Wednesday, July 30, 2014

More of What's to Come

Hello blogging universe! As I write this post I can hear the crickets chirp. I hope as the weeks pass I start to see my followers grow. Since I'm still getting my feelers wet I thought I would just hop on here & fill everyone in on some of the stuff I plan to do with my time as a blogger. I promise my blogs will slowly grow from informatory to eventually becoming fun rants about books &  the book loving world & its readers. First, I would like to share that I have a number of eLetters to potential authors to be interviewed for this blog. I often do reviews for Goodreads & because of this I eventually strike up conversations & friendships with various new authors. I thought it would be fun to have some of them stop by & talk to us about their craft & their books. Aside from that, I thought I would start sharing with you what books I'm currently reading. I am also a part of a book group on Goodreads called All About Animals where I help moderate an online book club that reads upwards of two different animal books a month. I would like to share the fun stuff we do there here. As I mentioned I live on top of a bookstore, I was hoping to have the owner stop in for a nice chat about her new place & what she has going on there. There will also be mindless diatribes about topics such as eBook vs. paperback, what genres bore or interest me, what makes a great book, etc. I hope this gives you a taste and idea about what I want to do here & I start seeing some interested faces. Thanks for stopping by & I promise to have a slightly more fun rant next time you stop by The Raning Bookworm ;-)

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Go Easy On Me...

   So this is my first time in the world of Blogging. My apologies if I don't follow your preconceived ideas of what a blog should be like. The reason I finally decided to dive into the world of blogging is that I found my love for books had grown to such a ridiculous point that I felt I needed another way to express it, aside from just using the Goodreads & Librarything sites. Neither site gives me enough room to express myself. Those sites are really set up more for the author to share their books & to get reviews. Don't get me wrong, I am obsessed with Goodreads & love it dearly, but I have limited means of expressing myself on their site aside from posting a review every time I finish a book. I want to discuss books in depth & I don't feel that a review page is the appropriate place for that. Of course there are many people who try & make it that, but I'm not one of them. Those people turn the review pages into full on book reviews, which I feel often spoils the book for those just trying to see if they want to read the book in the first place. I feel a review should simply be whether you liked the book, if you'd read it again & maybe even whether you like the authors writing style. Anything more & I believe you may as well start a blog, LOL. So, here I am, ready to babble & rant about all the books I love so much. So, if you choose to read this blog you will be experiencing firsthand what a first time blogger looks like. So, please go easy on me & bare with me as I figure things out.

  So what will the majority of what I talk about be? I will be straightforward & let you know that I will of course only be reading & chatting about the types of books I like reading. I don't plan to read just any genre just because it was put to ink & paper. Now mind you I am very open minded & occasionally I will read, review & discuss books outside my norm, but overall the books you will see here should fall under just a few categories: Supernatural, Paranormal Romance, Sci-Fi, anything Animal related (this can even include insects, amphibians & reptiles),and last but not least an occasional historical fiction & or non-fiction book (generally American Indian, Egyptian, Black history, Hawaii, & Las Vegas are usually my primary focus). So, if you are hoping for a wider range of books please turn back now. I will often discuss the books I am currently digesting & will try on occasion to get some author involvement which I have had luck to acquire from time to time. I actually receive & a lot of books from authors who want reviews for the generous gift of their books & thus those will be part of this blog too, still I only ever request books within the genres that I have an interest in. Sometimes my bogs may not even be about a particular book, but about the beauty & appeal of books in general. Really I just plan to start out with a simple idea of what I want to do here on my blog & if I head in another direction then so be it. So, please hang in there & perhaps this first time bloggers blog will turn out to be half way decent after all.

  A real quick intro of who I am & I will gladly let you go until I choose to babble again. My name is Jolene, & yes, I'm a book addict, LOL. I'm not really from anywhere in particular, but currently I'm living in a small town near Pittsburgh. I was born in Hawaii & have moved all over the place ever since & not because I'm running from the law as some have suggested nor is it because my family is in the military, simply put I just might have a little bit of gypsy in my genes. Aside from books, I love animals & have 5 ferrets & a cat currently. Aside from reading & animals I enjoy doing digital photo restorations (which you can see examples of my work at:: https://www.facebook.com/MemoryMD). I also like to make gel candles out of random drinking glasses & elaborate friendship bracelets out of embroidery thread in my spare time. I live atop a nice little used bookstore with my animal brood & my boyfriend & of course living there has only served to make my book addiction worse. So, that is me in about as small of a nutshell as I can place myself. Anymore questions about the blog or me, if I failed to cover anything, will be gladly answered in the comments section or my next blog. Until next time, TTFN ;-)