Tell Me Something Tuesday: What Is Your Ideal Book/Audiobook Length?

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings in order to discuss a wide range of topics from books to blogging (and some slightly more personal matters throw in for good measure). After Heidi stopped blogging (apparently for good), five of us took over as hosts while providing new questions. The current team is composed of Berls at Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen at That's What I'm Talking About, Karen at For What It's Worth, Linda at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell and Roberta at Offbeat YA. This week's question is...

WHAT IS YOUR IDEAL BOOK/AUDIOBOOK LENGTH?

First off, I'm going to talk about books here, not audiobooks, since I only read on paper/screen, for a number of reasons (which of course don't include the old and tired "audiobooks aren't real books" argument 🙄).

So...I don't have a real preference. I'm not intimidated by big books, and if I have yet to read a really thick one (à la Stephen King), it's totally by accident. I would never rule out reading a book on a page-number basis. I'd say that, generally speaking, I prefer full-fledged novels to shorter ones/novellas, because I like to be able to live in a fictional world and know its character for a longer time; but on the other hand, there are so many novellas that rocked my socks off. Anyhow, as long as there isn't filler content, I'll happily welcome tomes 😉.

(Also, shall we talk about FONTS? Because sometimes apparently average-length books have REALLY TINY ones, in order to save paper, and how are we supposed to know how long they are for real?).

Taste the Books: Review Morsels #40 Chelsea Sedoti, Vincent Tirado, M.R. Carey

Intro

Hello beauties!

Welcome again to my own brand of mini reviews! I never thought I'd do minis, until I recapped a few of my long reviews in some digest post in 2014, and then guest-posted some shorties for a blogging event in 2015. And Karen from For What It's Worth started praising my short recs/recaps 😊. Just to be clear,  I'm NOT taking a break from writing long reviews - no such luck LOL (though for anthologies, shorter books or books that I didn't enjoy/I don't have enough to say about, I decided to stick to minis). But while I'm making up my mind about a new book I've read, I might as well give you the short version 😉. Just be warned - this feature will be VERY random!

Oh, just so you know...this is a DNF bunch. Or to be more precise, a bunch of ARCs I DNF 😱. Unprecedented for me, I know...

Note: all the mini blurbs (in italics) are of my own creation.

Tell Me Something Tuesday: How Do You Measure Blogging Success? Followers, Page Views, Interactions, Etc.

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings in order to discuss a wide range of topics from books to blogging (and some slightly more personal matters throw in for good measure). After Heidi stopped blogging (apparently for good), five of us took over as hosts while providing new questions. The current team is composed of Berls at Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen at That's What I'm Talking About, Karen at For What It's Worth, Linda at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell and Roberta at Offbeat YA. This week's question is...

HOW DO YOU MEASURE BLOGGING SUCCESS? FOLLOWERS, PAGE VIEWS, INTERACTIONS, ETC.

In a word (or, well, two)? Engagement level - as in, a mixture of many ACTIVE followers (we all know that sometimes people hop on follow-for-follow trains, or follow a blog because it offers giveaways on a regular basis, which doesn't mean its subscribers do read the posts) and authors/publishers willing to work with the blogger (that is, actually offering them review copies and involving them in the road to publication, not just giving them the random, if very appreciated, approval on NetGalley or Edelweiss). And to be precise...active followers who aren't necessarily your friends, though I'm personally beyond grateful for their support 💚. Ideally, as a successful blogger, you would have perfect strangers (AND friends) telling you that they picked up a book because you sold them on it, but let's face it, it rarely happens - also because we usually need a tad more than a single review to be sure we want to read a book 😉.

Taste the Books: Review Morsels #39 Naomi Salman, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Courtney Gould

Intro

Hello beauties!

Welcome again to my own brand of mini reviews! I never thought I'd do minis, until I recapped a few of my long reviews in some digest post in 2014, and then guest-posted some shorties for a blogging event in 2015. And Karen from For What It's Worth started praising my short recs/recaps 😊. Just to be clear,  I'm NOT taking a break from writing long reviews - no such luck LOL (though for anthologies, shorter books or books that I didn't enjoy/I don't have enough to say about, I decided to stick to minis). But while I'm making up my mind about a new book I've read, I might as well give you the short version 😉. Just be warned - this feature will be VERY random!

Note: all the mini blurbs (in italics) are of my own creation.

Offbeat Offline: February 2023

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? A little back-and-forth for my husband's health, fresh medical drama for me and a scare about my dad's, and a couple of new ARC approvals. Also, two of my international friends offered to buy a copy of That Ain't Witchcraft for me (see my January recap), and it arrived three days ago...Thank you! 💚 (I only buy cash-on-delivery because I'm afraid to lose what little money I have on my debit card, and my usual sites didn't have the book - a while ago I was planning to get a second card and put a small amount of money on it for book purchases from sites like The Book Depository, but then I got laid off, so I suppose it's not a good idea to have to pay for two cards now...😭).