On the Bookshelf

Yesterday I meet a new friend. My new fish is a male Betta Splenden - often called fighting fish as the males are really aggressive toward each other and will fight to the death. He is a lovely red colour (the above photo really doesn't do his colour justice) with silver flecks.

Now the tricky part has been picking his name! Kvothe is a currently in the lead. Kvothe is the awesome fiery red-headed main character from Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind. King Weasley (he never lets the quaffle in) was also up for red-haired consideration. Perhaps Wranger? ("Coz he's a wranger, Sir!")

Other suggested names include Kraken (because he is a ferocious fighting fish!), Sheldon (as in from The Big Bang Theory), and Stephen Fry (all hail the Tweet).

What names would you suggested for my delightful new fishy friend? Fish naming is serious business!

I also came across this adorable photo taken by my brother of Jasper hiding in the garden. He used to love to dig up cool spots to lie in to get away from the heat. I still love and miss him dearly but it's easier to look back now and smile instead of cry.

Any tips on caring for my new fighting fish are of course welcome. I would rather if my fish-care learning curb didn't kill the little guy. D=

Terra

Okay, I'm pulling myself out of my emotional funk brought on by the events of the past few days and getting the ball rolling again. To do so I am going to be passing on the massive backlog of blog awards that I am yet to post about. Some of these date as far back as last September! Eeeek! Sorry guys!

Starting tomorrow there will be an award "ceremony" here everyday until each and every last award is acknowledged and passed along. Tomorrow there will also finally be a review as I know that my review of The Painted Man is now way past due. Tomorrow I will get reading again.

Above all, I am going to make tomorrow a good day.

Terra

Happy new year, everyone! Or, if you are in a part of the world that is not yet in the future, I hope that you are enjoying wrapping up 2009.

I am now back from my hiatus with some great reviews lined up thanks to all of the reading that I got done. Over the next few days keep an eye out for my reviews of books like Generation Dead by Daniel Waters and The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks. I'll also be getting up my review of the movie Avatar. I am now finally making my way through Dreaming Again edited by Jack Dann and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.


This year I will also be reading Graceling by Kristin Cashore and finally continuing on with Isabelle Carmody's Obernewtyn series. I hope to revisit the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and, in light of the upcoming movie, reread The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden, one of my all time favourite authors. Time allowing I also intend to once again read the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. I also look forward to giving Stephen King another try with his latest release Under the Dome. I am also thinking that it is high time that I give James Patterson a go with his new book Witch & Wizard, written with Gabrielle Charbonnet, catching my attention.




I am also very much looking forward to the final volume of the Return to Labyrinth manga being released. Squee!


Here's to a new year filled with many great new books!

Terra

Wow, what a year it has been! I cannot believe that it has come to an end already. 2009 saw me begin this blog at the end of July and it really has taken my love of books to a whole new level of appreciation. So here is my "year in review" post.

This year I discovered the Study series by Maria V. Snyder and fell in love.


I also read and loved Skin Hunger and now cannot wait to read the rest of the A Resurrection of Magic trilogy. What an amazing start for Kathleen Duey's first venture into YA fiction.


I also went outside of my comfort zone with Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden... and loved it!


Of course, not every new venture ended with praise. I honestly tried to get into faerie fiction only to be  disappointed with Tithe by Holly Black and struggling to finish Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr.


Regretfully, while I really love Australian youth author, John Marsden, I found that his take on Shakespear's Hamlet did not live up to my expectations.


I saw some fantastic movies this year, including District 9. I am so getting this one on DVD! The other day I also saw Avatar and, boy, what an amazing film it is! Look out for my review of it in the coming days! Also, even though I never got around to reviewing it, I really enjoyed the film adaption of Mao's Last Dancer. I must try the book sometime!


I also got to share my love of some of my favourite web comics, including The Dreamer by Lora Innes, The Zombie Hunters by Jenny Romanchuk, and Earthsong by Crystal Yates.


But the very best thing about this year was discovering all of the awesome blogs out there, the wonderful people that put them together, and my awesome followers! Writing this blog would not be the same without you guys so thanks for a great 2009!

See you in 2010!

Terra

Whatever you may happen to celebrate at this time of year, I hope that all of you are having a crazy, wonderful time. Yesterday I was finally able to complete my own gift shopping when the present that I had ordered for my brother finally came in. What a relief it is to finally have everything all bought and wrapped! Tonight I am going out for dinner with friends to exchange gifts. While I am not religious, on Christmas day I get to catch up and exchange gifts with family members that I pretty much only get to see on Christmas.

This blog is going on hiatus until the end of the year. I may slip in a post or two but no reviews. But fear not, part of the reason for this is so that I can spend the time that I might usually spend working on this blog blasting through my reading pile instead. I have some great books sitting on my bedside table right now which I am really looking forward to sharing reviews on come the start of the new year.

Have a safe and happy holiday season, everyone!

Terra

Yesterday I logged on and low and behold, I have fifty followers! Okay, so I know that some people might say that fifty is not a very high bench mark but it's my first really notable bench mark and it sure does give me a serious case of the warm fuzzies to know that fifty people have looked at my blog and have liked something about it enough to think that they would like to see what else I post in the future.

I also just want to say thank you to everyone for your thoughts, feedback, awards, and just for making my getting this blog started to be such a blast for me.

I would sometime in the near future like to hold my first contest to celebrate but I am not going to announce anything yet. I might wait and see how devastating the holiday season is on my wallet first and decide how exactly I should go about doing it. I do like the idea I have seen around of purchasing something from the Book Depository. Cutting out the middle man (me) means minimizing the amount of travel for the book and hence increasing the chance of a book arriving on someone's doorstep in shiny condition.

Terra

On the list of things I always said that I would never do was joining Twitter. So then today, of course, I completely randomly and complusively decide to join up. From there it turns into "who can I e-stalk now?" and I start typing in the names of favourite bands and writers. Oh, for shame.

Anyone interested can e-stalk me here and I may even e-stalk you right back. =P

Terra

I have a confession to make. As I mentioned, the other week I was pretty flat out. When things slowed down again I made the big mistake of sitting down and playing a video game to relax. A terribly mindless yet shockingly addictive game. Yes, it is true. Over the past week the reason I disappeared is because I have been playing The Sims 3. Don't ask me how or why, but there is something terribly addictive about controlling little pixel people as they go about their daily lives doing the things that you are supposed to be doing in real life instead. Yeah. Absolutely shameful.

In other news, the Zombie Bag o'Goodies that I won from the Zombie Challenge arrived this morning. A massive thank you to Velvet for the prize and for running such a great challenge. How awesome is this?


Seeing as the t-shirt is a large and hence quite big on me, it has now been designated as my new favourite to wear to bed. =D

My review for Never Slow Dance with a Zombie will probably be up tomorrow. So far it's a great book. In the next couple of days I also hope to get up some other long overdue reviews as well.

Terra

See that text box over on the right? It wants your email address in it! Many thanks to HODGEPODGESPV for suggesting that I include an email subscription service.

If anyone else has any ideas or tips, I more than welcome your suggestions. You can leave a response to one of my posts, or there is a comment box down on the right, or feel free to email me at terraontheshelf@gmail.com. (Please note that, unlike my blog title, the word "book" is not in the email address.)

Subscribe! You know you want to. ;-)

Terra

No, I am not abandoning this blog so soon. I am merely experiencing some very annoying internet problems at the moment. Normal blogging will resume as soon as things are fixed which will hopefully be very soon. Expect my review of Wicked Lovely when I return!

Terra