Book Chatter

UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed! Thanks for visiting.

The folks over at Penguin were kind enough to provide me with a copy of Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link and one of my lucky readers gets to win this gorgeous hardcover! Thank you Jillian!

Here is a brief blurb:

“Through the lens of Link’s vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look. From the multiple award-winning “The Faery Handbag,” in which a teenager’s grandmother carries an entire village (or is it a man-eating dog?) in her handbag, to the near-future of “The Surfer,” whose narrator (a soccer-playing skeptic) waits with a planeload of refugees for the aliens to arrive, Link’s stories are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Her fans range from Michael Chabon to Peter Buck of R.E.M. to Holly Black of Spiderwick Chronicles fame. Now teens can have their world rocked, too!”

This book is classified as Young Adult but I feel it appeals to both YAs and Adults. To read more about Kelly Link, visit her website by clicking here. Click here to read what Bibliophile Stalker had to say about it. It’s currently a Powells.com Staff Pick.

Giveaway Details:

This giveaway is open to the U.S. and Canada. There are TWO ways to enter:

1. Post a comment for ONE entry. Be sure to include an email address so I can contact you.

2. For THREE more entries, post about this giveaway on your blog and then include the link in a comment to this post. This giveaway will run until Sunday, November 30, 2008, 8pm (PST). The winner will be selected randomly and announced on Monday, December 1, 2008. I will contact the winner for his/her mailing address. Good luck!!!

I just finished Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World by Vicki Myron. Amy, from My Friend Amy sent this book to me as one of the giveaways for Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Thank you Amy!

On a cold night in Spencer, Iowa, Vicki Myron hears a noise coming from the book-drop of the Spencer Public Library. With the assistance of another librarian, they pull out a near frozen kitten…weak and completely matted with dirt. It’s at that moment that Vicki realizes that things at the library will never be the same.

It doesn’t matter if you are a cat lover, or a dog lover, this book is charming and sweet and any animal lover will be able to relate to Myron’s story about a cat that managed to work his way into the hearts of library patrons everywhere.

Much of the story is about Dewey’s antics and his relationship with the staff and patrons of the library but what I really enjoyed were the little tidbits Myron shared about the town, the economy, what it was like to live in a “corn” state, etc. I really got a feel for the town and the people that lived there.

Also, my feline friend of 17 years passed away this past Valentine’s Day so I could certainly relate to the bond Myron had with Dewey. Anyone that has had both a cat and a dog at once can tell you how different cats are. They are just… stumbling for a word here…different. They are self-sufficient but often choose not to be.

Anyway… this book would make a wonderful Christmas gift. It gave me the warm fuzzies. It was also on my Fall Into Reading 2008 list so I am happy to cross another book off that list. Progress. Yes!

If you’d like to read more about Dewey’s life, click here for his bio.

Chatting with friends about books and life…