This Week in Links

This week, when talking about author blogs on Booking Through Thursday, I totally forgot to mention Beth Kephart's blog which is a daily read for me. For a sample of how wonderful she is, read this post.


In the News
I think we were all saddened to hear about Continental Flight 3407. Laura of Texas in Africa wrote this very informative post about Alison des Forges who was aboard the airline. A great loss indeed.

Sherry from Semicolon has been keeping up with the law meant to protect kids from lead poisoining and its effect on children's books. Read her posts here and here. This is something we should be paying attention to and another classic example of how government even with good intentions, can get it so wrong.

Movies
I've already talked about the Confessions of a Shopaholic movie out this weekend, but I'll say as many times as needed that I love this book. In typical fashion, a lot of people who never read it judge it. I remember overhearing some librarians talking about it..."there's just nothing funny to me about a woman who can't control her spending." (she then proceeded to discuss how Twilight was a literary masterpiece) Anyway, I really enjoyed this article in the New York Times where they seemed to get it a little bit more. (HT: S.Krishna)

Books
Kathy of Bermuda Onion has started a fun new meme where you can share the new words you come across in your reading. I love the idea of this because it's so important to know what things mean when we're reading. Do you remember being forced to look up words you didn't know in school and realize you had misunderstood something because you had used context clues alone? :)

Dear Author has a great post up about the author/reader relationship. I think about this a lot.

Trish from Hey Lady! reviewed The Help by Kathryn Stockett this week and she's also doing a giveaway. I've heard nothing but amazing things about this book, and it's in my TBR..I hope to get to it soon.

Wendi started a discusson on Tuesday about the importance of ratings...I have recently added a ratings system to this blog, but it's a work in progress.

Beth reviewed a Michael Connelly book, The Lincoln Lawyer. I haven't read any of his stuff, but I'd like to. Unlike Beth, I really enjoy legal thrillers.

Shelley posted an interview with author Barbara Worton who wrote Too Tall Alice.

Marta reviewed The Terror by Dan Simmons and is giving some copies away as well. I have to admit I'm impressed she read it...it's huge. I recently bought this book at Wal-Mart (sue me, it's the closest store to my house now..I go to Target the most) and the clerk asked, "oh so have you read the Twilight books?" Like for most people that don't read as a way of life, if I liked one big fat book, I must like them all! Anyway, I really look forward to reading it.

The Cybils Award Winners have been announced. I love the idea behind the Cybils and think it should be expanded to other books. People who blog books are pretty dang passionate. We should make our voices heard. I have had The Hunger Games on my TBR since the first positive reviews came out, but its apparently such compulsive reading, I've been waiting until I have an entire day to devote to it. Who knows when that will be?

Shorter round-up this week, but my blog time has been cut in half. :) Happy reading everyone!