My Little Pocketbooks: January 2013 Wrap Up   
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Saturday, February 2, 2013

January 2013 Wrap Up

This year I am going to add (and remove) a few changes to this blog. 
 One of them will be adding a monthly wrap up post to re-cap and highlight my blog, books and purses and whatever is on my mind.  As well, I will also add a few memes here and there too!  I like to mix things up.  Give my blog a shake up.  You know what I mean.  LOL!

 This month I bought
0 books all the other books were not physical books or were not purchased by me.

Purchased from Audiobooks from Audible.com
 Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death Lauren Olamina, a minister's young daughter, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny... and the birth of a new faith.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
 When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.
The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.

Free from Starbucks on iBooks
Sway by Amber McRee Turner
For four long months, ten-year-old Cass has been dreaming of the day her mom, Toodi, will come home.  But when Toodi’s welcome back party takes a turn for the disastrous, Cass finds herself stuck alone with her dull-as-dirt dad, who insists that they set off for the summer on a mysterious adventure—just the two of them.
It turns out Cass’s dad has some big-time surprises up his sleeve. Once they hit the road in an old RV named The Roast, he introduces her to the amazing power of “Sway,” a seemingly magical force that can bring inspiration and joy to people in major need of help.
Cass can think of one particular person who could really use some Sway. If only she could track down Toodi, Cass knows she could convince her mom to come home. But with the help of a little home-spun magic, Cass realizes that the things she needs most have always been within her reach.

I won this...
Dusty Reading Challenge Giveaway from Books A True Story
$15 book from the Book Depostory
I picked The Night Circus (paperback) since I have been wanting this book for soo long and I think everyone has read it except for me. 
The Night Circus
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.
Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.


Review Recap
Places I Visited

Prague, Czech Republic
Harare, Zimbabwe
Southern California
Northern Carolina
Maui, Hawaii 
London, England
Number of Books Completed
5

Blog Events
Challenge Update
Dusty Bookshelf Reading Challenge Completed Badge
Look I got a badge for my completion of 10 books off of my very Dusty Bookshelf Challenge.  
Love it!!
Here is a January Wrap Up of the number of books read and reviewed for the 11 Reading Challenges I signed up for.  And can you believe I am still thinking about signing up for another (or two) reading challenge.  But they look so cool and fun..... I know!  I know!  

Off The Shelves Reading Challenge - 2 books
Audiobook Reading Challenge -2 audiobooks
Anne Rice Reading Challenge - 0 books
Books by Women Reading Challenge - 4 books
TBR Pile Reading Challenge - 2 books
2013 Resolutions Reading Challenge - 0 resolutions
Dusty Bookshelf Reading Challenge - 0 books
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge -0 book
Genre Variety Reading Challenge - 4 books
Good Reads Reading Challenge - 5 books
Reading Challenge Addict - 0 challenges 

For the TBR Pile Reading Challenge there is a mini challenge called Book Spine Poem.  I grabbed a few books from the book club's swap bag and put this one together.  Long titles help.  :)
 What does it say?  "Gabrielle derailed the return of the king."  Oh that Gabby!!  
 
What Am I Reading Now

ARC Absent by Katie Williams
Seventeen-year-old Paige is dead, the victim of a freak fall from the roof during Physics class. Now she’s a ghost, permanently bound to the grounds of her high school. It isn’t all bad, she can find out everyone’s secrets, which can be amusing—for a while.  But then Paige hears something that isn’t amusing at all: the rumor spread by the most popular girl at school that her death wasn’t an accident—that she supposedly jumped on purpose.  Paige is desperate to stop the gossip, but what can a ghost do?
Then Paige discovers something amazing. She can possess living people when they think of her, and she can make them do almost anything. Maybe, just maybe, she can get inside the girl
who’s responsible for the stories. . . and have a little fun turning the tables while she’s at it.
Katie Williams’s second novel is a suspenseful page-turner full of eerie wit and a touch of the otherworldly.


Winners!  Winners! Winners!
1st Blogging B-day Giveaway
Prize #1 winner is Jill J.
Prize #2 winner is Jennifer
Prize #3 winner is Anita Y.
Prize #4 winner is Lauren B.

2013 Cleaning House Giveaway
Winner is Zapkode M.

If you didn't win a giveaway here don't worry I have two more giveaways coming up.  Sign up for the Black History Month Giveaway Hop (2/20 - 2/27) Click here to see all the details and to add your blog to the linky.  Or just hop from one to another blog and enter all the great giveaways coming up.  Fingers crossed!  Good Luck!

Hope you all had an amazing first month of 2013.  I am looking forward to February because I will get some time off from work and that will give me a chance to get some reading done.  I will be able to participate in a few reading/blogging events as well as sleep and clean up my place.  This is going to be better than Christmas.  I think re-organizing my bookcase is a must too.  I would love to organize it by keep and to read soon.  That way I can just go and pull off my next book without rummaging.  

My personal goal of not buying a book (excluding the book club's selection) is going well.  I had to supsend my Barnes and Nobles membership and I am book shopping only on Audible.com.  I can do that since it does not count as cluttering my bookshelf.  LOL!  

How did you do on your reading challenges this month?  And your resolutions are still in tact?  Right?

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