Top Ten Tuesday: REWIND

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Favorite Books I've Read During The Lifespan Of My Blog
Believe it or not, but my blog has been around for roughly a year. I have only been blogging consistently (if you want to call it that) since December, and I even used to do the Top Ten Tuesday meme fairly regularly over at Krazy Book Lady (who is fabulous, by the way). Anyways, this is a freebie week, and I thought this would be a great post to get back into the swing of things. (Yes, there will be more reviews, but I just have to type up what I've written on paper and wander away from. I know how awful I am.) So on to my Top Ten in chronological order!

1. Silver-Tongued Devil by Jaye Wells

I LOVE urban fantasy as a genre, and this book is probably one of my all-time favorites in the genre. It is #4 in the series following half-mage/half-vampire, Sabina Kane, and it is the best of the group. The character-building is awesome, and the book never read like it was just a bridge to the end. The last book, Blue-Blooded Vamp is out, but I haven't read it yet because I'm not ready to say goodbye. (Yes, I'm really bad about things like that.)

Fun bit of trivia: I have the entire series signed because I guess I stalk Jaye Wells. She is HILARIOUS and totally worth it. Just don't tell her I said that. (My Review)

Happily Ever After Giveaway Hop (INT)

Welcome to my stop on the Happily Ever After Giveaway Hop hosted by the wonderful blogs, I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and Murphy's Library! I adore fairy tales, or any story with a Happily Ever After, so I am extremely excited about this hop!

What You Can Win

One of the best things about books with a Happily Ever After in it is the main character thinks they know what they want, but their ending is sometimes very different and preferable. I think I'm going to take a page from that book (okay, I won't start with puns) and spin it to meet my own ends.


Based on the winner's answer in the Rafflecopter, I will send them a surprise book. (It'll be fine, I promise. I'm not at all saying you don't know what you really) We all love surprises at some level, and hopefully the winner will get a Happily Ever After with the book of their dreams!

Guest Post: Stephen Paul Register (MEANTIME: The Aesthetics of Soldiering)

STEPHEN PAUL REGISTER moved around often as a child in the American South. He settled in Nashville before joining the Tennessee National Guard. He was deployed to to Baghdad, Iraq and Kuwait for over 16 months from 2003 to 2004. He served in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and also had the duty of supporting Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona. Stephen attended Belmont University in Nashville from 2005 to 2008 where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion and the Arts. He then went on to Yale University to earn his Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, where he graduated in 2011. He now lives with his wife Anna in Nashville.

Several months ago, I interviewed Stephen Paul Register about his memoir, MEANTIME: The Aesthetics of Soldiering, and invited him to do a guest post about the sudden surge in popularity of dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature and how he felt about it personally. Since he's spent time in situations and areas that many of us would see as dystopian, I was very interested in reading his thoughts on the matter. Since some of the books he mentions in the post are controversial, I thought this would fit well with Banned Books Week.

I hope you enjoy his guest post as much as I did.

Dystopias
by Stephen Register
What is the obsession with dystopias these days? The Hunger Games has become a hands-down dominator in the market recently (LeBron is even reading them), Nashville has recently invited Margaret Atwood to do a citywide speak on The Handmaid’s Tale (Nashville high schools have controversially made The Handmaid’s Tale a mandatory read for students this year—and The Handmaid’s Tale is not even Atwood’s most recent dystopian novel! Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood are much later dystopian releases), and the films Dredd and Total Recall are rereleases of dystopian films released within the past twenty years. (Questions of these films’ quality remain).

Thankful Thursday (5) and RAK September Wrap-Up

Thankful Thursday is a feature on the last Thursday of every month here at Bibliophilia, Please. It allows me to share not only the books that I receive, but also the bloggers, authors, lolcats, aliens, and other entities on the interwebz that made my month amazing.

As you can probably tell, I'm a little late with this post. (I try to do Thankful Thursday on the last Thursday and my RAK wrap-up on the last day of the month.) I still have a case of the busies because of the three jobs, but my daughter also turned six last month.

Books

Book Blast (Giveaway): A Military Republic by Haythem Bastawy

A Military Republic
by Haythem Bastawy


Egypt is in a state of turmoil, beggars have filled the streets, unemployment is at a record high, random individuals are vanishing under mysterious circumstances, and the president is grooming his son to take over. Fear clings to the air with secret police waiting in dark corners, and love withers under the crushing will of authority. Haythem Bastawy, an Egyptian himself, manages through his captivating narrative to depict a dangerous and yet absorbing world of a country in crisis and a people on the verge of a revolution. A Military Republic is a novel based on the true events that were the spark to the blaze of the Egyptian Revolution.

Excerpt: Sheltered by Debra Chapoton

Living together unsupervised, five troubled teens confront demonic forces and are compelled to deal with their problems in distinctly different ways. Paranormal meets psycho meets Goth in this story of a supernatural haunting and budding love.

High school junior, Ben, hacks into his step-father's real estate holdings and provides rooms in an old two-story house to various outcasts: the schizophrenic kid, the angry Goth girl, and the homeless girl who worships him. When Megan needs a place to live she comes to the rooming house with a different set of problems and the ability to confuse and attract Ben.

One by one strange and mysterious occurrences stretch the teens’ beliefs in the supernatural. How they deal with demons, real and imagined, has tragic as well as redeeming consequences.

Excerpt from Sheltered:

Prologue
Next Wednesday

Emily knew the precise moment that Ben returned, she felt him in her scars. She watched him carry some things to the house, heard the door close; she smiled when she heard him call out that Santa was here. He did that once before, in early December, insisting that she accept the gift he held out, not wanting her to wait until Christmas to use the mittens he knew she needed.

Book Blast (Giveaway): The Reluctant Bachelorette by Rachael Anderson

The Reluctant Bachelorette
by Rachael Anderson
Unknowingly cast as the bachelorette for her town’s charity event, Taycee Emerson wants out. Especially when she discovers her old teenage crush, Luke Carney, is one of the bachelors and it's up to the viewers--not her--to decide which bachelors stay or go.

Coerced into participating, Taycee does what any self-preserving girl would do. She launches a subtle attack on Luke’s good name with the hope of getting him voted off the show. Unfortunately, Luke's an eye-for-an-eye kind of guy, and when he discovers what she's up to, it means revenge.

But when their pranks go south, will they screw up any chance they have at a future together, or will they be able to forgive and forget and prove that love really does conquer all?

Fangs, Fur, & Fey Giveaway Hop (INT)

Welcome to my stop on the Fangs, Fur, & Fey Giveaway Hop hosted by two fantastic blogs, I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and Reading Lark! I wasn't going to participate in this hop because I've been so incredibly busy lately (hence the lack of posts) and only posting giveaways, but I LOVE books with any sort of fantasy or paranormal aspect. I couldn't resist!

Please don't judge me.

What You Can Win

I am out of town as this is going up, so I'm going to leave the prize picking up to you. You can choose any book with either fur, fangs, or fey in it, granted that it is Less Than $10US. Sounds good, right?

Giveaway Requirements

• Be thirteen (13) years old, have parental consent, or lie about it. (Please don't do that.)
•  Live somewhere that can get shipments from Amazon, Fishpond, or the Book Depository for free.
• Be Awesome (and fill out the Rafflecopter).
• Following is NOT required, but it is always appreciated. Your options are on my sidebar, but I will tell you that I am yet to figure out Linky.
• You can help me spread the word, but it isn't required either.