September Wrap-Up

September was a little bit slower, reading-wise, than I would have liked, but it was a fantastic month for the blog. Almost *twice* as many hits as I had in August… that’s crazy! I’m sure it was in large part due to Book Blogger Appreciation Week, in which I wasn’t as active as I wanted to be, but it was still a lot of fun… swelled my Google Reader to mammoth proportions, that’s for sure! So, to all my new readers, welcome, and to all my regular readers, thanks for sticking around!

Ye Grande Olde TBR(e) Challenge Update

I started September with 192 unread books sitting around my house. And I ended with … *drumroll* … 196! I’m edging perilously closer to the dreaded 200 mark, at which point one of my friends has threatened to make me purge my shelves and take 50 of them back to the library booksale. But, he doesn’t actually read my blog, so he’ll never know! MWAHAHAHA!

Let’s take a look at the breakdown:

Neutral books – Read, but don’t affect the TBR pile

Audiobooks
– Dreamsongs, Volume II by George R. R. Martin

Read but not owned
– My Bonny Light Horseman by L. A. Meyer
– The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
– Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham

Changes to the TBR pile

Cleared from my TBR pile (huzzah!)
– The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
– Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
– Throwing Shadows by E. L. Konigsburg
– Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner
– Once Upon a More Enlightened Time by James Finn Garner
– The Book of Night with Moon by Diane Duane
– Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi

Added to, then promptly cleared from my TBR pile (um… huzzah?)
– Immortal by Traci L. Slatton

Other removals from my TBR pile (meh?)
– Dirt, Undress, and Difference by Adeline Masquelier (abandoned)
– What the Body Remembers by Shauna Baldwin Singh (abandoned)
– The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (returned unread)

Added to my TBR pile (shame!)
– In the Eye of Heaven by David Keck (not pictured, as it’s on loan to a friend)
– The Dreaming Tree by C. J. Cherryh
– Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
– The Lost Diary of Don Juan by Douglas Carlton Abrams
– Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
– The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
– Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
– The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
– Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
– Fairest by Gail Carson Levine
– Austenland by Shannon Hale
– Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
– The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent
– The Children’s War by Monique Charlesworth

Commenters in September

Many thanks to everyone who participated in my Review? Haiku! contest – I was impressed at both the number and quality of the entries! Thanks also are due to people who stuck around and commented on my other posts:

– Jessica from The Bluestocking Society – Bart from Bart’s Bookshelf – Lenore from Presenting Lenore – bookchronicle from Adventures in Reading – Susan from Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books – Marie from Boston Bibliophile – Amanda from Life and Times of a New New Yorker – Jena from Muse Book Reviews – Trish from Trish’s Reading Nook – Charley from Bending Bookshelf – Shana from Literarily – tometraveller from The Tome Traveller’s Weblog – Alyce from At Home with Books – Alessandra from Out of the Blue – Ramya from Ramya’s Bookshelf – Ladytink_534 from The Movieholic and Bibliophile’s Blog – Rachel from Not Another Mom – Mari from Mari Reads – Rachel from Rachel Reads – Memory from Stella Matutina – Eva Etzioni-Halevy – Ruth from Bookish Ruth

– Literary Feline from Musings of a Bookish Kitty – Ann Darnton from Table Talk – Serena from Savvy Verse and Wit – Literate Housewife from The Literate Housewife Review – M from The True Confessions of a Book Lover Named M – dew from The Hidden Side of a Leaf – Carl V. from Stainless Steel Droppings – Debi from Nothing of Importance – Michelle from A Reader’s Respite – Linda F. from My Blog Song – Sandra from Fresh Ink Books – Joanne from Book Zombie – Natasha from Maw Books Blog – Corinne from The Book Nest – Jeane from Dog Ear Diary – Cheryl Kaye Tardif – Bethany from B & b Ex Libris – The Bookworm – Karen H. from Scobberlotch – Nymeth from Things Mean a Lot – Laura

GirlwiththeBraids, John, hope, Abdallah, amandasue, emmegail, Elizabeth M., blacklin, person from earth, me!

Search Terms

how do i write an e-mail to cornelia funke
Presumably with a computer. And, judging by the comments that I got on my review of Inkspell, with very poor grammar and spelling.

naked stephenie cay
Every time I get searches like this, I can’t help but giggle a little at how terribly disappointed these people must be to find themselves at a blog about books… and not even books about naked people.

“morbid sore throat”
This has recently replaced “running stag brooch” as the most frequent Outlander-related random search term. I am not a doctor, people! (not yet, anyways… but not that kind of doctor, either.)

brandon sanderson blog
You can find that at BrandonSanderson.com.

diana gabaldon – why did she name it drums of autumn
She explains in more detail in The Outlandish Companion, but I think her basic reasoning was that it sounded good, and that she liked the one word (Outlander), D-A (Dragonfly in Amber), one word (Voyager), D-A (Drums of Autumn) pattern it gave her books.

is breaking dawn appropriate for preteen
No. Really, really, really NO.

the name of the wind a second book?
The Name of the Wind is the first book in the series The Kingkiller Chronicles, the second one is called The Wise Man’s Fear, and will be released on 7 April 2009.

7th jacky mary faber book
According to JackyFaber.com, the seventh Bloody Jack book will be titled “Rapture of the Deep: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of
Jacky Faber, Soldier, Sailor, Mermaid, Spy”, and the first draft was being edited as of April 2008.

i didn’t read the book for school and i
I don’t know which book they were looking for, but is it any wonder the educational system’s in the state it’s in?

what is the seven instructions to leave
…Las Vegas? ….your lover? …on a jet plane? Help me out here!

postman with bad knee
No, graduate student with two bad knees. (Seriously, postman?)

email me a book of wizardry
Give me your e-mail address and I’ll see what I can do.