Reading on a Rainy Day

(This giveaway has ended. Thanks for entering!) For Armchair BEA giveaway day, I have one of three gently used books up for grabs. An ARC of   American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar Naked by David Sedaris Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver To enter, simply fill the form below. I'll be closing this giveaway on Sunday June 1, 8 am US Eastern time, and will announce the winner using the always-dependable services of random.org. To enter, You  don't  have to be a follower of my blog. You must be over 13 years of age. Only US and Canada (Sorry. Postal rates.) Enter by June 1 2014 , Sunday, 8.00 a.m. US Eastern time. Fill the form.

One of my favorite things to talk about is diversity in books. Diversity in characters, locations, themes, complexions, and authors. What is more beautiful than walking into a sandbox with plenty of differences to go around? That said, it is very hard to make sure there is some diversity in the books I read. Fancy this situation: At the end of a tiring day at work, I walk into my local library, happy to be in there, planning to only return a book. But the new books shelf catches my eye and so I head in there to see what books are enjoying some of the sunshine. 99% of the time, there are only mostly American and some British books in there. Even if I do see an odd Nigerian or Chinese title in there, how likely I am to pick one of those as opposed to a shiny American title that everyone has been raving about? Not very. Last year, I decided to read serendipitously. I picked books at random from the library, sometimes after hearing a blogger talk about it, and sometimes just...

I've been book-blogging for four and a half years by now, and if I had to look at the big picture and say where it took me, I'd say nowhere. I don't write for any publications. I haven't written a book. Heck, I haven't even been to BEA. I haven't written fan-fiction. And I still blog at the same place I started, all those years ago. Yep, what a bummer. And I was saying that I'm going to write a book. Yeah, chuckles. I have come across tons of blogs that have made careers for their writers. Remember Julie and Julia ? Julie Powell started a blog on a whim and decided that she was going to cook all the recipes from one of Julia's books, and what do you know, but a year later she has become famous! Heck, she even has quite a few books to her name AND a movie. A movie, folks! Not something I can even dream of for now. Not that I have any interest in seeing myself on the TV screen, but hey, it's still an achievement. What about Erin...

As any long time reader of this blog will probably know, I am a big fan of books in the graphic medium. Not comic books, but literary fiction and memoirs in the graphic format. I don't know exactly how I came to love this medium. Which is the first graphic book I ever read? I don't know. When did I read my first graphic book? I don't know that either. Did I always love graphic books? Pretty sure, I did not. I do know that the first graphic book I remember reading is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. For the longest time, I had the misconception that graphic books = comic books, of the Superman and Batman variety. Not that I have anything against them, but they are not exactly my cup of tea. And then, I found the book Persepolis in my best friend's bookshelf. I have to say - that moment was certainly very momentous for me, because that was probably the day I started looking for graphic books actively. I devoured Persepolis in two sittings, and I wan...

Hello, Armchair BEA ! After armchairing at BEA for two years (the first two years since the inception of Armchair BEA ), I took a two-year break, because, Armchair BEA can get really hectic, and I spent the last two years taking it slow in the blogging world, without being on my computer or phone all day long. Obviously, I've been missing all those buzz-filled days that the BEA brings with it, because I'm back again doing this. From the year I started blogging, I've wanted to go to BEA one of these years, and I still haven't done it yet. Interestingly, I don't feel as eager to go to BEA as I did four years ago because of a change in reading tastes?  of a change in motivation for blogging/reading?  I am generally less keen on new releases as I am on the backlist? I don't see that many books at BEA that excite me as much as I wish there were? Or, most probably, I'm more likely to pick a book if people are talking about it already than just seeing ...

(This giveaway is closed. Thanks for stopping by!) I happened to receive two ARCs of Catherine Fisher's book one of the Relic Master series - The Dark City  and  ONE copy  is looking for a new home. So, as part of Armchair BEA , I have decided to give this copy away to one lucky reader. To enter, simply fill the form below. I'll be closing this giveaway on  Saturday Monday 11.59 p.m. US Eastern time, and will announce the winner using the always-dependable services of random.org. To enter, You  don't  have to be a follower of my blog. You must be over 13 years of age. International . Enter by  May 28, 2011 , Saturday, May 30, 2011 , Monday, 11.59 p.m. US Eastern time. Fill the form.

Welcome to the second  Armchair BEA ! Last year, I participated in this awesome event and am even more excited about it this year. This is where I primarily blog about the books I love - mainly  literary fiction titles - and occasionally, it's also the place where I share my bookish thoughts. The organizers of Armchair BEA want to know more about me and how I armchair! I can rattle on and on, on my blog (do I even know what a full-stop is?) about anything under the sun, but talking about myself. Gulp! Aren't we humans a really grand bunch of modest people? Why would we ever want to talk about ourselves? Guess what the toughest essay I ever wrote was? Yes, the About Me section of this blog. I wrote it at the beginning of last year and then quietly ignored that portion of the blog where it is nestled. Ignorance is truly bliss! This year, I tackled it once more. Let me tell you the number of coffee cups I had to devour just to get through it. Two... Three... F...

And what a fun week it was! Armchair BEA was a huge success to me! I can particularly attest to that by saying that I didn't do much work at all this week - at least for the first four days. By Friday, I was slightly panicky, and because of my desire to end the week with a feel-good sentiment, I managed to work seriously yesterday. With my Tweetdeck tuned to #BookBloggerCon . If you haven't checked out my posts yet, here are the links. BEA Discussion: Rise of the online book club member , in which I talk about how popular online book communities have become. BEA Discussion: The Blogger and the Microblogger , in which I suggest how bloggers can become avid microbloggers, aka twitterers. BEA Discussion: Books from far, far away , in which I ask how we can blog proactively and give more attention to the lesser-known books. BBC Panel: How to keep an active buzzing blog , in which I give a few strategies to keep your blog active and non-redundant. Thanks to the wonderf...

Welcome to the third day of Armchair BEA ! This four-day event is organized to coincide with the BookExpo America in NY that ended yesterday and the Book Blogger Convention , that is being held today Those of us unlucky enough not to be in the most happening place this week are instead a part of BEA from the cozy comforts of our home. (I know it's not much, but at least one can claim that feeling of participation!). Today, I'm doing a panel post on "Writing and Building Content". Why do we blog? More specifically, why do we blog about books? Not all readers blog, nor do they review books by habit. There must be something more than a desire to talk about books that makes us sit late nights sometimes, tired after a long day but still finding the energy and the enthusiasm to write up posts. Blogging needs passion. It is easy to blog for a month and then succumb to burnout. In addition to loving books, one needs to love to blog or to write. Of course, we do...

Welcome to the third day of Armchair BEA ! This four-day event is organized to coincide with the BookExpo America in NY that ends today. Tomorrow is the Book Blogger Convention . Those of us unlucky enough not to be in the most happening place this week are instead going to be a part of BEA from the cozy comforts of our home. (I know it's not much, but at least one can claim that feeling of participation!). Today, for my third post for the Armchair BEA, I'm going to step back a bit and look at us - bloggers - and the little-known books. How do you decide which books to read or add to your always growing TBR? If you're like me, you probably heed recommendations from bloggers, members in your favorite online communities or book clubs , and friends or family members. Have you ever looked to see if most of the books you read (barring review copies) are the "hyped up" books? And I don't been that in a bad way, but more in an objective way. Let me t...

Welcome to the second day of Armchair BEA ! This four-day event is organized to coincide with the BookExpo America that is in full swing in NY. Those of us unlucky enough not to be in the most happening place this week are instead going to be a part of BEA from the cozy comforts of our home. (I know it's not much, but at least one can claim that feeling of participation!). Today, for my second post for the Armchair BEA, I'm going to analyze one of the biggest phenomena we noticed yesterday. If you are like me, you must have stayed glued to your Twitter platform yesterday, following the #BEA10 and the #ArmchairBEA tweets. I was hoping to find out what was happening at BEA, while I wrote my thesis in parallel. What I didn't count on was that I would end up focusing almost entirely on the BEA tweets, while not getting even an iota of my work done! Did you know that Amazon is on its way to be a full-fledged publisher within 6 months? You knew? Did you know...

Welcome to the Armchair BEA ! Today's the first day of this four-day event, organized to coincide with the BookExpo America that is in full swing in NY. Those of us unlucky enough not to be in the most happening place this week are instead going to be a part of BEA from the cozy comforts of our home. (I know it's not much, but at least one can claim that feeling of participation!). Today, for my first post for the Armchair BEA, I'm going to talk, sing and glorify online reader communities. How many online reading communities are you currently a member of? One? Two? Five? Countless? Don't-know? Don't-track? Rather-not-track? For a long time, there have been book clubs. I mean the real physical book clubs, where usually, a bunch of avid readers sit in cozy couches or chairs (I like the couches better) around a table, and have an intellectual discussion about the many nuances of a book's plot. Lately, we have been having online book clubs and commu...