Weekly Round Up #5

Kind of The Story Siren's In My Mailbox, but with some other bits thrown in too.

I think we can say, in terms of blogging, this has been slow, but in terms of getting stuff...well, I got a lot this week.  Let's see....

Well, there's what can only be described as pure awesomeness from Stephanie at Stepping Out of the Page.  Bookmarks, Potter postcards, and a pretty bracelet? THANK YOU STEPHANIE.

Then there's the stuff from authors and publishers and so on.  Big thanks to Andrew Carlson, who sent me a copy of Sue's Vision (the sequel to Sue's Fingerprints, which earnt strength 5 tea-review here!), to Spinebreakers who sent me a copy of The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg, and to Faber and Faber who sent me a copy of The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith.

And finally, there's my library stash. Which was originally just Ashes, by Isla J Bick. And then I went to Winchester Discovery Centre. And I just had to pick up Deadly Cool by Gemma Halliday,  Intertwined by Gena Showalter, and Crossing Overr by Anna Kendall. Well, I didn't have to. I did.

I think we can safely say, I won't be bored this half term.


And in news....

The blog tour for Witchblood by Emma Mills is coming by on Tuesday (aka Valentines Day. But we don't celebrate that here), so expect a review and a giveaway!

Strange Chemistry have signed Jonathan L Howard! Katya's World looks really interesting....

I got my book club hooked on Goodreads! Well, just the librarian and The Squeaky One, but still....now they know! And my librarian is campaigning to get Goodreads accessible from school.... I can see that working. Not.

I have a poll up in the top left hand corner. It's about what I should be posting, because I sometimes get totally stuck for ideas. So, if you could please just tell me what you want to be seeing here, it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

WE'VE BEEN BLOGGING FOR NEARLY A YEAR. I can't believe it either....  Well, on the blogoversary, there'll be a big, international giveaway. Or maybe more. But, please spread the word that Death Books and Tea's blogoversary will (hopefully) be awesome.

That's all. Enjoy life xxx.

Weekly update #2

First things first, I’m sorry about the completely unplanned hiatus! A mix of Sherlock, school-work, and laziness meant I didn’t post anything all week. But I did do some reading! And I got a lot of good books...and I had a good trip in London!

So... what I got this week...

• Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters by Meredith Zeitlin, for review. Thank you,  Anne Walls and G.P. Putnam’s and Sons. It’s not what I normally read, but still. I am trying to expand my  reading tastes (emphasis on the trying) and so... Let’s see if I like this!
• Professor Moriarty: Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman. Forbidden Planet is a very bad place for me. As well as being the only place I have seen Anna Dressed in Blood, Dragonswood  and many other books actually in print in England, whenever I go, I come out with a small bag of books, less money and a much bigger to-read list. Well, when I saw this I thought "literary mash up? Awesome. Must read". And so I got it.
• Switched by Amanda Hocking. I didn't actually know she was signing, but I went in and there was a customer announcement "Amanda Hocking is signing at 1 o clock!". Cue my frantically searching for my dad and feeding the parking machine (those things are ridiculously expensive) so I could be there. Oh, and I found Ana from The Book Smugglers there too.

       

• A hug from Amanda Hocking. I love hugs. What can I say?

I think I did well.

And in news....

• YA imprint of Angry Robot (my favourite publishers who I swear only publish stuff I enjoy) Strange Chemistry have their first two authors! Kim Curran and Shift and Sean Cummings and Poltergeeks have been signed. Both books look great. More info here.
• We blacked out in a Sopa protest. Sopa could be a big deal if it passes, and we should do what we can to stop it. I understand that people have lost a lot of money from illegal downloads, but censoring the web is not the answer. 
• Scott Westerfeld's The Manual of Aeronautics has a cover!  Pretty? I think so.  

Challenges, Competitions, Chemistry and other stuff...

So...a lot of things have been happening in the past week full of Japanese Young Adult Novels. Did you enjoy it?  Caroline and I certainly did.

So, here's what I want to say has been going on round here...

CHALLENGE

I'm going to participate in the 2012 TBR Pile Reading Challenge. I need to. And because I don't know exactly what is on my TBR pile, then I'm going to go for level 1, a firm handshake. But hopefully I'll get further than that.
Here's all the rules from Evie....

• This challenge will run from Jan 1, 2012 - Dec 31, 2012.
• As we would like to see quality reviews linked up to our monthly wrap-ups, only bloggers can enter. Sorry about that!
• Any genre, length or format of book counts, as long as it is a book that's been sitting on your shelf for some time now. Only books released in 2011 and earlier! NO ARCs and 2012 fresh-off-the-press releases allowed!
• You can list your books in advance or just put them in a wrap-up post. If you list them, feel free to change them as the mood takes you.
• When you sign up in the linky, put the direct link to your post about joining the 2012 TBR PILE Reading Challenge (You need to include the info + host list + challenge button. You can also grab the button code and add it to your sidebar!)
• You can move up levels, but no moving down.
• Sign-ups will be open until Dec 15, 2012, so feel free to join at any time throughout the year.
• At the end of each month one of the hosts will post a wrap-up. Every wrap-up will have it's unique theme, a mini-challenge, a giveaway and place for you to link up your reviews from this month. For each review you link up, you will get one entry in a drawing of one book of choice from Book Depository. It's open to INTERNATIONALS. For participating in the mini-challenge you will get +1 entry.
• If you miss a wrap-up post + giveaway, you can link up your reviews next month. Do not, however, try to link up one review twice - we will be checking ;)
• December is a wrap-up for the whole year. All the book reviews you linked up January-November + the ones you'll link up in December will be entered into a HUGE giveaway - 12 books, 12 winners, INTERNATIONAL.
• You don't have to follow all the hosts to join the challenge, but you do have to follow all of us to be entered in giveaways!

Look interesting? I know I've got tonnes of stuff on my top shelf that has been completely neglected....but I'll probably forget to  do wrap up posts. Oh well.

And if I can find another challenge to do, I'll probably join that too...

COMPETITION

Do you want to win a manuscript critique from someone already established in the industry? 

Book Wish Foundation is giving you the chance to get it from one of six somewhat-known authors and agents if you write a 500 essay about a short story in the anthology, What You Wish For. You can enter many times, so you could win all six.

For more details, go to the Book Wish website.

STRANGE CHEMISTRY
You might not know it from what I review, but one of my favourite imprints is Angry Robot, the side that deals with "SF, F and WTF" (the reason I haven't reviewed much of their stuff is cos it's somewhat inappropriate. And the final part of the description I think fits perfectly). Guess how happy I was when I heard there's going to be a subset of AR dealing specifically with Young Adult of that stuff! It's called Strange Chemistry and will get properly going in September 2012, publishing both in England and America. Looks good? I think so.

OTHER STUFF

• Katy and I went to the British Library on Friday with our "book" club. A full account will come soon....
• I have a lot of catching up to do in terms of commenting on your blogs. Sorry.
• Less than two weeks till Christmas! Have fun in the run up, the day, and in the new year!