Neil Gaiman is a GOD! Book Signing recap!

So.....THIS HAPPENED.

I went to a Neil Gaiman signing!!! I saw Neil Gaiman in real life! I'm PRETTY sure he's human!  And that his hair is real!  It was awesome and crazy and totally surreal! WOO!

The signing was this past Friday in Washington, D.C.  It was CRAZY crowded, like at LEAST 1500 people there.  I met up with my friend Jessica and we got there early to make sure we got good seats.  I was number 567 in the signing line, which took almost three hours! IT WAS CRAY. But worth it.

SO. Neil. I've read several of his books and The Graveyard Book is one of my all-time favorites!! He just had a new book come out called The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  He came out, talked about his new book, read a chapter, answered some audience questions, read a little more and then the signing started.  He's a pretty cool dude. His new book came from a very personal place and he said that he wrote it by accident. It started off as a short story, then it turned into a novelette, then a novella and before he knew it he was calling up his editor to tell her he accidentally just wrote a book.  ALSO,  according to Mr. Neil Gaiman angels are like cockroaches...haha. 


 

My purchase of the ticket included his new book, and then I took my copy of The Graveyard Book to have signed. Because of time constraints and the MASSIVE amount of people we couldn't pose for pictures but I sneak attacked him from the side.

 I am an insanely shy person and I can be very timid around people I don't know. I am especially bad in social situations.  I'm not the kind of person who will meet an author and ask questions or make chit chat or try and make them laugh.  I have nightmares about having to make small talk.  After FOREVER it was finally my turn at the signing table. The helper lady passed my books to Mr. Neil Gaiman to sign, then we totally had a moment where he looked up, we looked at each other in the eyeballs, I said "Thank You" and he said........ "You're welcome".  It's like we looked into each others souls.  It was pure magic.

 

 

Funny story about the below picture. When I first looked at what Mr. Neil Gaiman signed in The Graveyard Book, I was thinking to myself, huh. He drew me a square root, kinda weird. Doesn't make much sense, but maybe he likes math.  My friend Jessica looked at it and was like "he drew you a tombstone!". I was like ooohhh. Yeah that makes more sense.  Graveyard, gravestone.  I'm a quick one. AND apparently I have a thing for math.

Overall the signing was great. HOWEVER the trip to and from D.C. made for the LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE. I HATE driving in the D.C. area! It's about a 2 hour trip.  As soon as I got on 95 it was steady traffic the whole way. The closer you get to the heart of D.C. the worse it gets.  Parking sucks ass  in the city and I literally drove around for AN HOUR looking for the stupid parking deck. Meanwhile I'm dodging all the walking people and trying not to run any of the lights or turn down a one way street. Did I mention I don't do well in traffic. Yeaaaah. 

The trip home: I dropped my friend off at her house and turned down her generous offer of staying the night. I was like no thanks, I"ll go home tonight when there will be less traffic. I got back on the interstate and literally drove 3 miles and came to a COMPLETE stop. FOR OVER AN HOUR. NOT MOVING AN INCH. Not a quarter of an inch.  People were getting out of their cars and I was thinking to myself OH MY GOD IT'S THE APOCALYPSE! Where are the zombies! It's the end of the world! I'm about to be in my very own dystopian society!  
Well there ended up not being an apocalypse just some sucky road construction. I got home around 3:30 AM. (I got up for work the morning before at 6 AM.) I was SO TEMPTED to pull over to the side of the road for a little napsky.  So that was fantastic.

But I'm glad I went! Mr. Neil Gaiman seems like a book character himself. Love his accent! He's pretty funny.  It's always more fun to go to things like this with a buddy!  Everyone should read at least one book by Mr. Neil Gaiman!!

The end.

 

Top Ten Tuesday: 2013 Favorites SO FAR!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!

This week's topic:

Top Ten Books I've Read So Far In 2013

(no particular order)

 

                 1.
I couldn't have asked for a better conclusion to one of my favorite series!! MIND.BLOWN.

 

2.
One of the best contemporary books I have EVER read!!

 

                  3.
This book!!! Loved it soo much!!

 

4.
I wasn't expecting to love this book as much as I did. The characters, the story, the romance, it was all great! HATE the cover though.

 

                       5.
More John Green brilliance!!

 

6.
LOVED this book! Better than Grave Mercy for sure. It was pretty much perfect.

 

                  7.
Another great start to a series!

 

8.
Although this book had a few faults, I ended up loving it and couldn't put it down!

 

9.
This is a re-read, but it was just as amazing the second time around! Action packed!
 

10.
I love me some crazies!

 

Honorable mentions:

 

 

SO. Those are some of my favorite reads THUS far, hopefully there will be many more the rest of the year!

If YOU made a list, I would love to see it! Leave your link in the comments :)

 

 

 

2013 Personal Challenge Update

At the beginning of the year I decided to create some personal bookish challenges for myself.  Since we're now entering the half way mark for the year, I figure an update post is in order to see how I'm doing with said challenges. Some I'm rocking! Some are..well..not good.  But no sweat! I still gots 6 more months! YEAH!....yeah.


Challenge #1: Read 100 books in 2013
I'm making this challenge my bitch! According to the Goodreads meter thingie (as of today) I am 28 books (28%) ahead of schedule and 75% done!!!!!!! Holllller!! Now, one must take into account that my total includes not only books, but also short novellas and graphic novels. But still. It's whatever. WOOT. 
Challenge status:  Kicking ass! 75/100 read!



Challenge #2: Attack of the To Be Read Pile
Don't act like you don't have one.  That pile (in my case mammoth) of books that you had to buy and are still sitting on your shelf a couple months (or years) later. My piles are growing out of control and they are stressing me out! SO. I wanted 50 of the books I read this year to be books I owned BEFORE January 1st 2013. 
Challenge Status: Pretty darn good! 27/50!



Challenge #3: Re-read Rewind
Really, I don't think this challenge needs an explanation. I buy books to keep with the intention of re-reading them. However, I don't do this as much as I would like to. So for this challenge I made a list of books I wanted to re-read this year. Most of these are first books in series that I want need to read again in order to complete the series.
Challenge Status: 1/13 completed. But I still have faith!



1. Poison Study (Maria V. Snyder)
2. Magic Study (Maria V. Snyder)
3. Fire Study (Maria V. Snyder)
4. Graceling (Kristin Cashore)
5. Fire (Kristin Cashore)
6. Divergent (Veronica Roth)
7. The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
8. Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins)
9. Shatter Me (Tahereh Mafi)
10. Firelight (Sophie Jordan)
11. Paranormalcy (Kiersten White)
12. Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl)
13. City of Bones (Cassandra Clare)

Challenge #4: It's a Classic
I hated reading classics in school. But I don't know if it's because of the books themselves or because when someone tells you you HAVE to read a book it makes you immediately not like it.  I'm on a quest to discover the truth. Are classics really for me?  Odds are no, probably not.  I've bought 2 classics..I just need to read them.
I made an initial list of 5 classics I wanted to read, but I think I may have to revamp it..

The original list:
1. Wuthering Heights
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. The Great Gatsby
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. The Secret Garden

Challenge Status: 0/5 read. Yeah. I'm working on it OKAY! Geez. I'm 3% in for Pride & Prejudice..it might take me until December, but I'm going to finish it!




Challenge #5: Catch-Up If you Can-Series
Self-explanatory. I have all these series I started and never finished or read the second book on. These are ones I originally wanted to focus on finishing.

1. Caster Chronicles (Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl)

-Beautiful Darkness (#2) already own

-Beautiful Chaos (#3)

-Beautiful Redemption (#4)

2. The Mortal Instruments (Cassandra Clare)

-City of Fallen Angels (#4)

-City of Lost Souls (#5)

3. Firelight (Sophie Jordan)

-Vanish (#2) already own

-Hidden (#3)

4. Paranormalcy (Kiersten White)

-Supernaturally (#2) already own

-Endlessly (#3)

5. Graceling Realm (Kristin Cashore)

-Bitterblue (#3) already own

6. Divergent (Veronica Roth)

-Insurgent (#2) already own

7. If I Stay (Gayle Forman)

-Where She Went (#2) already own

 

Challenge Status: 1/7 series completed.

 Although I have some catching up to do for some of these.  I feel they're all very much accomplish-able (except maybe the Classics one..), I just have to stay the course!

Book/Movie Haul!

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews!

I checked out a couple more books from the library:

Forbidden (Tabitha Suzuma)

Inside HBO's Game of Thrones

Etiquette & Espionage (Gail Carriger)

 

 

 

I didn't buy any books!

 

 

BUT I did buy some movies. I was in Best Buy to get a gift for my Dad for Father's Day/Birthday and there were all these deals going on and I just couldn't leave without buying something! I'm talking about blu-ray's for five dollars! WHAT?!?

 

Kill Bill Volume 1 & 2 - I love these movies! so much gore and kick-assness.

 

Under Siege and Under Siege 2 - I may have a slight obsession with Steven Seagal....Love him and love these movies!

 

Dark Shadows - I have not actually seen this movie, but it was 5 dollars and Johnny Depp is one of my favorite actors and why not.

Fight Club- I haven't seen this one but I've been wanting too and it was cheap!

 

Lastly I bought a movie for my dad for Father's Day/Birthday:

The Hobbit!

 

 

 

Anybody out there reading this little ole blog seen any of these movies or read any of the books? Love? Hate? Yes? No?

 

Peace out.

 

 

Book Haul! WOOT.

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

Another book haul!?! I know what you're thinking. I just got finished blogging that I'm trying to go the library more and not buy as many books so as not to end up owning books I don't like. Butbutbut. I'm a failure. haha. Really though, I didn't buy THAT many and I can explain!

ON TO THE HAUL!

 

Siege and Storm (Leigh Bardugo) - I LOVED the first book in the series so it's only natural that I'm going to buy the next book.  Naturally.

 

Phoenix (Elizabeth Richards) - DANG IT! I waited to order this book when I was half-way through Black City. I was digging it and thought yeah! I'm gonna go ahead an order the next book because I'm half way done with this one, and I really like it so it should be safe to go ahead and order the next book right! It's not like Black City could all of a sudden take a downward spiral into disappointment..right? NO! NOT RIGHT! The last 1/3 of Black City was crap. So yeah. I don't want to read the second book anymore.  Boo hiss.

 

I realize I've been shit on posting reviews. Like in a LONG time. Another thing I'm a failure at. Butbutbut. I'm thinking about being better at that. Baby steps.

 

Vegan with a Vengeance (Isa Chandra Moskowitz)

 

I'm not a vegan, but I am a vegetarian (no to eggs but yes to dairy). However, I am interested in vegan eating as much as I can and this cookbook looked like a winner!

 

 

LAST BUT NOT LEAST MY MOST COVETED of purchases.....

 

The Song of Ice & Fire series (George R. R. Martin) BOX Set!! WOOT!  Includes A Game of Thrones, A Feast for Crows, A Storm of Swords and A Clash of Kings! The television show is my absolute favorite! I'm embarking on a buddy read with my..well buddy and will be starting the first book shortly.  Hellz to the yeah.  The beast shall be conquered!


See now? That's all. Not so bad.  Although I'm already thinking about stopping by Books-a-million...ONLY to look at the bargain section.. Yeah..the bargain section..

 

 

June TBR!

I almost never make an official TBR list, because I read on the whims of what I currently feel. So having a set list of books usually doesn't work out. BUT they are still fun to make and maybe it will help me. SO you know what, I'm just going to go ahead and do it.

This is just a reference list, as I can guarantee I will read books this month that are not on this list. There's a bunch of new releases coming up that I'm super excited for.

Now. ON TO THE TBR.

 

That's all I'm going to put on my list. If I manage to read all these that would be amazing. There's also some graphic novels I'm going to read. I need to work on one of my personal book challenges, which was to read 50 books I owned prior to January 1st.  ALSO, I challenged myself to read 5 classics this year....yeah..about that..

 

I've actually just finished Love and Other Perishable Items and I ended up being pleasantly surprised and really liked it! In fact, I'll probably buy a copy of it (read a library copy)!  I've just started The Other Normals.  I'm coming off reading Ready Player One, which is why I picked that one up. 

 

TBR over and out.