The Kari AnnAlysis

Posts Tagged ‘bookmarks’

While we all love the clothes and jewelry and shoes and electronics at Christmas, there are a select few of us that live for the bookish gifts we will receive.

Every year I say this, but this year I hit the jackpot on the bookie gifts.

Here are the books I got:

What I normally do at Christmas is pick up a bunch of books I want and give them to my brother to give to me. Good deal, right? This year, I stuck with books from a series that I need. I love all of these series’ and can’t wait to read all of them.

I also got some awesome bookmarks this Christmas:

I’ve posted before about magnetic bookmarks. These are lifesavers for me. I always throw my book in my bag and go. With a regular bookmark, I am normally trying to remember which page I was on, because it’s almost always guaranteed to fall out. But with magnetic bookmarks, I never lose them, and I can put them on the line where I finished so I know exactly where to start again.

Now, I know I just talked about regular bookmarks and my lack of love for them, but how awesome is my wooden bookmark on the left? I got this at the Bob Evans Farm Festival this year. There was a booth with hundreds of bookmarks, each with a different design cut out of it. As soon as we found the booth, my mom and I started searching for one that would suit me. We were almost at the end and giving up until we found the on with the state of West Virginia, my new home state. I love it! (The state and the bookmark)

I didn’t take a picture of my gift cards, but I got so many gift cards, I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself. Along with my friend WriteMeg! , I am going to make 2011 the year I read what I want. I’m not changing much about my habits, but if I want to read something this year, I’m not going to hesitate. I’m going to jump on it! So, for me this year, gift cards are amazing! I got $100 worth of gift cards from Borders this year and $50 worth from Barnes and Noble (for my Nook). I have no idea where I am even going to start with these!

I have already made my first, after Christmas purchase for the year. My husband and I went shopping the day after Christmas, which I normally avoid. We both got some pretty good deals, but the best deal was this:

I follow Ally on Twitter and have wanted to read this book forever. But I am very reluctant about buying books. I have two bookshelves full at my house and am probably the biggest tight wad you’ll ever meet. So, when I was scanning the sale books at Borders this weekend, I jumped on this copy of Heist Society. It was on sale for $5.99. I figured I had enough in gift cards to make this purchase. Little did I know that I had $5 in Borders Bucks, so I ended up paying $1.05 for this hardcover copy. I was ecstatic and my husband was laughing hysterically. He asked if they knew me by name in Borders lol

So, as you can see, I’m extremely happy with my Christmas goods. What did you get this year????

Books Read:
Gatecrasher
2 in the Hat
Running from the Devil
Infinite Days
Crepe Makers’ Bond
Majix: Notes from a Serious Teen Witch
Love Remains
Diary of a Beverly Hills Matchmaker
Click here to check out the reviews on all of these books

Pages Read:
2280

Bookmarks Given:
1 bookmark: 0
2 bookmarks: 1
3 bookmarks: 1
4 bookmarks: 3
5 bookmarks 3

Favorite Book:
I would have to say this is a tough decision for me – I had a couple of books that I really liked, but I’ll have to give this month’s award to Running from the Devil.  It was a great, great read!

Least Favorite Book:
My least favorite book was Gatecrasher. I really loved the Sophie Kinsella books and think I had too many expectations for this.

Goals for August:
Honestly, I have nothing major in the pipeline for August. I have a few books on NetGalley that I need to get through, a couple that just came out this week. I want to make sure I get on a better schedule with them and get to them before they are released. I also have some books coming to me from the Crazy Book Tours. I have found a lot of new bookish websites lately. A post on this is in the pipeline!

Now, I did put a book in the grave yard this month, which I hate to do. I started Stephen King’s Duma Key. I think I was just intimidated by the length of it. It’s like a million pages long. LOL Not really, but I was also concerned about getting some of my galley’s done in time and just had a lot on my mind. I heard if I keep at it, it will pick up, I just couldn’t get into it.

Oh, I did finish my one challenge I am taking part in this year. The Crepe Makers’ Bond put me at 25 YA Books for the year so far. I was more of Chick Lit girl last year and wanted to branch out. I thought 25 would be tough. I guess I underestimated myself. Not sure if I can double it or not though by the end of the year.

Aside from reading, I kind of had a big month, with personal accomplishments. I started writing in May and actually finished up the first draft of my book in July. I am super excited about it, although I know I still have a lot of work to do on it. I am going to go back through and add quite a bit of scenes and spice it up a little. I am trying not to get TOO excited, because I know how hard it is to get a book published, but I am just happy to say that I sat down, started writing and did it!

What did you guys do this month??

I don’t always take part in this meme, but you better believe on good weeks, there will be a post. This week was good for two reasons. 1. I got some major goods from BookMooch, which I am extremely infatuated with right now. 2. I got a present from one of my favorite authors. Take a look:

This week, I got Un-Bridaled, The Gatecrasher and A Match Made on Madison.

I started looking through BookMooch when I learned I had some points built up. I wasn’t finding anything I loved. So what I did next was went to Borders.com and started typing in authors/books that I liked. On the left side of the screen, it tells you other books you may be interested in. That’s where I found all three of these and I am really excited for them.

I am a huge Sophie Kinsella fan, whose real name is Madeline Wickham. I ran across her before but kept forgetting to pick up her work. Now I am really stoked to get started!

Also, I got some swag from Kieran Scott. She is holding a HUGE contest on her website, giving away a bunch of books. The contest started Friday, but as an early contest, she gave away signed bookstamps and bookmarks. All you had to do was be one of the first 10 people to change your picture to the cover of She’s So Dead to Us.

While this may sound like an easy win, it wasn’t. Twitter, being the social giant it is, kept giving me the Fail Whale because of the World Cup. So, to win, I had to pull up the book cover on my computer, take a picture of it on my phone and upload it using Echofon. Who needs a computer when you have an iPhone?

Anyway, so it was a fun week for me. Expecting another BookMooch book this week and adding a few more this week, so expect more Moochy posts from me in the future!