So I read 278 books in 2010. Is that still an impressive number when I add that 70 of them were books I’d read at least once before? But I don’t re-read a book unless I love it, and some of these I’ve read literally dozens of times. So here are some of my favorite books, as evidenced by my re-read of them in 2010:

Naked in Death by JD Robb. I re-read this every year. What’s funny about that is this book wasn’t on my Goodreads at all. Yet I read it yearly, at least. I’ve remedied that situation and it now appears there. Sheesh! This is probably my favorite re-read ever. I wonder how many copies of this book I’ve gifted over the years.

Nalini Singh‘s Psy-Changeling series: Slave to Sensation, which is book one, remains my favorite of these, but I enjoy them all

Nalini Singh‘s Archangel series: not really that great of feat since there were only 2 to re-read

Ilona Andrews‘ Kate Daniels series: I think the latest, Magic Bleeds, is my favorite.

The Belgariad by David Eddings My favorite fantasy series ever. I think now it’s time to re-read the Mallorean again for the ten hundredth time.

Julie Garwood historicals. For someone who doesn’t love historicals, these are some of my favorite re-reads. I am so happy to start seeing some of these in digital release. A few of my favorites available in digital are Honor’s Splendour, The Lion’s Lady and Ransom. Many of my other favorites of hers are still not available digitally by legal means, unfortunately, including The Secret, The Wedding and The Bride.

Warrior’s Woman by Johanna Lindsey. I don’t care how many people hate this book. I love it. LOVE IT. And was so glad to see a digital release in 2010.

There were more random re-reads I did, but the list above shows the re-reads that I know I’ll read again in the coming years. Below are some that I re-read for various reasons but wouldn’t count them as books I read and re-read year after year.

CL Wilson’s Tairen Soul series, books 1 & 2. I wish there was more fantasy romance like this.

Sharing Knife series by Lois McMaster Bujold Fantasy romance. I think I may have liked the later books a little less on re-read this time (I felt impatience with Dag) but the world building fascinates me and book one is wonderful.

Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. Yes, I did re-read them all, and let me tell you what I discovered when you read them all back to back. 1) Janet Evanovich does great sexual tension 2) Stephanie Plum actually grows as a character in book one. And then regresses back further in book 2 and never grows again. So you have a female protagonist who actually gets more inept and emotionally immature through 16 books. That takes some strange author talent!

In 2011 I’ve said I’m going to re-read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (and now Brandon Sanderson), 1 book a month. I stopped reading around book 10 or so, so if I read one a month for the next year, I won’t have to wait for the last book in the series (it releases in November 2011).

So, anyone else love any of these books? What did you re-read in 2010?

A few stats to start us off.

Books read in 2009: 222

Books read in 2010: 277 (55 more books than 2009, go me!)

First book read in 2010: Bound by Cin by Jenna Maclaine

Last book read in 2010: Perfect Play by Jaci Burton (an ARC, not due to release until February 1, 2011. This book is also known as the book with the hottest cover ever. I had it as my laptop wallpaper for months. Go ahead, click thru)

Thanks to Goodreads, it’s easy for me to take a look back at all of 2010 and show the above info, and also remember my favorites. So in the spirit of similar blog posts across the land, here are my top ten favorite 2010 reads, in no particular order (asterisks indicate these are new-to-me authors):

* Queen of Shadows by Dianne Sylvan (urban fantasy/paranormal romance) I had this book on my wishlist before it released, because the cover copy was intriguing. Then it released, and since I’m a little gunshy about new urban fantasy/paranormal authors and books, I didn’t buy it right away. I hesitated, kept going back to read reviews, and finally was convinced by several reviews I read, in combination with the sample chapter. And I was hooked. The story drew me in after the first few chapters, the love story between hero and heroine felt well-played and what I especially appreciated was that this book was a book in itself. No cliffhanger ending, no major dangling plot threads. Just a story within one book. Awesome and refreshing in a paranormal world of series.

Truth of Valor by Tanya Huff (space opera) I was so excited to get a new installment in this series from Tanya Huff. I actually like space opera quite a bit, but have a hard time jumping into new authors and new series, because I’m often afraid the technical side of the space opera will overwhelm the characters, plots and story. I don’t even need romantic elements in my space opera (though it doesn’t hurt) but I need it to be accessible. And that’s what Tanya Huff does. She writes character-driven space opera with fun, entertaining storylines and a kick-ass female protaganist who’s hard as nails. Goodreads review here

Twice Bitten by Chloe Neill (urban fantasy) This is book 3 and I think this was my favorite book to date. The romance moved forward (then back, then forward, then…well, you’ll have to read it to find out) and the worldbuilding has been interesting to me. Not that it’s anything so out of the ordinary, but it’s also not nonsensical and the secondary characters make things intriguing. I’m glad to keep reading this series, though I kind of wish the author wrote faster than 1 book in the series/year! Goodreads review here.

Something About You by Julie James (contemporary romance) Julie James is one of the few contemporary romance authors who has a nearly 100% “hit” ratio with me (there’s one book only of hers that wasn’t a hit for me at all) and I adored everything about this book. This is what good contemporary romance should be! Something else that I like about Julie is that she writes stand-alone books. So if you’ve never read a Julie James book before (and you should) then you can easily jump into her backlist at any point. Though I do recommend this one!

Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (urban fantasy) So I’d probably read Ilona’s grocery list at this point. But this book made me SO HAPPY. This was the installment in the series that really makes a romance reader’s heart go pitty pat. Reooowr. I actually re-read this entire series this year and I loved it just as much the second time around. There are a lot of things I appreciate about this series, but one of them is that we’re not forced to wonder who the romantic interest is (Curran, meow) and each book moves the overarching story and plot along in a way that makes us believe it’s not going to go on forever. Not that I want it to end, but I also hate that feeling of an author stringing me along (except JD Robb, she can string me along forever). Very short Goodreads review here.

Archangel’s Kiss by Nalini Singh (urban fantasy) Nalini is another author who’s grocery list I’d read. And I also re-read both this series and her Psy-Changeling series in 2010. Again, they did not disappoint on the second read, and I’d happily have a 3rd go at all of these books. I particularly like this archangel series because it’s a bit grittier and darker, with more edges on the characters. Also? I love how well Nalini does the “show, don’t tell” concept and isn’t tempted to spoonfeed the readers obvious bits.

* The Chief by Monica McCabe (historical romance) I don’t even remember how I came to pick this book up, but I remember reading and loving it and emailing Jane at Dear Author to tell her she needed to give it a try. It reminded me in a way of an early Garwood. What’s even more amazing to me about how much I enjoyed this book is that I’d sampled a few of this author’s books before and they didn’t work for me, and I’ve since read the 2nd book in the series and didn’t love it. But this particular book hit just right for me and I’m glad to have it in my top ten.

* Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (contemporary YA romance) This book came out of nowhere for me. A few people mentioned it on Twitter. Then it showed up on a Dear Author best of 2010 list and I realized that it sounded quite familiar. Turns out? I had it on my Kindle. I’m still not sure how but it had to have been offered free at some point, because I know I’d never have bought it without first reading the sample, and it was completely new to me when I opened the book. So contemporary isn’t really my fave genre, and contemporary YA even less so. In fact, I read like almost no YA and even less contemp YA. But I really enjoyed this book. I loved the protagonist’s voice in 1st person, loved the progression of the friendships and story and was happy when I read the last page. Goodreads review here.

Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey (contemporary romance) Yeah, yeah. I edited this book. Sue me. I loved it and it goes on my top ten list for 2010. It’s my list! I wrote more about this book already in this post about my 2010 editing.

Iron Duke by Meljean Brook (steampunk romance) I know I said these are in no particular order but…this was my favorite book of 2010. I didn’t list the novella from the Burning Up anth, Here There Be Monsters, but that novella and this book seriously rocked my world. I was glad to get an ARC of this book and glad to urge people to read it, you must read it! I think I’ve since given away 3 or 4 copies because it’s just that great. The only thing I didn’t love about this book? The cover. Not my favorite steampunk cover, unfortunately. Goodreads review here.

Honorable Mentions, these are books I enjoyed but that didn’t quite make my top ten list:
Song of Scarabaeus– a science fiction romance. I’m anticipating book 2 quite a bit. My Goodreads review is here.
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner — I’d had this recommended to me several times and the voice hooked me in once I finally picked it up. Really enjoyed the twists and turns.
No Place to Run by Maya Banks– One of my final reads of 2010, this and the first, Darkest Hour. I liked the action and the hero/heroine as well as the secondary characters. There’s a lot to like here.
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah Maclean — someone recommended this to me on Twitter and I was really charmed by the heroine and the story. The Chief just barely edged this out of my list. My Goodreads review is here
C.S. Harris — I read three of her Sebastian St. Cyr books in 2010, and any author that can get me to read not one, but three, historical fiction books deserves an honorable mention. I do own the others in the series and fully intend to read them. Sebastian is a great protagonist.

So 3 of my top 10 (and 7 of my top 15!) were new-to-me authors, which I’m really happy about. Of the 7 who weren’t, 4 of the books were installments in series that I’ve been reading for a few years, so it’s great for me that these authors continue to produce high-quality books.

One of the things that’s interesting to me about this list is that there are three contemporary romances on it (if I include the YA) and one historical romance because I often say that those are the two genres I read the least. That’s particularly true of historical romance. However, if you look at my Goodreads account, you can see that it actually looks like I read a lot of contemporary romance. But if you look closer, you’d also see that 90% of that is in the form of Harlequin categories!

Urban fantasy series continue to be good to me, yet I find myself not picking up a lot of NEW urban fantasy authors or series, and even less paranormal romance.

In 2010, I’d like to find and read even more futuristic romance, space opera, steampunk and fantasy/fantasy romance. Those are genres that I find myself more and more willing to take chances in, rather than urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

2010 was a good reading year for me. I read 277 books total for pleasure, and that doesn’t count a few books I was unable to list as having read for various reasons (shhh) and all of the Carina titles, acquisitions, and submissions I read. I’m extremely happy with how much reading I did this year, even when I had a period of about 3 weeks in September when I didn’t read anything. Every year I vow to make my reading diverse and to reach outside my comfort zones, and I was happy with how I did at that this year, and I’ll continue to make that a goal for 2011.

I think it’s only fair to follow the “what do you hate” post from earlier in the week with a post of the three things that are just about guaranteed to grab me when I’m reading

1) Injure the heroine: Yes, I’m a bit sick in the head, but I love it when the heroine is in mortal danger, and it makes the hero realize he can’t live without her and loves her. I love it when the heroine is shot, stabbed, traumatically injured in some way (not rape, ha!) and it creates a moment of loss for the hero so horrible, he can’t believe how bleak and colorless life will be without her (but you can do it without the melodrama of my description, lol).

2) Grovel: I love love love a good grovel. If the hero or heroine have wrongly accused their love interest of something, if they’ve thought they did something heinous, and treated them accordingly, and then find out…oh noes! they were wrong, then I love a good grovel. And I mean make it good. Make the person delivering the grovel mean it, and work for it. I don’t want easy forgiveness, I want them to crawl on their knees with the grovel. But this is a fine line, because I also don’t want the other person to drag on granting forgiveness for too long. And I don’t want the hero/heroine to lose their strength while groveling. I want them to grovel because of the strength of their personality, to make them seem even stronger. I also don’t want a grovel just because the other person feels wronged (and they really weren’t).

3) Insurmountable odds: I adore a book that creates a conflict so strong, so wrenching, that I have no idea how the hero/heroine are going to overcome it. The caveat here is that I need to also know and believe that they ARE going to overcome it (ie, have some sort of happy ending). I don’t want to be taken through the wringer and not get some sort of positive payoff in the end. This is why I love romance. I know the positive payoff is there. It’s also the reason I sometimes peek at the end of non-romance books, so I know if I should invest my emotional energy in the book and characters, or walk away.

Your turn. What things in a book will instantly grab you?

I am so fortunate. Today I said on Twitter and Facebook,  “Do you have a burning question for an editor? I need a blog topic.” I got a tremendous response of some really great, amazing questions. Not all of them about editing, either! So I’m going to be using my blog, and the Carina Press blog, to answer the “ask the editor” questions in the coming weeks. If you’re not on Twitter (or Facebook), and you have a question, feel free to leave it in the comments!

Today, @romancinkatrina asked: Three things that make you hurl a book across the room faster than seeing a spider on the wall.

This seems like it should be such an easy question, right? But I really had to think about it, because I couldn’t immediately think of the huge hot button issues that I always know won’t work for me. But I did finally come up with a few things I came up with that are issues for me in reading:

1) Rape: no, not the use of rape in a book in general, but when the main character (usually the heroine but sometimes it’s a hero) is shown as having been raped recently, especially within the book’s timeframe, but seems to suffer no emotional or psychological trauma, and just merrily goes on their way. Rape is a horrible act, and using it as a plot device or a character device, simply to add conflict to the book, and then disregarding all the consequences of that conflict makes me insane, and it strikes me as disrespectful of all the people who’ve suffered this. Don’t show the heroine (or hero) as jumping into bed with their romantic lead soon after the event, don’t ignore that the tragedy of having this happen has the potential to change how they act and react, and who they are. Don’t make it just a convenience. Don’t just use it because you want something horrible to happen to your characters to show you’re not afraid to torture them. (for the record, I remain impressed with how Patricia Briggs handles this in the Mercy Thompson series)

2) Big Misunderstandings: I’m not a fan of this plot device, so it can pretty often make me want to kick someone’s characters in the head. The problem, for me, with the Big Mis, is that it’s just so often the result of two people who are too stubborn and stupid to just say “Why did you do this” and instead play these passive-aggressive games that keep them apart. Passive-aggression doesn’t make ANYONE likeable, and when the only conflict keeping two people apart is stubborness and stupidity, I figure they don’t deserve to be happy anyway!

3) Unclean sex: Oh, just ew here. I apologize to anyone who’s easily embarrassed, but this one’s going to be a little more graphic (Dad, stop reading). There’s a few things in erotic romances that bother me in regards to “unclean” sex. I’m no prude but I draw the line at books that portray the hero going from the back hole to the front with no sanitary clean up in between. Do you have any IDEA of the kind of bacteria and illness that can introduce to women’s bodies? Say it with me, “ewwwww!” Also, if you’re going to show your hero/heroine in a masturbation scene, and something happens immediately after where they have to go answer the phone/door, etc., can they PLEASE wash their hands somehow. Because again…ew. That makes me want to run for the hand sanitizer and bathe in it.

Bonus: I’m not entirely sure “hint of tuna” while kissing would make me stop reading, but if a book becomes too gross as far as bodily functions and “reality”, I will toss the book. I’d like some mystery in the relationship, please.

I also won’t continue a book if I can’t connect with the characters or if I don’t understand their motivation. Sure, I might not agree with their motivation, but I need to know why they’re doing something. Unlikeable characters I don’t understand can be a deal breaker for me in a book I’m reading.

Okay, you got mine. Your turn. What will make you throw a book (or wish you could throw it if you’re reading digitally) faster than seeing a spider on the wall across the room?

Last week I mentioned I’d been using Goodreads to track my reads and my thoughts on some of the books. Some of you said you liked my reviews, thanks! One of the things I wanted to ask in that post, and didn’t, is how you use Goodreads. I often feel like there’s a lot more potential I could be getting from the site that I’m not, because in the past I’ve focused on just tracking my books, and I feel a little overwhelmed about venturing outside my own library.

For instance, I know there are discussions that occur there, but are those only in group areas or are there non-group areas? And how do I track people’s reviews and get notified of them? By following? It appears that I have lots of friends, but am not following anyone. What does following do?

Also, what groups do you recommend? When I first joined Goodreads, I wanted to use it to track what I was reading. I moved “up” to adding mini-reviews when I felt moved to do so. It’s nice, because any time I’ve reviewed here on the blog, I’ve always felt like I need to have a lengthy, more detailed and formal review. On Goodreads, I can just slap a few thoughts down, mostly for myself but if someone else finds them useful, yay!

I guess what I’m looking for is to hear from some of you as to how you use Goodreads, other than just tracking your own reading. What are some of the best features of Goodreads, in your opinion, and what do you wish more people would take advantage of, that they might not know about?

Though I haven’t been updating here about my reading, and actually took those widgets off my sidebar because they were populated by LibraryThing and I’ve been using Goodreads instead (link to my Goodreads account), I have been reading what I think is an impressive amount (for me). Considering that I’ve still been reading submissions, and that I’ve taken two trips in 2010 already (and I read very little when traveling), I’ve still managed to read 34 books to date in 2010.

As I said, I’ve been tracking my reads on Goodreads. I did a fairly decent job of it in 2009, but right around the time all of the upheavel happened in my professional life last fall, I also stopped updating Goodreads. However, since I read mostly digital, I was able to browse my Fictionwise, Kindle and Calibre records and fill in most of the gaps from September to December. When I was done, and knowing there were books missing because I hadn’t been diligant about keeping up my Goodreads records, I discovered I’d read at least 220 books in 2009.I was happy with not only that, but the variety of genres I’d read. I felt like I pushed myself last year to read a little more outside my comfort zones and I managed to do that. This year I’m also going to be specifically tracking the genres I read.

So what have I read so far in 2010? A lot of Charlaine Harris, apparently. Not the Sookie books, I’ve already read all of those several times, but I read the Lily Bard and Harper Connolly series. Neither of which I actually liked that much, but I found something oddly compelling about them. Weird when that happens. Also, true to form, I’ve read a lot of urban fantasy. Last fall I discovered Karen Chance’s Dorini Basarab series but had not read her Cassandra Palmer series, so I got to catch up on that these past few weeks. Also read Eileen Wilks’ and Nalini Singhs’ new books. Two of my favorite authors, and I loved these offerings.Oh, and I bought some Amanda Quick and Jayne Ann Krentz digital backlist titles from Fictionwise, so I’ve been indulging in those. I’m a little disappointed in the quality of the Amanda Quick books (they were obviously scanned from print and not proofread for scanning errors) but the stories remain good for me!

Now I’m patiently waiting for the next JD Robb book to release in 2 weeks. And the Patricia Briggs book in March. Another two of my favorite authors.

Right now I’m in between books (I was catching up on back episodes of Chuck last night). I have a significant list of books TBR but I can’t decide what to read. What are you reading?

It’s a long story, but last night our babysitter (a very nice older lady) ended up hanging out at our house for about an hour after we got home, and I gave her control of the remote. She switched it to Debbie Macomber’s Mrs. Miracle, but the movie had already been on for an hour so we only saw the last half. It was actually a pretty cute movie (as evidenced by the fact that my brother and I kept watching the end, even after the babysitter left), though it wasn’t something we’d have ever turned it to ourselves. But because we came in late, we never got to find out what the sister did to Reba (the heroine) that was so horrible she wouldn’t speak to her for four years. I Googled for spoilers, but I couldn’t find the answer. So, I’m turning to you guys for the answer if you’ve read the book or seen the movie. What the heck did she do?

This weekend, I asked in both a post here and at Romance Divas for recommendations of books from small press. I didn’t limit by genre, but I did specify that people couldn’t recommend their own book, they had to have read the book (no recommending your friend’s book just because ) and that it had to be over 12,000 words. No genre restrictions, since I’ll read pretty much anything. Maybe it was the holiday weekend, but this seemed to be harder than I thought it would be (with the number of people on Romance Divas who write and read small press, I expected more recommendations from there, actually).

I ended up buying about 11 books, ranging in genre and from 8 different small presses.

It was interesting, though, the things I learned about buying/reading small press as a result of this.

1) Distribution is important. I ruled out any press/book that I couldn’t buy at an online bookstore (I didn’t want to enter my credit card number 7 times, so I didn’t want to shop direct from publishers this time, though I often do for certain presses). So any publisher/book that wasn’t available at Fictionwise, AllRomanceEbooks or BooksOnBoard I didn’t even consider. I think one stop shopping is important because most customers are not going to be like me, and hunt 3 different places for all the books they want. They’re going to buy what’s available where it’s convenient for them. Also, a publisher without distribution isn’t catching the “browsers” at the online bookstores.

2) Price to word count is also important. There were a few books that I would have bought based on the blurb, but when I checked the word count versus the price, I quickly changed my mind. I’m sorry, but $5-$6 for a 25-30k book is obscene. To give you an idea, a book that length is about half the length of a normal Harlequin Desire or Presents (category). Half.

3) Word count matters. I found that I very much appreciated Fictionwise putting the exact word count on the books. Most small presses have a word count range for each book, some a large spread, so you don’t know if you’re buying and getting the low end of 30k or the high end of 60k at that price. I based a lot of my purchasing decisions on Fictionwise’s provided word count. It made for easier shopping and I appreciated that.

4) Sales sell books (at least to me). I ended up doing almost all of my shopping at Fictionwise because of their great anniversary sale. I bought more than I would have otherwise, but the psychology of it also hit me, because when I went to look at other sites, I found myself more reluctant to buy a “full price” book.

The reading experience. At the end of the weekend, I had read 7 books from 6 different presses (still have two presses unread from my weekend purchases):

1) I appreciate good metadata. I put all of my books into Calibre for two reasons: Cataloging and transfer to my Sony. Since most of the books came from Fictionwise, and were multi-format, I believe that means that Fictionwise actually formatted them. And Fictionwise doesn’t have the best metadata. It’s okay, but not great. I know I work for Samhain, but I have to tell you, the metadata kicked ass when I put the books into Calibre. (Yes, Samhain was one of the presses I read this weekend). The Samhain metadata includes title, author name, publisher, release date AND the book blurb. It was beautiful. Now, to be fair, since I didn’t buy direct from the other publishers, I don’t know what their own metadata is like, but for a digital book, metadata is important!

2) The blurb at the front of the book (after the cover) is convenient. Once I’d put the 11 books on my Sony, I didn’t necessarily remember what each was about and I appreciated those publishers who put the blurb at the front of the book. It made it easy for me to decide if that was the book I wanted to read right then.

3) Editing matters. And not all small presses are created equal in editing. I am not critical of small errors that slip in. Boy, wouldn’t that be hypocritical? And I have actually gotten pretty good at turning my internal editor off when needed for pleasure reading. But there were some books where it wasn’t possible to do that and I found myself thinking that I would be reluctant to buy 1) from that press again and 2) that author again. Editing matters and small press needs to do better than traditional press at this, unfortunately, because we come under greater scrutiny. People expect small press epublished books to be badly edited and that’s unfortunate for all of us!

4) A good premise can’t trump bad editing/execution. For me, at least, and I think maybe other readers, I realized that though I appreciated the idea of the story/plot, even the freshness of a good premise was overcome by poor editing and execution. Awkward dialogue, stilted narrative, inconsistent plot threads…those things matter.

5) Explicit words and descriptions don’t make a scene sexy. The eroticism of a scene depends on more than the words/acts the author uses and has her characters engaging in. It depends on the intimacy of the setting, the sensuality of the moment and the connection the characters have to each other, and I have to them. Some authors have an amazing talent writing this.

6) I appreciate small press for its diversity. One thing about the recommendations I got and the books I read, is that they were diverse, not just in genre, but also in length. It was nice to be able to choose a shorter book to read just before bed, but a longer book to indulge in during the day, and to be able to get everything from a m/m/f BDSM romance to sweet contemporary.

All great conversations start on Twitter. No really, these days they do. I thank Twitter for most of my blog topics these days.

A few months ago I was researching the Leapfrog Tag reader on Amazon, and reading the reviews. Brianna is a huge bookworm, I’m not sure WHERE she gets that from but she loves books. We read every night and, sadly, when we’re searching for a punishment “reading” is what we have to take away. I know, it seems wrong, but when that’s the thing your kid loves…

Anyway, she loves reading and though she’s at that point where she can both memorize whole books to read back to herself, and recognize/sound out some small words, she’s really not quite reading yet. I’d seen the Tag reader around and thought this might be something she’d love, because it would both read the books to her and also help her read them one word at a time. But I like to research things before I buy them, and though I don’t use Amazon’s book reviews because…well, that’s a topic for another post…I do like to browse their product reviews and read both the favorable and unfavorable.

But I was fairly taken aback by some of what I read while perusing the reviews. People attacking those who said they’d bought this for their children, chastising them for buying something to read to their children instead of reading to them themselves. Accusing them of all sorts of terrible things from bad to lazy parenting. Um. Excuse ME? Talk about making huge assumptions. Man, reading those comments pissed me off.

As it happens, Brianna did get this (for Valentine’s Day) and she loves it. She uses it almost every night at bedtime. AFTER we’ve read to her and she’s in bed reading by herself. Yeah, I can see how that’s evil and bad parenting. Come on, people. Did you ever consider that maybe the person buying it wants to supplement their reading time, not replace it? Bah.

So right now, Brianna has three books for the Tag reader, the one that came with it plus Scooby Doo (she chose that) and an Ariel Princess one that I got on sale last week. She was pretty upset because the Ariel one was NOT the book she’s been wanting. She wants Walter the Farting Dog. I mentioned to Josh today that I was thinking of ordering it from Amazon and shipping it to my parents, so we’d have it for her Easter basket next weekend. He looked at me like I’d grown three heads (not just two). Apparently, he’s never heard of the Walter the Farting Dog books. I was surprised because I thought they were just popular enough that most people know about them but…nope, guess not. He kept repeating “farting…dog? Farting dog?”

So now my husband thinks I’m insane because I want to get our daughter a book about a farting dog. Of course, he didn’t really appreciate the humor behind the jelly-bean pooping reindeer that I put her in Christmas stocking either. That our daughter refers to as the “pooping reindeer” (which is totally what it’s called), causing him to scowl at me every time. Heheheh. Guess who’s got the larger dose of juvenile humor in our family? Just wait until he finds out someone told me there are pooping bunnies AND pooping sheep in the Easter Candy aisle

I have two confessions today. One is that I went shopping this morning for pants that I can wear to cocktail parties Monday in NYC. I didn’t find any because I’m TOO SHORT. Kohls is having some great clearance sales and I tried on an embarrassing number of pants but they all were too long for me by about 4 inches. It might have been worth it at clearance prices to buy them and pay to have them tailored, but I was too overwhelmed to make that decision this morning. Maybe I’ll go back.

The other confession is that I’m not at all ready for the traveling to start again. I think it must be because I’m basically lazy at heart, and it suits me to be able to do nothing all day Also, ever since I told her I was going (last week, because she heard me talking about it and asked) Brianna has been telling me how much she doesn’t want me to go. This morning she was particularly upset about it.

But on that note, blogging will probably be lighter again in the next few weeks, because we all know I’m no good at traveling and blogging!

For the Reader:
Since I don’t normally promo my releases during the week, I’m going to start listing them here, under the “for the reader” section. So, released this week:
Taken by Anya Bast (erotic sci fi romance)
Called by Blood by Evie Byrne (erotic paranormal romance)
Mexican Heat by Laura Baumbach and Josh Lanyon (m/m action romance)

Publisher’s Weekly is looking for reviewers in fiction genres including romance!

Kristen Nelson wants to know if free books work on you. On an interesting related note, I got an email from one of my blog readers this week, who was emailing to tell me that the free books she’d gotten from Samhain definitely resulted in her buying others. Anecdotal evidence that free works! I think editor Leah Hultenschmidt talked about that on her blog this week as well.

Jane from Dear Author wonders if you’d be interested in a rent-to-own ereader and ebook subscription?

Smart Bitches has the video from MSNBC that features the Kindle (and Kate Duffy of Kensington!)

Continuing the series about the Dear Author reviewers and their new Sony Readers. I’m really enjoying these posts.

For the Author:

Edittorrent had two great posts up on rejections this week. Alicia wrote this one on form rejections that I swear I could have written myself. Theresa wrote one that relates to my blog post here a few weeks ago about how fast is too fast?

And since we’re talking rejection, here’s one more on post-rejection protocol from Jessica Faust at BookEnds.

Author Lauren Dane has started a Sunday series on promotion.

Author Maria Zannini talks about signature lines. Honestly, an obnoxiously long signature line irritates me enough to remember the author’s name in a negative light.

Author Shannon Stacey has an awesome post up about making sure you’re following your dream, not someone else’s.

In the Kitchen:

Download spice jar labels.

Nom nom nom, these Italian love cakes look good (and easy)!

Pioneer Woman is doing a series on sushi. I actually learned how to make sushi from a Japanese friend years ago, but I’m still enjoying this series.

Peanut Butter and Rice Krispie treats. Me please.

For the Crafty:

Does anyone out there knit? I really want this scarf. Almost enough to take up knitting, except it would take me five years to finish. The scarf combines my love of two things: Doctor Who (LOVE Tom Baker) and scarves.

Sew, Mama, Sew is doing Fat Quarter February. Check out all the fat quarter projects they’re sharing. Tissue holders here (and if I’d thought of it sooner, I’d have whipped up a bunch as small Valentine Day gifts for the daycare staff)

Check out this list of the top 100 tuturials of 2008

I would love to make one of these tea wallets. I like to travel with tea but it always ends up in the bottom of my purse.

I love this idea. Anyone who’s ever been to a conference has a bunch of tote bags laying around. Here’s a tutorial for dressing up and resuing those tote bags!

For Everyone:

Thankfully, the CPSIA Lead-Testing Law has been delayed for one year. I hope they can work the kinks out of that and get a new/different/better law into affect.

An interesting post on recipes and copyright (where I learned, though was not surprised, to find that recipes aren’t copyrighted).

A little insight into the editorial debate between an author and an editor. These are weighty issues we discuss!

Whee! There’s going to be another Sex and the City movie. I’m not sure what type of story line they’ll come up with, but I don’t care. I’ll go see it! Looks to be set for hopefully Summer 2010

It’s what everyone has been talking about. The Snuggie. Now you can make your own and pimp it out to boot! Score!

$25 free from E-Trade when you open an E-Trade Savings Account.

You know you want to make one. A LOLCat purse!

So you’re bored and want to kill some time? Make your own comic strip!

Maybe your music library is like mine and could use a little attending to? MakeUseof.com has 4 suggestions for tools to fix and auto-organize your music library. Let me know if you’re familiar with any of them or try them!

Wi-Fi Hotspot finders. I need to put these links in my phone, with as much as I travel I often need Wi-Fi (even with an aircard, it’s nice to find Wi-Fi)

For the Political:
Not really political but I’m putting it here. Via HighlandGal, a quote about the Michael Phelps thing that made me laugh (also, see the bottom of this post for some links to current articles about Phelps losing sponsors):

Look, I don’t blame Michael Phelps for apologizing. He has a living to earn, so he did what he had to do.

In the meantime, I merely note that this broken wreck of a man’s failure to win any more than a pathetic fourteen Olympic gold medals (so far) is a terrifying warning of the horrific damage that cannabis can do to someone’s health—and a powerful reminder of just how sensible the drug laws really are.

-Andrew Stuttaford from The Corner at National Review Online.

A new video from Ashley Judd about Sarah Palin’s support of the brutal hunting of wolves. The video is not for the tender-hearted.

Obama puts a cap on executive pay at businesses that received bailout money. I really wish more things like this had been put in place before the bailout money was ever given out.

I’ll admit it, I laughed when I read to the end. There’s a follow-up article here. All I can think, though, is that our nation is facing the largest unemployment rate in two three decades and this guy is going to be worried about a suit jacket? Puh-lease.

Michelle Obama is stepping into the stimulus package fray. Oy.

Picture of the week:

Because the whole idea of this still makes me laugh.

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• Carrie on regardless: How will Sex and the City cope with the credit crunch? (guardian.co.uk)
• Michael Phelps Suspended: Dumped by Sponsor (montysmegamarketing.com)
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• New Website Launches to Keep Tabs on Sarah Palin’s Animal Conservation Record (Video) (treehugger.com)
• In the Kindle Backorder Queue? Upgrade Offer for Kindle 2 Coming. (jkontherun.com)