Books Across the Miles

My mom, my brother, and I have been in a book club for a few years now. We live miles apart, but we still meet whenever we can to share our love of books.

My brother lives in Michigan and my mom lives about an hour away so we share our thoughts on each book through email. We take turns suggesting the next read. The only rule is that it should be a book that none of us have read yet. Because of this book club, I’ve read some pretty strange stories that I probably never would have read under normal conditions. To give you an idea of the strangeness, here are a few recent ones:

Mort: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman

Breakthrough by Michael Grumley

Anansi Brothers by Neil Gaiman

The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church

My brother loves science fiction and he’s introduced us to some great ones from that genre, but we might throw in a classic or historical fiction every once in a while.

We try to follow the same guidelines as a Goodreads book club by talking about each book as we’re reading it. To make sure there are no spoilers, the book title and the last chapter read are added to the email’s subject line. If the others haven’t gotten to that chapter yet, they don’t have to read that message until they do.

A bonus is that my mom and brother are funny. Here’s an example of a comment on one of the books we read:

“I struggled with it a bit at first. I think it was due to the excessive use of commas, with random thoughts interjected, which can make you wonder what the hell that sentence was about, like a stack of pancakes with butter dribbling down the side, or the way a stranger looks at you.”

With our electronic book club, we can meet and laugh at each other at any time. Then when we get to see each other in real life, we’ll talk some more about the books we’ve read together.

Happy World Book Day! The first person to figure out which book (from the list above) the quote is describing wins a copy of Ocean Echoes.

Are you in an electronic book club? Do you have any suggestions for our next book club read?

Jellyfish and a Giveaway

I’m not giving away jellyfish, but there is a Goodreads giveaway going on now for signed paperback copies of Ocean Echoes. If you live in the U.S., click here to enter.

Ocean Echoes is about a marine biologist who gives up on love to study jellyfish at a Cape Cod research facility.

Here are a few jellyfish details to celebrate the giveaway:

Jellyfish have roamed the world’s oceans for at least 500 million years. They were here before dinosaurs and long before humans.

More people are killed or injured each year by jellyfish than by sharks.

Jellyfish are 95 percent water and they live without a heart or a brain.

A group of jellyfish can be called a swarm or a smack.

Jellyfish can sting when they’re no longer alive. In 2010, about 150 swimmers at a park in New Hampshire were stung by the 40-pound carcass of a lion’s mane jellyfish.

The giveaway ends March 8 – here’s another chance to enter (U.S. only for this one because I’m too cheap to pay for extreme postage these days).

What do you think of jellyfish? Do you think they’re beautiful, scary, or otherworldly?

NanoWriMo Insanity and a Giveaway

I’m visiting Jill Weatherholt today to talk about the writing process for Ocean Echoes and we’ll be doing a giveaway over there. The picture above has nothing to do with that, unless the boardwalk could take us from Cape Cod to North Carolina, but it’s probably easier to go there virtually.

It’s always fun to visit Jill because her posts remind me of all the good that can be found in everything. One of her posts about childhood even made me remember the fun of Pop Rocks. If you’re not familiar with her blog, make sure to follow for inspirational, fun, and nostalgic posts. I always leave there with a smile.

She’s participated in the NanoWriMo insanity a few times now, including the one that just ended. Her debut novel, Second Chance Romance is scheduled to be released by Harlequin in February 2017.

So, I’ll close comments over here and will hope to see you over there for a chat and a giveaway…

Sharks and Jaws

This shark was found smiling on Martha’s Vineyard, where parts of the movie Jaws was filmed. Humans have a strange relationship with sharks. We idolize and look up to them even as we fear and continue to hunt them.

Sharks have more of a reason to fear us. Humans kill between 50 to 100 million sharks each year, but sharks only kill a handful of humans. After surviving for 450 million years, sharks may be gone within the next few decades.

Author Peter Benchley wished he never wrote Jaws, according to this Boston.com article.

Now his widow is the president of the board of Shark Savers.

The Shark Research Institute found that the populations of eight shark species declined more than 50 percent from 1986 to 2000. We don’t know how much Jaws might have contributed to that, but the movie didn’t help when it amplified a public perception of sharks as monsters.

Shark tournaments like the one held on Martha’s Vineyard until last year don’t help either. After the Humane Society targeted the tournament and officials grew tired of the rowdy crowds, it moved off island to Newport, which doesn’t make things any easier for area sharks.

But the worldwide decline of sharks is due to shark finning more than anything else. Each year, up to 73 million sharks are killed for their fins, according to Oceana. A shark caught for finning has its fins sliced off, often while the shark is still alive, then it’s tossed overboard to bleed and die.

Sharks do much more for us than we do for them. They keep fish populations healthy by selectively eating sick or slower fish. When sharks are removed from the sea, we lose commercially important fish and shellfish. Those fish help maintain the health of coral reefs and the ocean.

According to a Shark Savers study, when shark populations were destroyed off the mid-Atlantic, cownose rays, a former shark prey, grew out of control. The rays then depleted the scallops, ending a 100-year-old scallop fishery.

In the wake of the 40th anniversary of Jaws, maybe it’s time to put our fears aside and become a friend to sharks. Let’s do what we can to protect and respect sharks and the ocean. Before it’s too late.

What do you think of sharks or Jaws? If you wrote Jaws, would you wish you hadn’t?

If you’re wondering what you can do, please sign this petition asking GrubHub to remove shark fins from its menu.

Related Post:
Sharks Facing Extinction

Gift Card Winner: Instead of doing the old fashioned hat thing, I assigned a number to each comment from the last post, then generated a number from random.org to find the winner. And the winner of the $25 Amazon gift card is….#3 Jill Weatherholt. Congratulations! I’ll send you an email so we can figure out the details of your gift card delivery. Thank you to everyone for visiting and for your friendship. Happy reading to all!

Summer Reading Giveaway

It’s about time for some beach or patio reading in the sun. I’m looking forward to diving into these books almost as much as the ocean: The Shell Collector (because Letizia reminded me of that one), Slaughterhouse Five (after reading this review by Ste J), Tinkers (because of reviews from Goodreads friends), All the Light We Cannot See, and a million others.

I’m grateful for the friends I’ve found and I’d like to thank everyone for taking the time to stop by and visit. So to celebrate you and the summer reading list, it’s time to do another giveaway. If you comment on this post by Wednesday, June 24, your comment will put you in the running for a $25 Amazon gift card. The winner will be announced here on Thursday.

In case you’re hunting around for a few more beach or fireside reads, take a look at these books written by blogging friends. Just click on the book cover for a description of each:

     

         

         

                  

         

Books are by: Britt Skrabanek, Carrie Rubin, Dianne Gray, Kourtney Heintz, Charissa Stastny, Kasia James, Coleen Patrick, Lauren Scott, K.C. Tansley, and my friend from UMass Amherst Licia Sorgi.

There’s also a Goodreads giveaway going on for K.C. Tansley’s The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts. And don’t forget to nominate Eating Bull on Kindle Scout within the next four days for the chance to win a free e-book.

What’s on your summer (or winter fireside) reading list?

Great Blogs and the Winner Is…

It’s about time to add to my list of great blogs. I’m thankful for the friends I’ve found here and this is just a small sampling of a few in alphabetical order. Many of you already know each other, but just in case there’s anyone out there who hasn’t visited these people, you’re missing out.

Carrie Rubin – Very funny observations on life, health, and writing from the author of The Seneca Scourge

Found in France – Photography and observations from a small town in France

4amwriter – Thoughts on writing and life and the balancing act between the two

I Have a Voice – Beautiful, inspirational poetry

JMMcDowell – An archaeologist and writer with serialized fiction posts and author interviews

Joy in the Moments – Posts on writing, author interviews, traveling, and all the joy that can be found everywhere from the author of Eyes of Light and Secret Keepers

LScott Thoughts – Beautiful, fun, inspirational poetry and thoughts

Milka Pejovic – Nature photography from the San Diego area

Miniscule Moments of Inspiration – Observations on life and nature from a writer and picture book illustrator living in Australia

Reading Interrupted – Inspirational posts on the love of books

The Vibes – A talented graphic artist’s collection of photos and artwork

Two Black Dogs – Photography and observances from travels through Europe and at home in Australia with two black dogs

I’ll be adding to this list with future posts. You can see others through the Great Blogs category listed on the home page.

Now it’s time to announce the winner of the $25 Amazon gift card. I plan on doing more of these giveaways in the future. I know we’re all busy so this is just a way of saying thank you to everyone.

All Twitter followers for @SheilaHurst11 were entered to win. Commenters on the last post were also entered to win. And the winner is….

Rebecca Belliston – @rlbelliston

I’ll send you a message for your gift card. As you can see from the photo, I used a very high-tech method for this madness. I printed out my list of Twitter followers, cut each one into fortune cookie strips, added commenters from the last post, and mixed them all together in a bowl before selecting the winner. Just in case you wanted the recipe.

Thank you all for visiting, commenting, and following, but most of all thank you for your friendship. I’m looking forward to laughing together through the winter.

Thank You and a Giveaway

Writing can be a lonely thing to do. We’re observers of life so it does help to get out there every once in a while, but we also need to lock ourselves away as often as possible if we’re ever going to get any writing done.

These days, we’re not writing alone. Thanks to blogging and Twitter, we can find other writers, cheer each other on, and commiserate together. If you’re doing NanoWriMo, you know what I’m talking about and I hope you’re locked away somewhere with a fresh supply of chocolate.

The road to publication is filled with potholes of self doubt. We wonder if anyone will hear our words. We wonder if anyone will care. Maybe they’ll laugh at us or think we’re horrible writers. Still, we take that risk and put ourselves out there. Because we’re hoping someone somewhere will care.

I’m amazed by the friends I’ve found here and I just want to say thank you. So it’s about time to start doing some random giveaways. If you leave a comment on this post, I’ll put your name in for a $25 Amazon gift card. If you already follow me on Twitter, I’ll put your name in again. Finally, if you follow me @SheilaHurst11 by Monday, November 11, I’ll put your name in for the gift card and I’ll make sure to follow back. The winner will be announced here on Wednesday. In the meantime, just think of all the books you’ll be able to get to last you through the winter.

November is a good time to look back at the year and give thanks. I’m thankful for the beauty of the ocean, the joy of finding and reading that perfect book, friends that are more like family, and family that’s more like friends.

What are you thankful for? Which books are you thinking of reading next? If you’re doing NanoWriMo, how’s that going so far?