Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Most Read Authors

I wasn't going to participate in this weeks top ten but well...I couldn't resist. I was curious as to what I had listed as my most read authors so I hopped over to goodreads to take a look. It was rather surprising I must say! Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish


1.

Christopher Pike - According to goodreads I've read 37 of his books. When I was a teen he was an author that I read everything he wrote. I read them all more than once and did the peepee dance till the next Pike book came out. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if I was missing a book or two on there that I read. Might be time to go back for a reread and see how much difference 20 years makes.







2.

Stan Berenstain- 36 books. Well, this one makes perfect sense as the Berenstain Bears books were among my favorite books as a child. I still have a few from when I was little and yes I do read them to my son. In fact one of my earliest memories of reading was me reading a Berenstain Bears book to my mom while we cuddled on the couch. It is a good memory and probably one of the reasons I still love the books to this day.





3.
R.L. Stine- 31 books. Another staple of my teenage years. I was obsessed with the Fear Street books. I only read one or two of the Goosebumps books but they were for younger readers than I was at that time (now of course I don't care what the age is on books I read them all). Again it has been about 20 years since I've read a lot of these.  Also I'm pretty sure I haven't marked all the ones I've read.







4.

Julie Garwood- 29 books. This particular one makes me sad. Garwood used to be my favorite romance author. She wrote the best historical romances. Great alpha male heroes and lovable heroines. But then she decided to move to contemporary romance it just wasn't the same. I know she released another historical a few years back but my understanding is it just didn't have the charm that her older ones had. I've pretty much turned my back to historical romances now that I've lost my favorite author for them.





5.
V.C. Andrews- 25 books. I stopped reading the books under V.C.'s name a long time ago. The ghostwriter of her books at first did a fairly good job. But every book after the Cutler series was pure junk. I made it through a few books of the next two series but it was just not the same. Andrews had a way of creeping you out and keeping you reading. This ghostwriter is just a hack. When I saw a few years ago that he wrote a vampire series under her name I nearly puked. I mean seriously? Vampires? Anyway I WONT be reading any more of the books that come out. VC died many many years ago and to continue to write under her name is all about the money and nothing more.



6.
L.J Smith- 24 books. Ah here is another one that makes me sad. Loved LJ's books so much when I was teen. I read them over and over and over again. Especially the Forbidden Game books. Most people know her for the Vampire Diaries books. And that is where the sadness comes...she no longer writes the Vampire Diaries books. It is sad that she could not retain control of her own creation.






7.
Linda Howard- 24 books. In my 20's I couldn't stop reading Linda Howard she was a favorite for sure. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I read one of her books. Maybe it is time to catch back up. For a while there I couldn't get enough of her books.








8.
Carolyn Keene- 20 books. Ah I fondly remember being in the fourth grade and trying to sneakily read a Nancy Drew book during math. My teacher of course caught me. She was mad/proud that I was reading. My parents didn't even get mad. How can you be mad for a child being so passionate about reading? When I was younger I gobbled up the Nancy Drew books like candy. When I was in 4th grade it was all about Nancy!






9.

Iris Johansen- 15 books. Here is another author from my 20s that I had adored. Unfortunately though she became a bit obsessed with one of her characters and after that I was bored out of my mind by her books. If she ever decides to step out of that cannon and write other books I might start reading again but I'm sick of Eve Duncan.







10.

William Shakespeare- 14 books. Ah, you are surprised by this one aren't you? Well, I was an English Literature major and took 2 different courses focused solely on Shakespeare. So of course I've read a good number of his plays. Some I've read 3 or 4 times (or 7 in the case of Hamlet...this one not by choice). So good old Willy making an appearance on my list seems rather appropriate.

Top Ten Tuesday: Hyped Books I've Never Read

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by brokeandbookish 


1. I have never read any of the 50 shades books nor do I ever plan to. Do I really need to list the reasons why?

2. I read the Hunger Games before it blew up. Not a bragging thing just a statement of fact. I fell in love with it and begged my stepdaughter to read it. Well confession time I've never read the next two books. I feel in love with Hunger Games so hardcore I was afraid to be disappointed by the other two books.

3. So Cinder has been sitting on my TBR pile since it pretty much first came out. But I haven't bothered to read it. I WANT to. I just keep skipping over it for other books.

4. So I've seen the movie (not the US version) but I've never read The Girl with Dragon Tattoo. I know it is supposed to be really good and the movie was good but I've just never gotten around to it.

5. I can't put up a list of hyped books without putting up at least one classic. I've never read Pride and Prejudice and to be honest I don't have any plans to.

6.  The Notebook is another book that I hear so much on but I have no plans on ever reading,

7.  I remember a few years ago when everywhere you turned someone was reading Eat, Pray, Love. I don't know not my cuppa.

8. The Fault in Our Stars is actually one of the few books on the list that I really do want to read. Again it is just a matter of my putting other books ahead of it.

9. Ok here is another one I've been meaning to read but just haven't. I've heard so much about The Iron King and the rest of the series but I just haven't gotten around to it.

10. Lastly, this is another that has been sitting on my TBR pile forever. I'm starting to become afriad that it wont be as good as what everyone says about it.

Top Ten Tuesday- Top Ten Books I've Read for 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish . OK so I read both "mommy" books and "children" books. So I was in a debate on what I should do for this top ten. Then I realized that since I read waaaay more children's books than I do adult/ya/na books that I should make this top ten all about the books I've read to my son. So here is my top ten list of books I've read to my son so far this year...some were read before I returned to blogging. All of these books were read with my seven year old son who is severely learning disabled.


1.  A Classic for sure! This was one that always captured my imagination as a kid so I was so happy to share it with my son. Oh and the illustrations! Heaven! This was part of the 1001 children's book challenge.

2.  Ah Splat the Cat is a very popular series in our household. We read a few of them this year so it is hard to narrow it down to one but this one was probably my favorite of the ones we read.

3. We read this one this year as part of the 1001 children's books  challenge. This was a new one for me and I absolutely fell in love with the illustrations. I borrowed a copy from the library and now want to find my own copy.

4. This was another book that I was not familiar with but is a classic. It is also part of the 1001 children's book challenge. This was another one where the illustrations just drew me right in.

5. Cats are always a hit for my son and this on was no exception. As another read for the 1001 children's book challenge I was happy to find a cat book for him. My future crazy cat lady son ADORED this one.

6. This has great sentimental value for my family. This was one of my stepdaughter's favorite books when she was little and insisted that we read it to her over and over again. While we have read this a number of times to my son,  this year  was the last time I read i.t. It had to be officially retired  as the spine broke on the book and my son has gotten too old for it. But this will always be a family favorite since both children just loved that adorable bunny.

7. This was a delightful find that my son grabbed off the shelf during our last trip to the library. Not only was it chock full of cats but the story was wonderful and encouraging to children who are shy or nervous.

8. Ah my great shame...this had sat on my netgalley shelf for years. I mean literally years. I requested it back when I first started blogging and somehow it remained even during that 3 year hiatus from blogging. Which really was a shame because this book was wonderful.

9. This is a book that I appreciated more than my son did. It was read shortly after the death of my mother in law and with my parents being ill (they still are having medical problems). It hit me in a way that is hard to explain. It was bittersweet and I loved the ending of it. I had a hard time hiding my tears from son because it hit me right in the heart.

10. Out of all the books on this list this one right here is the most important one. It is actually not one book but a series of books. Each one adds more and more words till suddenly the child is reading a whole book on their own. This was the first book my son ever read on his own. He was so proud of himself it was amazing. Most parents struggle with teaching their children to read but when you have a special needs child it is soooo much harder. But oh the reward just to see him smile and giggle when he realized he was reading....I can't even begin to describe how freaking amazing it was to see. He insisted I send a note to school to tell his teacher how he read a book all by himself. We have another set of these to review.

Cover Reveal- Library Jumpers by Brenda Drake

Library Jumpers

by Brenda Drake

Release Date: January 2016

Entangled Teen

Summary from Goodreads:

Gia Kearns would rather fight with boys than kiss them. That is, until Arik, a leather clad hottie in the Boston Athenaeum, suddenly disappears. While examining the book of world libraries he abandoned, Gia unwittingly speaks the key that sucks her and her friends into a photograph and transports them into a Paris library, where Arik and his Sentinels—magical knights charged with protecting humans from the creatures traveling across the gateway books—rescue them from a demonic hound.

Jumping into some of the world's most beautiful libraries would be a dream come true for Gia, if she weren’t busy resisting her heart or dodging an exiled wizard seeking revenge on both the Mystik and human worlds. Add a French flirt obsessed with Arik and a fling with a young wizard, and Gia must choose between her heart and her head, between Arik's world and her own, before both are destroyed.

Pre-Order Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble

About the Author
Brenda Drake, the youngest of three children, grew up an Air Force brat and the continual new kid at schooluntil her family settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Brenda’s fondest memories growing up is of hereccentric, Irish grandmother’s animated tales, which gave her a strong love for storytelling. So it was onlyfitting that she would choose to write young adult and middle grade novels with a bend toward thefantastical. When Brenda’s not writing or doing the social media thing, she’s haunting libraries, bookstores,and coffee shops or reading someplace quiet and not at all exotic (much to her disappointment).

Author Links:

   

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Cover Reveal Organized by:

Armchair BEA Introduction Questions

Tell us a bit about yourself: How long have you been blogging? Where are you from? How did you get into blogging?
I first started blogging a number of years ago when I realized that I had literally only read two books the previous year. I realized that being a mommy was overtaking my life and I had lost my love of reading. I quit blogging about 3 years ago and recently felt the blogging itch again and started back up just a few short months ago. It is interesting how much my life has changed in all these years.

Currently I live in Central Jersey with my husband, 17 year old stepdaughter, 7 year old son and our cat Marshmellow.

What is one book everyone should read?
 Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson...it was one of those books I could not put down. Seriously, the first time I read it I tossed and turned for about two hours before having to get up out of bed just so I could finish it. I made my stepdaughter read it. It is a very powerful book that I think all teenagers and parents of teenagers should read.

What is your favorite genre and why?
No use in denying it...it is all about romance. The thing with romance is it can also sneak its way into so many other genres. I can read a contemporary romance one day and then be whisked off to a post apocalyptic world the next to a world filled with vampires the following day.

What book are you reading right now?
Down London Road by Samantha Young...though I'm not enjoying it as much as the first book in the series On Dublin Street (review coming soon)

What book are you most looking forward to reading this summer?

Honestly, there is not one book I'm most looking forward to. I'm actually most looking forward to reading a whole huge stack of books with my son this summer. I have a goal of reading him 100 books over the summer. He is 7 but severely learning disabled. So I look forward to keeping up his love of books. There will be a lot of Berenstein Bears, Little Critter's, Splat the Cat, Cat in the Hat books coming his way :)

Follow Friday May 15, 2015

 RULES To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:(Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read} (Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers

• Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
• Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say “hi” in your comments and that they are now following you.
• If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn't have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed.
• Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don’t just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don’t say “HI”
• If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love…and the followers
• If you’re new to the follow Friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!
  

How do you organize your books? Either at home on your bookshelves or on your reading-device, or on your bookish platform like Goodreads, Leafmarks or Booklikes.  – Unconventional Book Views

Ok so I have next to no organizational skills. Like zero...nada...zip. I use goodreads and often mark on their the books I want to read and will kinda sorta categorize books I've read on there. These days I only read ebooks. There is no rhyme or reason to how they are organized on my phone (where I do all my reading). I don't even have them all in the same folder. I often have them in 6 different places or have them on the computer waiting to be transferred over not to mention the flash drives that have books. I'm a bit of a free book whore and will scoop up free books  from EVERYWHERE. Especially, childrens picture books. I have about 150 picture books downloaded all for free that I have yet to read to my son.  Its a sickness really.

Monthly Mix-Up Mania Reading Challenge 2015-2017

Monthly Mix-Up Mania Reading Challenge 2015-2017

Gina @ Book Dragon's Lair is running this challenge again. 

Rules 2015-2017 edition -  Sign Up Here 

What: To read a book for each letter in the year. That's right, a title for the J in January and the A in January, etc.... 74 books total!

Official Start date: April 1, 2015, because we're fools to try this but any book read since 1-1-15 that you didn't already use for the 2013-2015 edition counts ;) 

End date: March 31, 2017, yes, two years, because well, we have other challenges to do ;)

Guidelines:

• only one letter per book
• books can be moved around if it fits better somewhere else after you've read it
• the letter doesn't have to be the first word, just the first letter of a word in the title (a, an, and the do not count)
• reviews aren't necessary but a quick "I read for letter... it was about... I did/not like it" would be nice and can be left in the comments.
• if you decide to join in, create a post on your blog telling others then come back and link up (to the actual post, not just your blog's home page)
• a blog is not necessary, just comment on that month's post.
• the most important thing is to have fun!

Just a couple of suggestions. . .
read a book with the month's name in the title
Only use the first letter of the first word

Have a good time!

J

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F

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B- Beneath the Surface- John Hargrove - April 2015

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G- Greta and the Goblin King- 4/2/2015

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D- Double Dare by R.L. Mathewson- April 2015

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A Return to Blogging

It's been over 3 years since I've last blogged on here. So much has changed in that time and yet so much is still the same. I still live paycheck to paycheck especially now that my husband is out of work. My son is now 7 years old and still a handful. He is severely learning disabled so that makes a challenge of everything. He is finally at a stage where he loves to be read to but cannot read for himself. Chapter books are still too advanced for him but he loves picture books. My stepdaughter is about to get her drivers license and will be off to college in less than two years.

The blog is rough and needs to have a lot of the cobwebs swept away and a brand spanking new coat of paint. But it feels good to get back into something that meant so much to me. I hope to check back in with old blogger friends and discover new ones. I'm not going to put the pressures on me to blog every single day but I would like to post something at least 2 times a week.

I still have very little time and very little money to read but I've become an expert at finding free/discounted books. I want to read more and read so much more when I was actively blogging. So here's to a return to blogging and I hope that it still holds the enjoyment that it once did.

Fill in the Gaps Book Challenge

I have decided to sign on for the Fill in the Gaps Book Challenge. The challenge is all about reading those books that have been sitting on your shelves collecting dust. These are the books that you've always swore you would read but have never gotten around to. They are the classic books and those you bought to better educate yourself.  I have 5 years to complete this challenge.

I thought it would super easy to pick books but it was much harder than I thought. So for now this is my list but I reserve the right to change the books if I decide I made my list on goodreads.

		The Phantom Tollbooth	Juster, Norton	edit view »
		On Writing	King, Stephen	edit view »
		The Little Prince	Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de	edit view »
		Nicholas Nickleby	Dickens, Charles	edit view »
		The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals	Pollan, Michael	edit view »
		The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian	Alexie, Sherman	edit view »
		Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly	Bourdain, Anthony	edit view »
		The Friday Night Knitting Club	Jacobs, Kate	edit view »
		The Bell Jar	Plath, Sylvia	edit view »
		The Handmaid's Tale	Atwood, Margaret *	edit view »
		Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void	Roach, Mary	edit view »
		I'd Know You Anywhere	Lippman, Laura *	edit view »
		V for Vendetta	Moore, Alan	edit view »
		The Virgin Suicides	Eugenides, Jeffrey	edit view »
		Shopgirl	Martin, Steve	edit view »
		Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas	Thompson, Hunter S.	edit view »
		The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1)	Larsson, Stieg	edit view »
		The Graveyard Book	Gaiman, Neil *	edit view »
		Fever 1793	Anderson, Laurie Halse *	edit view »
		Catch-22	Heller, Joseph	edit view »
		Lolita	Nabokov, Vladimir	edit view »
		Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1)	Herbert, Frank	edit view »
		The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)	Brown, Dan	edit view »
		The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century	Friedman, Thomas L.	edit view »
		The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide, #1)	Adams, Douglas	edit view »
		The Martian Chronicles	Bradbury, Ray	edit view »
		Cthulhu 2000	Turner, Jim	edit view »
		A Christmas Story: The Book That Inspired the Hilarious Classic Film	Shepherd, Jean	edit view »
		Mary Poppins	Travers, P.L.	edit view »
		Grendel	Gardner, John	edit view »
		Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos	Lovecraft, H.P.	edit view »
		Watership Down	Adams, Richard	edit view »
		Slaughterhouse-Five	Vonnegut, Kurt	edit view »
		The Road	McCarthy, Cormac	edit view »
		The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button	Fitzgerald, F. Scott	edit view »
		The Day of the Triffids	Wyndham, John	edit view »
		The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Longstocking, #1-3)	Lindgren, Astrid	edit view »
		My Man Jeeves	Wodehouse, P.G.	edit view »
		Good Omens	Pratchett, Terry	edit view »
		I am America	Colbert, Stephen	edit view »
		Assassination Vacation	Vowell, Sarah	edit view »
		The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen	Pépin, Jacques	edit view »
		One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	Kesey, Ken	edit view »
		The Pillars of the Earth (The Pillars of the Earth, #1)	Follett, Ken	edit view »
		The Alchemist	Coelho, Paulo *	edit view »
		The Things They Carried	O'Brien, Tim	edit view »
		Stranger in a Strange Land	Heinlein, Robert A.	edit view »
		Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe	Flagg, Fannie	edit view »
		The House on Mango Street	Cisneros, Sandra	edit view »
		And Then There Were None	Christie, Agatha	edit view »
		A is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone, #1)	Grafton, Sue	edit view »
		Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1)	Card, Orson Scott	edit view »
		Fantastic Mr. Fox	Dahl, Roald	edit view »
		World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War	Brooks, Max	edit view »
		Zombies Vs. Unicorns	Black, Holly *	edit view »
		The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Chbosky, Stephen	edit view »
		The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things	Mackler, Carolyn	edit view »
		Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories	Leonard, Elmore	edit view »
		A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)	Martin, George R.R.	edit view »
		Déjà Dead (Temperance Brennan, #1)	Reichs, Kathy	edit view »
		The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (A Flavia de Luce Mystery, #1)	Bradley, Alan *	edit view »
		Fablehaven (Fablehaven, #1)	Mull, Brandon	edit view »
		The Art of War	Tzu, Sun	edit view »
		Eragon (Inheritance, #1)	Paolini, Christopher	edit view »
		The Cat Who Could Read Backwards (Cat Who..., #1)	Braun, Lilian Jackson	edit view »
		The Outsiders	Hinton, Susan E.	edit view »
		The Swiss Family Robinson	Wyss, Johann David	edit view »
		Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies	Diamond, Jared	edit view »
		One for the Money (Stephanie Plum, #1)	Evanovich, Janet *	edit view »
		Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook	Bourdain, Anthony	edit view »
		The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef	White, Marco Pierre	edit view »
		The Borrowers (The Borrowers, #1)	Norton, Mary	edit view »
		The Cricket in Times Square	Selden, George	edit view »
		Five Children and It	Nesbit, E.	edit view »
		The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time, #1)	Jordan, Robert	edit view »
		A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court	Twain, Mark	edit view »
		Bedknob and Broomstick	Norton, Mary	edit view »
		The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1)	King, Stephen	edit view »
		Harriet the Spy	Fitzhugh, Louise	edit view »
		Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam Trilogy #1)	Atwood, Margaret *	edit view »
		I am Legend	Matheson, Richard	edit view »
		Parable of the Sower	Butler, Octavia E.	edit view »
		The War of the Worlds	Wells, H.G.	edit view »
		The Children of Men	James, P.D.	edit view »
		Never Let Me Go	Ishiguro, Kazuo	edit view »
		Life of Pi	Martel, Yann	edit view »
		The Unbearable Lightness of Being	Kundera, Milan	edit view »
		The Count of Monte Cristo	Dumas, Alexandre	edit view »
		The Book Thief	Zusak, Markus *	edit view »
		The Tin Drum	Grass, Günter	edit view »
		The Lovely Bones	Sebold, Alice	edit view »
		Reading Lolita in Tehran	Nafisi, Azar *	edit view »
		The Once and Future King	White, T.H.	edit view »
		The Death of the Heart	Bowen, Elizabeth	edit view »
		Even Cowgirls Get the Blues	Robbins, Tom	edit view »
		A Thousand Splendid Suns	Hosseini, Khaled	edit view »
		The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People	Covey, Stephen R.	edit view »
		Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close	Foer, Jonathan Safran	edit view »
		Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time	Mortenson, Greg *	edit view »
		Water for Elephants	Gruen, Sara	edit