states, "I shot The Good Guy."

Sheer brilliance. I'm not eligible to enter, but I might try to come up with something just for fun. Although I'm limited in the fact that I have no video camera. Hrm.

Here's a great example of a professional book trailer. This is for Dean Koontz's The Husband (which was a fast-paced thriller!)



How cool is that?