#Bloggiesta Finish Line

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to cross off all of the tasks in my to-do list for this weekend but I was able to accomplish several things:

• published several posts: Getting Excited About Reading and Blogging, a Postcard Love post and a Want Books post
• participated in the Goodreads mini-challenge hosted by Janice
• participated in the Facebook mini-challenge hosted by Liza
• participated in this old Backing up your Blog mini-challenge
• tweaked sidebar, changed the type of buttons that I use for social networking sites, had to make one for Goodreads to match the rest (they’re in the upper right corner of the sidebar for now)
• replied to the comments in my posts (not sure if this is counted since I always do this anyway and I’m still in the process of replying to everyone)
• dropped by other blogs participating in Bloggiesta to comment
• joined the Bloggiesta Sunday chat

I thought I’d have more time to spend on the blog this weekend but real life got in the way of things. There’s a long weekend coming up so I’m looking forward to working on more blog-related tasks even if Bloggiesta is over. My favorite thing this weekend is probably going through all the mini-challenges. I wanted to do so many of them but didn’t have enough time for everything! Oh and the Twitter chat was also a lot of fun. I’m glad I got to participate in Bloggiesta even if I wasn’t able to finish all of the things that I wanted to do. Again, thanks to Suey and Danielle for hosting this event! I’m planning to participate in the next one scheduled for September 28, 29 and 30.

Edited to add: here’s a print screen of what my blog looks like now (just so I have an idea because I keep changing themes):

#Bloggiesta Want Books: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Want Books? is a weekly meme hosted here at Chachic’s Book Nook and features released books that you want but you can’t have for some reason. It can be because it’s not available in your country, in your library or you don’t have the money for it right now. Everyone is free to join, just grab the image above. Leave a comment with a link to your post so I can do a roundup with each post.

Since I created my Want Books meme during the first time I participated in Bloggiesta back in 2010, I knew I had to put up a post this weekend. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer has been on my radar for a while now. I’ve heard so many good things about this book and other bloggers have mentioned that it’s something every book lover will enjoy reading. It’s also one of Elizabeth Wein’s inspirations for Code Name Verity, still my favorite book in 2012 so far. I also think I’ll like this book because I love getting snail mail. And look at that cover, it’s so pretty.

Here’s the summary from Goodreads:

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society — born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island — boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Looks lovely, right? I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy reading this. Just need to grab a copy. What about you, what book is in your wishlist?

#Bloggiesta Weekend: Postcard Love

I’m participating in Bloggiesta (hosted by Suey and Danielle) so I’m adding “Bloggiesta” to the title of all my posts this weekend. To those who are participating, hope you guys are having fun checking things off your to-do lists! I still have several on my list that I need to accomplish. If you’re visiting the blog for the first time or dropping by care of Bloggiesta, Postcard Love is a feature focusing on my enthusiasm for snail mail. Anyway, I was surprised to get mail this Saturday afternoon because I just received a couple of postcards the other day. This is what I received:

The two postcards on top are from Postcrossing – one from Germany and one from Thailand. If you love getting snail mail then I recommend signing up for Postcrossing. You get assigned to send postcards to random people all over the world and for every postcard that you send, you get to received one as well. Getting a postcard from Postcrossing is always a nice surprise because you never know when it’s going to arrive and where it will come from. The USA postcard on the bottom left is a Ladybird postcard that I sent to myself (yep, I send postcards to myself, usually when I travel or when I find a nice one that I’d like to keep). The orange card is another one from Steph! That’s three postcards this week from her – thank you, Steph, I hope you had a wonderful birthday and that you had a great time in Taipei. Last but not the least, the birthday card is from two lovely blog buddies Holly and Angie. Thank you for sending me something for my birthday, Holly and Angie! Love the camera theme of the card and how bright and happy it looks.

#Bloggiesta: Getting Excited About Reading and Blogging

Bloggiesta has inspired me to write a post about how book bloggers always have to balance reading with blogging. I’ve said this before and I’ll probably end up saying it over and over again: my blog is my happy place. This is the place where I can talk about something that I’m passionate about – reading books. That’s a pretty big thing for me because there aren’t a lot of people in my life interested in hearing me go on and on about the books I read. So yes, I love my blog. But there are also times when I just feel like I want to read without having to worry about writing a review. There are times when I get tired of blogging and feel like my enthusiasm has gone. Since the blog is my happy place, I don’t want to feel this way – I don’t want to feel pressured to read, review and write posts. If I really think about it, there’s really no need to feel pressure anyway. Living here in the Philippines means I don’t get a ton of review copies (aside from galleys requested from sites like NetGalley). Even if I do have galleys lined up, I’m not exactly required to read and review them. So it seems like the pressure is coming from me. And the blog isn’t going anywhere, it will still be here even if I don’t post as much as I used to. Conclusion? There’s really no need to pressure myself – I have no idea why I even do it.

To keep reading fun, I make a point of choosing books that I feel like reading. Each time I’m about to start a new book, I think and consider whether I’m in the right mood for it because I don’t want to experience a reading slump. I also don’t post reviews for all of the books that I read because I don’t want to force myself when I can’t think of anything to say. I also participate in readalongs with blog friends because it’s always interesting to have more in-depth discussions. To keep blogging fun, I do my best to come up with posts that get me excited. Such as features that I’ve created focused on my other interests but still related reading and blogging: Postcard Love (because I love sending and receiving postcards and I’ve discovered that other book bloggers feel the same way) and Shoot That Book (because I enjoy looking at book pictures, why not take photos and post them?).

Another thing that I love to do? Talk about favorite authors, celebrate their books and promote their work. I tend to get enthusiastic when it comes to authors I love. Two blog events that I’ve organized this year so far: Queen’s Thief Week to celebrate Megan Whalen Turner’s books and Marchetta Madness to highlight Melina Marchetta’s novels. No, I’m not just promoting these events. My point is these blog events have made me excited to blog again. I was nervous when I sent out invites for guest posts and I was thrilled when people said yes! I couldn’t wait to check my mail because I was looking forward to reading what other readers had to say about my favorite authors. If I could do events like these for ALL of my favorite authors, I would. A week featuring Robin McKinley? Sherwood Smith? Elizabeth Wein? Ilona Andrews? Kristin Cashore? Laini Taylor? Give me enough free time and people willing to do guest posts and I’ll do it.

What are some of the things that you do to keep reading and blogging fun? Would love to hear your thoughts (even if you’re not participating in Bloggiesta).

Bloggiesta To-do List

I’m participating in Bloggiesta this weekend – hosted by Suey and Danielle, drop by their blogs to learn more about the event! Here are some of my goals:

• catch up on writing reviews of books I’ve read (Where She Went, Trese, Whiskey Road)
• put up at least one post this weekend
• finish guest posts that I promised I’d write
• clean up sidebar
• edit my pages (About Me, Features, Review Policy)
• participate in at least one challenge
• go through the items in my Google Reader
• visit blogs participating in Bloggiesta and leave comments
• check the Filipino Book Bloggers email and update the site accordingly
• come up with ideas for discussion posts

I’m trying to keep my goals simple because I have no idea how many hours I can put in this weekend. It would be good if I can accomplish a lot but we’ll see. Are you participating in Bloggiesta? What are your goals?

Edited to add: I heard that WordPress is requiring people to login to leave a comment – I have to idea how to fix that because my settings are set to just filling in the name and email address. Sorry for the hassle, folks!

Bloggiesta is Back!

The next Bloggiesta is scheduled for the weekend of March 30, 31 and April 1. It’s going to be hosted by Suey of It’s All About Books and Danielle of There’s a Book. Don’t know what Bloggiesta is? Here’s the description that I grabbed from Suey’s introductory post:

Bloggiesta is a three day event where participants will spend as much time as they can working on fixing all those pesky blog related tasks…. all those things that you think “some day I’m going to clean that up, or change that around, or add that thing!” Everyone will post a “to do” list, or goals they want to accomplish and then all of us will work together to get our lists done. The fun thing is that we can cheer each other on, and learn from each other and have a blast doing it. It’s the perfect time to figure out that something you’ve always wanted to do, but didn’t know how… or to get caught up on reviews, or to fix your labels, or take control of your Reader… or do oh so many other things!

I’m glad Bloggiesta is back! It’s a fun community event and I had a great time reaching out and chatting with fellow book bloggers when I participated before. I was also able to accomplish several tasks that I set out to do. March is going to be a busy month for me so I have no idea how active I’ll be in this year’s Bloggiesta but I will definitely join in. I already have a couple of things in mind but we’ll see if I’ll be able to pull them off when the time comes. I wanted to put up a quick post about it to spread the word. Are you planning to sign up?

End of Bloggiesta Weekend

Bloggiesta is an event hosted by Natasha of Maw Books and it’s all about improving your book blog with the help of fellow book bloggers. Here’s my starting line post with a list of things that I wanted to accomplish. Like I mentioned, I already worked on some stuff on the blog like changing the layout but here’s what I was able to do this weekend:

• Wrote several posts: review of My Heartbeat, Book Blogger Holiday Swap package, Want Books meme, In My Mailbox meme
• Attend the joint meet up of Filipino Book Bloggers and Flips Flipping pages (write-up posted here)
• Fixed a couple of things at the Filipino Book Bloggers site
• Changed the pages on my blog, see what I wrote in my About Me, Favorite Books, Features and Review Policy pages
• Invited some bloggers to do the We Love YA feature, still waiting for replies
• Cleaned my sidebar, removed the images for events that are done and deleted some links
• Edited the categories for my posts so it’s easier to browse through them
• Edited tags on my posts to classify them better. I wasn’t able to do this on ALL of my posts but I’ll continue to work on them
• I have a few ideas for discussion posts but I haven’t written them yet, we’ll see if they’ll ever materialize

That’s it for me for this weekend. I’d say I was productive even if I wasn’t that active on Twitter this time around and I wasn’t able to participate in the mini-challenges. I had fun with Bloggiesta this weekend and I look forward to the next one in June. What about you guys, were you able to accomplish a lot of things for Bloggiesta this weekend?

Bloggiesta Finish Line

Bloggiesta is a challenge hosted by Natasha of Maw Books and it is about to come to an end. My starting line post can be found over here. If you click the link, you’ll see that I’ve crossed off the items that I was able to accomplish. I am sorry to say that I wasn’t able to cross off everything but I can definitely say that I’ve been productive and I still feel like I’ve done a lot this weekend. In summary, these were the things that I was able to finish:

- Cleaned up my sidebar
- Edited my About Me page and added a Review Policy there
- Wrote a non-review post about the availability of books here in the Philippines
- Created a new weekly meme called Want Books? focusing on books in your wishlist. Anyone can join in this meme!
- Had a little break from the fiesta and watched North and South
- Created templates for future posts with book cover images, summaries and links
- Made a business card design
- Organized my Google Reader into folders
- New post We Love YA! post featuring my friend Evert
- Giveaway of Beauty by Robin McKinley, only in the Philippines

Here’s the breakdown of the number of hours that I put in:
Friday – 5
Saturday – 3.5
Sunday – 6.5

For a total of 15 hours. I’m sure that’s not a lot compared to the other participants but I still think it’s been a great weekend. I had a lot of fun and I look forward to participating in the next Bloggiesta. To all those who dropped by my blog, thank you and I appreciate the comments.

First Ever Giveaway: Beauty by Robin McKinley

I mentioned in my Bloggiesta to-do list that I’ll be doing my first every giveaway this weekend. I won my first ever ARC (Siren by Tricia Rayburn) from Musings of a Reader Happy so it’s my turn to give back this time. One of my favorite books is Beauty by Robin McKinley, which is a fairy tale retelling of Beauty and the Beast. One of the first reviews that I’ve written was about this book, read it over here. You can see that the format is different from how I write reviews now.

I have an extra hardcover of Beauty so I thought it would be a great idea to give it away. Just for fun, I’m going to throw in a paperback of The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker, the book where the Disney movie The Princess and the Frog was loosely based on. To join the giveaway, simply leave a comment and answer the question, what’s your favorite fairy tale? WordPress requires people to enter their email address when they leave a comment so I’ll use that to contact the winner. Or feel free to check back here when I announce the winner. No need to follow my blog or anything but I would appreciate it if you would. Sorry but this giveaway is for the Philippines only. Maybe next time I can afford an international giveaway. I’ll give you a week to leave comments so I’ll pick the winner on June 20. No multiple entries please.

Here’s a picture of the books in red color accent:

We Love YA: Evert

In We love YA!, a fellow YA-lover is featured and is asked to answer the following questions: Why do you love YA? What are some of your favorite YA books? What can you say to encourage other people to read YA? At end of which, readers are requested to recommend books based on the featured person’s answers.

If you haven’t seen the other We Love YA! features, click here to view them all. I also added an icon in the sidebar for it, part of my tweaking the sidebar for Bloggiesta. Today, my good friend Evert is featured in this segment of We Love YA! I’ve known Evert for a couple of years now and ever since we met, we’ve been exchanging book recommendations since we realized that we have similar tastes. I’ve recommended several of my favorites to her and she ended up loving them as well. She’s into fairy tales and any fantasy with a strong female protagonist. Outside of reading, she enjoys baking and has her own online bake shop, feel free to check it out at Evert’s Desserts.

Why do you love YA?
What I love most about young adult stories is that you can always go in another world and learn something grounded to reality. YA stories teach you about life without being too blatant about it. They conceal the truth in adventures, magical elements, or sometimes a character. You can travel to places where anything is possible – from mythical creatures to wizards to princesses down to twins living in California. You also learn to love the characters in the stories. It does not matter what setting you are in, young adult stories always capture a certain beauty about real life.

What are some of your favorite books/series/authors?
- Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
- The Time Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle
- Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore
- Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
- The Goose Girl and Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
- The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
- Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith
- The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
- The Two Princesses of Bamarre and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

What can you say to encourage other people to read YA?
Hmm, maybe the first step is to encourage people to actually read!

Read YA because you get your share of entertainment and still learn a lot from it. YAs are generally a light read and you do not get a headache from too complicated plots. They tackle a lot of issues and you may actually relate to them.

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Thank you, Evert, for answering those questions! I would have to agree that it is very easy to relate to the characters in YA books and this is one of the reasons why I love YA so much. As for recommendations, I’d say it’s high time you give Tamora Pierce and Diana Wynne Jones a try. They are both great fantasy authors. All of Tamora Pierce’s novels have strong female protagonists and Diana Wynne Jones’ books are just hilarious. For something outside of fantasy, I recommend Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols and Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. What about you, dear readers, what are your recommendations for Evert?