Book Embargo

and the next to last Harry Potter question is…..

at Scholastic.com’s Shrieking Shack

WILL VOLDEMORT BE DEFEATED????????

also seen here….

Also congrats to the winners of the Sweepstakes.

Seven lucky U.S. Harry Potter fans have been selected and will be flown to London to join J.K. Rowling at a midnight launch event for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows leading up to the book release at 12:01 a.m. on July 21, 2007.

Congrats to
Andrew of Havertown, PA, 9
Paige of Boise, ID, 11
Ayoluwa of Atlanta, GA, 12
Sophie of Seattle, WA, 13
Joe of Cincinnati, OH, 15
Anne of Spring, TX, 17
Yanira of Hialeah, FL, 20

Less than a month until the big day…… *giddy thoughts*

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I bought Settlers for Justin for Christmas, and this weekend, Justin, Adam, and I played it. For Adam and I, it was our first time, but Justin has played before. Surprise Surprise, Justin won, then Adam and then FAR FAR behind, was me.

You can tell that I am a good loser eh? We made a video of us playing, in time lapse, Check it out!

Also, Matt blogged about Settlers a few times, once in an introduction post and once about the online free version.

Here is another picture of a sample game.

Wikipedia has a site on Settlers if you need more information, but seriously, just go buy it and play it. I hated losing but I still want to play again and win this time

Its a “good” addiction!

adam, boardgames, borkweb.com, catan, games, germany, justin, matt, settlers, settlers of catan, time lapse, videos, youtube

Now, you all know how much I loved Dairy Queen. I labeled it my FAVORITE book of 2006. Well, it has a sequel. Off-Season is the name and GREATNESS is the game!

First, I still REALLY like DJ. The books are her diaries and Catherine Gilbert Murdock does a great job in using the diary format for DJ’s voice.

I liked DQ for its freshness for introducing me to DJ and her family, but comparing the two in my head and… I think that Off-Season was even better than DQ.

Off-Season deals with heavier topics than DQ. In Dairy Queen it was more self-realization for DJ. She helps train the rival-high school quarterback, ends up liking him, decides to join her school’s football team, all the while basically running her family’s dairy farm. Off-Season continues DJ and Brian’s relationship but it also shows the harsher injury side of football as well as the reality of how hard it is for small family farms. What DJ goes through, the decisions that have to be made, and the type of person DJ become are more intense and overall deeper than Dairy Queen.

The Schwenk family has issues with communication. Honestly, what family doesn’t? DJ’s family just chooses not to talk about things. Sometimes this is okay and the situation resolves on its own, and other times it ends up with an explosion. In Off-Season, these situations and their resulting explosions are just awesome.

Becky’s Book Review had this to say, and I wholeheartedly agree!

I hesitate to tell you any of the reasons why her world is falling apart. Just know this…it isn’t because she broke a nail…it isn’t because of something equally trivial or shallow. THE OFF SEASON is a serious novel; it’s well written. The characters are authentic and memorable. If you didn’t love D.J. before…you just might after reading THE OFF SEASON.

I liked Dairy Queen; I really liked it. But I loved The Off Season. It delves even deeper into the Schwenk family. You get to know even more about the family and how it works–how it functions: her relationship with her parents, her relationship with her brothers. Dairy Queen flirted with the idea of D.J. discovering who she is and what she’s worth…but she really and truly gets it in THE OFF SEASON.

Another review from the Columbus Dispatch, though don’t read the rest of the review before you read the book,

In The Off Season, Murdock spins a story that’s heart-wrenching and hilarious. She prods beneath the surface of the characters and leaves the ending a bit open. Readers will have to wonder — and probably expect another sequel — about what happens next to this dairy queen.

Dairy Queen is available in paperback and Off-Season is available in hardcover. Check them out, you WON’T regret it!

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Over at the shrieking shack there is a new question…

WHERE ARE THE HORCRUXES???????????????????

and a special little treat….

harry potter, harry potter and the deathly hallows, deathly hallows, scholastic, rowling, j.k. rowling, books, fiction, children, shrieking shack

So many people have Thomas the Tank Engine toys that I thought I would list the information needed about the safety recalls. Roughly 1.5 MILLION toys are being recalled.
The full information is available at the RC2 Recall Page.

There are excess levels of lead affecting surface paint on specific vehicles and set compotnents from the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Product Line. The recall covers vehicles, buildings and other parts sold from January 2005 through June 2007 for between $10 and $70 dollars.

NOTE::: If the code marked on the bottom on your purchase (or on the inside of the battery door) contains “WJ” or “AZ,” then that product is NOT included in this recall.

Affected in this recall are:

If you own one of the recalled toys, take it away from young children and contact RC2 Corportaion at (866)725-4407 for a replacement toy. The replacement shipping form can be here.

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First, this is my 100th post!
Now, covers change all the time. That is something we are used to. When a book goes from hardcover to paperback, the cover sometimes changes. When a book is released in paperback but then subsequent books by that author are more popular, they often re-release the books with new covers (think Jodi Picoult and Kris Radish). Another change that we all know from Harry Potter is the differences between US covers and International covers. I wanted to highlight one title in particular because when it came out, it was a nothing book with the BEST COVER EVER and then when the authors newer books came out, they re-released this book with terrible covers.
That author is Dan Brown. Side note of some coolness, Dan Brown is a New Hampshire author, and we had him come to the store for Angels & Demons and he did a signing. Innisfree Bookshop ahead of the times AGAIN! Ha!
Anyways, Angels & Demons was one of his first books and the cover was amazing. Here it is.

Seriously. Look at it upside down. IT IS JUST AS COOL BECAUSE IT IS THE SAME. Yeah, super cool. Then we hear they are going to re-release it in hardcover. You can imagine our excitement. We got this…

Yeah. Not really anything to write home about… The international (Australian) edition is pretty cool though,

There was also the Special Illustrated Edition cover. Not as cool as the first, but interesting.

Then there is the regular mass market edition

and the larger mass market edition.

So you can see all the differences. Some were amazing, some were blah, but they were ALL for the same book. Imagine if you hadn’t remembered that you had read the book but you remembered the cover, you might buy it again because the cover was so different! And isn’t THAT annoying! Cover differences are pretty cool and with our world being so global, you can easily get copies of your favorite books with their international covers almost as easily as you can the US editions. (I know I do that all the time.)

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Over at the Shrieking Shack of Scholastic.com the newest question has been posted!

*drum roll*

Ron and Hermione? Harry and Ginny?.. Harry and Hermione?

….Hermione and Draco? (eek!)

You will find out on July 21st, 2007!!!

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Over at the Shrieking Shack there is another question!!!!! All the Bookmarks images are Here.

Question Number THREE in the series is…

WILL HOGWARTS REOPEN?????????

Ikes bikes, isn’t that scary? a world without a Hogwarts.

Stay tuned for the next question!!!

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Here is a novel that you might like. Tana French has written her first novel and it’s a doozy! I will be honest with you that when I first finished it, I was unhappy. As you know, I read a lot of romance novels, and other novels where at the end, it is “happily ever after.” The problems are all solved and the characters ride happily into the sunset. That would NOT describe In the Woods. It has been a couple weeks since I finished it, and it just came on sale. I was describing it to a co-worker, and then again to a customer, and as I was doing that, I kept thinking… I really DID like this book. All the way through the novel, I enjoyed myself. I never figured out who the killer was until I was told, and I liked most of the characters, and the setting in Ireland, really everything about it. I just did not like the ending (though it too fit for the characters, it just wasn’t “happily ever after”).

If you like intense mysteries, you would definitely like it!

From the Penguin Official Website,

Tana French

A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past. Richly atmospheric, stunning in its complexity, and utterly convincing and surprising to the end, In the Woods is sure to enthrall fans of Mystic River and The Lovely Bones.

Tana French grew up in Ireland, Italy, the United States, and Malawi, and has lived in Dublin since 1990. This is her first book.

It is available in stores now so check it out at your local independent bookshop!!

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Joost’s opening is getting closer!!!
If you do need invites, ask here, no demands, just free invites.