Monday, March 31, 2014

My Life...

Monthly Rewind
March

My Pic of March
Anemone
Spring has arrived in Austria!

March in One Word
Slow
I had a really slow reading month in March but after starting about 10 books and putting them all down again I decided to just give into the reading slump and embraced binge watching TV series. Hopefully my reading will pick up again in April but if not that's okay too.
 
  5 Things that Happened in March
  • Uni started again and I had a hard time adjusting my life to juggling courses, work and blogging. 
  • Spring arrived in Austria and I wanted to spend as much time as possible outside with my dog.
  • I went to the zoo with my good friend Judith and her two year old son. It was such a fun day and we had an amazing time watching the animals.
  • It was my mum's birthday yesterday! She and my dad spent some days in Paris at the end of March and me and Felix enjoyed warm spring days at home.
  • A friend of mine from school celebrated her birthday and invited us all to her new house which I think we'll all renovate together over the summer since it's a huge project. 
 
Book I Read this Month
Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell 
3 books
1095  pages 
 
a TV series I liked this month
2 Broke Girls
Hart of Dixie
Friends
 
Things I'm Looking Forward to in April
April will be an amazing month:
  • I will visit Prague with my mum and grandma over a weekend.
  • It will be Easter Break!
  • Judith and her boyfriend will get married at the end of the Easter holidays.
  • On the 28th Robbie Williams is playing a concert in Vienna and I will be there :) Soooooo excited!
  • And at the end of April and the beginning of May I will go to Amsterdam to finally meet my Book BFF Kat and some other Dutch blogger friends.  
 
Felix in March
Trying to take a picture of Felix
 
Success!
 
 

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Happy Birthday Mum!


Today is my mum's birthday!

She is currently in Paris with my dad but tonight she'll return and find a table loaded with presents (all books, of course) and a New York Cheesecake. My mum is the BEST and I can say that she's my best friend in the whole wide world. We share a love for books, the same TV-shows and she (and my dad) always encouraged meto follow my dreams and do what I wanted to do.



I love you mum and I hope you have a fantastic birthday!

Thursday, March 27, 2014

...in books

Matching Covers

I think there is no other topic that divides reader as much as matching covers! 

It is a reoccurring theme on Book Blogs and Booktube and opinions are rarely identical. Whenever a cover change occurs in the middle of publishing a series my feeds explode with rants. 

Some readers love having matching covers and have a neat and organized bookshelf, others don’t care because what matters most to them is the story between the covers and there are also some in between – liking matching covers but would never buy a book again just to have matching covers.

It’s confession time!

I don’t care if covers match or not. Do I like it when they do? Yes, of course but it is not important to me. I even have series that I started reading in German and finished in English and that’s okay. 

they almost match
different publishers, different heights and yes, I tend to crack spines (Sorry!)
When I started reading the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella I was mainly reading German books but when Shopaholic and Baby was published I couldn’t wait so I bought it in English and I have and never had intentions of buying the others in English too. Especially with this series it shows my personal development as a reader. Confessions of a Shopaholic, the first book in the series, was published in 1999 (when I was 13) and the last one, Mini Shopaholic, was published in 2007. 

Hardcover, paperback, different heights and languages - I don't care!
I also own the Peter Grantseries by Ben Aaronovitch. The first book was a gift from my mum and she randomly picked it up at a bookstore and after reading I had to get the second one which was only published in English at that time so I got it. As you can see, this series is a mix of languages, heights and there’s also on hardcover copy included (which is signed). 

different heights, editions and cover art

As you can see, I don’t really care how my books look and if they match as long as the story is good but my mum is the complete opposite. She reads almost as much as I do but she gets really upset when her books do not match or if a cover change occurs. She owns almost all of the Gideon Oliver Mysteries by Aaron Elkins and when she recently bought some older books of the series and the covers did not match she really thought about sending them back. This thought would have never crossed my mind but she is still not happy that they don’t match. 

After telling you that matching covers are not my number one priority when buying books tell me, what kind of cover person are you?

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

...on the blog


It's time to Part! 
Spring Bloggiesta starts tomorrow (March, 27th) and last till Sunday (March,30th).

Bloggiesta is a time where bloggers dedicate a bit more time to their blogs, fixing little things, revamping pages, images, sidebars,scheduling posts, ...
Focusing on those things that we cannot be bothered to fix immediately or things that need more time to revamp and simply cannot be done while our day to day life needs our undivided attention. During Bloggiesta many bloggers take time to work on their blogs, chat with each other about their progress, cheer each other on and the lovely people behind bloggiesta not only organized daily Twitter chats but also Mini-Challenges to help us improve our blogs.


If you want to know more about Bloggiesta, the times of the Twitter chats or when the next one will be visit the official Bloggiesta homepage. There you can also sign in to participate in the Spring Bloggiesta.

Here is my To-Do List for the next four days:
  • Revamp my "About Me" page
  • Schedule some posts
  • Write some reviews
  • Write a Blog-Plan for April
  • Back-up Blog
  • Back-up Templates
  • Comment more on other blogs
  • Update my Sidebar
  • Update my Booktube Love page
  • Update my List of Reviews page
  • Prepare my TTT posts
  • Sort out Labels
  • Try to participate in at least on Twitter chat
  • Update my Currently Reading picture
  • Update Books I Read List 
  • Have fun and enjoy spending a bit more time with my blog
If I can think of any other things that need my attention I will add them during Bloggiesta and I will also update you on my progress here.

Are you joining too? What are your plans?

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

...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 On My Bookish Bucket List

This Bookish Bucket List features some realistic items and some things that would be lovely to achieve but seem a bit difficult right now. 
Meet my bookish friends
I will meet some of my Dutch friends I made through book blogging in May but I would also love to meet my friends from the US and Australia. I think it is time to finally be able to get beamed to different places - it would be cheaper (don't destroy my fantasy here), shorter and there would be no limit to the amount of books you could carry each way.

Start a Book Club
Starting a Book Club was something that was always high up on my bucket list but unfortunatley I don't have any real life friends who read as much as I do. I have some bookish friends with whom staring a book club would be awesome but with us living in Austria,the Netherlands and the US I really think it would be difficult. 
Update: I started a book club in February and we managed to overcome the geographical distance via Skype :)

Visit an author signing
Vienna is Austria's capital, we have many book related events here but still, most of them are not for books I read. I would love to visit an author signing once where there's really someone I adore.

Attend a Book Fair
There is an annual book fair in Vienna each fall but the presentation and the authors who attend it are not my cup of tea. I would love to go to BEA or ALA in the states once or if that's not possible than at least to the London Book Fair.

Meet Ali McNamara
I adore Ali! Her books are lovely and heart warming, her tweets likewise and she is a wonderful person when talking to her via social media or e-mail but I would love to meet her in person once.

Meet Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett was my introduction into the fantasy genre and he is amazing. His books are filled with amazing characters, the setting is so unique and his stories are brilliant. Unfortunately he is sick but still continues writing and if there's a chance I would love to meet him one day and get my favorite Discworld novel, Wyrd Sisters, signed.

Own and read all the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
This one goes with the one before. I own almost all of the Discworld books and have read 75% of them but this is the one series I want to have and have read completely.

Go wild at a Barnes & Noble
Due to my dad's work we have a lot of friends in the states and when I was a child we spent many summers visiting North Carolina and going on road trips. I was always a reader and I own quite a lot of children's books I got while we visited but my last trip there was before 2000 so I never had the chance to go wild at a Barnes & Noble as a teen or adult. Some day - possibly when I'm visiting my US bookish friends - I will get the chance to spend a HUGE amount of time there and browse all the shelves.

Get my TBR pile to under 100 books
I would love to get my TBR pile down to under 100 unread books but I am not sure if this will ever happen - I just love to buy books!

Own a library in my house
I think this is something every reader would love to own. I would love to have a reading room in my apartment or house later in life. Walking into a room filled with books and a cozy sofa to read on - this would be a dream come true. 

Monday, March 24, 2014

...in books

https://twitter.com/BookTubeLatino

Booktube Love 
Part Three

I love watching Booktubers on YouTube and today I want to tell you a bit about my favorite ones. I am subscribed to a lot of Booktubers and I why love watching their videos and get inspiration from them. Since I want to share all my favorite Booktubers with you I will make this a recurring feature here on the blog so that I can not only share the links to their channel with you but also tell you a bit about them.

One of the first Booktubers I discovered was the lovely Sanne from Books and Quills. Living in London she is filming many book related but also amazing not really book realted videos. She is a real inspiration and manages to make me start thinking about the different aspects she talks about in her videos. She sometimes films outside of her flat and shows us parts of London and that is how I am getting my London fix whenever I crave it. Sanne is also on Twitter and I highly recommend follwing her.

Kimberley lives in Perth, Western Australia and the wonderful person behind Kimberley Reads. She has an adorable dog, Luca, who is in basically all her videos and sometimes moves her camera when he is moving in his sleep. Her videos are always energetic and upbeat and I love watching her recent collabs with her brother. I also recommend following her on Twitter for pics of Luca and the beach (how I miss the Western Australian beach - been there in July 2011).

The mastermind behind Ivy Muse is Theresa, a fellow Austrian and also a student of English (I hope I remember that correctly). Her videos are a mix of Tags, Hauls, Book Talks, Book Rants and others. She also posted a parody music video about cover changes - so amazing. You can also find her on Twitter.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Things I Love


I have been thinking of posting more personal blog posts on here for quite a while now and after writing down all the things I could talk about, not being book related, I decided to just do it and see how it goes.

In 2013 so many bloggers and Booktubers posted some random facts about themselves with the "25/50 Facts About Me" TAG and I really liked the idea of getting to know the person behind the blog a bit better but since I love to ramble, obviously, I just couldn't limit myself to just giving you 25 or 50 short facts about me.

That's when the idea of creating a whole series of posts about things I love first hit me. Since then a lot of water went down the Danube (since I'm Austrian I had to pick the Danube) and I finally had enough time to create a logo and start writing some of the posts. So from now on you will get - probably in random intervals - more information about me, my life, things I love, enjoy or obsess about and I hope you will enjoy getting to know me better bit by bit or more appropriately - post by post.


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

...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 Books On My Spring TBR

Also Known As by Robin Benway
 
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
 
Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead
 
Emma by Jane Austen 
(for my Jane Austen Literature Class)
 
Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
 
Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
 
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
 
Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud
 
It Had To Be You by Jill Shalvis
 
Blameless by Gail Carriger

Monday, March 17, 2014

...in books



Review
Pros and Cons
by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
 
First sentences:
FBI Special Agent Kate O’Hare sat in her cramped cubicle at the Federal Building in West Los Angeles and stared at her computer screen.  

Summary:
FBI special agent Kate O’Hare has made it her mission to nail international con artist Nicolas Fox. When she discovers his plot to plunder a venture capitalist’s twentieth-story Chicago penthouse of all its cash and treasures at the same time that the self-proclaimed “King of Hostile Takeovers” is getting married, Kate is 85 percent—okay maybe 92 percent—sure that she’s finally going to bag Nick Fox.
Problem is, first Kate has to convince her boss, building security, and maybe even herself, that wedding planner Merrill Stubing is actually Nicolas Fox. Second, she has to figure out how to corner and capture him without disrupting the event of the year. And third, what’s going to happen once O’Hare finally gets her hands on Fox? It’s going take a pro to catch a con before the fireworks over Lake Michigan go off.
source: Goodreads

My opinion:
Pros and Cons is the prequel to The Heist, the first book in the O’Hare and Fox series.

Kate O’Hare, the though FBI Agent is on the hunt for Nick Fox and after discovering that he is staging as wedding planner she tries everything to finally get him into jail.

After reading “The Heist” last year, I decided to reread it before the second book in the series will be out. After discovering that there is a short story I had to get it and reading it was a wonderful introduction into the world of Kate and Nick.

Those two characters are amazingly written and well developed and I cannot get enough of them and hope that the other books in the series will be as good as the short story and the first in the series.


The other books in the O'Hare and Fox series are:
  • Pros and Cons (O'Hare and Fox #0,5)
  • The Heist (O'Hare and Fox #1) – read my review here
  • The Chase (O'Hare and Fox #2)
For more information about Janet Evanovich visit her Homepage, Facebook or Twitter page.
For more information about Lee Goldberg visit his Homepage, Blog, Facebook or Twitter page.