Po(sey) Sessions

There are some people who are struggling to understand exactly what steampunk is. To understand it is pretty straightforward but to try and explain it gets a little more convoluted. The basic concept of alternate history is relatively easy to explain, but once you start getting past that people tend to get lost.  Wikipedia let me to the word anachronism to aid in the understanding of steampunk. I think it perfectly encapsulates what makes steakpunk fiction unique.   a·nach·ro·nism [ uh - nak - ruh -niz- uh m]   –noun something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, esp. a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time. an error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one.     You want to read steampunk, share your opinion and reviews with like minded people? You want to get recommendations from others because you have ...

    What, you ask, is the most wonderful time of the year? Is it Christmas? Nope! Is it Thanksgiving? NOPE! My favorite time of year is better than any holiday because it comes TWICE every year.  Do you know what it is? It’s our book fair!!!   I am thrilled to be doing another Scholastic book fair at my daughter’s school. We managed to get more books than we ever have before and I am very excited.  In case you were wondering, here’s a picture that basically give you the whole idea of how our book fair is set up this year.   You can kind of see the other book fair lady in this picture and all that really does is make me happy that I was the one taking the picture.  There are so many reasons to love the book fair.  There are the books. And the….books. And more important than that is getting these kids excited about books and reading. At our school we work really hard to find the right book matches for people, especially ourselves! N...

It is no secret that I like dystopian fiction. You know, like isn't even a good word. I adore it! I am researching dystopia  from two sides, fictionally and academically. Each informs the other in my quest to better understand what dystopia means and how to classify it. My interest in dystopia started later than most. I don’t ever remember being exposed to dystopian young adult or middle grade fiction in middle school. The closest example would probably be The Wave which I read in middle school.  The scariest thing about The Wave was that it was based on true events.  One of the interesting distinctions in some dystopian definitions is that the story must be imagined and not be based on actual events. Do you think this is always the case? (To find out more about The Wave please check out this review .)   The first dystopian book I read was in high school when I was 15. We read 1984 and I remember it forever changing the way I read and the way I saw the world....

I love Anna Scanlon . She is a generous and amazing person. Do you want to know why I love her? Well, let me tell you. She may have not chosen me personally to receive an ARC of Matched but random.org did and Anna was the one who was generous enough to offer up my top wish list book item in a contest and now I am a proud owner. It showed up today and it is so shiny and I love the cover and it’s MINE MINE MINE! Today Anna Scanlon is my hero. And she can be your hero too. I am not sure how exactly but maybe you will find a way unless she is your hero because of the pure joy I am feeling right now at owning this wonderful book by and author I hope to meet very soon.   I may seem a little excited but I am more than excited and I just wanted to let everyone know how wonderful Anna Scanlon is for being a part of this. And thank you random.org, you are my new best friend.

I don’t know why I do it to myself. It is a strange form a torture, yet at the same time I am having the hardest time pushing from one book to the next right now, so maybe it is needed. It is inevitable.   There is something to be said about listing your intentions and then following through with them or not. Not too long ago I listed my tentative list of the next 10 books I would like to read. And I just wanted to check in to see what kind of progress I was making.   Rae by Chelsea Swiggett (currently reading) Boneshaker by Cherie Priest The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan (started) Book I haven’t finished yet ( Cherry Heaven , Never Let Me Go , The Iron Heel ) FINISHED Never Let Me Go Grimspace by Ann Aguirre (need to track down) Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (audio, saving for steampunk challenge starting Oct. 1) Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (started) Epic by Conor Kostick Exile by R. A, Salvatore (audio) T...

I am freaking out a little because when I made my original list I forgot and over looked some books that I need to be reading and I will be joining a few challenges that I think I want to save some books for. So I am going to try this again, though I am not sure it maters much. Sometimes change weakens your dedication. I hope that is not the case this time.   Books I am planning on reading/finishing: Feed by Mira Grant (finished) The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan (started, but not far in. May reserve for YA dystopian challenge) Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler (started, staying on list) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (currently reading) Framed by Frank Cottrell-Boyce (currently reading) Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (thinking about saving for steampunk challenge) Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (haven’t started, staying on list) Cherry Heaven by L. J. Adlington (desperately need to finish this) Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (may save for dys...

“No one gets cold or cancer anymore. The only issue is the walking dead.” Feed is a zombie story with heart. Mira Grant combines perfectly the traditional, almost campy tropes of zombie stories, with emotions and politics.  It is the near future and a virus, from a vaccine gone wrong, is turning people into zombies.  This isn’t the zombie apocalypse though.  This is the story of a community of people coping, or trying to cope with the situation around them. The world has been safe guarded against those who are or may have become infected. There are endless amounts of blood tests to make sure a person isn’t going to convert into a zombie.   Why did Grant write this book? In an interview with SFX she explains: Initially what I came up with was an ecology book. I am a zombie fan but all of the zombie stories I’ve enjoyed started when the dead rose and ended three days later with everybody looking exhausted. I was thinking, “What happens in 20 years?”...