This is a little bit different to the usual types of posts I do but it's something I've been thinking of doing for awhile. I just wasn't really sure how to ask enough people to actually get enough suggestions. I've gone through several YA lists over on Goodreads for suggestions but I'd like to ask you for your opinions on my blog, Goodreads and Twitter.
If a friend of yours was just getting into YA Fiction and didn't know where to start, what 100 YA Fiction books would you suggest? They can be standalone, whole series, romance, dystopian, steampunk, whatever, just as long as it's YA Fiction.
I'd like to compile a list of the suggestions because although I'm still pretty new to YA fiction, even after a year or so.. There are tonnes of great books I have missed or just never get around to reading for one reason or another.
It's totally up to you how many book suggestions you want to leave in the comments 1, 10, 50, 100.. I'll make a page on my blog for the list and link it in this post so you can see what's already been suggested too.
Thank You!
Saturday, 4 August 2012
Friday, 3 August 2012
The Maze Runner Trilogy | Kindle
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| The Maze Runner Trilogy by James Dashner book covers. |
We had to wait.. practically a year, for Amazon to release these three titles on Kindle format. Frustrating. The paperback editions for The Maze Runner, (book 1) and The Scorch Trials, (book 2) both came out on August 4th 2011 while the final in the series The Death Cure was released in April of this year.
I'm really, really hoping that The Kill Order, the prequel to this series, that comes out this month in hardback, isn't going to be a repeat performance.
I understand that it's all to do with publishing rights and such but it's really frustrating to sit and wait, when you know that it's very likely the original book was written on a computer, and therefore is already digital, besides which I know they were eGalley's on NetGalley, but naturally, you had to be a US Librarian to get your hands on them, especially The Kill Order. Still, I don't think it's fair to make readers wait to read your books, one of the main reasons for selling books is to see big sale numbers, so getting them out on all formats at the same time would seem logical, right? It can be done and I've seen it done.
Anyway, If you've read this series let me know if it's worth all the hype and the wait, and if you haven't, now's your chance!
I've downloaded the free chapter samples and I'm already intrigued by the first book.
Happy Reading.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie | Audiobook
This is more of a review about the BBC Radio 4 Full Cast Dramatisation, my experience or overview rather than a review of the book itself.
I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan and I love all of her Hercule Poirot books so the review would basically just consist of. "Love it, enough said".
This was my first time experiencing an Audiobook performed as a radio play and I wanted to put my thoughts down about it.
John Moffat provided the voice for Hercule Poirot and I think he did a pretty good job. For me, Hercule will always be David Suchet but I came to this with an open mind and I was pleasantly surprised. Having seen the series and owning them on DVD I could quite easily drift off and see it all in my head.
I also really enjoyed listening to all the extra sounds, a door being opened and closed, birds outside of an open office window, the awkward silence when the murderer has been outed. Brilliant, you tend to miss those in a television show because the dialogue takes precedence. You have the visual aid there to show you that there's movement and background activity. It really gave the book depth and made it not just a story between pages where you imagine the events happening before you, it was like actually being there in the room with them.
I think dramatisations are fast becoming my favourite way to listen to Audiobooks. I never really considered it before but it just brings so much more to the story than having a single narrator.
Five Little Pigs is the story of a wrongly convicted murderess, who's daughter with the aid of Hercule Poirot, confirms her innocence, sixteen years after the murder and her subsequent death. How young love and jealousy turned to hate and how misconceptions fogged up the truth.
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| Agatha Christie - Five Little Pigs Audio CD |
I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan and I love all of her Hercule Poirot books so the review would basically just consist of. "Love it, enough said".
This was my first time experiencing an Audiobook performed as a radio play and I wanted to put my thoughts down about it.
John Moffat provided the voice for Hercule Poirot and I think he did a pretty good job. For me, Hercule will always be David Suchet but I came to this with an open mind and I was pleasantly surprised. Having seen the series and owning them on DVD I could quite easily drift off and see it all in my head.
I also really enjoyed listening to all the extra sounds, a door being opened and closed, birds outside of an open office window, the awkward silence when the murderer has been outed. Brilliant, you tend to miss those in a television show because the dialogue takes precedence. You have the visual aid there to show you that there's movement and background activity. It really gave the book depth and made it not just a story between pages where you imagine the events happening before you, it was like actually being there in the room with them.
I think dramatisations are fast becoming my favourite way to listen to Audiobooks. I never really considered it before but it just brings so much more to the story than having a single narrator.
Five Little Pigs is the story of a wrongly convicted murderess, who's daughter with the aid of Hercule Poirot, confirms her innocence, sixteen years after the murder and her subsequent death. How young love and jealousy turned to hate and how misconceptions fogged up the truth.
I'm A Goodreads Librarian!
I've been on Goodreads for three years, this August. I can't remember how I came across it, through book friends and blogs I think.
I really enjoy being on it, I've found a lot of friends who are interested in the same kinds of books I am and they always have perfect recommendations.
I explore Listmania a lot for recommendations in specific genres. Most recently for my up coming, September Mer Month and November Angel Month reads. It's a lot more efficient to go through that then to pick randomly in Amazon. Then I can spend more time actually reading free samples and auditioning the books and hopefully, be left with the top 5-10 reads that I'll really enjoy and be able to recommend.
I applied to be a Goodreads Librarian, only yesterday. I had seen it on others profiles before but I thought it was a special thing. I didn't realise that just anyone could apply for it, if they met the criteria. I decided to apply because even though Audiobooks and Kindle books are usually available in the 'Other Editions' tab, some of the info isn't as accurate as their paperback and hardback counterparts. Also in the last year, I've been reading the Merlin series of books that accompanies the British TV Show and they haven't even had a listing on Goodreads, so I've done my best to create them and fill the info out as accurately as I can. The same goes for a few Audiobooks, mostly the ones that don't have a physical edition, only download editions. That's the reason I applied to be a Goodreads Librarian, to keep track of Audiobooks and Kindle editions and help make Goodreads even more helpful.
If you're a bookworm and like to keep track of what you read and when, find friends who read similar books and also some really good recommendations! check out www.goodreads.com it's a social networking site for book people and it's free!
I really enjoy being on it, I've found a lot of friends who are interested in the same kinds of books I am and they always have perfect recommendations.
I explore Listmania a lot for recommendations in specific genres. Most recently for my up coming, September Mer Month and November Angel Month reads. It's a lot more efficient to go through that then to pick randomly in Amazon. Then I can spend more time actually reading free samples and auditioning the books and hopefully, be left with the top 5-10 reads that I'll really enjoy and be able to recommend.
I applied to be a Goodreads Librarian, only yesterday. I had seen it on others profiles before but I thought it was a special thing. I didn't realise that just anyone could apply for it, if they met the criteria. I decided to apply because even though Audiobooks and Kindle books are usually available in the 'Other Editions' tab, some of the info isn't as accurate as their paperback and hardback counterparts. Also in the last year, I've been reading the Merlin series of books that accompanies the British TV Show and they haven't even had a listing on Goodreads, so I've done my best to create them and fill the info out as accurately as I can. The same goes for a few Audiobooks, mostly the ones that don't have a physical edition, only download editions. That's the reason I applied to be a Goodreads Librarian, to keep track of Audiobooks and Kindle editions and help make Goodreads even more helpful.
If you're a bookworm and like to keep track of what you read and when, find friends who read similar books and also some really good recommendations! check out www.goodreads.com it's a social networking site for book people and it's free!
Monday, 30 July 2012
Agatha on Audio
Last week while mum and I were sat out in the garden I received an e-mail from the BBC shop letting me know that they had a summer sale on their Audiobooks. They had a lot of Agatha Christie books for under a £5 so I snapped some up. I have them all on DVD too but it's nice to have them in book form. Especially with lots of summer drives coming up. You can visit the bbcshop by clicking here.
All of these are on 2 CDs and run for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Hercule Poirot is played by John Moffat and Miss Marple is played by June Whitfield. They are all BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisations.
I picked up:
Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot)
Elephants Can Remember
Hallowe'en Party
Five Little Pigs
Agatha Christie (Miss Marple)
The Moving Finger
4.50 From Paddington
A Pocket Full of Rye
A Murder is Announced
Agatha Christie: Endless Night (novel)
I also picked up The Infernal Devices: (2) Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare. A little disappointed to see that they've changed the narrators so much for continuity! It's now narrated by Ed Westwick and Heather Lind. You can click here to visit the Book Depository.
All of these are on 2 CDs and run for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Hercule Poirot is played by John Moffat and Miss Marple is played by June Whitfield. They are all BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisations.
I picked up:
Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot)
Elephants Can Remember
Hallowe'en Party
Five Little Pigs
Agatha Christie (Miss Marple)
The Moving Finger
4.50 From Paddington
A Pocket Full of Rye
A Murder is Announced
Agatha Christie: Endless Night (novel)
I also picked up The Infernal Devices: (2) Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare. A little disappointed to see that they've changed the narrators so much for continuity! It's now narrated by Ed Westwick and Heather Lind. You can click here to visit the Book Depository.
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| Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot - Elephants Can Remember Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot - Elephants Can Remember Audio CD Reverse Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot - Hallowe'en Party Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot Audio CD Reverse Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot - Five Little Pigs Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot - Five Little Pigs Audio CD Reverse Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - The Moving Finger Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - The Moving Finger Audio CD Reverse Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - 4.50 From Paddington Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Pocket Full of Rye Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Pocket Full of Rye Audio CD Reverse Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Murder is Announced Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Miss Marple - A Murder is Announced Audio CD Reverse Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Endless Night Audio CD Front Cover |
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| Agatha Christie: Endless Night Audio CD Reverse Cover |
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| Agatha Christie Audio CDs pile of 8 books |
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| The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare Audio CD Front Cover |
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| The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare Audio CD Reverse Cover |
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Getting A Head Start...
I've recently upgraded from a Kindle Keyboard WiFi to A Kindle Touch 3G and I'm loving all the features and the ease of use. The menu still doesn't talk and can't be resized so when I need to find a book in the menu I use my iPad camera as a magnifying aid!
Last night I moved about 100 titles from my archives onto my decive and filed them into Read and To Read collections.
I deliberated over sorting them by title or author, choosing author eventually with the theory of keeping series books together. However, that didn't work out as expexted because one series in particular, The Lost Books of History by Ted Dekker, had some books co-written with another author which meant that the series of five books was split. Two were under Ted Dekker and the others under K Hill, to quote Katherine Green, 'Is not much helpful'.
Apart from that it's looking good. I've decided, instead of creating collections for seperate authors to make finding titles easier, I'd sort them via genre which seems to be working much better. I'll probably end up sorting those by author too.
So far I have Fey and Angel collections and I'll probably end up with Historical Fiction/Christian/Steampunk ones too.
I've made a collection for my August Rereads to keep me on track and I'm slowly filling up a Mer Month collection.
The first book I'm rereading, which I've got a headstart on, is The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I read it when it came out in Jan this year and gave it 5 stars. I love it and I feel the same way reading it all over again.
Are you rereading any favourite books at the moment? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter!
Last night I moved about 100 titles from my archives onto my decive and filed them into Read and To Read collections.
I deliberated over sorting them by title or author, choosing author eventually with the theory of keeping series books together. However, that didn't work out as expexted because one series in particular, The Lost Books of History by Ted Dekker, had some books co-written with another author which meant that the series of five books was split. Two were under Ted Dekker and the others under K Hill, to quote Katherine Green, 'Is not much helpful'.
Apart from that it's looking good. I've decided, instead of creating collections for seperate authors to make finding titles easier, I'd sort them via genre which seems to be working much better. I'll probably end up sorting those by author too.
So far I have Fey and Angel collections and I'll probably end up with Historical Fiction/Christian/Steampunk ones too.
I've made a collection for my August Rereads to keep me on track and I'm slowly filling up a Mer Month collection.
The first book I'm rereading, which I've got a headstart on, is The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I read it when it came out in Jan this year and gave it 5 stars. I love it and I feel the same way reading it all over again.
Are you rereading any favourite books at the moment? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter!
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| Kindle Touch 3G open to second chapter of The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. |
Blogging For All
I've been blogging for a few years now and I've seen some crazy things going on. But now, worryingly, I'm seeing the same crazy mistakes going on within the Book Blogging Community, which makes me so frustrated. We should be helping each other, not blocking each other.
Here are a few small changes you can make to your existing blog, or things to consider when making a new blog.
1. Colour Schemes:
This is such an obvious thing and I'm surprised to see it go so wrong so many times. Keep it simple and comfortable to read. Don't clutter it up with needless graphics, gifs, banners etc. Especially in the Book Blogging Community, it's the written posts we come for. Your blog is not a book cover crying for attention from millions around it on a shelf. Yes, have your own identity, Yes have your own style. But the whole purpose of your blog is to express your opinion on the books you love, so make it easy for people to find your posts, links and actually stay for the entire review without our eyes watering.
White on Black or Black on White work the best. If you have to have to use a colour scheme, choose wisely, avoid Yellow/Blue and Green/Red then you won't upset the large Visually Impaired community that actually want to read your blogs and you'll also get more colour blind readers and older readers choosing to stick around too!
2. Text
Flexible text is the way to go, it makes it easier for Visually Impaired people to have control over how big they need the text to be. If your themes have fixed font faces and sizes it's just another source of frustration, leading to a drop in readership. Choose highly contrasting colours. If you use a dark background, make your font as light as you can and visa versa.
Spellcheck, Spellcheck, Spellcheck. I'm always letting typo's slip through the net which is why I often ask my mum or a friend to proofread before final posting. Screen readers don't understand abbreviations or incorrectly spelt words. So to stop confusion in its tracks, spellcheck before hitting that publish button! and avoid using abbreviations when possible.
3. Placement
Screen readers read from the top left to the bottom right of the screen so having all your links on the left is really irritating. Each time we visit the same links are repeated. Best to keep it on the right hand side, that way if we want to go through the links we can choose to go over there.
4. Images
Being a book blogger myself, I know how important it is to have the cover of the book somewhere in the post, it draws positive attention. Something you can do to make your book blog that is littered with images more VI friendly, is to always provide a caption and description. That way the screen reader doesn't just announce that there is an image but what the actual image is of.
5. Links
Everyone knows links are important, not just for navigating the blog, but to other sites as well. It's very disorientating when you click a link and it suddenly opens a new window and we weren't expecting it, some older screen readers don't even announce that a separate window has been opened which is even more disorientating! The newer ones do but please, don't have links opening in new windows, or if you do, please specify in the post that this will happen. e.g. The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab is available on Amazon, click here to read the blurb. Avoid 'read more..' links. These may look great and professional but.. screen readers that skip find them very tricky and unhelpful.
6. Comment Verification
Please, please, take off word verification. Yes, I know with all the spam and stuff it's temping to keep it on but by doing so you are putting off a lot of readers. I'm Visually Impaired and I can never see what the heck the words and letters/numbers are, and I've never once experienced a time when choosing the listen to words option has actually provided me with an intelligible noise I can deduce information from. Turn it off and boom, accessible to VI readers!
7. Accurate Labelling
We all love widgets, they are a fun thing to add to any blog but what a lot of us forget is to label them. It's cute to have 'Awesome Peeps' above a gallery of followers but when coming from a screen reader, we have no idea what you are talking about, it could be a post, it could be a single photo, what is it? it's not a list... Blogroll, blog roll of what? my haunts online, book blogs I love to read, My to be read list?
So that's just the basics of what makes a blog work or not work for me and why I either stick around to read it or not. Making your book blog accessible to a whole new world of VI readers won't just help boost your blog readership, it will also show the rest of the internet that VI people are very much apart of the community and that we're nerdy about technology too. It's also great to take a step back and think about other people who are reading or want to read your blog but have obstacles. Things are taken for granted and every now and then we need a nudge in the right direction to keep everything fun for everyone.
Thanks for reading. I hope this helped.
Here are a few small changes you can make to your existing blog, or things to consider when making a new blog.
1. Colour Schemes:
This is such an obvious thing and I'm surprised to see it go so wrong so many times. Keep it simple and comfortable to read. Don't clutter it up with needless graphics, gifs, banners etc. Especially in the Book Blogging Community, it's the written posts we come for. Your blog is not a book cover crying for attention from millions around it on a shelf. Yes, have your own identity, Yes have your own style. But the whole purpose of your blog is to express your opinion on the books you love, so make it easy for people to find your posts, links and actually stay for the entire review without our eyes watering.
White on Black or Black on White work the best. If you have to have to use a colour scheme, choose wisely, avoid Yellow/Blue and Green/Red then you won't upset the large Visually Impaired community that actually want to read your blogs and you'll also get more colour blind readers and older readers choosing to stick around too!
2. Text
Flexible text is the way to go, it makes it easier for Visually Impaired people to have control over how big they need the text to be. If your themes have fixed font faces and sizes it's just another source of frustration, leading to a drop in readership. Choose highly contrasting colours. If you use a dark background, make your font as light as you can and visa versa.
Spellcheck, Spellcheck, Spellcheck. I'm always letting typo's slip through the net which is why I often ask my mum or a friend to proofread before final posting. Screen readers don't understand abbreviations or incorrectly spelt words. So to stop confusion in its tracks, spellcheck before hitting that publish button! and avoid using abbreviations when possible.
3. Placement
Screen readers read from the top left to the bottom right of the screen so having all your links on the left is really irritating. Each time we visit the same links are repeated. Best to keep it on the right hand side, that way if we want to go through the links we can choose to go over there.
4. Images
Being a book blogger myself, I know how important it is to have the cover of the book somewhere in the post, it draws positive attention. Something you can do to make your book blog that is littered with images more VI friendly, is to always provide a caption and description. That way the screen reader doesn't just announce that there is an image but what the actual image is of.
5. Links
Everyone knows links are important, not just for navigating the blog, but to other sites as well. It's very disorientating when you click a link and it suddenly opens a new window and we weren't expecting it, some older screen readers don't even announce that a separate window has been opened which is even more disorientating! The newer ones do but please, don't have links opening in new windows, or if you do, please specify in the post that this will happen. e.g. The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab is available on Amazon, click here to read the blurb. Avoid 'read more..' links. These may look great and professional but.. screen readers that skip find them very tricky and unhelpful.
6. Comment Verification
Please, please, take off word verification. Yes, I know with all the spam and stuff it's temping to keep it on but by doing so you are putting off a lot of readers. I'm Visually Impaired and I can never see what the heck the words and letters/numbers are, and I've never once experienced a time when choosing the listen to words option has actually provided me with an intelligible noise I can deduce information from. Turn it off and boom, accessible to VI readers!
7. Accurate Labelling
We all love widgets, they are a fun thing to add to any blog but what a lot of us forget is to label them. It's cute to have 'Awesome Peeps' above a gallery of followers but when coming from a screen reader, we have no idea what you are talking about, it could be a post, it could be a single photo, what is it? it's not a list... Blogroll, blog roll of what? my haunts online, book blogs I love to read, My to be read list?
So that's just the basics of what makes a blog work or not work for me and why I either stick around to read it or not. Making your book blog accessible to a whole new world of VI readers won't just help boost your blog readership, it will also show the rest of the internet that VI people are very much apart of the community and that we're nerdy about technology too. It's also great to take a step back and think about other people who are reading or want to read your blog but have obstacles. Things are taken for granted and every now and then we need a nudge in the right direction to keep everything fun for everyone.
Thanks for reading. I hope this helped.
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