Waiting on Wednesday #9: Down with the Shine

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine, wherein us book-types share our barely concealed excitement regarding certain books that have yet to be released...

This week: I'm pretty sure it's an historical fact that moonshine always makes a social gathering into a PARTY!

Top Ten Tuesday #11: Top Ten Books if You're in the Mood to Be Gob-Smacked!!

The weekly meme "Top Ten Tuesday" is brought to you by the awesome blog The Broke and the Bookish. Check out their blog and add your Top Ten to the group!!

This week: "The Top Ten Books When You're In the Mood for _________." So I guess my title should be "Top 10 Books When You're in the Mood for a Good Gob-Smacking*."

     gob·smacked [ˈɡäbˌsmakt/] adjective British informal 
     adjective: gobsmacked; adjective: gob-smacked: utterly astonished; astounded.

* Origin: 1980s: from gob¹ + smack¹, with reference to being shocked by a blow to the mouth, or to clapping a hand to one's mouth in astonishment.

* As if smacked ‎(“hit”) in the gob ‎(“mouth (Irish / Scottish gaelic)”).

I am a SUCKER for a well-done plot-twist, an amazing secret revealed, etc. Therefore, my list this week is my top picks of books (or series) where I literally gasped out loud, or possibly threw the book across the room … This is not to say there will be spoilers, or that there’s a TWIST in every book, but that I just appreciated that the author/s took the story in an unexpected direction. 

The best example I can give is The Princess Bride (both movie and book!) William Goldman takes all the tropes of a fairy tale adventure and turns it on it’s head. Many a smack-the-gob* moments.

Waiting on Wednesday #8: Who can resist "intergalactic shenanigans?!"

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we bookish types are eagerly anticipating.

This week my pick involves two teenagers in space ("Teeeens innnn Spaaaace") where they battle Space Pirates (SPACE PIRATES) and "intergalactic shenanigans" ensue (according to author Melissa Landers).

What? I've piqued your space-romance interest? Hmmm,  let's read on, shall we?

Top Ten Tuesday #10: Top Ten Surprise Hits from Lesser Travelled Genres!!

The weekly meme "Top Ten Tuesday" is brought to you by the awesome blog The Broke and the Bookish. Check out their blog and add your Top Ten to the group!!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday explores surprise hits that aren’t typically in one’s favourite/ go-to genres.

So, in the last year-ish I’ve broadened my horizons with the following amazing books!!

Review Catch-Up! Six Amazing Mini-Reviews in One Cray-mazing Post!

Hello Spinning Jenners!!

In October I started working at Fair's Fair Used Bookstore and it has taken some energy away from my people/ my fans/ my congregation, if you will.

I have read some great books, and briefly alluded to some in my Top 2015 Reads post. But I feel that some of these books deserve, nay DEMAND a better review, so I'll do some mini catch-ups right here, right now. (I'll link each title to www.goodreads.com so you can read the synopsis [synopses?] yo'self, and I can save some space...)

Settle in folks, this is what's been missing in your life:

Read This Round-Up #64 (Starring Spinning Jenny's book review of Hyperion!!)

 
Photo courtesy of Charlie @Girl of 1000 Wonders

Welcome to Read This, a collection of book reviews and giveaways that were posted in the past week or so from around the web. This is a collection of book reviews & contests from real reviewers. If you want to be included in the next edition start with the guidelines, then use the submission form.
Want to read more reviews? Check out Read This for a list of the latest reviews and stellar reviewers. You can also follow on twitter for the latest round ups. Read This is now accepting photo submissions for each edition.

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Retro Review: Fahrenheit 451

Title: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Published: January 1953
Publisher: Ballantine Books [1973 ed.]
Genres: classic, sci-fi, dystopian

Synopsis (www.goodreads.com)

The terrifyingly prophetic novel of a post-literate future.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.  

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I had a wide variety of reactions to this book... the strongest being how relevant it is to our society in 2016! (#Trump2016!)

**Also, I do hereby decree that you may NOT read this in e-format, as there's a scratch n' sniff portion, which would be best served by reading a used or borrowed book at LEAST 10 years old or older.**