Laura's blog

I picked this up from I Am Writer...Hear Me Roar! and you should drop by and leave a comment. Alyssa has a knack for writing quick, compelling reviews. If you find my reviews long and boring, you might prefer her style. This survey is also a yearly thing hosted by Perpetual Page Turner , so feel free to pass it along or drop them a link to your own survey.  I've included cover pics and links to the books I talk about in case you want to check any out.  Let's go! Number of books you read this year: ...idk, a lot I guess? But not as many as I would have liked. It never is. Number of re-reads: Erm. No clue. Sorry. :( Genre you read the most from: Fantasy! That one I can answer! I did fit some other genres in there, too.  1. Best book you read in 2016?  This is HARD. But actually I immediately thought of The Red Sea and The Silver Thief by Edward W. Robertson. While there were aspects of both which I adored, I'm going to go with The Red Sea be...

I realize I'm coming a few decades late to this series, but whatever. I got The Sword of Shannara on audiobook in preparation for a long car trip. Here are my thoughts. Spoilers, but again, this has been out for years. Let's see how many times I can misspell Allanon, shall we? Summary When an evil scary undead lich bad guy Druid threatens the Four Lands, the last heir of the line of Shannara has to retrieve the only thing capable of defeating him: a magic sword. Unfortunately, said magic sword is being held by the bad guy himself. So the good Druid Allanon assembles a team of would-be heroes to sneak into enemy territory and steal it.  Audiobooks and Annotations: Scott Brick and Terry Brooks As you can see, the image above is for the 35th anniversary edition annotated by the author. It was the only copy the library had on audiobook. And yes, every single footnote was marked by a shift in narrator as Terry Brooks's voice broke in to explain something or comm...

Myself and a friend created a survey to gather information on reading habits, libraries, and diversity in books. We have received 35 responses in a relatively short amount of time, and would be thrilled to get to at least 50.  I have an absurd love for graphs and data analysis and statistics. So, please, indulge my love of statistics and take the survey. :) If you're comfortable, feel free to share it on social media and with your friends. As for why we've made a survey , we're hoping to lay the groundwork for an initiative focusing on adding more diverse books to the collections of rural libraries.  While acquisitions of new and diverse books are a priority for libraries, such efforts are often limited by funding and resources. We hope to eventually raise funds for donations of books to libraries in our area.  Anyway, please do us a solid and take the survey . I believe it does require you to be signed in to a Google account, which is inconvenient, but if ...

My mind is still kind of blown after this movie, which I got to see as a double feature with friends on Saturday. I'll try to be coherent. I managed to review Moana with minimal typos, after all. ETA: Also I added a couple of things for the new year, after having a bit more time to process. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. SPOILERS AHEAD.  ...Seriously, I can't review and critique this film without spoiling several important things. Very important things. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Spoilers are fair game past this point.  Ahem.  A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY... DAH-DAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! It's a very minor thing, but they didn't use the iconic "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" text, or the scrolling prologue. I know it's a bit annoying to have to read as soon as you walk into a movie, but I was expecting it. And it seemed for a second that they had thought about doing it, and even had a place to put said text -- but decided to cut it at the...