Book Gumbo

I hope you guys don't mind me posting a petition here. It is book related...

Sign here.

Unfortunately, I'll have to put this title on hold.  Two books I put on hold at the library have FINALLY come in. So I'll have to read them both quickly since others have them on hold. Luckily I can renew this title. Also the new titles fit Sock Poppet at Play's February prompts! 

Despite not blogging consistently for over a year (at least) I feel almost obliged to talk to you guys about what I've been up to lately and why I haven't been around. Though, really, I talk about it on the Lantern as well, so this is going to be an abbreviated version:

I'm doing a postgraduate course and preparing for a PhD. I recently submitted my dissertation proposal and waiting to see if the university will give me funding to do it. If successful, I'll be looking at online bullying among adults, and ways of managing it through bystander involvement. (Regardless of all the drama we've seen in the book blogosphere, the rest of the world doesn't seem to have caught up, despite some studies being done on children. Personally, picking a study path is a no-brainer for me, so hopefully the committee will be convinced as well.)

I'm training for a half marathon, and fundraising for charily. I had a major scare in summer, when my depression pushed me into doing some seriously whack stuff with my training (like running 8K in the blistering noon heat) and I sought help from a local charity. They were really helpful, and now that I'm trying to be more mindful about physical exercise, I wanted to give something back to them. You can check out my fundraising page for more deets, or read a wordpress blog I made to document my experiences for fundraising tips and ideas.

I'm recovering from said depression. There's a lot of stuff there that I can't even being to put into words (if you want me to tell you about therapy options and what works best, I'm always available through DM), but the bottom line is: That bitch hijacked my brain, turned it against me, ruined my relationship with cake, ruined who-knows-how-many of my real relationships, destroyed my love of blogging, and pushed my body until it nearly fucking broke. I will be DAMNED if I let her have another second of my life. 

So the plan is this: I'm gonna do more stuff for charity, try to be more involved in the community, and kick some serious ass academically. I already have one interview, so guys, keep your fingers and toes crossed for me! (And if you can support my fundraising efforts in any way, be it through reblogs and likes on social media, or if you have a spare quid, that would be amazing.)

Anywho, there's a lot of stuff, but those are the three main points. Cheers, everyone, here's to some awesome reads coming to us this year.

February is love of reading month! #February #LoveBooks

For Sock Poppet at Play's February reading challenge, I'm reading a book with love (or variation of the word love in the title)- Like No Other by Una LaMarche. It's a YA novel that I've wanting to read for a while. 

Complete one or more prompts. Jump in at any time. No need to have participated in previous month(s). 

February's Reading Challenge ~ It's All About the Love

This month you will read:

1 ~ a book with the word love (or variation) in the title.

2 ~ a book by an author you love.

3 ~ a book which you read because you loved the cover or title.

4 ~ a book with a character who sacrifices for love (of person, country, ideal, etc.)

Link to your blog post about the book you read (or simply list the book) here: February's Reading Challenge ~ It's All About the Love

Sock Poppet's 2015 Read-By-the-Month Reading Challenge

I'm reading the first entry of The Southern Reach trilogy for The Sock Poppet Monthly Reading Challenge.

Most of these. Unfortunately, my crippling self doubt is usually followed by a soothing round of binge eating :P

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

J.D. Salinger

Favorite book authors become readers' best friends - we get back to them in happy and hard times, we appreciate their words and love their works. Now you can show your best authors with Author Widget on your blog. 

New Author Widget is available in the Goodies tab. Select the author by inserting his/her name or author's ID, add widget's title and choose the number of books. Your author widget is ready. 

If the author is a BookLikes Author, the widget will also reveal author's blog on BookLikes. 

It's a great way of presenting your favorite writers and supporting authors whose works you love reading.

To add widget to your BookLikes blog copy the widget code and paste it in the personalization tab in the Widget Area. Remember to Save in the personalization tab. 

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Updates

The book pop up has just receive a new book information: a series name. Now when browsing the books on Dashboard or on other reader's shelves you'll get a note whether the book is a part of the series and which position in series it holds.

In case you missed the best books lists we're reminding some of the Top Books Lists created by BookLikes book bloggers. Let's see which book were the most popular among BookLikes' book bloggers in 2014.

Best Books of 2014! by Char's Horror Corner

First the authors that each had two books on my list:

The Cormorant and Wakening the Crow by Stephen Gregory. This was my favorite author discovery of the year and The Cormorant my favorite book.  Mr. Gregory is an author of stunning prose and originality. I will faithfully purchase whatever books he puts out for the rest of my life. (A big thank you goes out to Valancourt Books for this discovery!)... read more & see all top books

Best of 2014 by E.

Not everything on this list was published this year. Not everything on this list will be to your liking. I'm not doing a Worst Of List this year, because who needs all that negativity, really? You can click on the title of each book to read my review. If you would like a rundown of all the books... read more & see all top books

Best Books of 2014: Non-Fiction by Literary Ames

Here are my top 12 non-fiction reads of 2014, covering health, politics and feminism... read more & see all top books

My Top 14 YA Books of 2014 by KARIN'S BOOK NOOK

#1: GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE by Andrew Smith

Sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba interweaves the story of his Polish legacy with the story of how he and his best friend , Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in small-town Iowa. To make matters worse, Austin's hormones are totally oblivious; they don't care that the world is in utter chaos: Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann, but remains confused about his sexual orientation... read more & see all top books

Best Paranormal Romance Reads 2014 by Cat's Books: Romance

I adore Paranormal, Science Fiction and Fantasy Romance. I adore it so much I feel like a a plate spinner at a middle school talent show just trying to keep up with all my series and the new good stuff. I know I missed a lot of great reads from new to me authors and ones for which I have long standing love. I hope to catch up next year. Here are my best Paranormal Romance Reads of 2014... read more & see all top books

5 Star Reads of 2014 by Jessica (HDB)

In the world of Jessica, five star ratings are not given lightly. I'm lucky if I find one or two books a month that really blow me away, and make my "I'm going to shout love for this to the ends of the Earth" list. This year I devoured 200 books and, of those, only 29 made the cut. Out of those, I've chosen a few to highlight. Let's take a look, shall we?... read more & see all top books

Some Of My Favorites From 2014 by Bookfanatic

I stopped at 10 and I tried to stay away from series because well that would have created a whole other problem as in a really, really long list. I read a lot of books in 2014 that I really, really loved. I started out thinking that I could make myself pick just one and in my mind one quickly became 5 and 2 books into this list 5 became 10. So this is where I make myself stop... read more & see all top books

Favorite Reads of 2014 Part I: Interesting Facts and My Top Ten by The Reading Perusals of Rose Summers

So, in total for this year, I've read 168 books (maybe slightly more because there were some I didn't mark, but I know it was less than 200), which is way, way less than my total from 2012 (which was 365 books), and far less than the goal I set for myself this year (450)... read more & see all top books

Best Book Covers and Book Titles in 2014 by HFK

You should never judge a book by its cover, but it happens. This year I bought lots of books with beautiful covers, but unfortunately only read few with covers that I would label as doable... read more & see all top books

Books I Read and REALLY Liked in 2014 by Batgrl: Bookish Hooha

I've been enjoying everyone's end of year summings up (in various fun forms) and thinking on making one of my own - and I couldn't quite come up with a way to rank anything. Which is I suppose what happens when you end up reading a variety of random things. Anyway, there's no order to this - except I have a particular fondness for the first book mentioned. History wins out this year, which isn't always the case... read more & see all top books

My Top Books of 2014 by hippieed perceptions

As I was going through my read book list, I realized that this year kind of sucked for reading for me.  The few that I loved, I really really loved though, so I guess that is something.  I did kind of cheat because I added Geek Love even though I'm not quite done.  When you know, you know though... read more & see all top book

My Top Books of 2014 by YA FANATIC

As I near my 200 book goal I want to share with you my top books of this past year. I've read many not so great books but have also found some new favorites. I also started listening to audiobooks, several of my favorites are because I listened to them. These are in no particular order (except maybe the first one). Enjoy... read more & see all top books

Books Read in 2014 by Ani's Book Abyss

As it stands, it isn't easy to narrow 150 books down to a Top Ten list.  And so I chose to re-format my list just a little bit.  I also needed to account for the fact that I like Young Adult novels differently than I like Adult and non-YA novels--Yes, there is a difference in how I perceive a book dependent on target audience. Without further ado, and in no particular order... read more & see all top books

Top 14 Reads of 2014 by Book Sand Worm 

Keep in mind that by “favorite”, I mean this list is very subjective. In looking back, these are the ones that I enjoyed the most even though I read a lot of very good books this year... read more & see all favorite books

Top Ten Reads of 2014 by Unabridged Chick

I read about 50 books for 2014, which is a huge drop from my typical year (almost by half!). Pregnancy, and the resulting baby, are to blame, and while I'm a little disappointed, the aforementioned baby -- our Little Reader -- is so frickin' cute, I kind of can't care. I still walked away with some stellar reads for 2014, and once again, had a challenging time identifying the top ten of this year.  In the end, I picked the books I still talk about obsessively, that I purchased (for myself and/or others), and that I want to reread or force others to read... read more & see all top books

Best of 2014 - Part 1 - The Reliables & Part 2 - The Overachievers by Tina's Reading Books

Part 1: My 2014 reading year was much better than my 2013 reading year.  Not in volume, because I read about the same number of books.  But In quality. In 2013 I  had a massive reading slump and was down 75% in my total reading for the year as compared to 2012.  Nothing seemed to work for me past a few strong installments in long running series and  couple of new-to-authors that came out strong. In contrast, 2014 started out strong... read more & see all top books

Part 2: So as I look over my reads this year and compare them to the physical books I've amassed over the last 30-ish years on my shelves, I am struck by the difference in page lengths. Which in a round-about way brings me to this segment of my Best of 2014.The Overachievers are the two authors whose works this year was so good that I had to include two of their books in my top ten.  A rarity for me... read more & see all top books

You may also want to have a look at: 

•  The Highlights, The Favourites and The Flops of 2014 by Scarlet's Web
• Favorite Reads of 2014 - TOP 10 by MAY'S BOOKS
• Rose's Favorite Reads of 2014 - Part II: Superlatives by The Reading Perusals of Rose Summers
• 5 Best Mystery Books Of 2014 by New Books and More
• Best of 2014 - Part 3 - The Newcomers by Tina's Reading Books
• Best of 2014 - Part 4 - The Honorables by Tina's Reading Books
• Worst Reads in 2014 by HFK
• Nonfiction I Liked in 2014 by carriemesrobian
• 89 Books for 2014 by LOVE ME SOME BOOKS
• BEST OF 2014 by IT'S A MAD MAD WORLD
• Top 14 of 2014 by Too Fond Of Books
• Best reads of 2014 by Lora's Rants and Reviews
• A Selection of Recommended Books of 2014 by Reading Rainstorm
• Top Sellers from 2005 to 2014 by VALANCOURT BOOKS
• A round up of my reading year, my 2014 5* Reads and what's on for 2015 by Kitty Horror
• Best Books of 2014 by Wit and Sin
• Best things I've read and watched in 2014 by Familiar Diversions
• Worst things I've read and watched in 2014 by Familiar Diversions
• Year in Reading 2014 by The Fish Place
• 2014 Wrap Up by Bookworm Blurbs
• My 2014 Reads by Susana "Lost in Fantasy Land"
• My Top Reads in 2014 (Excluding classics and rereads) by Jennifer's Books
• My Top Book of 2014! by Miles Exchange
• The books I enjoyed most in 2014 and the ones I'm already looking forward to in 2015 by Audio Book Junkie
• Best Books of 2014 by sunsetxcocktail
• Bookish Personalities of 2014 by A GREAT BOOK STUDY
• Favorite Reads of 2014 by Tackling Mt. TBR

• 2014 Top 14 Books by SlowReader's Kingdom
• 2014 Edition - A Year of Reading in Review - The Best by Crystal Starr Light, Raging Snarky Stormtrooper Pony
• My top ten reads of the year by MandyM
• A BAKER'S DOZEN: My Off-The-Beaten-Path Favorites From 2014 by BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BOOK BLOG
• Best Contemporary, Best Historical, and Best of 2014 by Whiskey in the Jar Likes to Read
• Year in Review by Rachel the Book Harlot
• My Favorite Books of 2014 by Obsidian Blue

If we haven't included you top list, share it or add a link to your blog post in the comments box below. 

The Bar, which featured prominently in the bestselling novel Gone Girl, opened in Missouri this past Friday.  This article was featured  in the newspaper Southeast Missourian.

Finding a right reading lists couldn't be easier with the list search and tags. Warning: this can profoundly affect your Planning to read shelf. But who cares, the best bookshelf is the full bookshelf! 

The list of Reading lists on BookLikes is growing and to help you find a perfect literary guide we've added possibility to tag a list and search a list with the book category, tag, the list name and the book title. 

When you're creating a reading list, you can add a book genre or genres and tag it to help other book readers find it. If you've already created some reading lists don't worry - you can add categories and tags any time. Just edit your lists and add appropriate categories. Make sure that the category and tags correspond to the reading list character and books attached. 

Tags and categories will be visible on the main Reading Lists page and when you enter a given list. Tags and categories are clickable.

The categories and tags will help you find a reading list within a genres you enjoy. You can search through the lists with the book category, tag name or the list name. 

If you'd like to check which list your favorite book has been added to, search with the book title. 

Updates

Events 

Now you can customize the new releases added by the BookLikes team. If you notice a new event on your Dashboard added by BookLikes, you can go to a release page and customize the book release page.  

Check the book releases by day. You can check new books by day in the Book Release Calendar - go to a calendar view and click the day to see the new release list.  

I am a huge fan of book adaptations because I'm a book & movie addict. These 8 adaptations will hit the theaters next year and I'm already excited! 

Do you read books before watching them in the cinema? 

The idea is splendid and I love how it's executed. I assume it can be used mainly for some book ads and promotions but this can be a great inspiration for a home library or child's books.

No much effort is needed to print or even draw a custom made jackets and make a matching bookmark. Not to mention how fun, creative and thought provoking it can be. It's a great way (and nonconventional, read less boring!) to engage children into discussion about literature, books, the plot, book characters an so on... and at the same time improves their cognitive and manual skills. I'll definitely give it a try :)