So you’re the main character and you’re in some serious shit.

You don’t know if you’re going to make it out alive.

If you’ll live to see the love of your life another day.

You could very well die!

Oh wait.

You can’t.

There are another three books in the series.

*sometimes

                          

Boy, do I have a song for you.

The song is silly but the harmony is pretty rockin’.

And the top hats? I want one.

                          

Tattoos sometimes look neat on other people, but I’ve never wanted one for myself.  Add to that the fact I’m 100% too chicken to get a tattoo and there’s no chance of me ever getting inked.

But I’ve always liked looking at tattoos, wondering about the stories behind them, asking myself what could be so important that a person wanted to walk around with a reminder of it for the rest of their life.

Books + Tattoos?

An intriguing concept, to be sure.

The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide by Eva Talmadge and Justin Taylor shares photos and stories from dozens of people whose ink was inspired by a poet, a book, an author, etc.

Literary Tattoos doesn’t just share tattooed quotes, as one might think.  There are people who get book covers, images representing the story, and even an author’s face (!) imprinted on themselves.

Darn near fascinating is what this book is.  It’s the kind to be pored over multiple times.  I read Literary Tattoos straight through, but it’s the kind of book that can be picked up at random.  Each tattoo and accompanying story takes up no more than two pages.

If books were rated similar to movies, Literary Tattoos would be PG-13.  A couple pictures show a woman with no shirt, a hand over her breast, to showcase a tattoo directly underneath.  Another shows a woman with underwear slung low on her hips to show a tattoo running down her sides.

The majority of pictures feature tattoos in far more innocent places, though: arms, legs, back.

If you’d like a taste of what the book has to offer, visit TattooLit.com.

Are you inked?

                          

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is incredibly amazing, you guys. Amazing.

It packs so much emotion into 15 minutes. I rarely cry watching videos, yet I found myself tearing up at the end.

Take just 15 minutes to watch it:

If you know a librarian, share this. It will make them feel special.

Sidenote: I now completely want a bed that looks like a book.

                          

The first business class I took was the aptly titled Intro to Business.  Part of one chapter in the textbook was on entrepreneurship.  It basically said that small businesses are:

• often failures
• expensive to begin
• difficult to get funding for
• fail often (Did I mention that already?)

Talk about disheartening.

When I heard about Chris Guillebeau’s book which talks about businesses that are cheap to start and succeed, I was beyond curious.

The $100 Startup entwines studies done on successful businesses that fit the small startup cost model with a play by play of how to start your own business.

Overall, it’s incredibly useful and inspiring.  But I do have one big problem with it.

In the beginning chapters of the book, Chris Guillebeau makes the point that one’s passion must be able to be shaped into a viable, profitable business.  It makes sense, of course, but Guillebeau offers no tips for people who don’t believe their passion is a viable course.  If you can’t figure out how doing what you love could make a decent business, you’re sunk within the first few chapters.  Footnotes are prevalent throughout the book and one was desperately needed at this point.  Simply recommending another read would have helped fill this gaping hole.

Oversight aside, The $100 Startup is an incredibly helpful book.  The studies Guillebeau has done offer great insights and were my favorite parts of the book.  In fact, after finishing, I’ve spent a bit of time looking into the online businesses shared, like Designs by Reese.  These “real-life” stories, including the author’s own, give the book credibility.  This isn’t just one man’s lucky break but many people’s reality.

The $100 Startup left me with a plethora of ideas and a thirst for more.  Conducting my own $100 Startup experiment is something I definitely see in my future.

                          

But!

The fact that she’s standing in a fairly powerful pose and is toting a potentially pain-inducing dagger makes me think she could be completely kick-ass.

I also like that the publisher is stated directly on the front, rather than just on the side.

Throne of Glass comes out on August 7th.  That’s three months from now.

Three whole months of waiting for a book which was started from this question: What if Cinderella was an assassin, and went to the ball not to dance with the prince, but to kill him? (from Sarah J. Maas’ website)

To tide us over, Bloomsbury is doing something really cool.  They’re publishing 4 enovellas that are prequels to the Throne of Glass story.

There are currently three available:

The Assassin and the Pirate Lord
The Assassin and the Desert
The Assassin and the Underworld

The fourth, The Assassin and the Empire, will be coming soon.

I don’t have an ereader and I generally don’t do any reading on my laptop.  But these novellas?  They’re seriously tempting me.

                          

Jacinda from The Reading Housewives

Congrats!

                          

It’s been three years since I started this blog.

Thank you, readers.

Blogging has become much more of a hobby than I ever thought it would. It’s fun.  The books, the people.  I love it.

In a nostalgic moment, I was browsing through my archives and came across three posts:

My thoughts on Wuthering Heights’ (then) new cover was one of the first discussion posts I did.  And I got responses! I was somewhat surprised.

I swear, Days of Little Texas is still one of the most bizarre/fascinating books I have ever read.

In a bookstore, I saw The Selection by Keira Cass, which reminded me of my Top Ten Anticipated Reads of 2012.  I can’t wait for all of the books on the list to be out!

I saw the following on The Selection FB page and had to share:

                          

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a brainchild of Hank Green, of vlogbrothers fame. Mashable did a great interview with Green and Bernie Su (another executive producer) and described the project as Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice tale of manners, morality, and marriage updated from 19th-century England to 21st-century YouTube.

What excites me most about this project is that it’s completely interactive. On twitter, I tweeted:

Then “Lizzie Bennet” tweeted back:

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has a faithful viewer in me. My favorite character is Charlotte. She’s adorably awkward, and I want her as my best friend.

I’m curious as to how viewer’s reactions to this will play out. Will Lizzie seem as admirable from a 21st century standpoint? Will Darcy and Elizabeth be engaged by the end? To that, I hope not. Going from not talking for some time to being engaged doesn’t sound like the start of a lasting relationship in this era.

Bernie Su says this project could take an entire year. With updates twice a week, that’s plenty to keep me busy.

And! DFTBA.

                          

That’s Matchedin a nutshell.

In case you’re seeking something a bit more formal, here’s the official summary of Matched by Ally Condie:

In the Society, Officials decide.

Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one… until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow — between perfection and passion.

On the final day of National Poetry Month, I thought it would be fitting to review a book featuring poetry. Matched fits this description, just a little. The main poem in Matched is “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” by Dylan Thomas. It’s a forbidden poem in the world Cassie lives in, at times a thorn in her side yet sometimes fuel for her fire.

Yes, Cassie is a fairly interesting character, but I found myself wanting to get inside the brains of others, especially Xander and Ky. Alternating viewpoints would have been nice, since the two male leads don’t go around spilling their emotional guts out. Their respective feelings for Cassie are hard to make out, and I thought once or twice that Cassie was reading the situation incorrectly but couldn’t be sure. Is everyone being truly sincere?

Ally Condie’s Matched trilogy is one I intend on pursuing. In fact, I have a copy of Crossed ready and waiting.

Matched is available in hardcover, paperback, and audiobook format.