Friday Fabulous! (17)

Time for another Friday Fabulous list!

1. I will be cheerleading for the 24 hour read-a-thon tomorrow as well as some reading I'm sure. This is such a fun community event and I look forward to checking in on everyone's progress (366 participants in all so far - how many will I manage to visit?)

2. Lauren of Shooting Stars Mag and Chelsea of The Page Flipper are doing the Leave a Mark auctions again this year to benefit First Book. I ADORE marked up books so you can be sure I'll be bidding again. I won two books last year, and it is just too fun to get that behind the scenes look at books direct from the authors themselves.

3. Nicole of Linus Blanket is starting a new radio show interviewing book bloggers called That's How I Blog! She's doing a trial run of 12 shows with fab book bloggers starting next week and going until mid-January. I am so excited that she asked me to participate! My show will be in January, and of course I'll remind you when the time comes.

4. In addition to all those books I brought home from the Frankfurt Book Fair last week, I also got a couple more in the mail and bought some. When my dad told me I got Courtney Summer's latest SOME GIRLS ARE, I squealed. Of the advanced readers who have reviewed in on GoodReads so far, not one has given it less than 5 stars!! I also got Lauren McLaughlin's RECYCLER, Catherine Fisher's INCARCERON, and Lucy Christopher's STOLEN.

5. Finn got neutered today (which isn't fab, but rather sad) and we were much relieved that the pre-op ultrasound showed that his missing testicle was just under the surface of where it should have been instead of floating around somewhere that would have necessitated cutting open his belly. He's sleeping on my lap as I type and we hope for a speedy recovery.

6. My new non-paranoid book club met on Wednesday to great success. We discussed Kathleen Kent's THE HERETIC'S DAUGHTER which I actually read and reviewed last year. Hachette was extremely generous and donated 10 copies of the book and are setting up a telephone date with the author for us as well. The reaction the novel was overwhelmingly positive, though one member maintained that no one could ever do the Salem witch trials better than Arthur Miller (THE CRUCIBLE).

We had a lively discussion about mother-daughter relationships, whether witches actually exist, the hardships of early America, and how birth seemed to be a recurring theme for Kent - all while snacking on an incredibly delicious apple cake baked by our hostess. I have a great feeling about this group and copies of the book will be donated to the US Military overseas library so that other international English book clubs and readers can enjoy Kent's novel as well.

What exciting things do you have to report this week?