SUNDAY SALON

It is a very WINDY and gloomy day here in Calgary, but that means that a chinook has rolled in and we are enjoying nice temps of about 6 degrees.  Hey, anything above zero is tops in my books!

I recieved the name of the person I am selecting a gift for for the book blogger holiday exchange!! I am SUPER excited!!  Over on my other blog I had participated in an adoptive mommy one and it went for about 10 months.  Every month we bought something for our secret friend and each month was a theme.  I cannot TELL you how much I loved buying for my friend!  It was so fun, and the gifts that we recieved were so heartfelt and lovely, it was just a great experience!  So I can't wait to buy for my person! 

I have nothing really bookish to report, other than I have a couple of reviews to do and an interview with Howard J Morris and Jenny Lee authors of "Women are Crazy Men are Stupid" coming up and they have generously agreed to offer up a SIGNED copy of their book and will ship ANYWHERE in the WORLD!  I can't say enough great things about these people, they are just fantastic!  So stay tuned, that will be this week.

I also will have another great giveaway when I post my review of Rachel Stolzman's "The Sign for Drowning", it is a SIGNED copy of the book!  And I will be shipping it myself so it will be open to the US and Canada only.  The book is beautifully written and very heartfelt, so I just know some lucky winner will be happy to get it! 

I am also in the midst of starting a Blog Talk Radio show and I will have the links and podcast available once I get that up and running.  I am SUPER excited for this, and am very impressed with some book bloggers out there that are already putting out some great programming! 

The last book I'll mention that I'll be reviewing is Echo in the Bone.  Sigh.  I read it a little while ago and it has taken me this long to kind of absorb the experience.  Without saying too much here, it defintately was not may favourite of the bunch, that is for sure. 

Book that are on my wishlist for Christmas (eh HEM HUSBAND)  are:

• The Heretic Queen By Kathleen Kent
• The Pioneer Woman Cooks  By Ree Drummond
• Pope Joan by Diana Wookfolk Cross 
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore
• The Man Who Loved Books Too Much  By Bartlett Hoover
• The Last Dickens  by Matthew Pearl
• Wife of the Gods   by Kwei Quartey
• The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara
• The Lucana by Barbara Kingsolver

It is a big list, I know, but it gives him lots to choose from !

For more Sunday Salons click here.

Have a wonderful day!

THE WINNER OF SIGNED COPY OF OUTLANDER IS...............

                                 Mozi Esmé!!!!

Thank you to all who entered this contest!!!!! 

Mozi Esmé please email me with your mailing address or comment on this post with your details and I will not publish.  I will also email you and leave comment on your blog!  Please contact me with your details by Tuesday November 17th, otherwise I will have to re-draw for a new winner.

Have a WONDERFUL day everyone! 

REVIEW: WOMEN ARE CRAZY, MEN ARE STUPID

Women are Crazy, Men are Stupid
by Howard J Morris and Jenny Lee

A HUGE THANK YOU to Michelle at Simon and Schuster Canada for sending me this book! 

First of all I'll admit when I opened the envelope and saw this book I thought, "Wha?"  I was totally turned off majorly by the cover. (sorry Michelle!)  As we aaalll know I am a big cover snob and if a book has a "meh" cover I find it very difficult to get past it.  SO, I put it down for a few weeks.  I even lifted it up to show my husband and kids and said, "I mean, really, could you EVER imagine in a MILLION YEARS I would buy a book like THIS?"  And my husband says, "Who knows, Hon, maybe it'll be really really funny?"  To which I scoffed. 

SCOFFED I say!

BOY WAS I WRONG!   This book is HYSTERICAL!  I mean REALLY REALLY FUNNY.  I am going to go waaayyy out on a limb here and say that this book is the FUNNIEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ IN MY LIFE  E-V-E-R.  It turns out that the authors are writers for (among other things) comedy TV, and Jenny (the crazy one) was a writer for one of the only shows (other than reality) that I watch, "Samantha Who?".  And Howard used to write for the extremely clever and funny, (and one of my husbands favourite shows which he ACTUALLY has every single episode on VHS -- true story)   but long put in its grave, "Dream On."

Here is a little excerpt from near the beginning:  (page 15 and 16)

                                                      THE MYSTERY SOLVED

The history of men acting stupid is a long and varied one that always ends up with some idiot starting another war.  But modern male stupidity as it applies specifically to women is far more interesting and relevant to our purposes.  It actually has its roots in the playgrounds of our youth.  It was there that we first became aware of girls.  It was also there that we first realized that we liked these strange creatures.  They made us feel funny.  But good funny.  A kind of warm and gushy funny.  Of course in those early years it wasn't acceptable to talk about these new feelings with our peers for fear we'd get rightly harangued about the dangers of cooties.  But still, we wanted this five-year-old ponytailed goddess to know that we had a thing for her.  So what did we do?

We hit her.

Or pushed her into the mud and laughed at her.  (I'm so sorry Susan Freyberg.)

.....She starts crying and we're completely unprepared for that.  And she keeps crying until some adult explains to her that we hit her because we like her.

And here her craziness begins.

And there it is.  The fertile soil in which the crazy seed is planted, and thus sprung the stupid tree.  The book gets even better once Howard meets Jenny and his stupid catapolts into a whole other stratosphere of idiotic.  Maybe it's because I have a pretty funny, albiet annoyingly so, husband, who revels in said stupidity, that I found this book so hilarious.  Some of you may or may not know that to me "Everybody Loves Raymond" is not just a TV show, it is MY LIFE.  Even Regan, my hubby, will admit that like Ray he may or may not at times wear his stupid like a shield against my crazy attacks.  The story then takes us through mainly Howards life inside the stupid mobile, and then Jenny's crazy is allowed to breathe (as they put it so brilliantly) and you get the full fledged stupid/crazy/chicken/egg scenario.

There are many MANY times that I thought, "TOTALLY!  Who WOULDN'T go crazy if your so-called shoulder-to-cry on did something as idiotic as that!"  and other times when I thought, "Oh man, poor Howard, he never even had a chance."  And then immediately my mind shifts to, "Wow.  I actually DID something like that to Reg.  Yikes!"  They even manage to weave a beautiful love story throughout the crazy and stupid landscape, and  I'll admit getting a little teary eyed at the end! 

This book is for anyone who is in a relationship, had a relationship, is thinking about a relationship or a therapist trying to save relationships.  It is a fast fun read that will probably have you, if not laughing outloud like me, at the very least smiling out loud. 

4.5/5

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada and instead of posting a bookish thing, I thought I would link to this GEORGOUS song by Terry Kelly called "A Pittance of Time."     Lest we forget, indeed.  \

TEASER TUESDAYS

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme (and my favourite!) hosted by MizB at Should be Reading!

It's easy and everyone can play!

• Grab your current read
• Flip to a random page and select 2 sentences
• try not to include spoilers!
• And please include the name of book and author so we can add it to our tbr pile!

My teaser is from:  Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

'"Okay, beastie," she called up.  "I may have got you into this mess, but I'm gonna get you out too.  And I'm telling you:  Now's not the time to panic!"

    The creature made no promises, but Deryn pulled the ballast cords anyway."

You can read  more teasers here.

I would also take a moment and welcome someone who is brand new to the book blogging world!  She is a very talented photographer, and I am so excited that she has decided to start her own book blog! 

WELCOME, VENESSA!!    Check out her blog here.

SUNDAY SALON

This past couple of weeks has been huge for me on the reading front.  I just became more focused in reading the growing pile of books that have been sent to me.  Now I feel great because I actually made a reasonable sized dent in the pile.. for once!

Currently I am reading The Sign for Drowning by Rachel Stolzman.  It is a beautifully written book, and it has renewed my interest in learning sign language I have had since I was about 10 years old.  I am also reading "The Traitor's Wife" by Susan Higginbotham, but it has had to be put on the back burner until I got some of my more pressing review copies under my belt.  I finished the book "Women are Crazy Men are Stupid" by Howard J. Morris and Jenny Lee, and to my total surprise it was HILARIOUS! 

I have also signed up for this:

Which I am SUPER DUPER excited about!  I cannot wait to see who I am buying for!!!!  Just click on the pic above to enter and find out more about it! 

I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I absolutely love the book blogger community.  LOVE.  I love the people, the camaradarie, the learning about books I would have never heard of, the whole thing.  Love ...it.  And this is just another example of the fabulous people who like to bring us all together!  

This week I'll be still finishing up the few books that are left from publishers and authors, but I am also going to do some reading strictly for me.  I plan on spending a good amount of quality time with "The Traitor's Wife" and am going to enjoy every single second!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

For more Sunday Salons click here.

AWARDS!

I would like to thank CAROL from Carol's Notebook for this beautiful award!  I have such huge admiration and respect for Carol and her blog as she has been doing this for a long time, and is a very talented and generous blogger.  So, having this award from her means a lot to me! 

I now have the honour of bestowing this award on to blogs that I have recently discovered, and here they are:

• Sheri at A Novel Menagerie
• Amberkatz Book Blog
• Paul at The Blood of the Muse (this blog is FANTASTIC, but he has not posted since Sept, hopefully we'll hear from him soon?)
• Cecelia at Adventures of Ceclia Bedelia
• Michele over at A Reader's Respite

These blogs are new to me, but are not new to blogging. They are all unique and entertaining as heck!  Check them out! 

The next award is from my friend Natalie over at The Book Inn ~ THANK YOU, NATALIE!!! 

I think that along with the award I have to tell you what 7 of my favourite things are, so here goes:

• my beautiful little family
• my extended family and friends
• books (duh)
• my job (when I get to do it)
• the book blogging world
• cake of any kind
• my hubby's sense of humour.

I now award the following blogs:

• My dear dear longtime friend Michele, who it turns out is a FABULOUS writer, over at Finding Trinity.
• Pages Turned
• Alyce over at At Home with Books
• Book Chick City