Have YOU pre-ordered The Fault in Our Stars? I did. I hope all you nerdfighters out there will as well. It's only about $12 of your money, which is a little over an hour's worth of minimum-wage work.
C'mon. For a John Green book, it's worth it.
I absolutely loved the first chapter. I can't wait for more!
dftba.
Stitchionary 6: Edgings 
Vogue Knitting
ISBN: 9781936096220
Published: November 1st 2011 by Sixth&Spring Book
Rating: 4
This book is very similar to Knitting Beyond the Edge, but I don't like as many as the patterns. I like a lot of them, but I don't like as many as I did in KBtE. This might be because the patterns were presented in a relatively boring way: a photo, the pattern, and a number. There weren't any pictures of the edges being used, or examples, so maybe it was just hard to visualize using them. Again, I liked a lot of them, and they were inspiring, but not as much as I'd hoped.
It has seven sections: Ribs, Texture, Cables, Lace, Color, Unusual, and Crochet. There are some other things in the back like a glossary and abbreviations. I like the cables, lace, color, and unusual sections a lot. Of course I don't knit lace, so usability wise I would really only use three out of the seven sections.
Overall it's an extremely convenient and important tool for pattern designers and people like me who make stuff up as they go along. If this book is anything like the others, I'd love to have the rest of the Stitchionary volumes for my collection.
Recommendation: Knitters of all skill levels. There are very simple and basic patterns for ribs and seed stitches, all the way up to extremely complicated lace and Celtic knots.
Knit Local by Tanis Gray 
Genre: Knitting
ISBN: 9781936096183
Published: October 4th 2011 by Sixth&Spring Book
Rating: 4
Knit Local is a really fun book. I went nuts while I was flipping through it. There's a wide range of patterns, including sweaters and large pieces of clothing, scarfs, hats, mittens, shawls, wraps, cowls, socks, kids clothing, and even some pillows. I liked the patterns, but I'm a small projects girl, and I don't make sweaters or large items, and there were a lot of larger more complicated patterns. I would have liked more small projects – but that's just my personal preference. Because it is so broad, I think it would be hard to find a target audience that would like every single pattern. I liked most of them, but about half of them I'll never knit.
Artistically, this book is beautiful. Each new feature includes a story about the small yarn company, information about them, their location, website, and yarns, and a pattern with their yarn. The layout and structure is just as beautiful as the photographs, and makes the book really easy to read and look through.
I love local yarn companies and shops. I love supporting local businesses, mostly because I know our economy runs on them more than we think we do. I've worked at three small businesses over the past five years, and I've loved every second of it. This book not only has great patterns, but there are connections to buy local yarns.
Recommendation: Intermediate/advanced knitters. There are a few crochet patterns, but not an even distribution of knit and crochet.
Help for Writers by Roy Peter Clark 
Genre: Instructional/Self Help for Writers
ISBN: 9780316126717
Published: September 21st 2011 by Little, Brown and Company
Rating: 5
This book is one of those books that I will let people borrow as long as they don't take it out of my house. It's so awesome I know it will be stolen if I loosen my grip on it. It reminds me of The Breakout Novelist, only it's not specifically aimed for novels, but more writers in general. It's about the process of writing, the preparation, the motivation, the different tricks and tips to get you going, and to get you to finish, and then how to edit etc. This is a gem of a book and should be on every writer's bookshelf.
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant 
Genre: YA Steampunk
ISBN: 9780763648435
Published: October 11th 2011 by Candlewick Press
Rating: 4
This is a really cool collection of fourteen different short stories by some of todays best known YA authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Christopher Rowe, Holly Black, and more. They are peculiar and strange, and though I don't like all of them, I appreciate them and I like the collection as a whole. I definitely recommend this collection to anyone who likes the steampunk Genre. (This review is copyright Haley Mathiot and AmazonVine.)
Every Step You Take: A Memoir by Jock Soto 
Genre: Memoir
ISBN: 9780061732386
Published: October 4th 2011 by Harper
Rating: 3, DNF
What can I say about a dancer's memoir? It's not the first I've read. In general I avoid memoirs because they tend to have a stuffy self-absorbed feel to them. There was a little of that in Every Step You Take, but it wasn't really bad at all. I didn't read the whole thing, although I probably will finish it eventually (a chapter here and a chapter there). It was interesting, and I felt pulled into Soto's story—his writing has good voice—but I didn't feel compelled to read it. I didn't love it, but I didn't dislike it. I'm still on the fence. If I ever find myself reading the rest and change my mind about it, I'll be sure to revise this review, but as it is, I'm finding my mind wandering. Time to move on. (This review is copyright Haley Mathiot and AmazonVine.)
Primary Victim was one of my favorite crime thrillers through my first year of blogging. Primary Victim has been re-edited and re-released under the new title Intended Target.
Intended Target e-book is available on Amazon for $0.99 for a limited time!
Michael Bloomington is a serial killer whose victims don't die. They linger in prison, struggling to understand how they came to sit in jail convicted of a murder they did not commit.
A brilliant man trained in the intricacies of the law, Michael's goal is to get caught. Only then can his defense, based upon the maxim on which our legal system rests, "better ninety-nine guilty men go free than one innocent man be hanged," be tested.
Brice McCallahan is Michael's latest victim. With his memory clouded by a night of heavy drinking and overwhelming evidence pointing to his involvement in the murder of a young woman, even Brice begins to doubt his innocence.
Ted Jamey is the one homicide detective not entirely convinced Brice is a killer. However, as Ted draws closer to the true killer, he also draws closer to unleashing the killer's grand design.
Intended Target is a novel that tests both the psychological breaking point of an individual and the strength of the legal system governing society.
Learn more about Intended Target and author Cyrus Holt here.
The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook by Jeff Kinley 
Genre: Christian Living
ISBN: 9781595554383
Published: October 11th 2011 by Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Rating: DNF
I really wish I could have gotten farther in this book. It sounded like it had a lot of potential and It's extremely relevant to our culture. However, this is another example of a sad reoccurring theme: An individual who has a really good idea and a really good concept, but can't write (They Almost Always Come Home, The Bridge, and more). In these situations, I always wish the author had partnered up with someone who could make the book readable.
I didn't have a problem with the book itself, and I'll bet Kinley is a great public speaker, but he can't write a book. Although I've never heard him preach, I can tell he writes like he speaks. If he were speaking this book out loud and if I were watching it, I would probably have given it a totally different rating. But books are written using grammatical sentences, starting with a subject, including at least one verb, and connected with prepositions and direct objects etc. This book was written mostly in fragments. Call me a grammar Nazi, but I couldn't get past the second chapter because it was grating on my nerves and making me want to mark it up with a red pen.
Also, Kinley made the first chapter a fiction story, and the next chapter the actual book. He continued this pattern through the book. I thought I would like this, but I found it broke up the book and made me lose my concentration. Either write a nonfiction, or write a novel, but please don't write both at the same time.
Included in that fiction aspect, there was a lot of gore. Now I like gore: I'm a crime thriller writer. Maybe this was poor decision making on my part, but I do my Bible study over breakfast; and eating pancakes with blueberries and applesauce while reading about zombie guts being spewed all over someone's face just don't mix very well. Again, I like blood and guts, but I felt like this was a little unnecessary.
I wish I could have given this book more positive promotion, but the only thing I can say is I've promised to give my honest opinion, so here you go.
Recommendation: Ages 16+ for graphic content.
My Memories is a software program for digital scrapbooking. You can create templates, layouts, cards, albums, and a lot more.
The program is almost overwhelming because of everything you can do. You can:
I chose the premade layouts simply because I was trying to figure out how to use the program.
In the screenshot above, you can see the simple layout I picked in the center of the screen. On the sidebar are tons of options for picture editing, text editing, embellishments, and a lot more. You can add videos, links, music, and narration. You can even do the basic (yet important) things like spellcheck. This is very important for dyslexics and homeschoolers like me.
When the album is finished, you can make it into a video, an interactive album, a calendar, a JPEG photo file, or burn it on a DVD.
And that doesn't even scratch the surface.
My Memories will fill all your scrapbooking needs and more.
So today I have two things to give away:
1. A free coupon-code! Anyone can use this and you don't have to enter to use it. Get $10 off the software, and $10 off anything else in the store: $20 off total! Just use this at the check-out: STMMMS14455
2. A copy of the My Memories software program!
To win the program, leave a comment (or fill out the form below) and tell me what you would do with the program, or visit the store and tell me what other scrapbooking kit you'd love to get!
Extra points:
+1 link this giveaway on facebook, twitter, sidebar, etc
+3 Visit the My Memories Facebook page or Twitter page and like/follow them
+5 do a blog post about this giveaway
Ends November 6th
Gordon Zuckerman is on tour for his new book Crude Deception, and is visiting The Life and Lies today!
About Crude Deception: 
The sentinels return in an epic battle against a big oil monopoly. As America's dependence on fossil fuel takes hold in the post-World War Two climate of economic growth, seven major oil companies join forces to control the industry, amassing obscene profits, squeezing tax-payers, and manipulating supplies around the world. The Sentinels, graduates of an elite American doctoral program - who, in Zuckerman's last book, foiled a group of German industrialists' scheme to hoard illegal war profits set out to break the circle of power. They quickly discover that the oil barons' influence runs deep in the U.S. and British government and banking sectors. Undeterred, the Sentinels fan out across several continents in an intricately plotted mission to bring Big Oil to its knees.
Can those who are independent of world governments and big business step forward and make a difference? Can the powerful forces behind world domination be stopped? In the anticipated follow up to the best selling The Sentinels: Fortunes of War, author Gordon Zuckerman tackles the unbridled limits of power, greed and corruption in Crude Deception.
In the new book, the group of six financial geniuses from the first adventure are back to battle the Post WWII oil cartels that threaten global prosperity and governmental autonomy.
Drawing on the headlines of yesterday and today, this story takes us back to the early days of WWII when a runaway oil monopoly began to take shape and develop a firm grip on the world with dire consequences.
Learn more about Crude Deception here.
Graham Parke, author of No Hope for Gomez is visiting The Life and Lies today! (check out my review of NHfG here).
Bio:Mystics predicts future accurately!
I’ve recently become a master in Goki Feng Ho, the ancient Chinese art of decoding license plates. It has, you can imagine, changed my life dramatically and for the better.
Like most practitioners, I’ve always had this suspicion that there’s more to life. That we can’t be mere random collections of molecules with no higher purpose than figuring out how not to soil ourselves while we keep our bodies running as long as possible. Such a view has always seemed too arbitrary to me. So, ever since I was a child, whenever I saw my initials – or part of my date of birth – pop up on a car license plate, I’d get that uneasy feeling. As if there was something I needed to do, or that I was supposed to realize. As if someone was sending me coded messages. Even at a very young age, I understood that something like Goki Feng Ho must exist, and that I was drawn to it like a moth to a particularly nice lady moth.So, I was both surprised and not-really-all-that-surprised when a friend gave me this book on Goki Feng Ho. I started reading and became hooked. Even the relatively scarce historical background was interesting to me on so many levels. Although much is lost about how Goki Feng Ho first came to the west, the stories about its initial discoverer, master Hung Lee, survive, and I dare say they’d constitute fascinating reading for even the hardened skeptic.
From the early days of receiving his gift in the mail (though some claim he received it in a dream) to his struggles to find disciples to whom to pass it down, Hung Lee’s story is a heartwarming one. Obviously his life was made particularly challenging by the absence of license plates, or even cars, at the time. I have found no record of what the first Goki Feng Hoos practiced and honed their skills on, but I assume they invented plates for each other to decode, or borrowed some from the Germans.
At the time, though, Chinese mystics were known to keep their gifts a secret, passing them down only to family members. Lee broke this mold when he became the first mystic to offer up his gift to the general public. But even then, the story goes, he had trouble finding anyone who was remotely interested. There are parables of Lee raffling off free Kindles and iPods among his disciples, but, again, he was too far ahead of his time. No one understood what he was talking about. He finally found a handful of willing participants at a local mental hospital, after raffling off a small pig and some sticks. And even though lived to be a hundred and fifty, it is said he never managed to earn those back.
 | The award winning No Hope for Gomez! is his fiction debut: Boy meets girl. |
Okay guys, here are winners for the the past few giveaways:
ARC of Triangles: Nicholas!
ARC of Reasons to be Happy: Chatty Cathy!
Copy of Wings: Margie!
You guys will be emailed (or if you see this first, you can e-mail me). If you don't reply within a week, I'll pick new winners.
Don't forget there's a new giveaway right here! tell me about your librarian!
I'm not sure if there is a National Librarian Appreciation day or something, but I decided to write a little post about my awesome YA librarian.
I'd love to be a YA librarian because I'd love to be involved with working with that age group, planning events, book clubs, etc. And I'm trying to get into publishing in that genre, so it would only make sense that I'd work with that age.
Because teenagers are at a point in their lives where they really need an adult to look at and say "I'd like to be that person when I grow up, because I sure as hell don't want to be like my parents." They need someone to talk to because they hate their parents, or they don't think it's cool to talk to their parents about tough stuff. They need to know that not all adults hate them and that they have someone to go to if they need help. They need other kids who they can hang out with and have fun with without getting into trouble. They need to start deciding what they believe, and learn to hold their own beliefs and not their parents. They need to start reading for fun instead of just reading because they have to.
I started reading for fun when I was about fifteen. I went to the library to hang out, but I didn't read a lot of books. I mostly used the WiFi. But my librarian recommended a book to me (I won't tell you what it was because now I'd love to throw that book out the window into a volcano) and I realized I could actually get away from the world through a book (which was better than anything because I could be alone while I read... and I was a very anti-social teenager.) So I started reading EVERYTHING I could get my hands on.
I read some stuff I wish I hadn't, but even those things helped me realize what I believed because I had to figure out why I was convicted and why it made me mad/uncomfortable. I read some stuff my parents would be disappointed at me reading, but I read it and figured out just how much tolerance for certain content I had, and then I had to figure out whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. There was a lot of self discovery involved in the process. Shortly after, I started book blogging, and writing about what I was reading, and I became a much more critical thinker.
My librarian also helped me out with a project about book censorship and book banning back in High School, and ever since it's become a very important topic to me, one that I fully intend to do a lot more research and projects on.
All because my librarian was just that awesome. Krissy, you are so freaking cool.
So to celebrate how awesome librarians are, please leave me a comment (or fill out the form below, either one) telling me a story about your librarian/library/library experience and your email address, and I will enter you in a giveaway to win two of these ARCs:
USA and Canada only, you must be a follower, ends November 1. Good luck!
*I don't know how many (probably 2-5), all I know is I have a bunch of ARCs I need to get rid of and they are taking up valuable space on my bookshelf. how many I send you depends on how much money I have at the time of the giveaway.
Today I have Karl Friedrich, author of Wings, visiting The Life and Lies! Learn more about Wings at the bottom of this post, and check out the giveaway!
Taking “The Big Deal” out of writing
My thoughts on how to sit down and do it
I joined the human race in 1946 – a baby boomer. And I grew up in a household that had already grown old and tired before I came along.
My parents were products of the Depression. Practical experience taught them to expect bad luck. As they aged and the economy prospered after the war, they remained stuck in the past. I have no doubt that my mother was fully prepared to find a downside to winning a million dollars, should that have happened; and that my grandmother would have chastised her for dreaming up such a gift, had Mother foolishly shared her thoughts. Abbreviation of expectation and communication was the norm in my family, and success outside the world of the blue collar was the domain of the other guy.
Being a somewhat dutiful son, I joined the program. I pretty much didn’t read until I was in the third grade and I managed to just scrape-by or to flunk classes that didn’t interest me. So my announcement in the sixth grade that I was going to someday be a writer was greeted in the familial unit with blank stares and some annoyance.
True to my training, I turned writing into an ordeal that would have hobbled Hercules. When I was in college and working on a local newspaper, I’d smoke half a pack of cigarettes trying to get ready to write. Later stints at magazines and public relations agencies were only marginally less painful. It wasn’t until many years later, while working at an advertising agency, that I kicked the smoking habit as well as my inability to sit down and simply go to work. Finally, when well into creating Wings A Novel Of World War II Flygirls, I found that I could as easily flip the writing switch as I could scribble on a napkin. That’s not to say that what I wrote was always good, or that it didn’t have to be rewritten again and again. Those are separate issues. What I’m saying is that I’d learned to lose the drama and get to the task.
I probably spent an hour writing the first few paragraphs of this piece. That’s not impressive production by any stretch of the imagination. But it was an hour of writing without anxiety. I’m sure I paused numerous times, though never for long. I don’t remember getting stuck or trying to decide what to write next. I was dropping and adding words and moving and rearranging sentences and expanding and consolidating thoughts. Mostly, I was making and correcting mistakes…and I wasn’t caring that I was making mistakes, because I knew that the act of writing is mostly about working the garbage until it becomes a banquet. That’s my secret to being able to sit down and write. I don’t care that the writing probably won’t be good when I start. So I don’t set myself up with impossible expectations. I expect to create a mess. In a piece like this one, I also imagine that I’m talking to a friend. Almost anyone can do that. Words flow when you’re explaining something to a friend.
A big part of good writing is having the experience to make the right choices: what to leave in, what to cut out, how to use fewer words to express yourself. Science discovered years ago that the “wiring” in human brains changes as the brain learns. This is especially true of brains that practice artistic endeavors like playing a musical instrument or writing. Perhaps this is physiological evidence of what we call experience.
But the only way to get the experience is to get started. If that’s your problem, remember what I learned. It’s OK to start with garbage; because given enough tillage, beautiful things will grow.
Based on the true World War II stories of America’s first female military pilots, this historic novel follows the story of a young woman from a dirt-poor farm f
amily. Sally Ketchum has little chance of bettering her life until a mysterious barnstormer named Tex teaches her to fly and to dare to love. But when Tex dies in a freak accident, Sally must make her own way in the world. She enrolls in the U.S. military’s Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program at a special school known as Avenger, where she learns to fly the biggest, fastest, meanest planes. She also reluctantly becomes involved with Beau Bayard, a flight instructor and aspiring writer who seems to offer her everything she could want. Despite her obvious mastery of flying, many members of the military are unable to accept that a “skirt” has any place in a cockpit. Soon Sally finds herself struggling against a high-powered Washington lawyer that wants to close down Avenger once and for all.
Thanks Karl! To win a copy of Wings, leave a comment with your email address!
USA only, ends October 20.
The Christmas Wedding by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo
Genre: Romance 
ISBN: 9780316097390
Published: October 17th 2011 by Little, Brown & Company
Rating: 3, DNF
I hate giving a rating like this to James Patterson's novel. But I've sworn to be honest in my reviews, so here's my honest blunt non-sugar-coated opinion: It was silly.
The plot is silly and corny. Really? A middle-aged woman has three men propose within a few days, and then she schemes to get all her family to visit her by not telling them who it she's decided to marry? When would that ever actually happen? It couldn't be pulled off. And she says she loves all three of them, but if she did, why would she put them through that? Not only would it be stressful, but it would be humiliating for the men who weren't chosen. Is she really that cruel? On top of that, the tone was over-sappy, and the whole thing read like a bad soap opera.
Yet I couldn't stop reading it because I wanted to know what happens. So when I did finally give up, I skipped to the end. Wouldn't you know it, I didn't like her choice.
I do like the characters. They're all distinct and interesting, which is one of Patterson's strengths. The sub-plots were well done, but I actually found myself caring more about the sub-plots than the actual plot of the story.
James Patterson is a fantastic crime/thriller/suspense writer, and Sundays at Tiffany's was pretty great, but Romance is just not his best genre. And I love his books, so I hate writing a not-so-great review, but I find myself rolling my eyes at the characters and saying "Really? Seriously?"
Content: some language. I only read half of the book, so I don't know about sexual content.
Recommendation: This would be a nice book if you had an afternoon at the library with nothing to do but read and sip coffee. And if you didn't have anything else to read.
Finishing School: A Master Class for Knitters by Deborah Newton 
Genre: Knitting technique
ISBN: 9781936096190
Published: October 4th 2011 by Sixth&Spring Books
Rating: 4.5
This book is awesome! There is so much in here for finishing every project, fixing every type of problem you could have, and techniques for making your handknits above the norm. I've learned so much just from flipping through it quickly. I refuse to part with it: It's a permanent addition to my knitting bookshelf.
Images and layout are very visually appealing, and the patterns are beautiful. There are lots of inspiring photographs and referenced projects that can be looked up. There aren't a whole lot of patterns in the book itself, because it's really all about techniques to finish your handknits.
My only complaint is very small and irrelevant to almost everyone: I'm trying to figure out why the whole book is formatted backwards, with a sans serif body text, and serif headers… maybe it's the technical writer/editor inside me, but it irritates me and it sticks out like a sore thumb.
(this is a sample from one of the pages. You can see the header is a serif, but the body text is a sans serif.)
But that's a pretty minor complaint when you think about it.
Recommended for knitters of all levels!
I have one ARC of Triangles to give away! Just leave me a comment with your email address. USA Only please, ends October 18.
Click here to see my review.
Good luck!
Triangles, by Ellen Hopkins
Genre: Adult fiction
ISBN: 9781451626339
Expected publication: October 18th 2011 by Atria
Rating:5
The thing about Ellen Hopkins is she writes about the stuff that everyone knows happens, but nobody is willing to admit to. She gives emotion and reason to why people make the choices we do, and what they feel like in the middle of a messy hurtful situation. She is the opposite of happyland syndrome. She tells it how it is.
I had read a little bit of Hopkins's work before: I started Crank (When I say started I mean read the first few pages) and loved it, but I was busy and never got the chance to get into it. But I got an ARC of Triangles, so I sat down and read it—and after one page I was hooked.
If you've been reading my blog at all, you know I'm not a person who likes stories about love gone wrong and marriages failing and extramarital sex etc. because I'm a Christian, and a romantic, and a softie (read 'wimp'). But I went ahead and dove into this book, because I knew Hopkins is a good writer.
It surpassed my expectations. I should have expected her to be this awesome, since obviously she's pretty famous and everyone else figured it out before I did, but I really am blown away. Not only by her blunt yet graceful storytelling, but by her nerve to tackle the stories nobody wants to tell: a dying child, a gay son, a pregnant teen, sexual disease, threesomes, a woman sleeping with her best friend's husband… it's all in here. Yet, it's not plot overkill. She made it work. Somehow.
Though, be warned. Since she does say it like it is, this book is not for the easily offended. But if you're willing to look past the content, there's a gem waiting for you about forgiveness, hope, and what love really means.
Content/recommendation: explicit sexual content, swearing. Ages 18+
Katrina Kittle is the author of a new YA release Reasons to be Happy.
Hannah's parents are glamorous Hollywood royalty, and sometimes she feels like the ugly duckling in a family of swans. After her mother's tragic death, Hannah's grief is compounded by her desperate need to live up to her mother's image. She tries to control her weight through Bulimia, and her devastated father is too distracted to notice. The secret of her eating disorder weighs heavily on Hannah, but the new eighth grade Beverly Hills clique she's befriended only reinforces her desire to be beautiful. The only one who seems to notice, or care, that something is wrong is Jasper, the quirky mistfit.
Hi Katrina! Welcome to The Life and Lies.
Hi Haley! Thanks so much for hosting me. I really appreciate the opportunity!
1) Why and when did you begin writing?
In those fuzzy memories of my childhood before I could write, I "told stories" in elaborate picture story boards, like graphic novels with no words! I have journals dating back to third grade. I loved to write stories and all of my creative assignments for English classes were always far longer than the assignment requirements. I was an English major in college, but I was always studying other authors' writing, and the writing I did was academic. I never thought about creative writing for publication, for any kind of audience, until after college. It "happened" because a very particular story tugged on me, wanting to be told. I was really driven to write my first novel, TRAVELING LIGHT, because I was teaching high school at the time and I wanted to put a human face on AIDS for those students. It started as a short story, then ended up growing into a novel. Every novel since has also begun with a social issue I'm very passionate about. I start with an issue, but then I work hard to find the characters who would inhabit a story about that issue...because a novel must be a story above all else. It can't just be some public service announcement!
2) What inspired you to write your book?
As a middle school teacher of several years, I grew so disheartened by a particular phenomenon I saw unfold over and over again: bright, bold, curious girls—strong and confident in their abilities—would hit a wall of self-doubt in sixth or seventh grade. They'd lose all sense of their own unique identity, stop taking any risks, and retreat into approval-seeking behaviors that made them all seem like watered-down clones of each other. I became obsessed with why girls had to go through that? Why were a few exceptional girls strong enough to withstand this challenge while others (who seemed equally exceptional) were not? And why, still in 2011, was body images such a huge part of this identity crisis?
3) How did you come up with the title?
My protagonist, Hannah, keeps a notebook in which she lists her reasons to be happy. Each chapter opens with a portion of her list. Sometimes she has no reasons to be happy. And over the course of the book, you see significant changes in the nature of the reasons she lists. When I taught middle school, I used to list a reason to be happy on the board every day.
4) How do you go about researching for your books?
Each novel has been different. Some books require far more research than others. I think my third novel, THE KINDNESS OF STRANGES, took the most research, meeting with social workers, police officers, therapists, pediatricians. For REASONS TO BE HAPPY, I did meet with a therapist who specialized in eating disorders. I also read nearly everything written about body image and eating disorders (I love research). Sometimes “research” comes in other forms. I was lucky enough to take a trip with some high school students to the West African countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, and those experiences work their way into this novel (including—I don't want to spoil anything here!—a certain “encounter” with a goat). That's the beauty of the writing life—we use everything!
5) What’s the most exciting part about being a published author? What is the hardest part?
The most exciting part for me is hearing from readers, through letters, emails, or in person at book events. So much of the writing life is solitary. Finding out how the book actually affected someone is like receiving a present. The hardest part is keeping a balance in your life. Writing takes soooo much time, yet it's a crazy, unreliable way to make a living. It really does feel like an addiction or a calling (yeah, that sounds better) at times.
6) Which of your characters is your favorite? Do you dislike any of them?
It's so hard to pick a favorite. Usually some minor character is often the one I'd most like to hang out with if they were real. That said, I'm awfully smitten with Jasper. And Modesta is pretty cool. I don't dislike any of my characters (not even the “b-squad,” the obvious antagonists), and I think that's important. I love the quote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” No matter how unpleasant or hateful someone seems, often times they're simply broken or struggling themselves. A character can be seriously flawed, but I still love them all.
7) What advice can you give to young writers who want to publish their books?
Care about craft. Honor your apprenticeship the way a musician or dancer or athlete would. Don't be in a hurry. Be willing to do the work. Oh, and read. The best way to learn about writing (besides, well, writing) is to be an avid reader.
Just for fun:
1) What are your ten most favorite things?
Ooh, my own personal reasons to be happy? I love it!
1. My amazing tribe of family & friends
2. My extremely dysfunctional sweetheart of a cat, Joey
3. My overflowing garden
4. Good strong coffee with cream
5. Dark chocolate
6. Books
7. Going to the movies, especially if Robert Downey Jr. is in them [Haley: ROFL yes ma'am!]
8. Zombie Apocalypse stories
9. Cooking for friends
10. Goats!
2) What do you do when you’re not writing?
I run, garden, act whenever I can get cast in something, teach writing, and work part time for the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center.
3) Do you have any pets?
Yes. A gorgeous, black-and-white cat named Joey. He takes valium, sucks on blankets, and is in love with a spatula. I adore him.
4) What are your favorite (and least favorite) foods?
One favorite food is tough. I can narrow it to Indian and Italian, how's that? Alas, I can't eat raw onion. It gives me hives, and I end up with puffy, red clown mouth.
5) Is there a specific place in the house (or out of the house) that you like to write?
I have a fantastic writing office (the reason I bought this house). A Florida room with skylights and three walls of windows (it's an Imax Theatre for my cat!) that overlooks my garden. It has its own heat and cooling, so I can be out there even in winter with snow falling all around me.
6) Do you have a specific snack that you have with you when you write?
Good coffee is a must. Dark chocolate is a bonus.
7) If you could go anywhere in the whole world, either for a vacation or to live there, where would you go?
I love to travel. I was pretty darn smitten with Positano, Italy, I must say. If I had to stay there the rest of my life, I wouldn't be sad!
8) What was your favorite and least favorite subject in school?
I adored English, art, and theatre. There was nothing I genuinely hated (except maybe driver's ed!) but math was definitely not my forte.
9) What book are you reading right now?
I just finished WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN and am completely haunted by it.
10) Tell us a random fact about you that we never would have guessed.
I have a soft spot in my heart for vampire and zombie stories. [Haley: Don't we all? :)]
Thanks for visiting Katrina! Check out the links below for ways to keep in touch with Katrina Kittle and find out more about her book, Reasons To Be Happy.
I have one ARC of Reasons To Be Happy to give away! To enter, leave a comment with your own reasons to be happy (a few or a bunch, whatever you feel like sharing.) In other words, count your blessings ;)
One entry per person, USA only, ends October 19 (two weeks from now). Leave your email so I can get a hold of you!
www.katrinakittle.com
Twitter: @katrinakittle
www.facebook.com/KatrinaKittleFanClub
http://katrinakittle.blogspot.com/ (Reasons to Be Happy Blog, lists a reason to be happy everyday)
There's a hash-tag—#reasonstobehappy—for your tweeting purposes. :-)
HALEY YOU FORGOT BOOK AWARDS YOU MORON!!
I felt like such a doofus for forgetting my book awards post this year. I forgot because I had my blogoversary giveaway early.
No excuse.
Except now I'm sorting through the reviews and it's getting really confusing. So I'm going to change something…
This year's book awards will be from September 2010 through December 2011. It was going to be September 2011, but again, it's just too confusing. I'll just do it by year, rather than years I've been blogging.
So again: This year's awards will have a few extra months in them (plus that gives me extra time to make some tough choices) and every year after that, the awards will be for the calendar year.
Thanks guys!
Check out last year's post here.
Knitting Beyond the Edge by Nicky Epstein 
Genre: Knitting pattern ideas
ISBN: 9781936096039
Published: September 6th 2011 by Nicky Epstein Books
Rating: 5
This book is fantastic. It's so inspiring and interesting and exciting. It's divided into four sections: Cuffs and Collars, Necklines, Corners and Edges, and Closures. Each one has pages and pages of different interesting unique ideas.
I would call this book a designer's sourcebook. Yes the patterns can be used to change or alter an existing pattern, or dress up that plain sweater, but they can also be used in and of themselves. Collars can be used as cowls, Cuffs can be turned into wristlets, or even mittens or gloves. I see potential hats and socks in here too for people like me who like to write down the pattern as they go, or design something based off a picture they saw.
There's even a few full patterns thrown in here, all of which I love, and a few of which I'm definitely going to have to knit… especially that fair isle sweater. Goodness gracious it makes me want to jump for joy.
The patterns themselves are easy to understand and concise, and the pictures are very good and show off the project without being distracting.
Recommendation: Intermediate/Advanced. Anyone who likes to go above and beyond in their knitting, or knitters who design their own patterns
