Announcing the SECOND Summer Ninja Book Swap!!

I am super excited! Sign ups for the Summer Ninja Book Swap are officially open and Hanna and I have been running the swaps for an entire year :-) The eagle eyed among you will notice that this is the same button we used last year, purely for continuity's sake of course. Feel free to nick it to put on your blogs. 

In case anybody doesn't know what a Ninja Book Swap is yet, here are the basics:

You sign up to send a fellow ninja a parcel containing a book or two from their wishlist (these do not have to be new, but must be in a condition you would be happy to receive yourself), a little gift based on a list of their likes and dislikes you will receive, and a card revealing who you are. There has been a little confusion in the past, but to retain the ninjaness, you won't send your parcel to the same person you receive a parcel from, that way everybody's parcel is a total surprise :-) 

Want to sign up? Of course you do! Here's a little list of what to do and the rules. There aren't many so please make sure you follow them all! 

**** Sign up by sending us an email at ninjabookswap@outlook.com. In the email you need to tell us:

       - your name and address details 

       - a link to your blog/goodreads/facebook page/twitter or tumblr account/wherever you have an 'internet presence'

        - a link to your book wishlist or alternatively a list of ten books you really want to read

        - a short list of your likes and dislikes (e.g. I like chocolate, Harry Potter and silver jewellery, I dislike pink things, bookmarks and anything overly girly) to help your partner when they're choosing your gift

         - Shipping preference - are you happy to send you parcel internationally or would you prefer to send only within your own country?

         - If you would like to send and receive TWO awesome parcels, please let us know! :-) 

THE RULES

1. Email us at ninjabookswap@outlook.com telling us all the above things by Sunday May 25th 
2. Go shopping! And post your parcel by Monday June 30th - this is to give everybody plenty of time to shop as lots of people had issues with not having enough time last time. You can of course post it before this deadline if you're ready!
3. PLEASE buy a book or two from your recipients wishlist as this is the only way (unless you already know them well) you'll know they don't have or haven't read the book already. 
4. Books can of course be second hand but please do not send copies in a condition you'd be unhappy to receive yourself and PLEASE do not send anything that is obviously a promotional copy (e.g says '£1 with Galaxy Chocolate/The Daily Express) as it makes it seem like you've not bothered!
5. Email us both once you have SENT and RECEIVED your parcel, so we can keep track and make sure that everyone's playing fair :-) 
6. Please get proof of postage when sending your parcel, as if you don't and the parcel goes missing you a) won't be able to claim via Royal Mail and b)won't be able to participate in future swaps. 

The swaps are a massive amount of fun and a brilliant way to get to know new bloggers and feel like the world is a lovely place full of lovely strangers who want to buy and send you gorgeous bookish parcels for no reason :-) If you want to keep up with what's going on, follow us on Twitter @NinjaBookSwap, where we will be posting updates and generally making a lot of book swap related noise. Please feel free to blog about the swap and tweet us the links to your posts - we'll be happy to share!

Bout of Books: Day 2

So... it's day two of the Bout of Books Readathon! I realised yesterday I failed to link to anything useful, so if you want to sign up to join in with the fun, today is the last day to do so and you can do it here. 

If you're interested, my goals,stats and challenge for Day 1 are here. 

TUESDAY

Pages Read: 23 altogether 

Books read from: Peter Duck by Arthur Ransome

Number of books finished: 2 if you count having read the same Pingu book twice to Benji. 0 of my own books. 

Time Spent Reading: probably about 45 fragmented minutes

It's 1.30pm and so far my Tuesday has been a RUBBISH reading day! I managed to read two pages of Peter Duck early this morning before Rhys left for work while we were all eating breakfast, but the rest of the morning was spent playing with and reading to Ben and since he's given up sleeping in his bed during the day I then spent about three hours walking around doing various chores with him in the pushchair, hoping he'd fall asleep which he has just done and I swear I must have walked about three miles by now, up hills and everything. I'm knackered! Anyway, since I can't use the laptop when he's awake because he likes to 'type' on it (for which read thump the keyboard as hard as he can and occasionally sit on the screen :-/) I thought I'd take advantage of the brief time period to write a post for today, participate in todays challenges, both of which look really good, and have a little read of some other blogs too! 

I'm hoping I'll get to read a lot more later, after Ben's in bed, but I also have business taxy stuff to do, so maybe not.... 

It didn't get a huge amount better, because I had a lot of business stuff to do and some orders to work on (look at me, I'm a busy crafty entrepreneur) and by the time I actually settled down to read it was quite late and I was quite tired. Never mind, bring on Wednesday! :-) 

CHALLENGES

Bookish Battle Royal Challenge hosted by My Life in Books

For this challenge the idea is to pick 3 characters and have them battle it out! I love it. My three are:

Jo March from Little Women (we don't really need to talk about how much I dislike the Winona Ryder film right now, she is here for representational purposes and that is all)

Hermione Granger from Harry Potter

aaaaand Anne Shirley from the Anne of Green Gables series

I think it would be a really close call, but in the end Hermione would win, purely because of the three of them she's the least inclined to get overly emotional about stuff. This may have a lot to do with having been created a century or so after the other two, but still I'm sticking with it! I think Anne would definitely give her a run for her money though, while Jo would be up a tree somewhere, writing about the whole experience!

The second challenge of the day is hosted by River City Reading. For this challenge, all we have to do is to make a list of books we're looking forward to, and I have quite a few at the moment!

1. The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba - not out yet, as far as I'm aware currently without a release date, but when it eventually turns up it will be epic, I can tell.

2. Fangirl & Landline by Rainbow Rowell - because I'm the last person in the whole world not to own Fangirl, but having read and obsessed about and adored Attachments and Eleanor and Park I cannot wait to read anything and everything Rowell ever writes. For the moment I'll settle for the two currently published though!

3. The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris - You guys know how I feel about mythology, and I think I've read all of the novels Joanne Harris has published so far and loved them all, to greater and lesser degrees. Somehow The Gospel of Loki came out without me noticing and I'm dying to read it!

4. The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas - also not out yet but due in 2015 I think. I love Scarlett Thomas for she is brilliant and so I must read all of the things that she writes. Yes. *wanders off to find Our Tragic Universe to read again*

5. Fables: Witches and Fairest:Wide Awake by Bill Willingham - both in print (yay!), I've been reading the Fables series for a while but it's slow going because my local library service only have a few of them and I'm a bit cash - strapped at the moment so I've been awaiting the right moment to buy volume 14 for a while. Fairest is the new series, focusing on the female fables characters and it seems like it's going to be great!

I'm going to stop there, although I could go on forever, because I feel like with the amount of people taking part in BoB this time you lot are going to have more than enough to add to your TBRs already! :-) 

Bout of Books - Goals & Day 1!

So because I totally suck, I actually didn't realise until this morning that Bout of Books was starting today! Luckily I had three books with me, so I got started on the train :-) At the moment I'm pretty manically busy with work, sorting out my craft business, entertaining an 18 month old, trying to keep the house livable, oh, and being 8 months pregnant and knackered, so i'm going to keep my goals simple! The manic activity is represented in the books I'm currently reading, all of which I'm part way through, so my basic goals are thus;

• Read every day
• Participate in at least one challenge a day
• Visit two new to me blogs a day (and pop across and say hi to Ellie, Katie and Hanna)

That's it! Seriously simple. Because you've not seen them yet, here are my books:

And here are my stats for day one:

Monday

Pages Read: approx 120 

Books read from: Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo, Craft Show & Sell by Torie Jayne, and (not pictured) Toast & Marmalade (otherwise known as 'the bacon book') by Emma Bridgewater. 

Number of books finished: 0

Time Spent Reading: Probably about 2.5-3 hours all in. 

After having forgotten, as previously mentioned, that Bout of Books started today, I managed to kick off to a good start reading Flora & Ulysses on the train. I've never read any Kate DiCamillo and it was one of those surprising times where Rhys has discovered an author and pushed her on me, and I'm really glad he has. Flora & Ulysses is about a girl called Flora and a squirrel with superpowers called Ulysses and so far it's hilarious and great. I love it. I also dipped into Craft Show & Sell a bit on the train. Basically it's full of tips on how to run a successful craft business, and probably not all that interesting to those of you who don't do that :-p Toast & Marmalade is not pictured because *mumbles* we sell it at work and I haven't actually bought it, I just read it when it's quiet. It's an interesting, very self-interested account of Emma Bridgewater (who runs the pottery business) and her many talents. It does have great photography though, and recipes, so it's a winner for me despite the self-absorption!

Challenge

The first challenge for this Bout of Books is a recommendation challenge, and I thought I'd give it a go because obviously everybody needs more books on their tbr... :-/

Here are my recommendations:

If you like Scott Pilgrim vs the World by Bryan Lee O'Malley, try Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo.

If you like beautiful writing and magical fantasy, try The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

If you like mythology and amazing stories, try The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

My last one is kind of an anti-recommendation? I don't know, see what you think!

If you don't like Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, try The Radleys by Matt Haig

So that's day one! I'm off to visit a few of you now :-) SO EXCITED to be blogging again!!

Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome

A while ago I wrote about how I planned to read the entire series of Swallows and Amazons books by Arthur Ransome this summer. Then I wrote about how I'd triumphantly finished Swallows and Amazons and how it was just as great as I expected, and I amazed everybody (myself included) by carrying straight on and ploughing my way through Swallowdale, the second book in the series. 

I thought I might have read Swallowdale as a child, but having read it now I don't think I ever have done. It's set in the summer holidays one year on from the events of Swallows and Amazons and features the same cast of characters as the previous book, but pretty much the whole book takes place in Swallowdale, a valley discovered by the crew of the Swallow after they have tragically wrecked their boat on a rock just offshore, meaning they have no means of returning to Wild Cat Island. While they are waiting for the boat to be mended, they move their camp to Swallowdale instead and commence great adventures, including mountain climbing, narrow escapes from terrifying Great Aunts and another encounter with the charcoal burners who live in wigwams and who also appear in the first book. 

You could call Swallowdale just more of the same, and it is in the same way that I'm expecting most of the series to be about kids having adventures in boats. Because that's what they are, and I personally have no problem with that. The only thing that really annoyed me about this one was how randomly everybody now calls the baby known as Vicky in Swallows and Amazons Bridget. Apparently, Bridget is her actual name and she was only called Vicky because she bore a resemblance to Queen Victoria, and come to think of it I might sort of vaguely remember this being mentioned like once in the first book, but still I was so confused. I was sat on the bus staring out the window going 'who the hell is Bridget?? Where's Vicky gone?!'. 

Aside from that, there was lots more adventuring and exploring and leaving trails for themselves as well as general survival and the discovery of a super awesome cave they then used as a larder and the arrival of Peter Duck! Helpfully I now know that Peter Duck is a figment of Titty's imagination, and a character who featured in a story which was told 'at Christmas'. I did miss the Amazons, who were unable to join in a lot of the adventures due to having to stay home wearing their best dresses and reciting poetry for their horrendous Great Aunt, who wouldn't even let Nancy be called Nancy! Consequently, getting them (and Captain Flint) away from the Great Aunt featured prominently through about three quarters of the book, and also added a really nice little time pressure onto everything, as it's difficult to do things properly when you have to worry about people being home by 5 for tea. 

As with Swallows and Amazons, lots of the geography of Swallowdale was inspired by things in the region where Ransome was living at the time. I just put it in as general interest (mostly for Katie, in case it helps inspire your holiday at all!) that Kanchenjunga, the mountain that they climb, was inspired by Old Man of Coniston, just in case you decide you have the need to climb a mountain, and if you do I want photos! 

If you haven't read Swallows and Amazons, I really want to know why not, and if you read it and like it, I would recommend you keep going. Especially if you're reading it to kids. Swallowdale was published in 1931, and to me, aside from the lack of electronics and general hysteria about the safety of children, it is wonderfully undated. I've just started Peter Duck, which the previously mentioned lovely Katie actually went out of her way to look for in bookshops where she lives and posted to me. How amazing is that?? I'm already loving it :-) 

Bout of Books 10 - I'm Officially Still Alive!

So I'm the worst blogger in the world at the moment and there are many reasons for that, but I miss blogging so I've decided to hop back into it with Bout of Books :-) As ever, I'm going to make an overly ambitious pile of things I'd like to read and then probably fail to finish all but one, but never mind. 

Unfortunately one of the reasons I've not been around much is that I've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which is fine but has meant lots of extra appointments and scans and changes to diet, so my snack pictures won't be up to much this time around, but never mind! I know you're really here for the books anyway! 

For those who don't know, here's what Bout of Books is about:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 12th and runs through Sunday, May 18th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 10 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

If you want to sign up, you can do so here. 

This week I will be posting a bit. I've finished Swallowdale and will be posting my review and also doing a bit of a bookcase dissection on Benji's bookcase. He's getting a kid sized beanbag chair tomorrow and we're going to make him a little reading corner in his room, it will be awesome. 

Swallows and Amazons!!

Swallows and Amazons is one of my childhood favourites. While I was reading it this time I had a conversation with my sister where we were talking about it being a bit dated, and she said 'well it doesn't matter, because who wouldn't rather live in a world where you could safely send your kids off to camp on an island and sail about in a boat and not worry about them being kidnapped or whatever?'. She makes a good point, and I think that's a huge part of the appeal this book still holds for me. When I was a kid, it was full of the kinds The of things I wanted to do (and to be fair to my parents, we did a lot of them, just in a slightly more supervised capacity), and now it's full of the stuff I'd love my kids to be able to do. 

For those who don't know, Swallows and Amazons is about four siblings - John, Susan, Titty and Roger - who sail about in a little boat called Swallow one summer and go camping on an island in the middle of a lake where they are staying for the summer. On the island they encounter the two woman crew of the Amazon, 'pirates' Nancy (her real name is Ruth, but pirates are Ruth-less. love it) and Peggy Blackett and have all kinds of adventures together. 

Can we just talk for a moment about the fact that Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series has been reissued with half the kids' names changed because apparently children today can't cope with people named 'Dick' and 'Fanny', but Titty is still happily allowed to be called Titty? Weird double standard? I don't get it. Aside from that (and the fact that Ransome continually refers to the poor baby as 'fat Vicky'. She's a baby! She's supposed to be fat!) it stood up really well to rereading. 

I was a little bit worried that, having committed myself to reading the entire series of 12 books this summer, I'd get through Swallows and Amazons and really hate it, but no. I still love it. It still made me want to go camping immediately and make campfires and go exploring. The kids didn't annoy me particularly and there was a lot at the end that I had no memory of, possibly because my overriding memory is of the film rather than the book. If you have kids and you want to encourage them to go outside and play and use their imaginations, you should read them this book. 

I've already started Swallowdale and am loving it so far. The only bad thing is that it means the ever-elusive Peter Duck is next and I can't get my sister's copy till the middle of May ;-( Anybody want to lend me a copy? 

Let the Swallows and Amazons Readathon Commence!

Too many years ago, when I joined The Classics Club I put the entire series of Swallows and Amazons on my list. As a child I was obsessed with Swallows and Amazons and wanted nothing more than to sail off to an island in the middle of a lake and leave my parents behind, and because of this I decided I couldn't possibly start reading the series without owning it, so I've been collecting from second hand bookshops and charity shops pretty much constantly for the past two years, and finally, finally I have nearly the whole series. 

I say nearly, because Peter Duck has been completely eluding me. I bought it for my sister in a charity shop a while ago, convinced it wouldn't be too hard to find another copy for myself. I was wrong, and I still don't have it, but I'm just going to borrow her copy, because the weather is nice and I'm teaching Benjamin about nature and it feels like the right time to start reading. I don't want to wait anymore! Anyway, here's my collection:

I've been reading Swallows and Amazons already this morning and I still love it. I don't think I've actually ever read most of the rest, although I do have a very vague memory of Missee Lee, so it should be fun and hopefully get me back into blogging a bit more regularly!