Tag: reading

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum

On By Michel McDonaldIn BooksLeave a comment

Let me just start off by saying I am 55 years old. I have never read The Wizard of Oz books in my whole life. As a child, I struggled with reading because I have dyslexia and I have a learning disability and later in life I discovered that I have attention deficit disorder. So I have many factors working against me when it comes to reading books. So this was never on the reading list for me as a child or teenager or any age. It was this year in 2025 that I made a New Year’s resolution to start reading The Wizard of Oz books, and today I’ve finally finished reading them.

There are 14 books in this collection, and many years ago when I first got my Kindle I had bought all 14 books in one single Kindle ebook. Since I’m doing the reading challenge with Goodreads, I decided that instead of reading the one with all of the books included, that I would buy every book on my Kindle because if I just read the one book, then it would count as one book instead of 14, so I bought all 14 books. Thank goodness it wasn’t that costly because most of them were a dollar, but some of them were free because they are in the public domain.

I was a bit surprised to read so many different characters that I’d never heard about in the original movie based on the first book. But of course they only did a movie based on one book. In the 1980s they had a movie called Return to Oz and that story included the second and third books combined. They altered the story a bit, but that’s pretty much what Hollywood does anyway. But in return to Oz they introduced some characters that nobody has ever heard of, so when I saw that movie many years ago, I didn’t realize that those were actual characters from the books. I thought it was just Hollywood being creative. It wasn’t until I actually started reading the books that I realized those are actual characters that L. Frank Baum wrote about. Silly me.

We just recently had a movie come out called Wicked based on the wicked witch and Glinda the good witch, which is based on a play. Look, I don’t know much about this because I’ve never seen the play and I still have yet to see Wicked, but when it’s on digital I will watch it. But I wanted to read the books before I saw Wicked because I want to get to know the world of Oz before I watch any more about it. It is interesting that the movie and play Wicked is based on Glinda meeting the wicked witch for the first time and what, they’re going to college? I’m a little confused, but I will be up to date I’m sure when I see the movie lol.

All I’m going to say is that if you have not read these books yet, read them because these books have added more to the magical wonderful world of Oz to my brain than I could have ever imagined. It’s an interesting story and it’s an interesting world and all of the characters are very, I hate to be redundant, but I’m just going to say interesting again.

Now that I have finally fulfilled my New Year’s resolution, I’m going to go back to reading all the other stuff that I like to read with vampires and other supernatural things LOL.

Another year…

On By Michel McDonaldIn Blog, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Well, another year has passed. I can’t believe time seems to be moving a bit faster every year for me. It seems like 2024 would still have another 6 months left, but no, it’s almost finished. 1 more day.

What have I accomplished in a year? Well, my Etsy shop was very busy this year, busier every month this year since I started. Mainly due to a single item though. A simple friendship bracelet.

I added a listing for lesbian friendship bracelets with the same designs I have for my rainbow friendship bracelets, but I used the lesbian pride flag colors. I also did the bear flag colors and that wasn’t as popular as the lesbian. So this is the bracelet that someone wanted. They sent me a message asking me if I could make this bracelet and they took a screenshot from the Disney+ show Agatha All Along. I said let me see if I can do it and I opened up my friendship bracelet designer program on my computer and figured it out. Of course I did have to Google the design and I found it right away. I just had to change the colors to these specific colors which are the lesbian pride flag colors.

After I sent this bracelet off to this person, I decided to add it to my lesbian pride flag friendship bracelet listing and wouldn’t you know it? Some other people did a search for Agatha all along friendship bracelet and they found it and they bought it and so many people wanted this bracelet. I added three sizes so that it could accommodate small, medium and large.

Two people from Germany bought one (each) and someone in Norway bought one and someone in Ireland wanted to buy it, but they couldn’t afford the shipping from the United States. I got sales on this bracelet in many states and after making it so many times, sometimes everyday, I had to remove the item from my listing because I was in agony. These bracelets take time to make and they take a toll on my hands and my back.

I will eventually make up a whole bunch of bracelets for that listing and I’ll make a whole bunch of the Agatha bracelet as well because I know people will want it again. And I’ve already bought the string for it and have cut it and it’s all ready to go, I just have to start working on them. But I need a break because I’ve been working my fingers to the bone on crafts this whole year, and my hands are about ready to fall off. Not really, but you know, jokingly.

So other things that I’ve been working on are Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas box cards as well as a Christmas Advent calendar and also I’ve been knitting Christmas stockings.

The Advent calendar went to my cousin for his son and of course the whole family could enjoy it because I filled it with so much candy LOL. The Advent calendar is from SVGcuts and the fireplace box card that you see on the left side is actually from simply crafty svgs. And then there are two Christmas friendship bracelets in the front that come from an Etsy shop called The One Eyed Artist.

The Norwegian Christmas stockings are from Arne and Carlos. I posted about the stockings a couple of months ago when I made them. I’m making more because I bought so much yarn that I don’t know what else I’m going to do with it other than make a ton more stockings LOL. I’ll probably be working on these until it gets too hot to work with wool yarn.

I’ve also been reading a lot more. I made it a mission to read everyday no matter what. Even if I just read one or two chapters a day, at least I’m reading. I did the Goodreads challenge this year and challenged myself to read 30 books and I exceeded that by reading 48 books. I’m still reading a book and was hoping to finish it to make my Goodreads challenge 49 books, but I don’t think I’m going to make it.

There is one book that I have that I would like to read. That is the entire Wizard of Oz story, but it’s all one book which means there are 15 books that will count as one book unless I decide to add the books individually on Goodreads as I read them. It will most likely take me forever to read it because this one collection in one book is over 2,000 pages and I think I’m going to need to read it in stages lol. So I will add each individual book to Goodreads as I read them.

I have a lot of other books in my Kindle library to read, so I have no shortage of books to keep myself busy with. I also have a lot of books in my Nook that I can read as well.

I’m not doing the New Year’s resolution thing because I think that’s stupid. Especially when a lot of times people never follow through with it. They always say I’m going to start losing weight and I’m going to go to the gym and then they never do and they end up gaining weight. I’d rather just do it if I’m going to do it. I did lose 75 lb in 2023 with ozempic, and then it stopped on Thanksgiving Day and 15lbs have come back on gradually, but I’m still doing ozempic and I’m still trying and I’m doing my best despite the constant junk food being put in my face and constantly being asked if I want to go to fast food places. I have the ability to say no, but I don’t seem to be doing that very well. So that’s something I have to work on.

I am having heart issues because apparently my pulse is too slow. It was 41 the other day at the doctor’s office and they’re sending me to a cardiologist. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I checked my Fitbit watch and my pulse seems to be around 100, but then I checked my pulse on my blood pressure machine and it’s around 40 something to 50 something.  So, I guess my fitbit is not really telling me my true pulse rate. I’ll see what happens.

Well, Happy New Year and let’s hope that this year is a good year.

My Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7 inch Nook – Book Covers Missing

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBookLeave a comment
My Samsung Galaxy Tab A Nook

I’ve been reading ebooks using a Barnes & Noble Nook since they introduced their first Nook ebook reader. This is my current Nook device. Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7 inch Nook. I don’t know what happened, but suddenly the book covers went missing. I searched Google for the help and it brought me to the Barnes & Noble help page that said to reboot. Well, obviously that was the first thing I did, and I had probably rebooted 6 times with no change.

Then I noticed they have a list of retired Nook devices. I was like yikes! Is my Nook retired? Thankfully, not yet, but it is no longer receiving updates because it is from 2018 I believe. They currently have a new one that’s a Lenovo 9 inch tablet.

So one of the options was to reset to factory settings, and I was thinking if I did that, I would have the old 2018 operating system, because remember, no updates. So I can reset it, but I won’t benefit from whatever updates they’ve introduced to the Nook app.

That’s not a huge issue because all I’m doing with my Nook is reading ebooks. I don’t highlight anything or do annotations or whatever. So all I want to do is read my ebooks, and the 2018 version still has that ability. No problem.

My Samsung Galaxy Tab A Nook after the factory reset

So my Samsung Galaxy Tab A Nook is back to the way it was 6 years ago, and that’s perfectly fine with me. I need to be able to see what the book cover looks like for me to be able to choose the next ebook I want to read. I don’t need anything fancy, after all, if you open an actual book, you have what you have and that’s ok. Books don’t offer updates.

Resetting the Nook back to the factory settings will actually help make the device faster anyway. It was starting to get slow, so I’d open an ebook and it didn’t open as fast as it should. And whenever I have to reboot it, it will reboot faster.

Yes, I will eventually buy the new Lenovo tablet because I do have a Lenovo laptop and a Lenovo desktop computer, so might as well make it a Lenovo 3 way, right? Eventually. Right now things are difficult for me ever since someone hacked into my Spectrum Mobile account and bought an iPhone which caused Spectrum to charge me the full price for my current cell phone, which was $888 which put my checking account $350 in the negative. I had to transfer money from my credit card to my checking account and now I have debt that will take me a while to pay off.

If this Samsung Galaxy Nook stops working, or becomes discontinued and they block me from reading my ebooks, then I’ll buy a new one. Until then… it is what it is.

I’m getting better at reading

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, ReadingLeave a comment

Okay, I know that’s a strange title, but it’s true for me.

So here’s the deal. When I was a kid, I had trouble reading. I had, and still have a learning disability, dyslexia, and ADHD. That makes it very difficult to read a novel.

When I was about 9 years old, my sister had all of these books that I would have loved to have read. I believe they were The Hardy Boys and or Nancy Drew. I can’t really remember, but I do remember seeing books that were like that in the bedroom. Naturally, they weren’t my books, so I wasn’t even allowed to read them because my sister had ownership over them because they were hers. You know how siblings are, they don’t want you playing with their things. But even if I were given permission to read them, that wouldn’t mean anything because I probably would never have gotten past the first page.

When I was 14 years old, I might have been 15, I decided that I wanted to get a book to read. Back then, there was a miniseries that turned into a TV series called V and they had a book based on the original miniseries, and I asked my mom if she would buy it for me so I can read it, and she did, and I managed to read half of it. But the problem was, I had so much trouble reading even half of the book, and I gave up because it was just too hard for me.

When I was 19 years old just before the Back to The Future 3 movie came into theaters, I decided that I wanted to try reading again, so I bought the Back to the Future books that were available at the time. I read the first one and managed to get through it, although it did take me a bit of time. I then read the second book and it took me a while, but I got through it. I wanted to read them before I went to see the third movie and by the time I was finished, the movie had already left the theater. So I would eventually have to wait until it came out on video to be able to watch it.

This is what would happen to me. I would read a paragraph, and then another paragraph, and then my mind would wander, and I would be thinking about something that had nothing to do with what I was reading. I would be distracted by sounds and smells and anytime I read something that kind of reminded me of something that happened to me in my life or something that I wanted to remember for the future, pun intended, I would lose track of where I was and I would still continue reading, but I wouldn’t remember anything that I had read, so I would have to go back a couple of paragraphs, sometimes even a couple of pages to where I was when I could remember what I was reading. So, most of my life, it was very difficult to want to read anything because it was just too hard.By the time I had reached my 30’s, I had a friend who was always reading and she told me I should just try and give it another shot.

So at the end of the year 2005, I decided to make a New Year’s resolution to start reading books. I went to a used bookstore and found more V novels and I bought a whole bunch of them. I actually bought all of what they had available. I also found some Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels, and I started with those because they seemed to be easier because I was a huge fan of watching Buffy the Vampire slayer, so I had the characters faces and voices already fresh in my head from watching the series. I knew that that would make it easy to read the books, and it did.

Then I bought the Harry Potter set that was books 1 through 5 from Amazon. I was so into reading the Harry Potter books that I would literally just sit there reading for like 8 hours non stop everyday. Those books were so easy to read.

That friend that I mentioned earlier bought me a Buffy the Vampire Slayer book because she was really proud of me for making an effort to read. Then she sent me a whole bunch of books in a series called Xanth by Piers Anthony. That turned out to be a really good series for me to read.

So I’ve only read books that were Supernatural so far. That’s it. I hadn’t gone back to the V books, even though they sat on my bookshelf for a very long time. I was reading Buffy, Harry Potter, Xanth, then I started reading a gay series based on a gay vampire. The first book is called My Heart is Within You and the book is written by Marguerite Labbe. It’s actually a three-part series, and it’s really good.

I have always been into the supernatural as far as TV shows go that it only made sense that I would enjoy reading Supernatural books, and that seems to be the only thing that I like to read.

So Goodreads has an option for a reading challenge. I only started doing the reading challenges in 2018, and I wasn’t really reading that much. I have so many crafts that I do that I barely give myself any time to read any books. I read six books in 2018, I read zero books in 2019, I read 14 and 2020 and 2021 and in 2022 I didn’t read one book. Last year in 2023 I decided I am not reading anything because I’m too focused on watching TikTok which is not something that I should be focused on.

So in July of 2023 I decided that I need to start with the reading again and I went to Goodreads and started a challenge to just read 5 books, and I ended up reading 18 from July until the end of the year. I’ve also been on a long reading streak on my Kindle and I don’t want to lose the streak so I just decided that I’m just going to read every day, even if I only read two or three chapters, at least I’m keeping my streak up.

My reading challenge for 2024 is just 30 books, and I’m already 12 books in. We’re only in March. But while I’m reading every single day, I’m learning that I’m not having as much trouble reading at all like I used to. I used to stumble and get sidetracked and forget what I was reading and have to go back a paragraph or a page or two and that never happens to me anymore. I can literally just sit here and read all day if I wanted to and I would be happy.

So what is my point? I’ve taken all of your time reading up until this point, so what am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that I have issues reading, and since I’ve been reading pretty much daily since July, my problem is not a problem any more. I can read three or four chapters in one sitting and there hasn’t been one instance where I had to go back a paragraph because I didn’t understand what I was reading because I had been interrupted by somebody, or because I heard a sound or because I was thinking about something else.

My point is, reading is a skill I guess you would say, and when you start getting better at the skill, it becomes easier to do that skill or thing. Once I had an issue getting past the first page, and now you can’t even stop me from reading and understanding what I’ve read. Also, I still remember everything that I’ve read in all of these books that I’ve read. Maybe not so much books I’ve read in the past, but the books that I’ve read since july, I can still remember what I read. Obviously, not every single word or sentence, but I remember the story and how it started and went throughout the story and how it ended. I couldn’t say that a year or two ago.

So, if you have problems reading like I have, don’t let that stop you from trying. Perhaps you will end up loving reading more than anything in the world. You will like reading more than you even like watching tv. I don’t even watch TV anymore. Well, except for the two shows that I actually have that are currently on the air lol. But other than that, I’m not just sitting there watching tv. I’d rather read a book.

My Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, Nook, Paranormal, ReadingLeave a comment

I haven’t been reading books at all lately. Last year I don’t even think I picked up one book at all. I am always getting emails from Goodreads with updates from other people, and I usually delete them because I’m typically just not in the mood to read, but I got to thinking, I really should. I’ve spent way too much time watching YouTube and not doing anything. I need to start reading again.

The first book that I thought to read was actually a book I had bought and added to my Goodreads account on September 3rd, 2012 called “If It’s a Choice, My Zygote Chose Balls” by Jeremy Hooper. I had also bought the audio version because they offered it at a really good price and I couldn’t pass it up. But I don’t know why it took me this long to read it. I read it in 2 days with the help of the audio book of course. I finished reading it on August 27th, according to my Goodreads account.

My next 3 books were from the same author named Daniel Sugar and they were about a witch in the Salem trial days. “Salem Burning”, “The Witch and the Guillotine” and “The Witch and the Revolution”. I read those really fast because they were all so easy to read. I pretty much read them each in a day. I love stories about witches and the supernatural.

Before I finished the Daniel Sugar books, I saw an ad on Facebook for another series by an author named Ward Parker and the series is the “Freaky Florida” series that consisted of 4 books. “Snowbirds of Prey”, “Invasive Species”, “Fate is a Witch” and “Gnome Coming”. I bought all 4 books without even thinking maybe I might just want to stick to the first book and see how that goes. I don’t know, I just had a feeling I would read and like them. Then before I even started reading the first one I saw there was a fifth book coming soon called “Going Batty”, so I bought that and he has a sixth book coming out early in 2021 called “Dirty Old Manatee”. It already sounds hilarious.

The Freaky Florida series follows a home health nurse named Missy who happens to be a witch and her patients are Werewolves and Vampires and really any other supernatural beings that need her medical skills. She also has a friend named Matt who is a reporter and they go on many adventures together in the series. They are kind of cute in my mind. I don’t know why, but my brain has assigned them the voices of Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Darrin Stephens (Dick York). I can even see their facial expressions and hear the expressions in their voices during certain scenes.

So I read the first one, loved it, second one, loved it, third one, guess how I felt about that one? I loved it. I’m reading the fourth one called Gnome Coming and I’m also loving it. Going Batty is my next one.

All of these are on the Kindle because for some reason there are some authors who only publish to Kindle. I normally buy Nook books, but I don’t know, I just thought I would give my Kindle account some attention this year, and not a moment too soon because the Nook hasn’t been operational since Sunday, and it’s still not working. I don’t know for sure what happened, but you can’t buy any books and if you had any books that weren’t installed that were in the cloud, you pretty much can kiss them goodbye until they fix the problem. If you were fortunate to save your books to SD card then you still have them. I wasn’t fortunate to have them all downloaded to the SD card. And it really sucks because I already bought the first book for my next series from an author named Michael Buckley called the Sister’s Grimm on the Nook and I won’t get the ebook until they fix the problem. So I’m pretty bummed out.

But I do have other books I have bought years ago that I want to read. For example I still have a ton of Xanth novels to read and the rest of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I have plenty of reading to do, and I’m so glad I started reading again. My goal is set to 10, but when I get to 10 I will change it to 12 and just keep going until the end of the year. I am curious to find out how many more books I can read this year.

Reading Books

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Screenshot_2018-09-07-13-01-41-1

I have so far read 2 out of 7 books that I chose for the Goodreads 2018 reading challenge, and my brain seems exhausted after only 2 books lol. I think because I didn’t give myself any time between books to properly absorb what I had read, or perhaps it’s like when you are going to the gym every day and your muscles aren’t used to the constant abuse of the machines that they start cramping up randomly for no apparent reason. Does that make sense?

I’m on my 3rd book on page 47 which is chapter 4 and the book is called Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris who also wrote all the Sookie Stackhouse novels which is where the True Blood series came from.

Today I haven’t read anything, and it’s 1pm and I’m already falling asleep from exhaustion, and I’m wondering just how I can be so sleepy when I haven’t accomplished a thing today. All I’ve done today was basically I just woke up, ate breakfast and lunch, played video games and basically exist and that was enough to make me drowsy. Yes, I’m typing this while stuggling to keep my eyes open, so I’m going to cut this short and go take a nap.

Screenshot_2018-09-07-13-01-47-1

Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge

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2018-08-26

I recently recommended books based on a Facebook challenge, but I myself have not actually read a book in the last 2 years. The last book I read was called Liar’s Blade, a Pathfinder Tale’s book, apparently number 13 in the series, which I did not know until just now. Before that, the last book I read I finished in November 2014. So, how can I be recommending books to people when I am terrible at reading a book?

I actually started reading 2 books recently. I started reading V: The Original Miniseries earlier this year in February. The Nook version has 595 pages, and I’ve already read 125, so I’m on chapter 4. I also started to read Question Quest which is the 14th book in the Xanth series and I’m on chapter 8. That book has 271 pages and I am currently on page 100. So I am at least making an attempt to read.

Last night I decided I need to take the challenge since I am recommending books, so I challenged myself to read 7 books, and I added 7 books to a new Goodreads list called 2018-challenge.

2018-08-26 (2)2018-08-26 (3)

I’ve been waiting a long time to read some of these books, like for example I bought Gladiator’s Master in 2012 and it’s literally been sitting in my Nook library waiting to be read, same with Question Quest. I stopped reading the Sookie Stackhouse books after True Blood ended, and I really want to go back and finish them. Splinter’s is a book that was recommended to me by the author himself when he visited and spoke in front of a group I belong to and I bought the Nook book when I came home that night and I guess I just never gave it a chance. Then this year I bought V, and read a few chapters, but that was it. I’ve actually been holding on to Queen of Sorcery for a lot longer, I have the Belgariad volume books which has 3 books in the first volume, and I read the first book in the series in 2010 after my aunt recommended it to me in 2005, I just never moved on to the 2nd book, so I added it recently for this challenge, and since I am reading V The Original Miniseries, I figure I might as well read the Second Generation while I’m at it, you know?

The order in which I read all of these books doesn’t matter, I mean obviously I’m not reading the first one on the list. These were listed this way based on the dates they were added into my account, not based on the order I will read them. And it doesn’t matter what I read first, Goodreads will only count the book for the 2018 challenge after I’ve finished reading it.

Anyway, I had to stop reading for the night because I have been reading for several hours today, and I can only read for so long before the words stop making sense to me, so I figured I’d write this blog post instead, and hope it makes sense lol.

Have you taken the Goodreads 2018 reading challenge? And if so, have you completed the challenge or are you still challenging yourself?

Edit: I’m going to cheat a little. I added a new book to my 2018-challenge list called Zombie Day Care because according to “Details” it’s only 134 pages. A lot of the books I’ve chosen to add to my list are almost 300 or in some cases almost 600 pages long, so in order for me to read 7 books this year, I’m going to need some easier books that I can go through quicker to basically catch up.

Recommended Books

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook1 Comment

People like to play games on Facebook, like let’s set up a thing where we recommend a book for 7 days, and each day we recommend a book, we also nominate someone to also recommend books and we keep this going FOREVER UNTIL THE END OF TIME! LOL

So I thought ok, this is actually fun, so I did it and I’ve already finished my 7th day, but I thought it would be fun to also come here and recommend each one of those books because why not?

Day 1 Harry Potter1. The complete Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

I recommend this every time because these books are so easy to read, and they make you feel smart for reading books. I wasn’t a reader at all until I was in my early to mid 30’s, and I decided it was my New Years Resolution to start reading, and I did and this was the first major series I read from beginning to end without stopping. I literally sat on my bed reading these books for 8 hours at a time. Wild horses couldn’t tear me away from these books. Anyway, I guess you could say I like them, otherwise they wouldn’t be my #1 book.

Day 2 A Spell for Chameleon2. A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony

My friend Alyce recommended this series to me in 2009. Everything in these books are a pun or a joke. Like if they mention rolling hills, the hills are literally rolling. If they mention a sandwich bush, the bush is literally growing sandwiches. Take everything literal in this series.

There are now 41 books in the series, yes, he is still publishing new books. The first book A Spell for Chameleon was published in 1977 and the 41st book Ghost Writer in the Sky was published in 2017.

Trust me when I say you will not be disappointed in this series.

Day 3 My Heart is Within You3. My Heart is Within You by Marguerite Labbe

I discovered a website called Rainbow eBooks in 2010 and one of the first books I saw advertised on the front page was My Heart is Within You. It’s a vampire story, and I do love vampire stories, but it’s not just any vampire, it’s a gay vampire who falls in love with a college jock, because, why not? Anyway, it’s a good story. There are 3 books in what is referred to a Triquetra Trilogy. This is also the first series where I occasionally had to stop reading because the writing gave me a um… how do I put this politely… a reason to go to take a cold shower. The sex scenes are um… juicy. Marguerite Labbe is the first straight woman to ever give me a boner with her writing. Well, so much for being polite.

Day 4 Sookie Stackhouse4. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

I watched and loved the True Blood series on HBO, and just like most everything, this show was based on a series of books called the Sookie Stackhouse series. I was very shocked to see that there were so many differences in the books from the series. I mean, obviously they cannot make a tv show verbatim to the book, but they were almost like they were two completely separate worlds altogether, like an alternate universe if you will where Lafayette is dead after the first book, but he’s still alive in the series, and where Elvis is alive in the books and he’s called Vampire Bubba, but there’s absolutely no mention of him in the series because he doesn’t seem to exist. Thing’s like that. Anyway, if you loved the series, read the books and you will see what I’m talking about.

Day 5 Belgariad5. The Belgariad by David Eddings

When I visited my Aunt Louise in Texas for Christmas in 2005, we spoke about how I loved to read now, and she recommended these books to me. To me, these books are very similar to the Lord of the Ring’s, but it seems to be more like a Dungeon’s & Dragon’s type of story, which is what I like.

I’m not gonna lie, the first book Pawn of Prophecy is really hard to read at first, but once you get started, you will be able to read it all the way through, and it might even be difficult to put it down. I bought the Belgariad Volume 1 and 2 and so far I’ve only read the first book, but I will be getting back to reading them because I did like the first book.

Day 6 Cirque Du Freak6. Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare by Darren Shan

I saw the movie Cirque Du Freak The Vampire’s Assistant, and I thought it was a really good movie, I mean that’s on my top 10 movies too. But the books are 100% better. There are 12 books in the series and they take you on the complete journey of this character and his friends. You are there with Darren every step of the way, and in your mind, you are one of his companions on his journey.

The movie jumps from scene to scene really fast, blink and you might miss something, the books take things a bit slower and you get more details that you never got to see in the movie.

Day 7 V7. V: The Original Miniseries by Kenneth Johnson and A.C. Crispin

When V The Original Miniseries aired in the early 1980’s, I watched it with my family. Most of my family didn’t really care for it, but for some odd reason it really brought me and my mother closer together when it became a weekly series. We watched it every week, just her and I and the rest of the family watched whatever else was on TV in the other room, whatever that might have been. It was probably something sappy like Dallas or Dynasty lol.

Anyway, when I discovered there was a book, I asked my mother for it and she bought it for me and I think I only read half of the book. I had a lot of trouble reading because of my dyslexia, but I got as far as I could and I was very proud of myself. I bought that book again at a book store in 2005 and I still have it.

This is a new cover for the Nook ebook and the listing says that the V novel is finally back in print, with an all-new, never-before-seen revised ending. So that’s why I bought the Nook version. There is another Nook ebook called V: The Second Generation.

Those are my 7 days worth of books, or series of books, that should keep you busy for a long time lol. I have a few more honorary mentions, I’ll just post the picture. Anyway, thanks for reading my blog post, happy book reading.

Nook HD+ for Christmas

On By Michel McDonaldIn ChristmasLeave a comment

desktop landscape

I was totally not expecting this, but my partner bought me a Nook HD+ 32GB for Christmas. I was saving money to buy an Amazon Kindle Fire because I thought it was better than a Nook tablet. I had no idea that the Nook tablet had the Google play store now. So I changed my mind, but was still saving the money and was expecting that I would finally have the money saved by my birthday in June. I told my partner what I was planning, and I think he took that as a hint. It wasn’t, but hey, I’m not complaining lol.

I have a Nook WiFi, which is still very nice to have for when I want to read a book in the sunlight. That doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. You can’t see a tablet screen in sunlight which is what makes a e-ink screen superior than a tablet in that sense.

I was saving up for the 7″ screen with only 8GB, but when we were at the Barnes & Noble store he saw the two screens next to each other and decided for me that the 9″ screen was better, and that 32GB would also be way better than only 8GB which I highly agree with. The price however was a huge difference. The 7″ tablet was only $129 and the 9″ was $179. I agree that the one he bought me is better though, and I probably would have regretted not getting the bigger one.

library portrait There was a problem with my new Nook though. The first day was okay, but the second day wasn’t. The screen started freaking out on me. It would move side to side on its own and it would drop app icons onto the desktop from the carousel at the top. It also went into my library and started downloading books and magazines from the cloud. I saw it in the Nook store and freaked out that it would start making executive decisions on what it thought I should start reading.

I called the store and tried to explain to them what was happening, but the tech didn’t get it right away. She eventually understood and walked me through resetting it to factory and told me if I had any more problems to bring it in for another one. It did, and so we went in the very next day. It was a good thing too because they were on sale, so they gave my partner the difference, which was $32. Not bad eh? Instead of being $179, it was only $149.

So yeah, the Nook HD+ 32GB was a very good thing. I’ve been putting my computer in sleep mode while I use the Nook as a computer. No sense in using electricity if I’m going to use a tablet instead of a computer. I am disappointed that I can’t play the Sims FreePlay on it though. I’ve been playing that on my cell phone for a year now and it gets frustrating when it crashes constantly. I would love to free up some space on my phone and play it on a bigger screen.

landscape book

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to read books on the screen because I much prefer either paper or e-ink, but it’s actually not that bad to read from. I’ve been reading in landscape mode and it reads just like a book, it even looks like a book when you turn the page. The reason I’m reading in landscape mode is because of the case I have. It’s much easier for me to read with the Nook sitting on my desk than it is to hold it on my hand.

I am very happy with my gift. I’m even happier that I didn’t have to save the money for it because I can’t save money very easily because it always goes into the groceries. I’m even happier that the replacement didn’t freak out like the first one lol.

We didn’t buy the case in the store because I thought they would be expensive, so I bought it on Amazon for $11 with free shipping.  Not a bad price.  I found out that the cases they have in the store are only $15, but I am very happy with the case that I have because it rotates so it can stand in portrait or landscape mode.

We don’t conform to the rules of opening your Christmas presents ON Christmas day.  Screw that noise lol.  We will open our presents when we gosh darn well please thank you very much.  The present I bought for him wasn’t quite as expensive though, it was the Google Chromecast for $35.  He can use it to watch Netflix or YouTube directly from his tablet.  My second gift for him was Netflix itself, which we both can enjoy from our tablets and the Blu-ray player.