Armchair BEA: YA Lit and wrap up

I really enjoyed Armchair BEA, but I didn't manage to get a themed post up every day. Sometimes I felt daunted or lazy, but I do feel bad about not posting yesterday so I want to talk about that topic now and then wrap things up.

The first topic of yesterday was 'keeping it real', and to be honest I'm not quite sure what that's supposed to mean. It's about growing an audience and keeping blogging fun.
I'm not sure I'm really doing that much in terms of marketing my blog. I'm doing this for the books and because I enjoy interacting with other bloggers and authors. Of course the ARCs are a plus, but they also put quite a bit of stress on me. The audience growing kind of happened 'naturally' over time, through participating in memes and, I admit, giveaways, though I didn't actually participate in all that many hops. But after my first one I suddenly had over 200 GFC followers, which kind of creeped me out because I felt like I had to step up my game or I'd embarrass myself in front of 200 potential readers.

I feel like content-wise, I'm currently stagnating a bit. I started having discussion posts, which is something I really enjoy, but I really want to get more reviews up and I'm struggling with that. I want to branch out and be more interactive, but it just takes so much time, time that I could spend with friends or writing my own stories or watching movies or reading my huge pile of books. I feel like I'm just sort of stumbling along at the moment and I need to find a way to catch up with things and be more active on twitter again.
So yeah, ramble end. I hope people enjoy what reviews I manage to put up and won't abandon me when my introvert tendencies show ^^'' I promise that for my blogoversary in 2 weeks, I'll put together something cool!


The second topic I wanted to get to was Children's and YA literature. I can't say much about children's lit because I don't read anything below YA at this point, but YA really is close to my heart. I'm a little above the intended age group at 24, but I see no point to be ashamed of reading what I read, and besides, lots of adults do (it's still weird to think of myself as an adult). I hear a lot of people saying they do it because there wasn't much of a YA market back when they were in their teens, but that's not true for me. Maybe it's a German vs. English/American thing, but there were plenty of great books, both fantasy and contemporary, around for me to read when I grew up. I read adult books too though, mostly borrowed from my mum.

I had a phase when I read a lot of adult fantasy /UF/paranormal, but I can't quite pinpoint when I went back into the this 'new' wave of YA fantasy. It had something to do with when I went from reading German books to reading only English ones, but I can't say which book triggered it. I think it was before Twilight. One reason why I enjoy YA so much is that in adult lit, there aren't all that many topics that interest me unless it's a fantasy book. It's all about careers and getting a guy and marrying and babies whatnot, unless it's a crime novel and those bore me. I don't care about the problems of 30-something people. I hope that once I reach that age, I will have different problems, a different life.

YA is just... fresher. It's more familiar. I remember what it was like to be a teen. There are a lot of great voices, and voice is the aspect of a novel I probably enjoy most. It makes the book feel alive. YA is open to so many different issues and genres (I see MG, YA, NA and adult as categories rather than genres). There are books about social problems (poverty, addiction, illness), there is fantasy/paranormal, there is self-discovery, figuring out who you are and what you want, figuring out relationships. Things are moving, happening. I feel like as an adult, I have started to stagnate (one of my biggest fears as a teen) and reading YA makes me want to shake myself up and be more active (Divergent almost made me run out and do something reckless or get another tattoo. I  was so close!).

In this post, we're supposed to list books that we think below on every kid's shelves or otherwise give recommendations, but to be honest I don't feel comfortable telling people what they're supposed to read. That I enjoyed it is no guarantee someone else will. Also, I could list way too many books.
So instead, here's a grid with some of the books I rated 5 stars on goodreads:

Carmen's bookshelf: read

Carmen's favorite books »

So, to wrap things up...
Unfortunately for me, this weeks was so busy that I didn't have as much time to interact with other bloggers as I would have liked, but one of my highlights was meeting another Swiss blogger, Lexxie from (Un)conventional Book Views. I also enjoyed the discussion on Classics, and reading about other bloggers' experiences about blog ethics. Since I was mostly absent from twitter though, I think I missed quite a lot of the action of what was actually going on on the real-life BEA convention, as well as a bunch of awesome giveaways *sigh* Anyhow, I don't regret taking part in Armchair BEA, since it raised a lot of fundamental blogging questions for me that sort of get swept under the carpet in the day-to-day mechanics of keeping up.

Your turn! What do you do to keep blogging real and fun? What's your take on YA literature? Do you have highlights from the week to share, or was there a post of mine that you liked in particular (or one that you thought was a waste of web-paper)?

Armchair BEA: Ethics and Non-Fiction

So today's discussion is about blogger ethics, and though I wasn't super aware of that topic when I first started blogging, after the plagiarism-drama earlier this year that has changed. Giving credit where it is due should be a no-brainer. I've never been plagiarized (to my knowledge) but I've seen what it did to other people and it made me incredibly angry! I'm familiar with it in a more academic setting, I just never thought to extend it to reviews - why would anyone steal another's opinion? It makes no sense to me, and it's not okay in any way! Read the book. Find your own words, your own voice. Sometimes I also avoid reviews of a book I got for review altogether until I've written my own.

Even if you're a new blogger and feel you cannot find the right words yet or that you just have to post tons of reviews to establish yourself... don't go down that road. Someone usually notices the stolen parts, and the fallout isn't pretty. I also can't imagine that you'll feel good about your blog if you know that half the content isn't really yours. If you don't want to put in the work, don't blog.

Also, if you participate in a meme or pick up on someone else's idea, at least give them credit, or even better ask them about it first if it's a more special meme than a link-up such as TTT or WoW. Otherwise it will look like you stole their idea and just went with it, or as if you're trying to pass it off as your own, even though maybe that wasn't what you intended.

Same goes for pictures/graphics. Unless they're stock images or clearly declared as free for the taking, don't just copy and use them. You can get into legal trouble. As far as I know you even have to give sources for pictures of actors or whatever that you're using as examples of how you imagine a particular character in a book. Same goes for elements of another blog's design.

I guess my bottom-line opinion is pretty simple: stay honest, be polite, don't take what isn't yours. I'm by no means an expert and there are people who have been around longer, but those are guidelines I've fared well with. If you have tips to share for those who have been plagiarized and don't know what to do about it, feel free to share them in the comments!


The second topic of today's discussion is non-fiction. 
I don't actually own a lot of non-fiction. The only NF I read is for my studies, so it's usually secondary literature or literary theory. Roland Barthes, Terry Eagleton, some Freud, textbooks on Old English, Middle English, poetry, structure. I think these works are interesting but I wouldn't read them in my free time or for something that doesn't relate to my courses. The only thing I can imagine reading just because is maybe history or social theory of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, but it would have to be from a cultural/literary perspective.

I've never read guide/advise books because I tend not to trust them or to find their tips rather obvious, nothing I couldn't have figured out on my own. If I needed the info for research, I'd just go to the library and pick the most reliable sources.
I've never read a biography, though if someone can recommend one of Oscar Wilde I'd be interested in that.
I don't know. It's not like I'm 100% opposed to non-fiction, it's just that I like fiction so much better. I want stories. I don't car if they're 'real' or not, they just have to be good, they have to touch me in some way, and non-fiction rarely does that for me.

How do you feel about non-fiction? Can you maybe recommend something? Sometimes the fiction:non-fiction ratio on my shelves embarrasses me a bit.
How about ethics? Do you disagree with something I said, or can you list something I forgot? I'd love to hear your opinion!

Armchair BEA: it's giveaway time!

Yay, giveaways around the blogosphere! I love entering them, and I love hosting them when my bank account allows it ;) I always squee when I win one and from the reactions to the emails I send out to my winners the feeling is pretty universal, and I like making other people happy ^^

Since I think the book bloggers participaing in Armchair BEA come from quite diverse genres, I'm letting the winner pick their own book for once. It must be available from The Book Depository though and not over 10$ (as seen from my location). But please read the rules at the bottom!

Today's discussion is about literary fiction, but since I just wrote a sort of lenghty post on the Classics and don't really read contemporary 'literary' fiction all that much, I'm reverting to yesterday's topic that I missed: genre fiction.

As you know if you've been following me for a while, I love all things fantasy and paranormal. My breakthrough books were on the one hand the Harry Potter books, but after that it was those of a German author called Wolfgang Hohlbein. He wrote about all kinds of fantasy stuff: kids travelling to other worlds, beings from other worlds intruding into ours, high fantasy, computer games coming to live, a guy entering another world by walking across rooftops, creepy houses, elves, Arthurian legends, mirror worlds... I pretty much inhaled it all. Then came The Lord of the Rings (thanks to the movies), which I read many times, same as the Hobbit, the Silmarillion, and other Tolkien texts. After that came my Stephen King phase.

Later I branched out to English&American authors like Anne Rice, Kim Harrison or Melissa Marr and discovered the whole vampire/paranormal/urban fantasy genres (both adult and YA)... and I was hooked! I read nothing else for years. I love the idea of the fantastical being part of our everyday world! Vampires, fairies, and demons are my favorites. I'm not a big werewolf fan but other kinds of shifters are interesting! I used to give zombies a wide berth but I'm slowly coming around to them, as long as it's not a zombie apocalypse thing. I've also branched out a bit more since becoming a blogger and now read contemporaries as long as they're not too heavy on the romance, and dystopians if their concepts stand out to me (I avoided them for a long time and am now catching up).

That being said, here are some suggestions for books you might want to check out if you win the giveaway. As I said though, you can choose whatever you like :)






Rules:

• open internationally, provided The Book Depository ships to you for free
• one entry per person / household. I check EVERY entry before picking the winner! You cheat, you're disqualified.
• you must be at least 13 years old
• the winner has 48 hours to respond to my email, otherwise I pick someone new
• I am not responsible for what happens with the book after I've ordered it
• the book must be 10$ or less, as seen from my location (Switzerland). Prices differ and sometimes I have access to editions that don't show up for US residents.

Have fun, and good luck!! 
If you have any questions or something doesn't work, tweet me! @Butterfly_Ghost
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Armchair BEA: my take on Classic Literature

I'm a bit late with this post, but since I love the Classics I wanted to get one up anyway.
I study English Literature, so obviously I've read a bunch of them. To be honest though my department leans toward English lit rather than American one, so I've never read anything by William Faulkner, no Scarlet Letter, no To Kill A Mockingbird. I've read Gatsby but to be honest I was kinda underwhelmed. It was after my first year though so if I re-read it now I might like it better. American authors I've read and liked are E.A. Poe, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Paul Auster, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Crane, and William Carlos Williams.

I'm also a big poetry fan (my American author list might have tipped you off). Some of my favorites are John Keats, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare, Milton, Alexander Pope, and Robert Browning, or T.S. Eliot. I think poetry is really underrated and I've been mulling over ideas for a poetry feature here for a while!

As for novels, I adore Jane Eyre. I'd take Mr Rochester over Darcy any time. Don't hit me, Jane Austen fans! I also like Wilkie Collins' books a lot, for instance The Woman in White. Other favorites are The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde is a genius!) or Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (most random book ever!), or Orlando by Virginia Woolf. My favorite play that I think I even prefer to Shakespeare is Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.

Why do I like the Classics? I really like history, so I enjoy getting to know about what life was like in the past and learning more about that society and culture, also when I research secondary sources for papers and seminars etc. Furthermore, some of these texts are still being referenced and quoted in more modern books (even YA ones) and I love picking up on these intertextual bits! It's about tropes and images that are repeated over and over, a whole tradition of imagery I wouldn't be aware of without reading the Classics. Also, texts that have become Classics are often more aware of their language - you can dig deeper, find more layers and meanings than there are in some more contemporary books. I love both though and wouldn't want to live without either one!

What can I recommend to people who usually don't like Classics?
Jane Eyre. The Catcher in the Rye. Stay away from Thomas Hardy - way too depressing. Oscar Wilde is wonderfully sarcastic, Shakespeare's comedies are a lot of fun (Twelfth Night, As You Like It), and if you like detective fiction you should check out Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone (first ever detective novel) or some of the Sherlock Holmes stories. As for poetry, Byron is fun and Robert Browning's dramatic monologues are quite readable because they're written the way people would talk.
I don't know what to say though - give the books a try and also try to understand them out of the time when they were written. But if you don't like them you don't like them - to everyone their own :)

Do you guys read the Classics? What are some of your favorites / most detested ones?

Armchair BEA introduction

Hey guys :) Since BEA is in New York and I'm stuck back here in Switzerland, I've decided to take part in Armchair BEA because it sounds like a fun event!

For those of you who don't know me yet, here's an introduction:

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?
   I'm 24 year old Swiss student (working on my English Lit MA) and part-time office worker who has always loved to read. I prefer English books to German ones. I've been blogging for close to a year and previously to that I was following various blogs for another year or so, before deciding that I wanted to be a real part of the community instead of just watching from the sidelines :) I've found that I really enjoy discussing with others and obsessing over books on the net! I also enjoy the contact with authors and the privilege to get to read books early.


2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013?
   There were sooo many that I enjoyed!! I finally read Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement, which blew me away. I ached so much while reading it... in the best way. Other highlights were The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay, Divergent by Veronica Roth (yes, I'm late to the party but damn what an awesome book!), Just One Day by Gayle Forman, and In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winter.


3. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.
   I like a lot of pretty hard music like metalcore, but I also enjoy acoustic bands. Some of my favorites: AFI, Parkway Drive, As I Lay Dying, Funeral For A Friend, Story of the Year, Young Guns, Nightwish, Motionless in White, Asking Alexandria, Paramore, City and Colour, Alkaline Trio, Danko Jones, HIM, Social Distortion, Nine Inch Nails, Placebo... I could go on for a while ^^''


4. If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why?
   *overload of possibilities* errrm... Oscar Wilde? He'd be a witty conversationalist, and he'd make sure the afterparty is unforgettable. But I'd also love to meet Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, or Melissa Marr and lots of others! As for characters, I have  a soft spot for Will Herondale. Magnus Bane would also be fun XD There are sooo many others! But with some of them I'm not sure I'd like to meet them, no matter how intriguing they may be (hint: Jerico Barrons).


5. What literary location would you most like to visit? Why?
   Not sure what's meant by literary location. A place famous for its poets/writers? A place/world from inside a book? I think of the former I've been to quite a few - I was lucky enough to visit Oscar Wilde's grave before it was walled in behind glass, I've been to Westminster Abbey, and to Dublin. I'd love to visit New York and San Francisco though! Those are also 'literary' cities to me.
   As for book worlds, that's always a double-edged sword because horrible things tend to happen in them ^^' That being said, I'd like to see Wonderland, Hogwarts, or the world from Kim Harrison's The Hollows series. The world in Lia Habel's Dearly, Departed also fascinated me. Or Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus! I remember mourning the fact that I could never experience its wonders for real.

Alright, that's it from me! I hope you have a somewhat better picture of who I am now :) I'd love to get to know you! If you leave a comment and link me back to your post, I'll be sure to check it out! Even more so if we have favorite books (or maybe bands?) in common ;)