Category Archives: blog spotlight

Aussie Authors Month

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April has been designated by someone as Aussie Authors Month, a fact I have been neglectful of here at Reactions to Reading. But over at Fair Dinkum Crime, the blog I host with fellow Aussie crime fiction fan Kerrie to focus only on Australian crime, mysteries and thrillers, we have been celebrating in style.

Firstly, we introduced a new feature to the blog, our version of an author interview which we call the Fair Dinkum Baker’s Dozen.  We provide the authors with 13 beginnings and, like the creative geniuses they are, they turn them into sentences (or paragraphs, or full blown essays should the urge arise). We’ve been very fortunate to have a wonderful selection of five Aussie crime writers share their thoughts with us so far. Do head over and learn about their worst jobs, biggest fears and the truly terrible things one of them has done to chickens:

We’re also running a quiz, offering your choice of several recent Aussie crime titles as prizes. The quiz is open worldwide so you’re all welcome to participate. We did go to some effort not to make all the answers entirely ‘googlable’ but we hope you’ll have a go anyway. We’ll give away the prizes even if no one gets all the questions right so you’ve got a decent shot at winning.

Both Kerrie and I are trying to fit in some reading of new (to us) Aussie crime fiction too. So far Kerrie has reviewed Katherine Howell’s Cold Justice and I’ll be reviewing Michael Duffy’s The Tower later this weekend. I think we both hope to finish and review at least one more book by an Aussie Author before the end of the month.

Have you done anything to celebrate Aussie Authors Month? 

Are you Fair Dinkum about your Australian Crime fiction?

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courtesy stock.xchng.comWe are. Kerrie (of Mysteries in Paradise) and I have revamped our ‘other’ blog and are re-launching it today (Australia Day here in Oz) as Fair Dinkum Crime.

The blog will be the (well a) place to go for reviews of Australian crime fiction (anything by an Australian author or set in Australia) and we’ll also be including news, new release information and author interviews.

Fair dinkum is an Australian colloquial phrase which means genuine or true. As in,

“Is that a fake Rolex you’re wearing?”

“Na, it’s fair dinkum, mate”.

Its first recorded use in Australian writing was in 1888′s Robbery Under Arms, a novel in which a bushranger on death row recounts his life experiences including his life of crime. A fitting phrase for a crime fiction blog, no?

Please join us at Fair Dinkum Crime and bookmark us or subscribe so you can keep up to date with great suggestions for Australian crime fiction reading.

And Happy Australia Day to you all. Tradition demands that you stop work (even the unpaid kind like cleaning your house), have a beer (or tipple of choice) and relax. A good book is optional but highly recommended :)

BBAW Treasure #1 – Favourite Blog Discovered This Year

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First up, a confession. I am not the world’s biggest fan of BBAW (that’s Book Bloggers Appreciation Week for the uninitiated). Of course I don’t object to the intention that underpins it which is “to recognize the hard work and contribution of book bloggers to the promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading”. How could I not support that ideal?

But I do find the intense week of having my google reader account bombarded by 5-10 times the normal number of posts overwhelming. With a couple of hundred book blog subscriptions that’s a lot of extra posts. Last year I read the first couple of days’ worth of posts then hid offline for a week and quietly hit “mark all as read”. I suspect I’ll be doing much the same again this year, and have decided in advance not to feel guilty about it.

Let me be totally clear though I am not calling for the end of BBAW or suggesting that other people’s celebrations of it or participation in it should in any way diminish. If you have the necessary combination of time, energy, persistence and cheerfulness to post daily, visit all the blogs, interview other bloggers, comment madly and sign up for the giveaways I tip my hat to you. Just please don’t be cross with me if I go hide in my offline corner again ’til all the fuss dies down and don’t take it personally if I don’t visit all your BBAW posts this week.

All of that out of the way, I did have a look at the five daily post topics and thought I’d pick out the one that’s most important to me for a single post about BBAW. That’s about all I can manage on the participation front I’m afraid.

Today’s question asks us to highlight a great book blog we’ve discovered this year.

I am highlighting two (yes I know that’s not in the rules) and readers of this blog won’t be surprised to find they are both crime fiction blogs:

The Game’s Afoot is the blog of Jose Ignacio Escribano who lives in Spain and blogs (in English) (he’d have to as I’m woefully monolingual) about his crime fiction finds as well as providing snippets of life in sunny Spain (at least I always assume it is sunny when I am reading a post by Jose Ignacio, this has been particularly enjoyable during the recent deluge we have experienced in my part of the world). He writes great reviews and often teases us about books that have been published in Spanish that those of us who are linguistically challenged might get to read in translation one day.

Yet Another Crime Fiction Blog is hosted by Keishon (pronounced KEY-shon) who lives (I think) in the US and though it has been around since May I only discovered it in the last few weeks but it is already a firm favourite. Keishon seems to have the same attitude to blogging and reading as I do and from what I have seen we also share a similar sense of humour. Keishon writes thoughtful reviews that clearly set out the pros and cons of a book without being nasty or mean in any way (yes I could learn a thing or two about politeness) (but we all know I won’t).

I heartily recommend both of these to everyone, especially crime fiction fans.

Anyway, that’s it for me for BBAW, I do hope everyone gets to participate as much (or as little) as they want to and also remembers to appreciate their favourite book bloggers during the other 51 weeks of the year :)

It’s not that I’m ungrateful but…

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…I do hate being told what to do (always have done, always will do, it gets me into more troublesome situations than you can imagine).

However I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I received an award over the past few days. The Award is the Prolific Blogger Award which is awarded to a blogger who is intellectually productive… keeping up an active blog that is filled with enjoyable content. I’m sure you’ll agree it also comes with a most beautiful image (I love the colours and the symmetry and the dog under the table – it’s gorgeous and makes me wish I had creative talents in that direction).

It’s ironic that I was so honoured just as I’d spent a whole week without posting a single thing on my blog but every blogger knows that sometimes life gets in the way. And occasionally you’ve got nothing to say! Anyway, I was given the award by JoV over at Bibliojunkie. We started book blogging around the same time and although we read different kinds of books we enjoy each others’ blogs. JoV does great, in-depth reviews of all sorts of books and is re-igniting my interest in non-crime fiction. And just quietly I’m influencing JoV to read the odd crime novel too.  JoV has joined the global challenge and I’m looking forward to hearing what she thinks about the Aussie books I recommended. Meanwhile I’m going to be reading Graham Greene’s The Quiet American in the next week or two which she recommended to me. And therein lies the circle of life in book blog land.

I then received the award a second time from Norman at Crime Scraps. As his blog name might suggest he blogs mostly about my favourite genre and does it beautifully. He writes wonderful, thoughtful reviews full of perfect quotations that really give you a sense of the book and whether or not it’s the kind of thing you would like. Norman also does great author interviews and runs a quiz that I just don’t even have the stamina to start. I am not worthy. Norman is particularly fond of historical crime fiction and he’s been getting me hooked too. My favourite read for the year so far was recommended by Norman (Ariana Franklin’s Mistress of the Art of Death which I still love even though some people at the 4MA discussion about the book have been quite derogatory about its historical accuracy) and there are several more of his recommendations sitting on my TBR shelves. I also enjoy Norman’s occasional references to his past life in the health sector (he is a retired dentist) as I work in that sector too (though thank heavens for all concerned I’m in administration rather than looking after people’s health) and can recongise many of his frustrations.

So I am happy to say a heartfelt thanks to both of these great blogs for the award and to acknowledge Advance Booking for starting the love but I’m not going to follow the other rule about passing the award on. Aside from my natural aversion to the words ‘must’ and ‘has to’, a quick look around the blogosphere tells me that a large proportion of the blogs I love have already received this award from people far less tardy than me.

Weekly Geeks 2009 #1 – Blogs I Follow

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Thanks to Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise I discovered that Weekly Geeks is up and running again after its creator Dewey passed away in October. A bunch of book bloggers have pulled together to keep Dewey’s various endeavours, including Weekly Geeks, going. And people say the internet is destroying society…what tosh. You can read more about Dewey here where you’ll see a short history of her life in the blogosphere as well as a swag of links to posts in memory of her and her tireless and creative efforts to bring book bloggers together.

However, to the task at hand. The first new Weekly Geeks challenge is, fittingly: 

In the spirit of the amazing community building that Dewey was so good at, tell us about your favorite blogs, the ones you have bookmarked or subscribe to in your Google Reader, that you visit on a regular basis. Tell us what it is about these blogs that you love, that inspire or educate you or make you laugh. Be sure to link to them so we can find them too.

I am currently subscribed to about a hundred blogs but the majority are not book related (I do have other interests you know). So, below are the book blogs I’m currently subscribed to in the order they appear on the book blog tab in my internet browser which is how I choose to keep track of the book blogs I am subscribed to (and yes I know I should put all of these in my Links tab).

Aust Crime Fiction is an amazing website, database and blog that opened my eyes to a swag of new Australian authors and is responsible for at least three quarters of my rather alarming book-related expenditure last year.

Mysteries in Paradise belongs to the aforementioned Kerrie who is a fellow Adelaidian and the only book blogger I have met in the flesh. She partly inspired me to start this blog

Crime Scraps reviews crime fiction set outside the US (mostly) and is the product of the inimitable Uriah whose sense of humour appeals to me

At the Villa Rose provides longer, more thoughtful posts mostly relating to older mysteries.

Lou’s pages is the blog of a Danish student who is bilingual (I’m so jealous). She reads all sorts of books including some mysteries and we share an interest in Scandinavian crime fiction. 

Beth Fish Reads is the blog of a voracious reader with a daunting enthusiasm for reading challenges. I am always curious to see how she’s progressing in her various challenges (and secretly wonder if she’s mastered the art of human cloning just to keep track of them all). Beth is also a wonderful blog commentor and has inspired me to be more diligent in my own commenting.

Euro Crime is the blog that annoys me the most because it’s always full of news about wonderful BBC shows that will be on air here in Australia in about 5 years…but I torture myself by reading it all anyway. She also has lots of information about audio books which I like to listen to as well so her reviews of those help me manage my audible wishlist. 

Kittling: Books is the blog of yet another person who seems to inhale books at the speed of light. I’ve given up tyring to keep pace with Cathy but I do enjoy her reviews, polls and the general book-loving tone of her blog

Scandinavian Crime Fiction is about exactly what you might think from the title and provides early reviews of books that are going to be released here in many months time which gives me time to save up. Ahhh who am I kidding I go straight from there to bookdepository!

Sunnie’s Book Blog is another Aussie book blog which I follow because she might kill me if I don’t (you have to click the link to see what I mean…she’s posted her prison intake passport photo right there)

Weekly Geeks #26 – What do we have in common?

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weekly-geeks-buttonThis week’s Weekly Geeks challenge is to snoop around the blogs of five other Weekly Geek-ers that I don’t know and find something in common with them. I chose 5 blogs at random and found the following:

  1. On At Home Wtih Books I discovered that the blog’s host Alyce isn’t normally a mystery novel reader so I thought we might not have a lot in common because that is my favourite genre. However Alyce is a fan of Alexander McCall Smith, an author I discovered to my delight only this year. In her 22 November post Alyce highlights his new online novel Corduroy Mansionswhich I have been listening to via podcast since chapter one.
  2. I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d have a lot in common with a 20-year old student from Belgium but at at Pink Blue Whale I discovered that Skodder and I both started our blogs this year and both enjoy the humour and wit of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
  3. At Worducopia it only took me a nanosecond or two to discover that I share a love of the movie Monty Python’s Life of Brian with Ali. It’s one of my top ten favourite movies of all time and my friends are sick of me saying “He’s not the Messaiah – he’s just a very naughty boy” at odd moments.
  4. In an October post at She Reads Books I discovered that Christine is a fellow BookMooch fan. She also offers a dozen other ways to rid yourself of books you no longer need.
  5. At A Striped Armchair I found we’d both reviewed A God’s Spy by Juan Gomez-Jurado. It was the only shared review I discovered during this challenge but, given I’ve only reviewed 7 books, it’s amazing I found any at all. Her thoughts about the book are here while mine are here and it seems we both found it entertaining.

This was a fun challenge for me but it made me hope no one comes to my blog looking for things in common. As I’ve been book blogging for less than a month there’s not much source material to snoop around in.