2014 Year in Review or What was read....

I've been doing a year in review for....I don't know, forever, so here is 2014!

And I know what you are thinking...hey, the year isn't over yet, but it is my friends. It is.

I fell way short on my Goodreads goal of 114 books, and this is because I became obsessed with short stories. So, my new goal has become: read 100 pages a day. Some pages are short stories, some are in one of the books I am currently reading, and others are articles, etc. I'm going to end up at 87 or 88 books read for 2014. Not too shabby.

For the rest of this year (the whole week and some change we have left) I plan to finish The Best American Short Stories 2014 edited by Jennifer Egan. And -maybe- The Family Fang (which I'm loving!)Please feel free to friend me on Goodreads and see what else I read this year and what I'll be reading next year. I love Goodreads.

Here are my Top Five that I read in 2014:

I'm not going to review the books again, I wrote heartfelt reviews the second I finished all of them on Goodreads. These were the best of the best and I read a great many good books this year, but you can see one that scared the hell out of me, one that I-could-not-put-down (and that had not happened in loooong time), one that charmed me so much I still smile when I see the cover, a new author I just worship, and one that put me back into the 1990's and reminded me what being a teenage girl was really like. I declare 2014 to be the year of George Saunders for me. I'm hooked. I actually also read the 10th of December, but preferred Civilwarland (maybe because I read it first).
Some honorable mentions:

I also did a bit of rereading this year (Hitchhiker's Guide, Ready Player One, The Giver...) I don't usually reread old favorites for fear they won't hold up again (The Giver did NOT, for me, hold up to my original reading in the early 2000's). And I forced myself to finish some books I did not like. I'm not doing that next year. I think I was chasing that high of a great storytelling, reality melts away page turning trance that I found with The Martian and found again in many of the short stories I read this year.
I didn't do any book challenges, or follow any new blogs- two things I plan to correct in 2015.

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Teddy Bear Storytime

Tonight's storytime followed the same format I use for all of my day storytimes as I have temporarily suspended my idea of doing storytime in reverse in order to get the kids sleepy. They only seem to run out into the library to pick out movies and books and the effect is lost. So here is what we did tonight. Our theme was teddy bears, but our night storytime is always wear jammies, bring a lovey, and low action. My opening song is Hello Bubbles which I learned from Read Sing Play here . BTW this woman is a storytime goddess and I have picked up many great ideas on her blog. Story the 1st: The Red Hat by Lita Judge Why? Because I want to get across to my kids that books do not always have to have words in order for us to "read" them, and I want to give pre-readers a chance to feel proud they finished a book on their own. I plan to try to read or highlight at least one wordless read for the next couple of storytimes. Flannel Board: Ten in the Bed I used a mod

Nebula Award Nominees 2017- Short Stories

This post is my progress report on my self-challenge to read all of the 2017 Nebula nominees! So far, I have completed the short story category and most of the the novelettes. I have 3 novellas and 3 novels to go. Nebula Award Nominees 2017- Short Stories What fun! I would never have read any of these stories on my own, although I expect some of these will show up in some future anthologies. I have one personal gripe, and this will come up again in another category, and that is the death of the horror genre. Because they have just killed "horror" and lumped scary stories in with science fiction and fantasy, we get stories like Sabbath Wine trying to compete with Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies and it's not fair. It really is apples and oranges. Don't believe me about horror? Go find the horror section in the Barnes and Noble. Go ahead, I'll wait. Griping over, this selection of stories was AWESOME and heavy on the fantasy stories. Seasons and Ward

The Perfect Giveway!

Christi the Teen Librarian and I had the great fun of meeting Ellen Hopkins in Princeton last week. I want to share this great event with a reader who would love to own an autographed copy of Ellen's latest YA novel: Perfect. This is a finished copy, not an arc. Here's the skinny. No fancy forms, no extra entries (you know, I think those things are bunk anyway!), and no hoops to jump through! *you must be 13 to enter *I can only ship to US addresses only (sorry!) *Giveaway runs until November 11 *winner will be determined by Random.org So leave a comment with your name, and a way to contact you. Follows are NOT required, but I have more giveaways planned so you may want to follow just so you have a head's up on those.

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