...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 15: Who are your book blogging mentors?

When I started book blogging I was reading some blogs regularly and two stuck out to me. One was Kristie's blog The Story Siren and the other was Jamie's blog The Perpatual Page-Turner.

Kristie and Jamie became like my role models. I wanted to, in the long run, produce as good content as they do and be able to write reviews that are as good as them. I am still working hard on my review writing skills and I will always kind of look up to them but now I can say that me and Jamie talk regularly on Twitter and I call her a bookish friend.

The other two blogger I see as role models more than mentors are Kat from The Aussie Zombie because her content is always amazing and I love her blog so so much and the other one is Judith from Paper Riot. Judith not only writes wonderful posts but she also has an amazing blog. I would love to be able to make designs half as good as hers.

Whenever I need someone to talk to about my blog, problems I encountered or posts I am proud of Jamie, Kat and Judith are there and will (always) listen and without them as inspiration my blog would not be where it is now.

Thank you so much guys!

Today is the last day of the 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge and I would like say thank you to April for coming up with this fabulous idea. It really was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about me, my blog and also about others.

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 14: Tell us your deal breakers

• Death of an animal - I cannot deal well with death and if there's an animal dying in a book I usually am in tears.
• when a mystery isn't solved - this only happens when reading mystery novels and realizing that one of the mysteries isn't solved really annoys me.
• war - I don't pick up books dealing with war and if there are some that don't say that the story touches the subject of war I do not finish them.
• annoying love triangles over sooooo many books in a series - this usually happens in cozy mysteries and as long as the characters are all lovely and the love triangle isn't the main point in the book I can deal with it but these annoying love triangles that go on over 20+ books - no way hosé
• whiney (female) characters - I cannot deal with whiney charcters-not in real life and not in books
• mistakes in the setting of a story - I hate it when I am reading a book and feel like the setting isn't correct. Let me give you an example: Let's say a book is set in London and the main character emerges from the underground at Oxford Circus and turns around and sees the House of Parliament, which is not possible. Those things really bug me. If you set a book in an existing place and not a fantasie world, get it right! Please!

...in books

Sadly Bout of Books is over :(

My Stats:

• I finished 3 books
• The Heist by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
• The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud 
• Austenland by Shannon Hale
• Thursday was my best reading day with 285 pages.
• Overall I read 943 pages.

Overall I had a good read-a-thon. It was a really busy week at work and I usually fell into bed the minute I came home so I am really impressed that I managed to read almost 950 pages.

The next Bout of Books read-a-thon will be from January 6th to January 12th, 2014!

For more information check the Bout of Books website.

...in books

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.

This week the girls want to know my 

Top Ten Most Memorable Secondary Characters

   

I love a book with good secondary characters. They make a story more smooth and interesting. Coming up with my Top Ten was harder than I thought because what defines a secondary character? I also wanted to come up with different authors. I discovered that once an author writes good stories and memorable characters in one book they usually form wonderful characters in their next books. But here are my Top Ten Most Memorable Secondary Characters. 

Sadie

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Sadie is Lara Lington's great aunt who appears to her as a ghost and begs her to retrieve her beloved necklace that went missing years ago. Sadie is a lovely character and forces Lana to open up to the world and try uot new things. I would love to have someone like Sadie in my life. It would be so much fun.

Griffin King

Steampunk Chronicles by Kady Cross

Griffin saves Finley, takes her in and helps her embrace her ability. Griffin manages to make her feel gorgeous and thoughens her up at the same time. He and his friends are a wonderful bunch.

Lula

Stepahnie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum's stories would lack something without Lula. Lula is an ex-hooker who does the filing for Vinny, the owner of the bond agency. She is also the one who stands by Stephanie. She is there when her cars blow up (sometimes Lula is a bit responsible for that). The only time she leaves with fuming tires is when the cops come but that goes hand in hand with her past.

Professor Lyall

Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger

Professor Lyall is the Beta to Lord Maccon and his assistant at BUR. He is also a wonderful guy who cares dearly of Alexia and her well-being and sometimes reminds his Alpha that Alexia is a woman not a werewolf. Whenever Alexia needs a conspirator she turns to Professor Lyall. 

Jenny Lopez

I heart ... series by Lindsey Kelk

I love the name just as much as I love the character. Jenny Lopez immediatly "adopts" Angela when she arrives in NYC after dumping her financé and builds up her self-esteem. Jenny will do everything for a friend and is just the best.

Leslie Hay

Ruby Red trilogy by Kerstin Gier

Leslie is Gwen's best friend and conspirator. While Gwen jumps through time Leslie tries to solve all the mysteries Gwen comes across throughout the day. She's always positiv and encouraging.A friend like Leslie will stay with you forever.

Elinor Loredan

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Elinor is the aunt of Mo's long lost wife and at the beginning she hates kids but she soon discovers that Meggie isn't your usual kid. In the endshe risks everything for her and Mo and turns into a lovely book lover.

Dee Black

Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

I just adore Dee. She is so easy going and fun and tries so hard to make Katy her friend because she longed for a best friend for many many years.

Aunt Nettie

Chocoholic Mystery series by JoAnna Carl

Aunt Nettie is the owner of Ten Huis Chocolate and tells Lee everything she needs to know about making chocolate. Yum! She is also always there for Lee whenever she needs to talk. Aunt Nettie is just a lovely comforter throughout the series.

Lisa

Hannah Swensen Mystery series by Joanne Fluke

Lisa works for Hannah in her Cookie shop and I personally love her more than the main character. She is open and positive, funny and charming and does not play games. With Lisa what you see is what you get.

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 13: Describe one underappreciated book 

EVERYONE should read

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee

read my review here

Frienship Bread is the story of the small town Avalon in which a loaf of Friendship Bread and a pack of starter suddenly appear on Julia's doorstep. As a favor for her 5 year old daughter Gracie they bake a loaf of friendship bread and share it. Over a short amount of time the whole town is flooded with Amish Friendship Bread and new friendship start to blossom.

Friendship Bread is a wonderful story of life, friendships and how much easier problems are to solve when you have friends to share them with. The book tells stories of many different characters and we get to know them all a bit better and get a peak into their lifes.

I really enjoyed reading this book and it puts your problems into perspective again. It is over 500 pages long but as soon as you start reading you just fly through the story and I had a hard time putting it down again.

...in pictures

This week's topic will be: 

  Fluss / River

Please link you post to mine in time. 
Submission period is between the 26th of August and the 2nd of September 
(11:59 pm CET).

...in books

Showcase Sunday is weekly meme hosted by Vicky at Books, Biscuits & Tea which was inspired by In My Mailbox from Kristie at The Story Siren.

It is a possibility for us to show what amazing books we got during the week.

I should be in Amsterdam right now and have an amazing time with some fellow bloggers but unfortunately I got sick on Friday and was not able to go. That's what I call timing. 

To make me feel a little bit better I went book shopping yesterday and got some books I really wanted. 

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud

Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud

Bartimaeus - the Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud

 One of my students recommended the Bartimaeus series to me and I read the first one in German this week. I loved it so much that I bought all books in the series in English as soon as I saw them in the shop. 

It Had To Be You by Jill Shalvis

I love Jill Shalvis' books, own the first six and had to buy the seventh even though it will take some time till I will read it.

The Compleat Ankh-Morpork City Guide by Terry Pratchett

As a huge Terry Pratchett Discoworld fan I had to have this one. 

The Land of the Stories

The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer 

The second book in the Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer. I really enjoyed the first book and as soon as the second was out I went and bought it. It was the last one in the shop.

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 12: How do you fight blogger fatigue?

source

I would love to have THE solution for this problem. :) I am sure that blogger fatigue is a common problem that every blogger has experienced at least once in their blogging career.

What I usually do is to just let it happen. I don't stress myself with the need of posting daily and if I feel like taking a week off blogging I do just that. I don't schedule many posts in advance so lack of motivation is obvious pretty quickly on my blog.

Writing this blog started as a hobby and I have no intentions of starting to stress about something I truly love to do. I love to read but sometimes I'm in the mood for watching TV all evening or I am too tired or just not in the mood to read at all and that's okay.

So not being in the mood for blogging about books is totally acceptable as well and usually I miss blogging after a few days.

My advice is to just relax and accept your lack of motivation because something you do for fun and dedicate a lot of your spare time too, should never feel like a burden.

...in pictures

Over the last weeks I unfortunately lacked in posting my Photochallenge picture posts again. Whoops! 

This week's topic was
Green

Hyde Park in London


This week's topic was

Dog
and since I have a dog why not take the oportuity to show you some picture I took of him over the years. Felix is now 4 years old and from the first day on there was never a day when I haven't thought how much I love him and that getting him was the best decision I made in a long long time. 

Felix during his first month at our place.

The first three pictures were made on his first day with us and 

the third shows you how small he was in comparison to a slipper.

Felix from the age of one on.

He loves to play in the snow or in the water. 

Every winter when there's snow you can play with him till we're all dripping wet and cold.

This week's topic was
Books

This is a picture of my bookshelf.
On every shelf there are two rows of books. Some eve stacked on top of each other just to fit all my books on there and, believe it or not, there are even some books on top of my closet (you can see the first three on the upper left corner), some on my bedside table and I also have one shelf full of classics in English. 
Yes, I am a book hoarder! 

This week's topic was
Black

 I have a HUGE bag buying problem in addition to my book buying problem. 
Here are all my black bags I own - 26 in total and those are -by far - not all the bags I call my own. 

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 11: Show off!

5 of your best blog posts!

My top five posts according to my statistics are:

• Top Ten Books That I'd Play Hooky With
• my review of Snark and Circumstance by Stephanie Wardorp
• the post I did on my 26th birthday
• Top Ten Books I Think Would Make Great Book Club Picks
• Blogmas Day 2 - my "Awesome YA books" gift guide

My personal top five posts from 2013 are:

• my review of the Ruby Red trilogy by Kerstin Gier (I'm linking my review of the first book)
• my review of Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey
• my review of First Grave to the Right by Darynda Jones
• my review of Simply Irresistible by Jill Shalvis
• my blog post with all the photographs I took at my aunt's garden

Encore: 

• My Top Ten words/topics that instantly make me buy a book because this topic was my idea 
  

...in books

source

If you didn't already know I was in London for 6 days at the beginning of August. I go once every year and usually I go crazy buying heaps of books. I couldn't control my book buying this year either and I figured that as you probably are a reader too I will share my haul with you today.

Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart

Kitty Peck and the Musical Hall Murders by Kate Griffin

Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Where'd you go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforder (which I was looking for for the last year)

A Night on the Orient Express by Veronica Henry

You Had Me At Hello by Mhairi McFarlane

The Girl in the Clockwork Collar by Kady Cross 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (because Judith from Paper Riot raves about it)

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty

Walk the Lines by Mark Mason

School's Out by Jack Sheffield

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

Look it is signed!

I love buying cook books in general and I decided to get this one by the Sorted guys. If you don't know them you should immediately head over to their homepage and YouTube channel. These guys are amazing!

This one is the third cook book by the Hummingbird Bakery crew and I already own the first two and can highly recommend them.

...in books

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.

This week the girls want to know my 

Top Ten Things that Make My Life As A Reader/Book Blogger Easier

 

 

Goodreads

 As a reader Goodreads helped me to finally see how many books I read each month and year which helps for my blogging as well because I can not only keep track of all my books but I can also keep in contact with my friends and see which books they read and add books to my wish list. 

Amazon
 

Book Depository 

Amazon and Book Depo made my life so much easier. The selection of English books here in Austria is very limited. For a short time we had a good selection in one bookstore chain but even those were cut down this year which still makes me sad. Those online stores are my main source for my addiction and I cannot imagine what I would read if they would not keep my in English books. 

my Kindle

I bought my Kindle two years ago for my trip to Western Australia and since then I enjoyed it. I can read my ARCs (the few I get) on it and can take it with me if I am not sure what to read next because there are so many books on it. 

 

reading lights

Since I do not have a Kindle Paperwhite I need a reading light for reading at night in a hotel room, camper van, car, etc. I also used it quite a lot this summer when I was reading on my balcony after the sun went down and it actually got cooler.

Twitter

Twitter gave me the opportunity to get in contact with people all over the world and offered me a platform to gush about books, talk to friends and authors. I love it!

Digital Camera

My trusty Panasonic Lumix FZ 38 made my life as a blogger so much easier because it not only accompanies me on every trip it also makes many photos for my blog and you can do basically everything with this bad boy.

 Smartphones

I am so glad I got a smartphone because I forget to link my blog posts so often and there's nothing better than to be able to do it via phone. I also use Twitter and Instagram a lot and I have a camera handy whenever my big one is at home. 

So I was only able to come up with 8 things that make my life as a reader and book blogger easier but those are all things I use almost on a daily basis. 

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 10: How do you choose what book to read next?

My name is Karin and I am a list-maker!

I write lists for everything in my life aoart from a to-read list.

Reading depends on my modd. I cannot put together a monthyl or weekly TBR list becasue I wouldn't stick to it.

source

After I finish a book I usually stand in front of my enormous bookshelf and stare at it for a while (aka a long long time). From time to time I complain to my mum that I have absolutely nothing to read (my TBR-pile is way over 100 books). After a while I just grab a book and start reading and most of the time it immediately feels right. But sometimes I have to take several turns till I find a book that suits my mood.

This results in many re-reads, books I barely started and me often reading two books at the same time but it works for me.

...in pictures

This week's topic will be: 

Schwarz / Black

Please link you post to mine in time. 
Submission period is between the 19th and the 26th of August (11:59 pm CET).

...in books

Finally it's time again for a Bout of Books Read-a-Thon!

From Monday August 19th to Sunday August 25th there will be another Bout of Books Read-a-thon hosted by the lovely Amanda from On a Book Bender and Kelly from Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01 am Monday and runs through Sunday midnight in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 8.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog.  

I am not sure how many books I'll be able to read because during this week I'm not only teaching for 8 hours (Monday-Friday), should finally start studying but I will also be away from Friday to Sunday. I will be in Amsterdam meeting four other wonderful book blogger and I am pretty sure we'll spend all our time together talking, laughing, book shopping but not reading. If you are in Amsterdam over the weekend, don't forget to join us for the Book Blogger Picnic. I will however have some time to kill at the airport and on the plane so hopefully I'll get some reading done. I currently am only one book away from completing my Goodreads Challenge of reading 60 books this year. 

My Goals

• I want to complete my Goodreads Challenge, which means I want to finish at least one book. 
• I want to try to read at least 1 hour a day.
• I don't want to stress about this read-a-thon. I always enjoy it and it's great fun but if I am not able to meet my goals that's fine too.
• I want to enjoy this week of reading, rambling and being surrounded by bookish people.  

As you might know by now, I hate (yes, hate) having to come up with specific books I will read during the read-a-thon and I'm glad that there's no need for me to write them down beforehand. So I will choose them during the week, depending on my mood.
 
Daily Updates: 

Monday
Number of pages I've read today: 210 pages
Books I read: The Heist by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
Books I finished: 1 (The Heist)

Tuesday 
Number of pages I've read today: 116 pages
Books I read: The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
Books I finished: 1 (The Heist)

Wednesday 
Number of pages I've read today: 139 pages
Books I read: The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud 
Books I finished: 1 (The Heist)

Thursday
Number of pages I've read today: 285 pages
Books I read: The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud 
Books I finished: 2 (The Heist, The Amulet of Samarkand)

Friday
Number of pages I've read today: 0 pages
Books I read: 0
Books I finished: 2 (The Heist, The Amulet of Samarkand)

Saturday
Number of pages I've read today: 97 pages
Books I read: Austenland by Shannon Hale
Books I finished: 2 (The Heist, The Amulet of Samarkand)

Sunday
Number of pages I've read today: 96 pages
Books I read: Austenland by Shannon Hale 
Books I finished: 3 (The Heist, The Amulet of Samarkand, Austenland)

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 9: Why do you blog about books?

When I first started blogging I created a Photo-Blog. Ihad set myself the challenge of posting a daily picture for a year and ended up doing it for two. After two years of taking a picture, downloading, editing and uploading it, I was looking for a change.

I was a reader my whole life and since there are no book clubs dealing with my kind of books here in Austria, I decided starting a book blog in October 2011. I was looking for an outlet for all my thoughts about the books I've read and other personal stuff and I found a lovely community of book lovers equally obsessed with the written word as I am. I'm sure you can imagine my enthusiasm!

I never ever thought about not blogging about books mainly because I think you should blog about something you feel passionate about and for me that's books.

On my blog I can review them, talk about them, rave about them, their influence on my life, the lack of books in my friend's lifes, etc.

Due to my blog I found friends in Australia, the States, the UK, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, ...

Without reading my life wouldn't be complete but after almost two yearsof being part if the book blogging community I can say that without my little corner of the internet and all my bookish friends I would miss something that's now a big part of my life and daily routine. 

...in books

Just a quick reminder guys!

Next week Kat from The Aussie Zombie, Daisy from Between the Pages, Vicky from Books, Biscuits and Tea, Celine from Nyx Book Reviews and I will be at the Book Blogger Picnic in Vondelpark.

If you want to join us here are the details:
On Saturday August the 24th, 2013 at 12 o'clock we will be meeting at 't Blauwe Theehuis in Vondelpark. We picked a rather well known spot so that everyone can find us but I am sure you will recognise a bunch of crazy (in a good way) bookish girls laughing and talking about books immediately. We will then look for the perfect spot to sit down, eat, drink and chat about books and blogging for as long as we want.

So grab some food and drinks and join us for the fun!

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 8: Quick! 

Write 15 bullet points of things that appeal to you on blogs!

Wow, this was quite a hard one to come up with but I think I managed to come up with all the things that I like on blogs.
Here's my list:

1. a clean and clear layout
2. an appealing color scheme - I am a sucker for blogs working with the same range of colors for their posts, memes, etc.
3. a photo of the blogger - I love getting an idea who the person behind this fabulous blog is and what she/he looks like.
4. posts with pictures - I really appreciate it when a long post is broken up with some pictures, gifs, photographs, etc. 
5. reviews of books I read or own - I love to read other people's opinion of books I read too and if I find a review of a book I own but haven't read I will save the review until I read it. I have a huge folder on my computer with lots of reviews of books I need to read. 
6. Top Ten Tuesday posts - hello there, fellow listy
7. Goodreads links - either to a profil or a reading challenge - I always check out how many and which books other bloggers have read so far and how much they rated it. I love comparing their ratings to mine. 
8. Bloglovin' links - it makes my life a whole lot easier if I can just follow my favorite blogs via Bloglovin' so that I don't miss any posts. I feel really guilty if I miss one - blogging takes away your free time so I want to appreciate your posts. 
9. easy navigation - aka different tabs at the top 
10. labels - I love going to older posts with the same labels to check them (all) out. I can spend hours reading year old post with labels like "lovestory" or "school"
11. a writing style that isn't too formal - fun, jokes, sarcasm, talking to the reader 
12. an interesting variety of posts
13. not only book reviews
14. personal posts mixed with bookish ones - I love getting to know the author of the blog
15. recurring features like Top Ten Tuesday or Showcase Sunday - not too often but I like browsing all the different TTT post in my Bloglovin' list
    

...in books

April from Good Books and Good Wine created a wonderful 15 Day Book Blogger Challenge! Check it out and if you'll participate link your post to April's original post.

Day 7: Talk about your blogging quirks

• I always have the best intentions about writing and scheduling posts but in the end I write them the day before they should go online. That often leads to panic mode the evening before or days without posts I was really excited for due to lack of motivation to get out of bed again. 
• I always forget to link my posts to Twitter. I don't have any programs making them magically appear on socail media sites so I usually forget promoting them. 
• I often forget to proof-read my posts. As a German native I make mistakes and more than once my mum pointed out mistakes after the post has been online for hours/days/weeks. Fail! 
• I suck at writing reviews after I've finished the book. It often takes me weeks to write them and even longer to post them on my blog. 
• I just recently (meaning 2 weeks ago) started planning what to post on which days. I never had a blogging plan but due to a rather hectic Uagust I caved and started one. It's going good at the moment. Aks me again sometimes during September. 
• I really really suck at commenting -Sorry!
• I have a lot of ideas for blog posts but when I am lacking in time I tend to go for the easy options and post a review.

...in books

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.

This week the girls want to know my 

Top Ten Favorite Books with a School Setting

 

As a teacher to be I love reading books set in schools or set in a school setting. Here are my favorite Ten:

 

Hex Hall series by Rachel Hawkins

 

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

 

Teacher series by Jack Sheffield

 

Little Village School series by Gervase Phinn

 

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

 

Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead 

 

School Inspector series by Gervase Phinn

 

The stories of the Wizards at Unseen University on the Discworld by Terry Pratchett

 

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

 

Das fliegende Klassenzimmer by Erich Kästner