Feature and Follow Friday: March 22 edition

Heh heh, it's been a while.  Sorry.  But I've already made excuses, so it's time to stop avoiding the blog and start posting again.  I am at least six books behind in my reviews.  Let's get this show on the road again!  I'm participating in another Feature and Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  Thanks for stopping by.

Q: What is your guilty pleasure as far as reading? Is it a genre, or is it a certain type of book?

A: I actually have a feature on this blog called "Guilty Pleasures."  These are books for adults, since I primarily read children's and YA books, and consider myself primarily a school librarian.  You can find those under the "guilty" tag.  Primarily, those are fantasy novels or true crime books.

I'm currently reading a true crime book, actually.  It's If You Really Loved Me by Ann Rule.  She's a great author, if you haven't ever tried her works.  If you like true crime, don't miss her most prominent book, The Stranger Beside Me, about her friend Ted Bundy.  Also, Ms. Rule is originally from Michigan, so she meets my one-a-month goal for reading a book related to Michigan, my home state.


Thank you for visiting my blog!  I do work all day on Friday, and cannot blog from work, so please understand that I won't be prompt in replying to comments.

Feature and Follow Fridays: January 11, 2013

Hello, and welcome to the blog of a librarian moonlighting as a librarian (AKA Moonlit Librarian)!  I'm participating in another Feature and Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  Thanks for stopping by.

Q: If you could choose one supernatural being/creature to really exists what would it be and why?

A: I'm going to be completely different and say, "Santa Claus."  What could be better than a timeless immortal who gives presents to deserving children?

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Don't forget to enter my drawing for a $25 Biblio gift card!  You can find the entry form at http://moonlit-librarian.blogspot.com/2013/01/100-follower-gift-card-giveaway.html

Feature and Follow Friday: January 4, 2013

Hello, and welcome to the blog of a librarian moonlighting as a librarian (AKA Moonlit Librarian)!  I'm participating in another Feature and Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  Thanks for stopping by.

Q: What New Year's blogging or writing resolution have you placed on yourself?

A: My resolution is not tied to the new year.  This is something I resolved to do after my Marvelous Michigan Month in October.  I want to read and review at least one book tied to Michigan each month.  This helps me out with both of my jobs, and it also establishes something to make me stand out from other book review blogs.  There are other librarian blogs, other blogs that focus on YA/children's books, other blogs that highlight Michigan books (but tend to be more about adult books).  I'd like to be a bit more unique, while maintaining my diverse array of what I review.

Other things I would like to do this year?  Well, it would be good to get back into the habit of writing the reviews in a more timely manner.  I read Choke by Diana Lopez back in early December, and am still only partway through writing my review.  Oops.  It is tough to maintain a review schedule, since I'm working six days a week, with long commutes, and a tendency to be busy on my days off.  I don't know how attainable this ideal is.

I would also like to have a giveaway after I hit 100 followers on Google Friends Connect.  (I'm really close!)  This would be much easier to do if IndieBound and its member bookstores still offered gift cards that could be used at any participating vendor.  I will not support Amazon.  What I may end up doing is making this really personal, and asking the winner for his or her nearest/preferred independent bookstore and placing a gift card order over the phone with that store.  Still trying to figure out the logistics on that.

Feature and Follow Friday: Dec. 21

Is it the post-apocalypse yet?  I was avoiding major sites for a good portion of the day, as I figured some virus or hacking of major proportions would occur in "honor" of the Mayan New Year (very easy to do when there was no internet for half the day thanks to a snow storm).  But it appears as though nothing happened, so let's go on with life and blogging, and get back into the swing of things with Feature and Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

Q: What have you learned from book blogging that you didn't know before about the publishing industry?

I've learned something very important, actually.  ARCs, or advanced reading copies, do not go in library collections.  That's illegal.  As awesome as it would be to stock the shelves with free books, we librarians do also need to purchase the books, just like everyone else.  Publishers do like sending ARCs to libraries to encourage us to buy their wares, but after that, they need to be pitched in some cases, or used as giveaways.

Something I did know before blogging, though, is that ARCs are not the finalized versions of the books.  That's not just limited to fixing typos or cleaning up grammar.  One of my former bookstore coworkers loved to tell of how bestselling mystery novelist Tony Hillerman changed the ending of one of his books, from how it had ended in the ARC.


What do you do with your old ARCs?

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I intend to blog more in the near future, complete with a couple reviews of YA problem novels. One's even set in Michigan, meeting my goal of reading/reviewing at least one Michigan-related book each month.

Feature and Follow Friday: October 26

Hello, and welcome to the blog of a librarian moonlighting as a librarian (AKA Moonlit Librarian)!  I'm participating in another Feature and Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  Thanks for stopping by.

Q: What writing device or trick most irritates you when reading a book? For example, if an author employs an omnipotent narrator that is sometimes considered bad form.

A: One element I cannot stand, and feel is used far too often, is the love triangle.  It seems as though I cannot pick up a YA novel written by a woman without finding two guys fighting over a gal.  I realize this is what appeals to some readers; I actually had a reader's advisory that revealed that fact the other day.

Student: I'm looking for books like Twilight.
Me: Well, what did you like about the book?
There was some humming and hawing back-and-forth before finally, I got an answer I could work with.
Student: I liked how Edward and Jacob fought over Bella!

I was under the impression that Jacob mostly moped and was a doormat to Bella, but whatever.

The fact of the matter is, I am burning out on YA literature, because of how they all seem to need multifaceted relationships with much drama.  Are girls learning that indecision and leading guys along are okay things to practice?  Are authors writing out of the secret wish to cheat on their partners?  Why can't a boy love a girl, and a girl love a boy, and no one extra is involved, and it's all good?

Feature and Follow Friday, Oct. 5

Hello, and welcome to the blog of a librarian moonlighting as a librarian (AKA Moonlit Librarian)!  I'm participating in another Feature and Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  Thanks for stopping by.



Q: What do you hope to accomplish with your blog? Is it to one day become an author yourself, just for fun, maybe get some online attention, or maybe something very different?

Great question!  This blog has changed so much since it first started.  I had intended to blog about setting up a new school library, but got so busy with the library that doing so never happened.  The blog sat for half a year or so, and then I went, "Hey, why don't I start reviewing what my students read?"  It blossomed from there.

This month, I'm focusing on books connected to Michigan, my home state.  There are books by Michigan authors, and books about/set in the area.  I'm covering books for all ages, but I still focus on my charter school library (as opposed to my school/public library, my second library job).  This gets these books some publicity, especially those that are small press or independently published, like Haylee's Treasure (review and author interview available).  It also allows me to work on my reader's advisory skills, because my students often have to research their home state, or do book reports of books tied to Michigan.

I toy with the idea from time to time of adding advertisements.  Most likely, this would not be for personal gain, but as additional money for my tiny budget.  I don't know, what do you readers think of that idea?

This Feature and Follow Friday question is great!  I hope we learn a lot about each other through it.

Just a reminder, I'm very busy at work on Fridays and do not have a chance to get back to new followers until the evening or later in the weekend.  Please be patient.  :)

Feature and Follow Friday

Hello, and welcome to the blog of a librarian moonlighting as a librarian (AKA Moonlit Librarian)!  I'm participating in another Feature and Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you'll come back in October, when I'll be unveiling my first real theme month!

Q: What is the BIGGEST word you’ve seen used in a book lately – that made you stop and look it up? Might as well leave the definition & book too.

A: That's a tough question.  I soak up big words like a sponge.  Also, flexing our vocabulary is hot flirting between my boyfriend and me.  (We're such geeks.)  Between the size of my lexicon and the fact that I read a lot of YA and kids' books, I don't come across many words that I don't already know.

That said, Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell (reviewed Wednesday) was good for broadening my horizons based on cultures and dialects.  The largest new word was probably "embrasure," which is an opening in a defensive wall to fire cannons through.  The British pronounce "lieutenant" as "leftenant," which is interesting.  A new foreign word is "bibi," formally meaning "lady" in Hindi and/or Arabic, and used derogatorily by the British army for "lover" or "prostitute."

What words have you learned lately from books?



FYI, I am typically pretty busy at work all day on Fridays, and cannot access social networking at that time, so please be patient if you want me to follow you back. :) Thank you!

Feature and Follow Friday: I succumb to a meme.

I've kind of avoided resorting to memes on the blog.  There are multiple reasons for this, including such things as shyness and a stubborn nonconformity.  But, last week I did sort of participate in "Feature and Follow Friday," hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read, and a few people who wandered here mentioned that I didn't have an FFF post.  So, here's an FFF post.  Whee.

Q: What hyped up book do you think was not worth all the talk?

 There's a very easy answer to this, which would be Twilight, for I am quite intolerant of everything dealing with it.  But that's taking the easy way out, isn't it?

I will instead go with a book I finished earlier this week, and will likely review this weekend.  It's one I was really anticipating, and the cover is so beautiful.

Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore

Argh.  I was highly anticipating this book, and the cover is absolutely gorgeous.  I love the jewel tones, the predominant blue, the gold lettering.  Plus, I thought Graceling was great, and Fire was good.  This ... this was beautifully boring.  Excellent prose, stretched out for far too many pages, giving too much detail over very little that happened.

But I'll go into more detail soon, with a proper review.

Thanks for stopping by!