Feb 28, 2010

The Sunday Salon: New Challenges

The Sunday Salon.com   Welcome to the Sunday Salon!

There were a few new awards and new reviews last week.

Book Dilettante was listed by Courtreporter.net as  one of the 50 Best Blogs for Crime and Mystery Book Lovers. How neat is that? Hope you will check out the 111 posts under the label, Mystery on my home page.

Done last week: I also befriended several crime fiction authors on facebook. One had over 5,000 facebook friends, so I joined his discussion group instead! I posted links to writing tips, for all you aspiring writers, Ten Rules for Writing Fiction. My post for Far from the Land: An Irish Memoir got the most comments of any I've done. Hooray! I also wrote up a few awards from new friends, one from Brazil!

The Museum of Innocence

The Museum of Innocence

 Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence is a new find. This is his first novel after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. I'm on page 148 of 531 pages and am enjoying every word, literally. The translation from the Turkish by Maureen Freely is easy to read, flows smoothly, and the love story itself is very engrossing. Is it a story of love or obsession? We'll see.... as I head on down through the rest of the pages.

Michele Paiva, whose book, Truth, Next Exit I just reviewed, sent me a nice note: "Thank you so much! It's not a lengthy book but it was something I felt from the heart...and if it even helps one person overcome an obstacle, then I've done my job with it."  Her suggestions for personal change certainly made me look at many things in a new way.

I hope to join The Graphic Novels Challenge 2010.  The rules are simple: read one graphic novel featuring an animal character. Having never read a graphic novel all the way through, I think this would be a good challenge to try.


Carrie at Books and Movies, has given me a One Lovely Blog Award. Thank you, Carrie.

Today is the last day to enter my Simply Quince cookbook giveaway (U.S.)  Two copies are available. If you want to try using the fruit quince in cooking and making jams, preserves, and desserts, do enter the contest. UPDATE: Winners chosen: Esme and kalynnick!

Have a good week, everyone! Let us know what you did this past week!

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15 comments:

  1. Looks like you had a great week. I've added The Museum of Innocence to my wish list. Thanks!

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  2. thanks for stopping by the Fair Dinkum blog which is one of my projects. You mention that you love mysteries set in Greece - do you have any recommendations for something better than Murder in Mykonos which wasn't really my thing - I love Greece (except for that particular island) and would love to read a good mystery set there - perhaps by a local?

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  3. what a wonderful week you've had! Congratulations on your listing of being one of the best on Courtreporter.net! Always nice to be acknowledged for all that hard work!

    The Museum of Innocence is in my TBR pile! The premise just sounded so interesting! I'm so glad you are enjoying it! That means I should too! :D

    I'm happy to see your going to join The Graphic Novels Challenge! I have a whole pile of graphic novels ready for that challenge too! And I can't wait to see what you decide to review!

    Have a great Sunday!

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  4. Sounds like a good week! I want to read something by Pamuk soon.

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  5. Congrats again - news that good is worth a double congrats :)

    Thanks for the links!

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  6. Thanks for stopping by and wishing my blog happy birthday. I hadn't actually finished my post, wanted to get something posted so it was actually on my blog's birthday :P

    Congratulations on your being listed!

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  7. Congrats on making the mystery blog list! That is so cool!

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  8. Well done on getting all those authors to accept you on Facebook. You wouldn't think they would.

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  9. Congrats on being listed by Courtreporter.net! How great!

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  10. I think it is very cool that you've become friends with several authors on Facebook...who knows maybe one of these days we'll be visiting you as an author!!!!

    have a great week!

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  11. Thank you-I am emailing you the address now.

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  12. Glad to hear you're enjoying Museum of Innocence - it's been on my radar for awhile (as has Snow), and haven't had the guts to pick it up yet. More and more positive reviews are piling up, though - can't wait to hear what you think of it when you're finished.

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  13. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the Pahmuk. I have another book of his floating around somewhere & need to get to it!

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  14. I can't wait to read this new one by Orhan Pamuk. I loved Snow, and I've put Museum on my wishlist...A huge congratulations on being one of the best Mystery book blogs! I love mystery myself, and somehow don't read enough of that genre. You inspire me to step it up!

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I appreciate your comments and thoughts...

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