Shelf Saturday Featuring Tessa @ From the Bookshelf of T.B.

We all love our books, and we want them to have the best shelves ever. Also, this is a new way to sort of show off your book collection, along with your funky shelves.

ARGH thought fitting himself in the bookshelf will help him sleep.

For this new edition of Shelf Saturday, let me feature the book case of this blogger friend of mine, Tessa @ From the Bookshelf of T.B.:

Hi everyone!  My name is Tessa.  I’m fourteen years old and an eighth grader in middle school.  I’ll be going into high school this coming fall.  I love to run and I’m in track and cross-country.  I’m more of a long-distance runner, with my main events being the 3000m race and the 1500m race, but I enjoy sprints as well. 

Some random facts about me:

         -I’m the youngest of three.

         -I love, love, love the color teal.

         -My grandpa was the one who got me to start a blog.  Intrigued? :)

         -I could eat cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

         -Italian food is my favorite, especially lasagna.  Did I mention I like food?

Now enough about me, let me tell you a bit about my shelves.  I actually got my shelves from a Borders store that was closing nearby me.  It was the last day they were open so there wasn’t too much left.  Luckily, I was able to buy four bookshelves from Borders for really cheap.  The funny thing is, when I got home only two would fit in my room.

The feature I love most about my bookshelves is that they’re pretty tall and they’re double-sided.  It’s cool, because it feels like I’m in a library or bookstore when I go between them.  And I get double the shelf space, which I could always use more of.

This is what the front of my main shelf looks like.  The top shelf holds my books that are in a series, and are a mix of paperback and hardcover.  For some reason I just don’t like having a series with both paperbacks and hard covers.  I’d rather have only one or the other.  Next, my second shelf consists of my hardcover books. Then, my third shelf has all of my paperbacks that are in a series.  Finally, my last shelf holds my paperbacks (some might also be in a series, but I just don’t own the rest yet).  Other than that, I tend to organize my books by the ones that jut out the most on the far-left, and the rest just by the jacket color in an order that pleases the eye.  I know, a bit complicated and quirky, but it works out great!

Another shot of my bookshelf.

This is what the front side of my other shelf looks like.  On the left side of the top shelf are books that I’ve borrowed from my family or friends that I still need to read.  On the right side of the top shelf are books that I have read but still need to write reviews for.  I always tend to fall behind :p  My second shelf holds all of my books that I have bought and still need to read.  I really need to start reading all of these!  All of my ARC’s and books sent to me by publishers are on the third shelf.  Plus my painted ceramics and little chotchkies are on this shelf as well.

My mom made this for me, and it fits perfectly on the top of my shelf.  The letters spell the name of my blog, From The Bookshelf of T.B.  It was extremely thoughtful and sweet of her to make it for me.  I love seeing it everyday as a reminder on top of my bookshelves.

So that basically sums up what my shelves are all about!  Thank you so much Nina (and ARGH!) for this wonderful opportunity!  It was a lot of fun, and I hope you all enjoyed seeing my shelves.  I hope to have even more books filling them soon!

    

Eating ice cream the whole day!  I would love to try that some time!

Those are very nice book shelves you have there, Tessa!  They give this library feel which I'm sure most book lovers are crazy about!  Lucky you to be able to snag these shelves from Borders.  I'm sure a lot of the readers out there are now planning to scour their area for book stores about to close to get a couple of shelves (on one hand, I hate it when book stores close shop, but I love it when they sell their store equipment, especially the shelves and tables!).

And that name thing is awesome, your mother is very creative!  Same goes for those bookends. Your having a grandpa who would tell you to go make a blog about your books is amazing, I wish all grandparents are like that.  You have a really cool family, I can tell! :D

Thank you so much for sharing your bookshelves with us, Tessa!

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Think this is a great idea?  Want to have your shelves featured?  Then fill out this form and ARGH and I will email you for details on how to be a movie star - er, how to be featured on Shelf Saturday :D

Shelf Saturday Featuring Thinking Cat @ Cat's Thoughts

We all love our books, and we want them to have the best shelves ever. Also, this is a new way to sort of show off your book collection, along with your funky shelves.

ARGH thought fitting himself in the bookshelf will help him sleep.

For this new edition of Shelf Saturday, let me feature the book case of this blogger friend of mine, Thinking Cat @Cat's Thoughts:

I have been a reader all my life - my mother swears that she read to me before I was even born, and honestly, I believe it.  I have boxes and boxes of books that I've just never been able to let go of, and sadly I don't have infinite display space in my house to have them all out, so my shelves only hold my recent/grown up books.

When my husband and I first started living together, it was in a really small one bedroom apartment, and there was no space for bookshelves - we had a lot of stuff between the two of us!  When we moved into our house, I'm not kidding, the only furniture we needed to buy was bookshelves!

My favorite thing about my shelves is that they can be customized however I want them!  They're from IKEA and the style has been around forever, and they have a ton of fun add-ons so you can do whatever you want! 

On the shelf in the middle, I have a door for example, which is an awesome place to hide my clutter. 

Oh, and as you can see, there's a very complicated organization system (ie - chaotic) in place - but that pile on the floor in the front is my "read soonest" pile - either because they're borrowed from the library or friends, or they're recent purchases that I don't want to get lost in the shuffle until I finish reading them.  

All in all, my shelves are my little corner of organized chaos - I can find anything I want within seconds, but most people look at it and just go "HUH???"

Thanks for including me!

I totally get what you're talking about when you said that your shelves are your little corner of organized chaos, Cat!  It's that way with mine too - and it's a small shelf at that, other people would get confused in finding a particular book, but I can get it even with my eyes closed.  

Again, my jaw dropped when I saw the number of books in your collection, I can see some very familiar titles, and can also spot some that I have been coveting since day one.  Oh drool, drool!

And I wonder what magic - or mayhem lie behind that mysterious shelf door.  I thought of hundreds of possible stories for that door of yours, it's total writing gold!

Thank you so much for sharing your shelves, Cat!

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Think this is a great idea?  Want to have your shelves featured?  Then fill out this form and ARGH and I will email you for details on how to be a movie star - er, how to be featured on Shelf Saturday :D

Armchair BEA Day 1: This is How I Blog

Hello there!  You're here for the Armchair BEA?  Well, me too!  So come on, lean back on your seats and let's talk!

I'm Nina, I'm 25 years old, and the reason I could not go to this year's BEA is because I'm all the way from the Philippines *doing my best Rachel Berry voice* "where it's sunny all day!"  So no matter how much I really want to, I just can't drop everything and hop on the next plane to New York.  I'm a nurse, by the way, and as much as I love my job, I get a kick out of reading books more.

Helping me stir things up on my blog is this cute monster ARGH, a real book-loving creature I just picked up one day on the side of the road.  He provides most of the fun, and says most of the crazy things I myself could not bring myself to speak of. 

You are aware that he's just a figment of my imagination, right?  So you won't be bothering me with questions whether he has his own email, or who is the real person behind this green abomination.

As you can imagine, I like to draw.  When I was not yet blogging about books, I used to spend all my time reading and drawing pictures.  This really helped me in making some really unique posts on my blog now because it makes things more interesting.  I'm a very visual person and nothing attracts me more than a good picture.

This is a picture I did for my first About a Book in Four Pictures post.

 These are some pictures I drew when I was not yet book blogging:

My silly bears

As for my favorite books, I really do not have a particular genre I love, as long as the story gets to me, I read it, no matter if it's YA or historical, or a classic.  Sometimes, even dystopians, sci-fi, and paranormal fiction make my day and they're not even my most favorite genres out there.  I do not like series much, but there are also times that I suddenly fall in love with a whole series.  I would love to enumerate my favorite books, but that would take all day; besides, it feels like I'm picking a favorite among my children, and I don't want to be that kind of parent.  So instead of telling you about my favorite books, let me just give you a 10-Good-Things-on-a-Monday-like list and tell you about ten books that I am looking forward on reading:

1. The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan
2. Entwined by Heather Dixon
3. Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
4. The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon
5. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
6. Walking on Broken Glass by Christa Allan
7. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
8. Other Words for Love by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal
9. The John Cleaver Series by Dan Wells (I know that's three books but they're all part of a series, and I consider that to be just one long book chopped into three :D)
10. Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

Too bad, I can't just go into a bookstore and get all of them.

So, that's it for me, now it's your turn to tell me all about yourselves as we spend time together in Armchair BEA :D

What Changed Since I Started Book Blogging

Next week, April 20, this blog will be turning five months old.  I can't believe that I just wanted to do a blog for my book rants, and then came ARGH, and then the awesome followers, and now Brush Up On Your Reading has already been running for five months!

He does that every time.

Lately I have been noticing things in how I read books.  There were times when I would catch myself thinking to myself, "The voice of the narration sounds really inconsistent," or "Why is this book reading too slow?"  I also found myself itching to get to the computer as soon as I finish a book and start writing a review.  When I can't do that immediately, I feel so guilty, like I'm failing the book - especially if it was good.

So what changed for me since I started blogging about books?

The Good

Patience.  Before I started writing reviews and just reading for fun, I was ruthless when it came to slow-reading books.  If a book was unable to interest me in the first few chapters, I oftentimes would just stop reading it altogether.  When I decided to blog about books, I felt that I owe it to the book and the author to give it a chance and try to read it until the end so that when I review it, I am sure about what I am talking about as I already read the whole story.

The Eye.  I used to just go read without appreciating the small details:  Voice, characterization, writing style, etc.  A few months into my blogging, I noticed that I was noticing these elements while I am reading and in a way, it felt nice because I was allowing myself to have more reasons to appreciate (or hate) a book.

Confidence.  I am not much for speaking my mind about particular issues, like bad books, even the fact that I love books.  I used to only share my love for books with my mother and a few close friends that not even my co-workers know I love to read!  That has changed though, as I now am able to freely speak my mind about books I've read because I've finally found an outlet that isn't too judgmental, unlike when you talk about books to another person face-to-face.  But I am already beginning to open myself to that now, too.  I finally had the nerve to actively push people into reading because I have a better grasp of what that particular book is all about and how I could interest a specific person to read that story.

The Bad

"Are you saying I'm part of The Bad?"

The Eye, Part II.  With the acquisition of that ability to note the small details that make a story interesting, that same ability sometimes destroys my capacity to go ahead and just read something for fun.  It's like I am beginning to read like a reviewer, and not as a reader.  I consider myself first and foremost a reader and master MS Paint ARGH illustrator, and book reviewer second.  I would still like to have a lot of fun reading books and not just for the sake of having something to write a review on.  Which is why I sometimes write reviews in a different format - to remind myself that there is more to reading than just writing an in-depth review.  And also why I created ARGH.

The I'm-Not-Sure-If-This-Is-Good-Or-Bad

Hoarder.  Ever since I started blogging, I have found really interesting books and I began to keep a wish list.  What used to be a habit of passing time in a bookstore turned into spending money in a bookstore.  In just a few months, my very modest book collection tripled in number and I had to move some of my college textbooks into another storage just to make room for new books in my book shelf.  I have already began looking for a new book case in the event that my current shelf is not enough to hold my collection.  My books are beginning to rival that of my Mom's!

I know, but where do I put them?

Brother Reader.  My brother got into reading because of the books I own, especially those YA fiction titles.  Sometimes, I would find myself looking for a particular book I haven't read yet and would learn that he has been reading it - EVEN BEFORE I HAVE OPENED IT.  I'm not a really selfish sister and I love it that my brother and I have a new interest that we share but sometimes, it's a bit annoying to have him read a book first before I can even get to it.  But oh well, at least he would never ever laugh at my hobby and we even have more inside jokes because of the books we've shared.  He is even asking me for help  for a blog he is thinking of creating.  I'll be sure to share it with you when it's finally done!

We're as close as them, but they're way cuter.  Especially the little brother.  Mine is even bigger than me.

And that's what changed for me.  How about you?  Has anything changed for you since you began to blog?

What's Up On This Blog

I'm alive and I'm back!  Sorry about not being able to post since Wednesday.  I know that even though I posted an awesome book review of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, that does not excuse me for being gone for four days.  I got sick (again), and too tired at work (again) that when I get home, I can only manage cooking dinner, eating, trying to read some before going to sleep, but failing miserably because the moment I lie/sit still with book in hand, my eyes just close and I'm in another world.

But.

I'm not promising that the following weeks would be so much better and I'll always be on the loop - although I'd try - but there are a lot of stuff in store for the coming days that I really think you would like, for example:

1. Book review for Bella by Steve Piacente - yes, that book that I won.
2. Something about Audrey Hepburn - if you haven't already noticed, I'm reading one of the books written about her.
3. A really fun surprise - is it an interview?  A new post?  A new monster?  Gotta stay tuned to find out!

So there.  I would just like to tell everyone that I'm still here, really sorry that I haven't been posting as much lately, but I will try to keep up and give you better stuff to read/laugh at here on Brush Up On Your Reading.  

Later folks!