April 8, 2013

The Monday Mix (01)


While I did enjoy doing A Sunday Retrospective, I've made the decision to stop posting on the weekends. I rarely open up my laptop during that time, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. The only thing that made me really sad was the fact that I would no longer have an outlet to share my favorite links from the past week. I mourned that for all of ten seconds before realizing that I could just start a new feature - and so, The Monday Mix was born.

The Monday Mix basically gives me the opportunity to share with all of you the links I loved online from last week, everything from reviews to articles about writing and perhaps other things too. I've always valued the opportunity to share the great things I've read or seen, and this is my way to share the love.

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1. The girls over at Cuddlebuggery have started an incredible new project: Little Blogger, Big Ambitions. This is going to be a wonderful opportunity for newer bloggers, and I think they're amazing for coming up with it!

2. Matilda was one of the books that I read over and over again growing up. There was an article on The Slate celebrating Matilda at 25. If you're a fellow fan, you should definitely check it out!

3. Steph (of Steph Su Reads) is incredibly eloquent as she talks about the recent disputes and acquisitions in the blogging world. While I certainly try to keep abreast of everything going on, it's so much easier to understand when she shares her thoughts.

4. Anna (of Anna Reads) got to meet Jennifer E. Smith last week - and she's giving you the chance to win two signed galleys of Jennifer's books! Jennifer's writing is amazing guys, so you don't want to miss out on a chance to win these!

5. How do you behave in bookstores? Gaby (of Ella Bee Reads) shares what a typical trip to the bookstore would be like for her (and these things are pretty much true for me too).

6. Jamie (of The Perpetual Page-Turner) has a great Before & After Blogging series on her blog. The most recent topic of discussion? She asks us to think about how many books we read per year (and I left her an extremely long comment with my thoughts).

7. Elena (of Novel Sounds) shared this article from Paste showing us photos of this awesome fire-breathing dragon bridge in Vietnam. How cool is this? I totally want to see it in person.

8. Personally, I only need Reason #1 to watch The Originals when it starts airing. But if you're so inclined, you might want to check out this post from Pitch Dark giving us 10 reasons.

9. I loved Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (my review!), so this epic trailer for its sequel Siege and Storm has me totally excited for the next book to be in my hands. I get to see Leigh on tour in June, but the wait feels like forever. I need more Mal. And more of the Darkling too.

10. Sam (of Realm of Fiction) basically convinced me with her review that I need to find a copy of A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge to read ASAP. It sounds so wonderful and creative, and it definitely sounds like a book I'd enjoy.

11. Susan Dennard (author of Something Strange & Deadly) shared this link featuring writing advice from authors... written on their hands. There's some pretty sound advice on there you guys, and also, a few ideas that made me smile.

12. I wrote a post last week about how my bookshelves in my apartment were organized, but that post was inspired by this amazing Shades of YA post from the team over at Epic Reads. Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight?

13. Magan (1/2 of Rather be Reading) wrote a review for Golden by Jessi Kirby. I urge you to listen to her when she recommends it, because I too can recommend it wholeheartedly. It's an amazing book, and my favorite Kirby novel now.

14. Over on Story Crush, there's a list of scenes from YA novels that make readers swoon and sigh. I definitely agreed with the ones picked from books I've read. As for the others, they made me even more curious to pick up some of these titles and read them for myself!

15. The team behind BEA 2013 shared a sneak peek of some of the authors doing autograph sessions, and it's a fantastic line-up. I'm already plotting about who I want need to see.

16. I love a beautiful library, and this article from CNN shares about seven amazing ones from all over the world. Thanks for the link Steph!

17. Jessica Spotswood (author of Born Wicked) shares about two types of writer's block. I think her thoughts will be helpful to people experiencing the two forms of it that she shares about.

18. Lauren (of Lose Time Reading) shared a bit about how she organizes her reviews for Bloggiesta. I took inspiration from her and jotted all of mine down one day when things were slow at work. I have to add a few new titles in, but I love it - and I love that I can access the file from almost all my devices!

19. The trailer for Taken by Erin Bowman has me even more excited to finally read this book! It really does sound like a strong debut, and it's coming out in a little under two weeks.

20. Go and watch Diana Peterfreund's interview with RT Book Reviews. Apart from the fact that I think she's awesome, her book For Darkness Shows the Stars is amazing (my review!).

21. Rachel (of Hello, Chelly) shared a link to this Apartment Therapy post about adult friendships. It's an interesting read, and it truly made me think a lot about them.

22. I'm loving this new feature that Magan and Estelle (of Rather Be Reading) have come up with where they share nail polish + book covers. How cool is that? It also makes me think of my friend Mandee (of Vegan YA Nerds) and her blog The Bookish Manicurist, which is filled with so much win.

23. Two of my favorite authors - Susan Dennard and Sarah J. Maas (author of Throne of Glass) - discuss how they maintain passion for a story they're writing on the awesome Pub(lishing) Crawl blog.

24. Shoes and books? I'm totally cool with that pairing. The team at Epic Reads did a phenomenal job putting this post together - and making me lust for all these shoes!

25. Rachel started up a new feature on her blog called BookBags, where she shares bags that match the covers of some of her favorite YA books. I'm loving this post (though it makes me want to shop for all the bags).

I hope you enjoy reading these posts as much as I did! Now it's YOUR turn - are there any posts (on your blog or other blogs) from last week that I missed out on? Please feel free to share links in the comments and I'll try to check them out.

8 Comments:

  1. It's so awesome that you do this. I appreciate you talking about all the things that go on - I feel like I miss so much and don't even know it.

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  2. I agree with Hannah! i loved this post! I also feel like I missed out on a lot of stuff this week and I just got caught up in ten minutes! Thanks!

    Tt @Never Ending Stories

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  3. Way to go you, doing these round up posts!! I love them but I'm too lazy to do them haha. I feel like it takes a lot of work! Thanks for the links!

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  4. I love this new feature! You're always sharing links on Twitter that I wish I had more time to check out (if only work was less busy) so I love that I can find them all here. And, thanks for mentioning BookBags :)

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  5. Wowza you're so awesome! I can't keep up with all the blogging happenings so this is great !I'm off to Steph Su Reads >.<

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  6. Wow, so many links. I don't do tons of blogging on the weekend either. Well, actually, I do still blog, but it is less than during the week, usually.

    Anyway, I've seen that article about Matilda! It's a favorite book of mine, and I am going to see the musical on Broadway in June. I'm so excited!

    Thanks for sharing all these links. :)

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  7. YAY! Thank you for the shoutout! :)

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  8. What a great list of posts! You definitely mentioned some of my favorites lately. I loved Gaby's book store post, I'm really enjoying Jamie's Before and After series, and I LOVED the Siege and Storm trailer. (So so excited!)

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