I Love This...

This picture is from an article on James Patterson (aka, the Book-making Machine) that was pimped by Eric at Pimp My Novel. I love this picture. I should stop writing about it and just let the picture speak for itself.



There is a philosophical statement about the art/craft/science of writing in this picture. Please speculate in the comments.

Things to Come

I promise (sort of... because I don't want to break your heart if I miss a deadline) that I'm going to review the following books this week:

- Ex-mas by Kate Brian (this was my annual "Christmas read")
- Whip It (formerly Derby Girl) by Shauna Cross (this was one of my read-it-before-you-see-it books)
- The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner Series #1) by James Dashner
- The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson & the Olympians Book One) by Rick Riordan (another read-it-before-you-see-it book)

It's Alive!!

I am back from the dead, returned, to try and get this blog up to date.

I've been pretty slacker-ish about updating (obviously!) for a number of reasons. The primary reason, though, is not something that's going away any time soon. (Nor is it something bad.)

I got a part-time job as a book seller at a book store (of all places) and I'm pretty stoked. Yeah, yeah, I still have to work "the day job" in research, but I get to spend my nights roving the stacks, helping lost souls connect with the perfect book. Actually, tonight I had the EXTREME pleasure of helping a lady order 11 back-listed titles from the Little House series for her granddaughter for Christmas. That was pretty boss. I loved helping her find the books that her granddaughter, who is in second grade and had spent two hours pain-stakingly writing out her Christmas list by hand, had requested. The woman hadn't been hopeful to find them when she came in, but we got 11 of 14, and I gave her the hook-up for how to search the used dealer network for the out of print titles. Cool-ness abounds in book stores.

The other fantabulous perk, the thing that solidified that I'd gladly take a $25K pay cut per year to work in book retail full time, was the fact that on the first night I scored an ARC of The Maze Runner by James Dashner from the store's buyer. I've been wanting this book for a while. Sure, sure, with the two jobs and trying to keep up on everything else (including allocating copious amounts of time for playing tennis on Wii) it'll probably be months before I have a chance to crack it open, but still, that's pretty cool, no?

All that to say: I'm still here, still fitting in reading whenever I can, and I'll still do my best to post new content (reviews and the what-not) on a regular basis. I am sad to report that the Weblog Love on Wednesdays feature is going to take a bit of a hit. I'll get back to posting it weekly, but I think I'm going to have to pare it down to (perhaps) the one best weblog thing that I consumed from the previous week (rather than all the goodies). Sorry about that.

But enough of this, I've got an audio book that needs reviewing.

[Image Source]

Unbuckle by Anita B. Cheek

I saw a fun little meme on Kerri's Book Ends Blog... self-publishing at it's finest. It is your chance to create your own YA novel cover. The hostess of this meme (Amanda) is also diligently linking all the other participants. There are some really good ones so stop over to see her post.



1. Go to “Fake Name Generator” or click http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/. The name that appears is your author name. (Anita B. Cheek)
2. Go to “Random Word Generator” or click http://www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml. The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title. (Unbuckle)
3. Go to “Flickr” or click http://www.flickr.com. Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.
4. Use Photoshop, Picnik, or similar to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in.
5. Post it to your site along with this text.

What's your new novel?

Book-to-Movie Adaptations... Oh No!

So, an author over on Slate.com had some choice (four-letter) words about Hollywood's adaptation of literary fiction into movies. Check out this article, "Great Book, Bad Movie: How Hollywood Ruins Novels."

I like a lot of the points he makes, and find that he hints at what my major beef with book-to-movie adaptations of the literary fiction variety is. Namely, that for me the draw of literary fiction is the intense inner dialogue of a character-driven novel where you crawl inside the characters' heads, which just isn't really possible in film. They're two different art forms and Hollywood should do what it does well that can't be done well in books, and vice versa.

As I said in my review of the movie Atonement that got lambasted, much of what lacked for me was the pressure you felt when you inhabited Briony's world... especially when she was really young. Everything was so intense, so dissected, so multi-faceted and in the film it seemed rushed to get to the "plot," the "action," about the false imprisonment and the war stuff. It didn't even really feel like to me that there was as much build-up about the eventual reconciliation (especially in regard to her viewing of the Marshalls' wedding).

But, that being said, there's a big debate raging over on the Slate boards about which movies have been good adaptations and which haven't. So click the link, slide on over, read the article, and get up in the mix. (By the by, this post will be re-posted on "What Was I Watching?" since it's a cross-over... don't bother with both if you follow them. You'll probably just be disappointed at how I adapt it for that blog.)

I'm Having a Sally Field Moment

Do you all remember that weirdly famous acceptance speech by Sally Field at the Oscars back in, like, 1945? Where she cried like a baby and said, "You like me, you really like me," in the most sickening display of low self-esteem ever known to man? Yeah, so I'm like that.

Booktrash gave me the two awards above (the Prémio Dardos Award for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing, and the Butterfly Award, for all-around coolness). I've never received a blog award... how totally sweet is that? (As in awesome that she gave them to me, not in that I'm on the loser-end of blog awards.) I actually tried to think of the last time I got an award, and it might have been at my high school graduation more than a decade ago--I can't remember anything more recent than that.

These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.’

Both of these awards are ones to pass on, so I’m also going to hand both of them on to some bloggers:

1. Sabro - Because she's my cybermate (and I've been ignoring her lately because I'm a loser) and she writes super funny stories about the goings-on of her life.
2. Vlachster - Because they rock their Vlachs off (K's write up of K's success in the office management field was genius, and K's pictures of Cambodia were seriously awe-inspring)
3. Twilighter - Where else can one go for the best one-stop Twilight fix?
4. E.B. @ The Reader's Quill - How jealous am I that she got an ARC of City of Glass?

Your Life Story

So, I read this one particularly fabulous book-related blog ("People Reading") and the blog-masterette a lot of times will ask the people that she meets on the street if they were to write a book what would it be about, and about 80% of the people say it would be about their life story. (Please note that the figure of 80% is completely made up by me, but it's definitely a lot... very few people say, "I'd write a story about a shipwrecked panda who has to learn to hunt tigers and makes out with models all day.").

So, my question to you: Do you like to read people's "life stories"? Would anybody ever want to read yours?

** Note: This is a filler post to keep Sabrina off my back because I now have to start balancing accounts. Everyone can now join my in cursing my bosses and the fiscal cycle. **

Looking Inside

I thought I'd post a couple of photos on the blog so you can see "inside" the mind of Heather... or at least inside the bedroom of Heather.


I picked up all these books at the library last week (Beloved, A Thousand Acres, Practical Magic, The Poisonwood Bible, The Corrections, Prep). I'm planning to read all of these for the modern classics challenge.

This is my To Be Read bookshelf. (Not counting the books from the library, and two that are downstairs on a different bookshelf, I have 41 titles in the queue.)

Typing Versus Reading

B&B Ex Libris, a fancy-schmancy book blog that you can check out by clicking on the well-placed link have started a movement. I expect big things out of this. It's the "Kill Word Verification Movement."

This movement seeks to reduce and/or eliminate the necessity of word verification in comments. I concur, seeing as how I never get spam, I'm going to remove the word verification from ALL of my blogs (which is a nice gesture on my part, I do think).

Drop a virtual comment about your thoughts on the "Kill Word Verification" movement. Go ahead and go crazy comment-wise, you won't need to waste unnecessary key strokes with the pesky verification.

A Change in Blogs

I've decided that I needed to change up my blogging style a little bit.

This blog, "What Was I Reading?" is one of a family of blogs that I will maintain, and will be your definitive source for all things related to literature and all that entails.

I am going to work on moving all of my miscellaneous blogs (those not clearly related to literature) from where they were previously housed on "What Was I Thinking?" (which is now "What Was I Reading?") to their new sites. Those sites are:

• What Was I Listening To? (A Blog About Music... and all that is great in the ear canal, except for Q-Tips.)
• What Was I Watching? (A Blog About TV and Movies... and everything in it's celluloid glory.)
• What's That All About? (A Blog Dedicated to the Miscellaneous Niceties of Life... Art, The Internet, and Politics. What a fun-sounding blog!)

So, if there's an old blog you wanted to re-read (because I know you do re-read the posts) that you can't find here, then check out the other blogs.

It's my goal that this new system of providing customized content will allow people to follow only the blog posts they are interested in. If you love everything I write (books, television, music, and movies), then you'll want to sign up for all the feeds.