Creative book cover posts – have you noticed this trend?

Image: Pixabay

Lately I’ve noticed how creative book bloggers have become with the way they review books. It’s taken the book cover display to a new dimension. Readers aren’t just attracted to interesting, colorful and original covers. Book stores and libraries know how important displays are. And so do these bloggers.

A quick trip through my WordPress Reader today proves my point. These imaginative bloggers know how to make their posts fun to see and read and they definitely know how to make me want to read the books they feature! Make sure you check them out:


The Food and Book Life – Pride Readathon 2019 Wrap-up


Jennifer – Tar Heel Reader – The Perfect Son by Lauren North


Ope’s Opinions – Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center


Reading Ladies Book Club – Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok


Two Sisters Lost in a Coulee Reading – The Arrangement by Robyn Harding


I’ve been thinking about how to redecorate Book Club Mom and this is one of the things I have started to change with my reviews.

Those People by Louise Candlish


Run Away by Harlan Coben


Lot by Bryan Washington

I may be jumping on a little late, and I’m definitely not in the league of these other creative bloggers, but I’m having fun trying this new way to share a book. Have you also noticed this trend?

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

Book Club Mom’s May recap – books, birthdays and a graduation

I don’t know what happened to May, but here we are at the finish. It’s a big month for birthdays in my family and we squeezed in a college graduation too! It’s always nice to settle into a comfy chair during the down times and relax with a book, a show or a puzzle.

I’ve become a bit crazy with a word game I have on my ancient Kindle called Every Word: Crossings, and I have been playing it obsessively. I never look at that as a waste of time, though. Things like that always help me sort out my day.

And I went a little overboard with my Barbie doll posts (see below), but it’s been fun (for me, at least!) sharing something that I loved as a girl.


This month, I read and reviewed three regular books:

 

A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd – if you like mystery series, this is the first of the Bess Crawford stories, set in England during World War I. I enjoyed both the characters and the historical setting. The author, Charles Todd, is actually a mother-son writing team.


More and more, it seems, fiction books are being co-authored and this month I wrote a post about this very thing!

Author teams and pen names – if the story’s good, does it matter? Not to me!


Lab Girl by Hope Jahren – in this memoir about becoming a female scientist, Jahren writes a compelling personal story about family, love, friendship, mental health and the difficulties of earning a living as a scientist. (Jahren made it big, after a long road, and has won many awards.)


The Beneficiary – Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of my Father by Janny Scott – a biography of Robert Montgomery Scott, written by his daughter. A tale of four generations of a wealthy Main Line, Pennsylvania family and their 800-acre estate and the complicated relationships among family members.


As I mentioned above, I also started a series that celebrates books about the Barbie doll’s 60th birthday. Here are the first two posts, indulging my obsession. I’ll share my final Barbie post next week.

Dressing Barbie: A Celebration of the Clothes That Made America’s Favorite Doll and the Incredible Woman Behind Them – Carol Spencer

Look what Barbie’s wearing! Barbie Fashion 1959-1967 by Sarah Sink Eames


May was a busier indie author month. I introduced three hard-working writers:

Richard Doiron
Lucia N. Davis
Frank Prem

If you are an indie or self-published author and would like to be featured on Who’s That Indie Author, please email me at bvitelli2009@gmail.com. To shake things up, I’ve updated my interview with a new set of questions!


Next week, we’re starting a Summer Reading program at the library where I work, so I’ll be signing up for that. I plan to work these two books onto my list:

June book previews: Lot – Stories by Bryan Washington and Miracle Creek by Angie Kim


And last, I was sorry to see that American author Herman Wouk died on May 17, at age 103. I’ve enjoyed many of his books and think I will go back to some of them this summer. I had a fun time looking at these book covers – did you notice that the last two, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, fit together to make a bigger picture?

Remembering American author Herman Wouk, 1915 – 2019

I hope you had a good month, out in the world and between the pages. I’m looking forward to a good summer!

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

Celebrating 5 years of blogging!

When I started Book Club Mom, I had no concept of blogging. My son already had a blog, he suggested it to me and it sounded like fun. I had been posting book reviews on Amazon for a couple years as a way to mark what I’d read and also express an opinion or two. As with all new bloggers, it took a while for me to understand the new world I was stepping into.

My very first post was a review of Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, one of the classics. (You can read it here.)

Now, five years later, it’s a part of me. I haven’t burned out. I still have lots of ideas and I’m looking forward to more reading and reviewing. I hope you’ll keep with me!

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

NetGalley – so many more books to read and review!

I’m excited to be a new member of NetGalley and I’m looking forward to reading something so brand new it’s not even on the shelves. I already feel like an insider!

I will learn over time what works best for me, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear tips and comments from other NetGalley members.

  • How often do you read titles from NetGalley?
  • What devices do you read your NetGalley books on?
  • Do you still read books that have already been published?
  • Do you interact on NetGalley with other reviewers?
  • Has a NetGalley membership broadened your blogging community?

Thanks for visiting and happy reading!

Blogging Friends

Image:  Pixabay
Image: Pixabay

After three and a half years on WordPress, I’ve made a great group of blogging friends.  When things get busy and I can’t check in for a day or two, I find myself wondering how everyone is doing.  Besides the book reviews, new fiction, and other important blogging posts, I like reading everyone’s miscellaneous news and random musings.  And I’m sitting here thinking, “Oh, I need to tell my friends this, or that” because that’s what friends do, in person or in the cyber world, right?


echo-park crooked-letter-crooked-letterA lot has been going on in my Book Club Mom world.  I went back to work almost a year ago and I love my library job.  This month I will be leading the mystery book club at the library and in the future I will be sharing that job with one of the librarians.  I sat in on last month’s meeting, where we discussed Echo Park by Michael Connelly, an excellent mystery thriller.  I hope to have time to start at the beginning of Connelly’s books and work my way through them.  This month we are reading Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.  I have the book and will be starting that soon.  I’m very excited about doing this!


the-fever the-most-dangerous-place-on-earthThis month, my personal book club is reading The Fever by Megan Abbott.  I’m going to try to start that tonight.  I don’t know much about it, but Gillian Flynn calls it “a mesmerizing modern portrait of teenage life today.”  Since I just finished reading (and loved!) The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson, also about teenagers, I think The Fever will be a nice one to follow with.


cover-reveal-smallerI’m in the final stages of helping publish A Fortunate Life by Fred H. Rohn.  I have learned a great deal about self-publishing and will be blogging about that separately.  I’d love to get a dialogue going with all my indie author friends about their experiences getting books to print and online and marketing challenges.  We’re already working on a second book, a collection of short fiction.


I’m getting ready to update my blog page, but I need some time to get my ideas in order.  So look for some new banners, photos and color schemes in the next few months.


Source:  brainsonfire.com
Source: brainsonfire.com

I’m working on a new “Blog views and other obsessions” post with a bunch of different topics.  For one, I cannot figure out my Book Club Mom Facebook feed.  I’ve “liked” a ton of pages, but I never see them on my feed.  I’d also like to do something more with my Goodreads group of friends because I see a lot of potential there.  I’m wondering how I can integrate that account with my other social media.  I’ll be talking about Twitter too, because I’m using it a lot more now and have learned a few things (it’s good to have teenagers and college kids handy!)


thank-you-pixabay
Image: Pixabay

I’m so thankful to everyone who takes the time to read my posts and comment.  I try every chance I get to read your blogs too because I am genuinely interested in what you have to say.  I feel bad when I can’t check in on everyone’s blogs all the time, but I’m trying to visit you all on a regular basis.  I’m also thankful for a bunch of new followers and plan to share the love by highlighting them in a separate post.  (It is the Valentine month, right?)  I got that idea from Noelle Granger at Sayling Away so be sure to check out her blog here.


So that’s it for now, but I’ll be seeing you out there!  Happy blogging!

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!