Monday Reading Meme - It's Monday!

it's officially Monday (early, early Monday morning)

all the grandchildren have gone to their respective homes

the hubby is in bed,
some people are in my kitchen having game night
(friends of the family)

and I'm laying on the couch soaking up the atmosphere

playing citiville and farmville....

relaxing Sunday night/Monday morning

Best of All - NO Work in the morning.

:)

Happy President's Day

and, no work on Tuesday...

also, no pay for everyone in the school district...

:(
better than being laid off though

:)

I missed the It's Monday, "what are..." meme last week, but I'm back! (sort of)

Hosted by Sheila, of Book Journey - full guidelines are at her site.

basically, we list what we've been reading, what we're reading now and future reading plans.

so here goes:

In the last week I read The Bitter Seed of Magic by Suzanne McLeod.

(Great Book! - of course, now I'm looking forward to the fourth)

I reviewed it here, and Goodreads, and Library Thing, Shelfari and some book.com sites (Amazon, Book Depository, etc)**
yes, I know that's a lot of book reading sites that I belong to, but I joined one because it shows a cool shelf with book covers, another because someone invited me, and the other because they provide the occasional free copies for review. I think the one I go on the most is GoodReads.

Finished up the contest I was hosting for the same book and announced the winner. Congrats to Winnie, who will be receiving her very own signed copy of The Bitter Seed of Magic, courtesy of Suzanne McLeod.

I also want to acknowledge Suzanne McLeod's generosity in providing the prize for a contest, as well as the exclusive excerpt, and the snippet she allowed me to post.

I'm not a particularly ambitious blogger, but I do have to admit that it's fun having an exclusive excerpt.

At this moment The Bitter Seed of Magic is available in the UK, but most of us know by now that we in the US can buy through the Book Depository and have it sent to us. That's how I was able to read the first two books in this series, (The Spellcrackers.com series) way before they were released in the States. I love the Book Depository. As well as providing free shipping, if there's ever any doubt about receiving an ordered book, they are very good at shipping a replacement. I've never been disappointed with any orders from them.

After I finished reading The Bitter Seed of Magic, I needed to read a novel that is completely out of the urban fantasy genre - a type of cleansing of the palate, so I chose Red Hot Property by Devin O'Branagan. I'm about halfway through it right now - (because I've been goofing off on the computer and with the grandchildren). It's a cute light read with chuckles and fun characters;some of the characters are dogs. I always enjoy stories with animal characters - animals with personalities.

Devin O'Branagan has also authored Witch Hunt, and Glory.

** Soap box moment or two:

I debated mentioning this...but in the end I decided to mention it.

I reviewed The Bitter Seed of Magic on Amazon.com last week. Yesterday, I was sent a link to a review that was posted on Amazon.UK. I had given five stars for my review, and there is a review up (with four stars) -titled with a snippet from the review itself - that is word for word the SAME as my review. Every single word, every space, even the introductory sentence where I said I was afraid I wouldn't do justice to the book - the mention that I don't write analytical reviews....Every. Single. Word.

At first I thought there must have been some sort of weird mistake...But no, the title is different. The user name has over 1000 reviews under his/her belt (noted as a top reviewer). But the body of the text is word for word the same as my review.

I kept thinking, this has to be a mistake - or an accident. Maybe the UK site transfers reviews from the US site over to a generic name ....but no.

He/she had to make an effort to do this. They had to highlight my entire review, then copy and paste. Then they changed the rating to their rating and found a sentence fragment from the review to use as a title....

Why?

I almost left a comment on this plagiarized review about how "similar" our reviews were - in fact so similar that it seems as if it were written by the same MIND. But I decided not to comment at all. It was hard not to....

I don't get it though. this person has alledgedly written over 1000 reviews. I wonder how many of them were in fact, their own words.

And why copy from me - an amateur reviewer. It's not like I even try to sound intelligent or like I know what I'm talking about.

I don't attempt to sound knowledgeable about writing or characters.

I simply state if I like a book, why I like it and that's about it.

This person can't do the same? Write their own thoughts?

It's not that hard to do. I would think it takes more effort to copy and paste.

And why take a chance on discovery?

My Amazon Review -which I cross posted to The Book Depository. (posted 2/15)

the other review (posted 2/19)

I was wondering why someone would copy one amazon review and re-post it on the UK amazon site, but now that I think more on it, they probably saw it on either of the other five places I posted it and copied it from there...not realizing that this same review is up at The Book Depository, Amazon.US, GoodReads, Shelfari, The Library Thing and on both of my personal blogs (slightly longer on my blogs).

I don't know whether I'm pissed off or just amazed at the nerve of this type of behavior.

Because really - this is a stupid thing to do.

btw - I also debated posting these links, but they are public links.

Okay - end soap box moment, now.

Coming up to read?

I'm not sure - there are so many books that've been waiting for me to crack open. I'm already looking forward to the summer break when I can theoretically have more time for reading. hahahahha. :)