What's What in the Sunday Salon, July 20, 2014

What I’m reading

• in print / on screen

I haven’t quite finished The Leftovers yet, but I’m trying to do so before I go out of town on Thursday–I hate traveling with a physical book that’s more than half-finished. It’s less of an issue with ebooks or audiobooks, since they don’t take up space in the same way, but I’m not sure I’ll have even reached that point in The Interestings by then, given that I’m triple-booking it at the moment. I have one more August release to review for Shelf Awareness, and I’m wavering over whether to bring it with me. On the one hand, I’d rather not travel with obligatory-review books either, but on the other, it’s a short essay collection and those usually do make for good travel reading.

• on audio

I feel like I did the audiobook equivalent of binge-reading with The SIlkworm, which I finished on Friday morning and plan to write up either today or tomorrow. There were some ways in which I didn’t like it quite as well as The Cuckoo’s Calling, but those have nothing to do with the series’ central premise and characters, which are the main reasons I plan to stick with this series.

For years now, I’ve preferred to consume my genre entertainment in TV shows and movies rather than books, but audiobooks seem to be changing that a little, and I’m not sorry that they are.


What I’m watching

Speaking of genre TV, we’ve been on a steady diet of three episodes a night of Supernatural on Netflix this past week, and not getting the least bit tired of it. That said, a few days away from the TV might not be a bad thing…


What I’m writing

I paid tribute to some of my “blogcestors” in a Throwback Thursday post that I updated and repurposed for BlogHer’s Selfiebration question about blogging “family trees,” and I’ve loved the conversations it’s prompted here, on Twitter, and in the Book Bloggers Google+ group. All I have planned for the week ahead here is book reviews, which we all know rarely foster that kind of conversation.


What caught my eye this week

The combination of a busy few days at work and trying to read two to three books at the same time means that my blog-reading has been off-pace this week, so I really don’t have links to share today. I’m also not participating in this weekend’s Mini-Bloggiesta, but I think some of the Mini-Challenges look good and I may tackle them at some point later on. I have a feeling I may be more inspired after next weekend.

• Coral from Book Bunny PR will help us to write five blog post ideas. 
• Bette Lee from Bette Lee Crosby will help us to update SEO on old posts. 
• Wesley from Library Educated brings us a how to on social media etiquette. 
• Katie from Doing Dewey has a challenge about requesting ARCs. 
• Shannon from River City Reading talks about affordable blog design. 
• Alysia from My Little Pocketbooks teaches us all about Thinglink.com. 
• Stormy from Book. Blog. Bake. shares her time management hints . 
• Amanda from Amanda Shofner tells us all about Storify and how it can help us. 
• Stacy from A Novel Life has a tutorial on how to work with blog designers.

What Else is New?

I will be in San Jose for BlogHer’14 this Thursday through Saturday. It’s the tenth-anniversary conference, and my first time attending since 2010 in New York City. I remember a few years when the annual flagship conference sold out months in advance, but this year’s event, even with an attendance cap of 2500, still has some openings if you can make it to the Bay Area with just a few days’ notice. Please let me know if you’re going to be there, because I’d love to see you!