Down Under Views

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read.
2. Open to a random page.
3. Share two (or three or four, if you’re me) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Mr. L. Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based bipedal life form descended from an ape.

I know things have been very quiet around here lately. I apologize for that. Life for me lately has been a little hard. But! We’ve had some great news.

The husband and I are finally moving! By a bunch of random ‘coincidences’, friends of ours had a place coming up for rent, and the husband and I got in just in time! The current tenant (a royalties officer with a publishing company!) is officially ending her lease on April 5th, so we’re in a bit of a rush to pack everything and sell what we don’t want to move with.

(If you’re in the Melbourne area, we have a hardwood table up for sale, a portable air conditioner, duffel bags, a computer bag, etc.)

Not only that, I have been making plans to take DownUnderViews.com and DownUnderViews.com/blog and put them together under the single .com. When I started this place, I thought having the separate blog was a good idea, but I’m now regretting my decision. So please bookmark the .com because I’ll be making the transition as soon as my weblovely mistress is able to build my new site!

To celebrate the transition, I’ll be adding books to the giveaway shelf and probably running some sort of giveaway as well.

A lot of good things coming up!

How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches?

Most of the books I read these days are traditional adult books – aka books with no illustrations. But I like illustrations – especially when I don’t expect them in the books I’m reading.

I’m just as reliant on my imagination as the next person, so I don’t feel a lack when I’m reading something with no pictures, but I do consider it a sort of extension into the author’s brain when there are illustrations. It’s almost like valuing someone else’s opinions on an art piece you like while also having your own opinion; I don’t let the pictures change what’s in my head if I prefer not to.

Welcome to this week’s By Any Other Name book game!

We didn’t quite get to the goal number of titles last week, so the goal stays the same…

If you’re new to the challenge, this is a game from my dear friend Calliope that gets us to play with book titles.

The game works like this:

1. Each week I will choose and a book title that features that word.
2. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles). The author would be nice, too, in case I want to check it out.
3. If you make it to the challenge number of titles (make sure you read the challenge section each week because it can change), then I will draw one name from all the participants and that person wins their choice of one book from my giveaway shelf!

It’s really not complicated. I pick a word and you list titles with that word. Easy peasy.

The current challenge:

Titles to Reach: Nineteen
Titles Per Person: Two

What can you win? The winner receives any one of the books on this page along with a bookmark (or two!).

I’ve decided this is a much better way of doing things rather than offering the SAME book over and over. Plus, I will be adding to the giveaway shelf as much as I can, so keep checking in to see what’s on offer.

So if you’d like a chance to win, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Wednesday where you’ll get another chance to win a book – regardless if you have won a book previously!

The word this week is:

Day

I Say: All In A Day by Cynthia Rylant and Nikki McClure

You Say…

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read.
2. Open to a random page.
3. Share two (or three or four, if you’re me) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

“Now we come to the real reason I want to hire you. I want you to find out who in the family murdered Harriet, and who since then has spent almost forty years trying to drive me insane.”