Memes I Abandoned Archives - Introverted Reader

It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got Ol’ Bing: A Bit of Me(me)

Danielle from There's a Book hosts A Bit of Me(me) every Saturday. Each week she asks us to post the answer to a question designed to help us get to know each other better. This week's question: What’s your favorite holiday movie? The one you could watch every year and it would always remind you of that time of year. My favorite holiday movie is Holiday Inn. Bing Crosby plays a performer who is sick of the daily grind and so opens his own exclusive inn in Connecticut where he only performs on holidays. You just can't beat Bing Crosby at Christmas. He's a perfect straight man to Fred Astaire's goofy character. I don't even have to mention his voice, do I? Or Fred's moves? Marjorie Reynolds is the love interest and I like her as well. I love that the movie is about so many different holidays. There are songs for Valentine's Day and Easter and the 4th of July. And, of course, Bing's famous "White Christmas" was written by Irving Berlin for this movie. I'm a sucker for the old musicals anyway though. Park me in front of one and I will watch the whole thing with a giant goofy grin on my face. I will say that there's one scene that in the present comes across as very racist. They perform in blackface and the African-American characters are very stereotyped. It bothers me when I think about it, but the rest of the movie is just so good I try to overlook it as a sign of the times. Is that bad? I don't know. Anyway, what's your favorite holiday movie? Write a post and link up at There's a Book!

7 Comments

December 18, 2010

Personal Stories

My Favorite Smell: A Bit of Me(me)

Danielle from There's a Book hosts A Bit of Me(me) every Saturday. Each week she asks us to post the answer to a question designed to help us get to know each other better. This week's question: What is your favorite smell and why? Does it bring back memories? I'll admit that I thought this question was a little weird at first. I don't have the greatest sniffer out there, so smells aren't something I pay a whole lot of attention to. Working in health care, this can honestly be a blessing. Is that TMI? Anyway, I thought about it and realized there are a lot of smells that I really like, but there's one that stands out. I ♥ the smell of freshly-cut grass. I smell it and I'm happy. Photo of a "new-mown hayfield by Bickley Hall Farm" taken by Espresso Addict and posted on Wikimedia Commons. I grew up pretty far out in the country. My grandparents have a small family farm and I grew up just a "little piece" down the mountain from them. My uncles have slowly been taking over more and more of the responsibility for things over the years. Anyway, my parents' house is at the edge of all this, in between a big hayfield and the tree line. So every summer, in about June, my uncle would mow the hay for the first time. Oh, it's a heavenly smell. We were fresh out of school for the summer, I had stacks and stacks of books from the library to read, life was simple and life was good. We didn't have air conditioning back then, so we would open the windows in the evening to let the cool air in and that smell would come wafting into the house on a summer breeze. The lightning bugs…

10 Comments

July 17, 2010

Personal Stories

I Can’t Sing: A Bit of Me(me)

A Bit of Me(me) is hosted every Saturday at There's A Book. Every week, Danielle asks us a question that lets us get to know each other a little better. This week's question is: What is one thing you are really NOT good at? Oh, man, where do I start? :-) I'll go with the first thing that comes to mind: singing. (My husband just looked over my shoulder and said I should have gone with "getting up on time." That's true too, but I've already written this post.) Oh my gosh, I can't sing to save my life. It's odd because I'm really good with instruments (well, I was when I actually played them, but that hasn't happened since high school), but I am tone-deaf when it comes to singing. I love to sing alone in my car, I love to irritate the heck out of my family by singing "Happy Birthday" to them as loudly and badly as possible (so badly it takes talent to be that bad, I promise you), but to actually sound good? Not happening. Even if you know what song I'm trying to sing, you still can't recognize it. My husband and I both cringe when I have to attempt a "Humdinger" in the board game, Cranium. We both know he's not guessing the name of any song I try to hum. What's something YOU are not good at? I shared mine! Be sure to stop by There's A Book and see how other bloggers answered!

10 Comments

July 10, 2010

Bookish Miscellany

What Are You Reading?/In My Mailbox Monday

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. This week was a pretty slow book week. I had a hard time settling into anything. Finished: Muse and Reverie by Charles de Lint. That review will be posted Wednesday. Currently Reading: The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea Campbell The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi Oh! I almost forgot! I am trying out audio books for the second or third time, so I'm listening to I Like You! Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris also. She's funny, so she's keeping my attention pretty well so far. Up Next: I checked out Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran from the library, so I need to get to that soon. What did you read this week? I hope you had better luck than I did!

14 Comments

May 10, 2010

Personal Stories

April Fool’s Day: Booking Through Thursday

Booking Through Thursday says Since it’s April Fool’s Day, I toyed with different ideas of questions for today. * Who’s your favorite “fool” of a character, and why? * What authors have fooled you? By a trick plot twist? By making you think their book was any good when it wasn’t? * What covers have fooled you into reading books you hated … even though the covers were wonderful? * What’s the best April Fool’s Day trick you’ve ever seen/heard about/done? Ultimately, I couldn’t pick … so choose the one you like best. Or answer all of them! Or make up your own. My husband, Luis, probably pulled the best April Fool's Day trick I know of. When we first started dating, we worked in the same department. He got a blank schedule from our supervisor and filled it in, putting everybody on the wrong shifts and making sure that people who really disliked each other were scheduled together. To make matters worse, our supervisor had actually been making noises about shaking us up like that. Anyway, Luis made copies and put them in a few of our work mailboxes. When I saw mine, I fell apart! "I can't work with those two! I'll be fired, because I'll be telling them exactly how lazy they are! Especially when I'm cranky at 6:00 in the morning. What is she thinking?!? She knows I don't work days!" And on and on. He didn't let me stew too long before he clued me in. Boy, was I mad! It was a great trick, but it was horrible for my blood pressure! He didn't do it to very many of us, but I think we all felt the same way. He was lucky he didn't get hurt that day! What's the best April Fool's…

0 Comments

April 1, 2010

Bookish Miscellany

Illustrated Books: Booking Through Thursday

This week, Booking Through Thursday asks, How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches? I can't say that I always spend a lot of time looking at them, but I like them. They just add a little extra something. I loved the illustrations China Miéville did for his own book, Un Lun Dun. They added just the perfect touch of whimsy to an already-charming story. And it was a lot of fun to see exactly what he had in mind when he described binjas! How do you feel about any kinds of graphics in your books?

4 Comments

March 11, 2010

Bookish Miscellany

Grammar: Booking Through Thursday

In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books? More importantly, have you read them? How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy? Bad grammar drives me crazy. I can see my family bracing for a diatribe now. :-) Grammar is very important. It helps to ensure that what I'm trying to write is what you're reading. Little things make a big difference sometimes. Some grammar rules get a little too fussy though, and can obscure more than they clarify, like when you try to rewrite a sentence so that it doesn't end in a dangling preposition. "For which it was intended" is just more awkward than "It was intended for," grammar be damned. That's all I'll say about that though, mainly because I'm afraid that someone will come along and say, "It's funny you should say that, because I've noticed that you consistently make this grammatical error...." My spoken grammar is a whole different story. Can I just say that I'm a Southerner and leave it at that? I might know better, but that doesn't stop me from pulling out, "I ain't got no" on occasion. I own a Chicago Manual of Style, but I don't actually pull it out too frequently. It's too easy to just Google whatever I'm not sure about. I've read Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but thought it was pretty basic and I didn't really find the snarky humor all that funny. How do you feel about grammar?

7 Comments

March 4, 2010

Personal Stories

Reading As Escape? Booking Through Thursday

Suggested by Janet: I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’: “To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.” To what extent does this describe you? I can't say that I'm crazy about the wording of the quote because it makes readers sound like losers desperate to escape from their own lives. I'm very happy with my life, but it is nice to get out of my own head and into someone else's for a little while in the pages of a book. I can't actually know what it's like to live in Tudor England or what it's like to grow up on the streets or even to travel as much as I would like. Reading makes it possible for me to vicariously experience all of this and more. I know my own stories, and I'm generally happy to tell them to anyone who will listen. Reading lets me share in other people's stories. I would say that it's curiosity and a healthy imagination that let's me know there's more to Life than my small part of it. I want to find out how others live. Even fictional characters have something to teach us if we just let them. What do you think?

0 Comments

February 25, 2010

Personal Stories

Winter Olympics: Booking Through Thursday

You may have noticed–the Winter Olympics are going on. Is that affecting your reading time? Have you read any Olympics-themed books? What do you think about the Olympics in general? Here’s your chance to discuss! I am not a sports fan, but I do enjoy watching the Olympics. My husband and I are ready to visit Vancouver! The scenery NBC keeps showing is just breath-taking. I really enjoyed the opening ceremonies. China will probably always stand out for their awesome show, but Canada did go a different direction and it was very well done. And I really need to find k.d. lang's version of "Hallelujah." It was much better than the version I have now. She gave me goosebumps! I was saddened by the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili and would like to say that my thoughts and prayers are with his family and teammates. What a terrible thing to happen at such a proud time in his life. I get most of my reading done during my downtime at work, so I can't say that watching the Olympics has cut into that. I have no idea how anyone is doing in the medal count, so I'll have to catch up while I'm off this weekend. I don't recall ever reading an Olympic-themed book--unless you count Percy Jackson and the Olympians. ;-) Those don't really sound like something I would enjoy, but I'm very open to suggestions. Does anyone have any? Share your answers here and at Booking Through Thursday.

7 Comments

February 18, 2010

Bookish Miscellany

Encouraging Non-Readers: Booking Through Thursday

How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader? In the book Gifted Hands by brilliant surgeon Ben Carson, one of the things that turned his life around was his mother’s requirement that he and his brother read books and write book reports for her. That approach worked with him, but I have been afraid to try it. My children don’t need to “turn their lives around,” but they would gain so much from reading and I think they would enjoy it so much if they would just stop telling themselves, “I just don’t like to read.” Well, I don't have kids and I've always been a reader, so I don't have any practical advice to offer on this. I think every person is different though. I'm far too stubborn to respond to required book reports. In fact, I hated almost everything I had to read for school. And I think that offering rewards would make reading seem like a chore. Those types of things obviously work for some people though. My husband wasn't really a reader when we met. He'd read a few books by Robin Cook and enjoyed them, but he never made time for reading. I went out on a limb and bought him The Alienist by Caleb Carr. He loved it! He's still not a voracious reader, but he always has one book on his nightstand that he's working on. For…

9 Comments

February 11, 2010