Shelf Tour: September 2013

Sooooo, now that my bookshelves are full (which means that I now have to go out and buy more or get my dad to help me build some...) I thought that I should do a shelf tour!  Partly because I really want to show off my pretty books :)  Just so you know, my pictures were taken with my phone, and by me (because my photography savvy sister was not around) which means that they are blurry, so please don't comment "hey, your pictures are blurry" because I know they are.

So, this is my above shelf shelf.  It's mostly composed of nice books and old books that my grandparents passed down to me.  And of course the few dvds I own.

Next up, is shelf two.  This consists mostly of classics.

This is half of a shelf.  For some reason, this shelf in particular has these weird wooden dividers which are a pain and take up much needed book space!  Anyway, as you can see, this is classics spilling over into mystery.

And after the mystery ends...all organization is lost for the rest of this book case :p  because I'm lazy.  And yes, that is a boy scout handbook.  It lying around my grandpa's house and I was bored so I picked it up, and then he saw me with it and offered it to me, and I can't refuse books of any kind so I ended up adopting it.  Also, the white book next to Dragon Spear IS in fact William Shakespeare's Star Wars.  Go buy it.  Now.

This half of shelf number four (if you include the top portion of this bookcase as a shelf) includes my guilty pleasure series (mother daughter bookclub, yes it's for 9 year old girls, but gosh it's good!) a splattering of genre right in the middle, and then some Roald Dahl at the end of this half.

Some more little kid girly books by E.D. Baker this time, some stuff I wrote, and other stuff for the last half of shelf 4.

If you're wondering why I have SO MUCH younger age fiction, it's because I have kept ALL of my books.  I'm not a book hoarder though, I'm just a librarian...

We now reach the end of Bookcase number 1.  Onto the next!

This bookcase is taller than my other one, but it's much thinner.  There are no two pictures to a shelf for this case :)  This time, I'm starting from the bottom up.  Harry Potter, and Elizabeth Wein's World War II historical fiction on this shelf.

I stuck all my paranormal romance on one shelf, because this is really all I have.  Twilight is only here because I bought it at goodwill for 12 bucks for the hardcover boxed set of first editions.  I only bought them because my library didn't have them and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  I do not like them, but I'm holding onto them because since they are first edition hardcovers, they might just be worth something someday!  Kelley Armstrong's Darkest Powers series is at the right of this shelf.  Sadly, since the two I own were used copies on amazon, only one came with a dust jacket :(  It's a pity, because I actually LIKE this series...

This shelf is disorganized, but includes some of my favorite books :)  Rainbow Rowell is the best guys!

This bookcase only has Teen lit, except for the Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch, which I think really should be for teens since it's complex and amazing!  I love this series... 

This shelf contains great books :)  Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Series is my favorite of this shelf, closely followed by the Divergent trilogy, then Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, then The Hunger Games :)

Curse this heating vent!  It prevents me from utilizing the top of this bookcase as well.  I'm paranoid about my books getting burned :( 

So, there you have it.  My bookshelves are maxed out.   So of course, guess what I did this morning....Amazon!!!  I ordered three new books!  Next Tuesday (or sometime around next Tuesday!)  I'll reveal the books I purchased, until then, you can let the suspense get to you :)

Also, I've begun plotting my nanowrimo novel!  I'm not sure if the one I plotted part of today is THE ONE but I really like this one so far.  I refuse to divulge the plot so far, but I'll tell you three things about this book:

1. The main character is named Tabitha Claire Lockwood.  She has raven black hair and pale skin with freckles sprayed across her nose.  She has brown eyes and is 5'8"

2: Her grandparents own a bookstore/cafe called Lockwood's Tea and Tomes.  Pretty great, huh?

3. There are no sparkly vampires in it.

Anyway, here's another picture because I like this picture...

SSSSSEEEEEEEE!!!!!!  This is why I just bought three more books...
Bye guys :)

Book Shopping!!!

Hi Everyone!
Today I'm in a really good mood, because I got to go to Barnes and Noble for three hours :D  I bought two books while I was there, because I have no restraint and I can't go to Barnes and Noble and walk out without anything.  That store is dangerous for me, the way the mall is dangerous to some of my friends...

Anyway, the first book I bought is called Every Day, by David Levithan.  This book sounds really awesome, and I can't wait to read it!  It's about a boy who wakes up in a different body every day.  One day, he wakes up in the body of this girl's boyfriend.  He spends the day with her, and ends up falling in love with her.  He then tries to find her every day after that.  It sounds like a really cool, sweet book :)

Isn't the cover cool????

The next book I bought was totally on impulse, without having heard anything about it previously.  It's called Secret Letters, by Leah Scheier.  It's about a girl named Dora Joyce who is supposedly the biological daughter of Sherlock Holmes.  When a scandal threatens to arise within her family, Dora grabs the opportunity to travel to England and request the help of Sherlock Holmes.  To her dismay however, he is dead.  From what I can glean from the back cover, she ends up solving the mystery (which ends up being much more than just a scandal) along with a male detective (please oh please don't let this be insta-love).  I really hope that this is good, because I really really love Sherlock Holmes, and classic lit fanfiction novels are some of my favorites when they are done right!

Regardless of how the book ends up turning out, I will always be totally in love with this gorgeous cover!

I also got this cool little booklet thing (for free, can't beat the price!) called The Path to Allegiant.  It includes a bunch of Allegiant quotes, and being the Divergent Fangirl that I am, this made me VERY happy :D  Now my only problem is that I can't decide whether to tear out the quotes and hang them on my wall, or to keep it because it might be worth something in ten years...

Thanks for looking at my random writings!
Charlotte :)

Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Hi Guys!
Today I'm going to write a book review of Rainbow Rowell's newest book: Fangirl.

Fangirl is about a girl named Cath (short for Cather) who is, you guessed it, a fangirl.  She and her twin sister Wren (get it, Cather, Wren, Catherine?)  threw themselves into the fandom of Simon Snow (basically Harry Potter) when their mom left them.  The book details how Cath gets through her first year of college.  She's an English major, but mostly just loves writing Simon Snow fanfiction.  For the first time ever, her sister doesn't want to share a room with her, and doesn't really want anything to do with her.  Cath has to go through this first year of college alone.  Except, she isn't really alone.  She has her huge following of avid fanfiction readers (because she's a super popular fanfiction author) and she soon makes friends with her roommate, Reagan, and her roommate's boyfriend Levi.  She also meets a boy named Nick in her creative writing class who she hangs out at the library with.

Sounds pretty great, huh?  I sure thought so when I saw this book on Goodreads...For the record, this is the first book I ever bought in the bookstore on the day it came out.  Usually I just preorder on Amazon.  This book was amazing.  I gave it five stars on my goodreads account.  Rainbow Rowell does a really good job detailing what it's like to start college for the first year, and she does a really good portrayal of a character with an anxiety/panic disorder (something you don't see a lot in modern teen literature).  Guys, if you haven't read this book, go read it.  Now.  Go on, don't hesitate, 'cause you're missing out big time.

AND ON TOP OF IT ALL, THIS BOOK HAS THE MOST ADORABLY CUTE COVER EVER!!!!  I'd say it's even cuter than Eleanor and Park (which was REALLY cute, and subsequently done by the same artist).

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Also, on another note, if you have a book you want me to read/review/whatever, just comment suggestions below and I might do it.  I just absolutely refuse to read anything by Nicholas Sparks, or any harlequin romance type novels, or anything super violent or sexual.  So...if your recommendation meets my requirements, I'll look into it :)
See ya,
Charlotte :)

Vegan Junk Food, and other stuff...

So, this is going to be a short post today.  Because I'm super lazy and I don't feel like doing anything special right now because I'm tired...

So...I made an amazing discovery and took a great step today!  You guys probably didn't know that I'm both Lactose Intolerant, and Vegan (when It comes to food anyway...I still knit with wool).  So usually that means that if I want really good junk food, I've got to make it myself.   Which takes time and effort.  And if you haven't figured it out yet, I am REALLY lazy.  This is mostly because my schedule is totally insane this year.  So today, I was at the hardware store with my mom.  We were checking out, and I saw these pop tarts.  Now, I have never had pop tarts before.  Never.  Never ever.  Not ever in my life.  Just for grins, I picked up a package of blueberry pop tarts to see if they were vegan.  Guess what???  They are!!  Add to that the fact that they were $0.79, and I was sold!  I couldn't wait to get home to shove them in my mouth, so I opened the package and ate one.

OH.  MY.  GOSH.

OH.  MY.  GOSH.

OH.  MY.  GOSH.  

(insert gif here of some random famous person saying oh my gosh in a funny way)

They were so good.  So so so so so good.  I knew how horribly unhealthy they were, but I just didn't care. They tasted so good....

Random Fact: Oreos are also vegan!  It's pretty great, huh?

Another Random Fact:  I ate a fig today for the first time too, you have to like eat them inside out.  They look really really gross, like the inside of a tauntaun (you know, that thing in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back that Han slices open and sticks Luke inside).

Alrighty, I've probably totally grossed you out now, so see ya another time (hopefully)

Charlotte :)

Adagio Tea, The Plastic Chair, and Other Randomness

Hey Guys,

So today, I don't really know what I am going to talk about, so I'm just going to talk about a lot of random stuff  :P  So bear with me :)

First I'm going to start with a story.  It's about a Chair.  So last Wednesday was my first day of College (ever!).  So, I show up for class, and everyone was waiting outside.  Little did we know that the class had started without us.  Finally the professor came and got us, and we were all embarrassed and stuff because we all looked like idiots to our Professor (which kind of sucked).  Luckily, it was the first day, and at COC all of my professors are all chill about the first day of classes (which rocks!).

Since it's a Cinema class, we have movie theater seating (sort of) except our chairs are really uncomfortable.  They are kind of sunken into the ground, and for some reason, just LOOKING at them made me feel all claustrophobic and stuff.  Luckily, it's a HUGE class.  There were over 100 people there (I think he said 112 or something?). But the great thing was, there weren't enough seats for everyone to sit in the claustrophobic movie theater chairs.  So the first thing I did was made a beeline for the stack of plastic chairs in the back.

Professor:  I would like everyone to fill up the permanent seats before we take out the extra chairs.

Me: (mentally) Darn it!

So I waited in the back of the class while all of the seats got filled up.  Finally, the last guy with a backpack made his way into the last oddly claustrophobic chair.  I went straight for the plastic chairs and set one down.  You wouldn't think that a plastic chair would be comfortable, but this one was!  I think I'm going to use this strategy  next Wednesday too...

I promised Adagio tea in the title of my post, so I guess I'll ramble on about how great Tea is for awhile :)

I'm a really hyper person.  Just ask my best friend ;)  So, I can't drink coffee.  Whenever I drink coffee, the caffeine makes me so crazy that everyone in the room immediately hates me (plus the fact that I feel just really really weird when I drink coffee)  So I drink Tea.  But I'm really really picky about tea.  I don't like bitter tea at all.  Teabag stuff is just really gross to me (I know, I'm REALLY picky).  So I drink Adagio tea.  During the summer, drinking their iced tea is like the best thing in the world.  They have all sorts of awesome flavors.  Like Blueberry!

So, I'm bored of talking now, so, maybe I'll post about something less stupid tomorrow (or not, because I'm stupid and procrastinated ALL of my homework so I really should do that...)

Charlotte :)

Wuthering Heights, Awesome Cover Art, And Other Fun Stuff...

Hey Everyone,
It's been an eternity since I posted, so I decided to write a post concerning my favorite thing ever: Books.  It all starts with a story...

So a few weeks ago, my mom and sister went to get their hair done.  I hate hair salons with a burning passion, and so to avoid hearing me complain about the smell, and waiting around with nothing to do, my mom decided to drop me off at a library.  I ran in as soon as I could, and made a beeline for the teen section--not because I like modern teen books mind you, but this library is really cool.  This library has a whole section within the teen section (it's kind of like inception, but with book sections, not dreams) that's entirely devoted to classics.

Why didn't I just go to the normal classics section you might ask? Well, for one thing, it would mean running up a really large flight of stairs (another thing I really am not a fan of, which is really sad because both of my classrooms this year force me to descend or ascend two flights of stairs, which is a bummer) and for another thing, this Classic Section within the Teen section has really great editions of books.  Like, these are really cool.  They all have really really great cover art, and have really really great fonts.  Am I the only one who thinks that there is some kind of conspiracy going on?  Because really now, almost every classic book that is published today is printed in microscopic print, it's almost as if the publisher doesn't want you to read it.  My theory is that modern authors want you to be forced to read their books in order to preserve your vision. Anyway, I picked up a copy of Wuthering Heights that I REALLY REALLY liked.  It had a really great watercolor painting of Heathcliff and Cathy on the cover, done entirely in shades of blue, I mean, this book was really really pretty.

So, after about two hours of reading, I get this text from my mom: "Go check out, we're almost done."  So I go get in line to get my library card (since I didn't actually have a card for this library).  There were like a billion people in front of me, so it took awhile to get up to the front.
Front Desk Lady: Yes, would you like to check this out.

Me: Yes Yes Yes Yes YESSSSSSS!!!!

Front Desk Lady: OK then, well do you have a library card with us?

Me: ...

Front Desk Lady: Well, you're going to need a parent or guardian here to get a library card.

Me: I have my college ID, could you make an exception just this once? PWEASE!!!

Front Desk Lady: You're going to need a parent or guardian here to get a library card.

So to make a long story short, I had to put the book back, since my mom was already texting me to hurry up, which sucked because as I said before, this was an AWESOME edition.  So later that night, I get home and decided to try and buy this book.  I was thinking that this was going to take like five, ten minutes tops.  Boy was I wrong!  Did you know there are like 500 paperback editions ALONE of Wuthering Heights?  So, two hours later, I finally found the edition.  I was so proud of myself!  The best thing was, on Amazon, it was about $8.00 so I was actually able to afford it!

Here's a picture of the book, and a link to the Amazon listing :)

Isn't it PURDY???????

....and the Amazon listing (so that you don't have to sacrifice 2 hours of your life trying to find this thing) http://www.amazon.com/Wuthering-Heights-Classic-Lines-Bronte/dp/1402787367/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378071251&sr=1-1&keywords=Wuthering+Heights+Classic+Lines

and while I was looking on Amazon, I realized that there are like Five more of these books done in this style (Sara Singh is the illustrator, she is pretty talented!)

Emma: http://www.amazon.com/Emma-Classic-Lines-Jane-Austen/dp/1454901330/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378072671&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=EmmaClassic+Lines

Jane Eyre: http://www.amazon.com/Jane-Classic-Lines-Charlotte-Bronte/dp/140278533X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378072697&sr=1-1&keywords=Jane+Eyre+Classic+Lines

Sense and Sensibility: http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Sensibility-Classic-Lines-Austen/dp/1402785313/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378072734&sr=1-1&keywords=Sense+and+Sensibility+Splinter

Great Expectations: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Expectations-Classic-Charles-Dickens/dp/1454901357/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378072759&sr=1-1&keywords=Great+Expectations+Splinter

Pride and Prejudice: http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Classic-Lines-Austen/dp/1402785305/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378072782&sr=1-1&keywords=Pride+and+Prejudice+Splinter

These are part of Splinter's Classic Lines series.  Dear Publisher:  Make more of these, because I will buy them from you. I really really will.  Maybe some George Eliot, or Agatha Christie, or more Jane Austen, or Emily Dickenson's poetry, or Wilkie Collins!!  Please Please Please Please!!!!!!!!!

And by the way, Wuthering Heights is a totally amazing book.  If you haven't read it already, you really should.  It's the best.  I mean it.  Go buy a copy.  Go read it, now!!!!!!!