Devourer of Books » Life & Family

Announcing: Foreword Literary Agency

Mar 052013

Many of you already know that since the beginning of the year I have been working as a literary agent. I have already signed two authors whose books I am incredibly excited about. I am equally excited to tell you that I am now with the smart, savvy, and fabulous new agency Foreword Literary. For the full details, you can check out the press release and these blog posts.

Basically, though, we’re a full-service agency who wants to bridge the gap between traditional literary agents and the possibilities of the tech world, including our new service FastForeword.

I’m absolutely thrilled about this new development and am aggressively looking to build my list in historical fiction, literary fiction, and upmarket women’s and commercial fiction. If you have a manuscript that might qualify please check out my submission guidelines.

Meet the Girls!

Jul 102012

We’re proud to introduce Margaret Louise and Elizabeth Katherine.

Margaret Louise

Elizabeth Katherine

They were born on July 9 at 11:43 and 11:56, weighing 5lb 11 oz and 6 lb. Both are about 19 inches.

Sisters!

Here’s the bedroom waiting for them when they get home:

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Sunday Salon – 3.4.12

Mar 042012

We’re just going to pretend I didn’t spend a long time being excited about the fact that you can multiple the date (4) and the number of the month (3) together to get the two-digit representation of the year (12).

Ahem.

Moving on.

So, I’ve been on Pinterest for a couple of months now, mostly for recipes and house design ideas (plus baby stuff – we found out we’re having girls!) – and I have invitations if anyone needs one. Until Thursday, I really didn’t have any bookish pins at all, but I finally decided to go ahead and create a board that showcases the books I’m loving in 2012 (note: just like my ‘best of’ lists, books are eligible if they are reviewed in 2012, some may have been read in late 2011). On Friday I also added a board of amazing audiobooks, which so far contains my 2011 and 2012 favorites, but which will be expanded over the next few weeks to include beloved audiobooks from years past. I know for a fact I don’t want to pin all of my reviews, because Pinterest seems to me to be very much about curation, but I’m not sure what else I might do with it. I’m contemplating ‘best of’ boards as a different way to showcase my 2010 and 2011 ‘best of’ lists, but those would obviously not be ongoing projects. Anything in particular you’d like to see?

As I mentioned briefly above, the exciting news this week is that we found out that our twins are girls! Daniel is not really thrilled – apparently he wanted brothers, not sisters – but we’re happy, and also just happy to know. Now my mother and sister can start spending way too much money buying cute things =)

Actually, this was just a huge week of excitingness. The other major accomplishment this week was getting totally caught up on book reviews before February ended. Of course, I now have a few to write again, because much of my reading for this week was done Thursday or later, once I’d completed all the writing and I finished a couple more books. Still, 3 reviews to write is better than 18 from a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s what I finished this week:

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Yes, I did read 2 different books called Sister Queens/The Sister Queens, but I didn’t have any trouble keeping them differentiated. Apart from the format difference (print vs. audio), they were about different sets of sisters living about 300 years apart and one was fiction and the other nonfiction. Both reviews should be coming this month.

As far as reviews, it was a so-so week. A couple of books I really enjoyed, sandwiched between a couple I liked less than everyone else seemed to. I also posted my February reading wrap-up, so if you’re wondering what my pick of the month is, go check it out! What I reviewed:

An Announcement

Jan 112012

Lately it has seemed as if half of all book bloggers (and quite a few authors) are either pregnant, or have had babies. An astonishing number of people seem to be due in April or May (seriously, what was in the water last fall?). With my son turning two and 1/2 at Christmas, it was time for us to think about our next baby as well, and it turns out that the baby will be arriving this summer, due July 23rd.

Funny story, though. The baby actually won’t be coming by his or herself. We went to our first doctor’s appointment and got a nice ultrasound picture of the baby. Then, a few weeks later, we went to our second appointment and had another ultrasound. The doctor appeared concerned or confused – which, by the way, is NOT how you want your doctor to look AT ANY TIME – and kept searching around with the ultrasound machine. Finally, she looked at us and said with surprise, “there’s two people in there!”

And then our jaws dropped so hard that we banged them on the ground.

So, yes, twins. Identical twins, actually.

Okay, this isn't actually twins, it is just two pictures stuck together of Daniel as an infant

Needless to say, this sped up our “we probably need a house now” timeline. One baby we might have been able to squeeze in, but two not so much, plus twins tend to come earlier than single babies. Luckily, we had an appointment to look at a house just a few hours after we went to the doctor and happened to love the location, potential, and price of what we saw. We should be putting in an offer soon, which will hopefully mean that we can end up being in the house before I’m ready to pop.

So, between that, our mini-move, and the heater drama that ensued Sunday – Tuesday (the heater went OUT right after we moved in, and the repair company had issues getting the right part), we’ve had an exciting week, to say the least.

TSS – July 10, 2011

Jul 102011

So we’re basically just having a great week+ here. The weather has (finally) been gorgeous, hubby started a new job that he’s really excited about, and Daniel got to spend lots of time with various grandparents, including a day and 1/2 while hubby and I took a trip downtown to celebrate our upcoming anniversary.

This week Nicole and I also posted a new episode of our podcast, What’s Old is New. Check back there next week for a Season 1 wrap up and a sneak preview of what will be coming up next season.

My reading week was higher in quality than quantity, but it was a good one nonetheless. I’ve still got a couple of good books going, too, and more good stuff coming up.

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I also reviewed some good stuff this week:

Here’s to another great week!

Daniel’s First Blizzard

Feb 052011

We had a pretty good blizzard here Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week. It included either the 2nd or 3rd highest snowfall for a storm in recorded Chicago history. Once everything was done on Wednesday (and before the bitterly cold temperatures Wednesday night and Thursday), we took Daniel outside to play in snow that was almost as tall as he was (and drifts taller than his daddy).

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And one shot of the library:

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The Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook by The Sleep Lady, Kim West – Book Review

May 192010

The Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook by The Sleep Lady, Kim West

For a long, long time the sleep situation at our house has been kind of complicated. When Daniel was an infant he would NOT sleep in his crib or an open area like a bassinet, so he slept with us. Any attempts to put him in his crib (even transferring after he was already asleep) unfailingly ended in a VERY unhappy baby, and me picking him up and bringing him back to our room. Even so, we felt that sleep was mostly working for us and I initially only accepted this book for review because we had trouble getting Daniel to go down for naps.

And then we realized that Daniel wouldn’t let his daddy put him to sleep anymore. Since I was heading for New York soon for 4 nights (next week, now!), that was going to be a huuuuge problem. So I stayed up really late one night reading “The Good Night Sleep Tight Workbook” and trying to plan out a sleep solution that would work.

“The Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook” has a great layout and is very easy both to navigate and to understand. The table of contents is helpful, and it is easy to zero in on the information pertinent to your child and your situation and ignore the information that is not. Of course, the real test of a book like this is not simply how easy it is to read through, but whether or not it actually works.

The basic premise of the book involves the ‘Sleep Lady Shuffle’ where you are slowly weaning the baby away from your presence, to help ease them into the transition. There may be some crying involved, but this is definitely not a ‘cry it out’ method, as there is a good deal of comforting the baby the first few nights, and even picking him up to calm him down (but not put him to sleep) if that is helpful and not a hindrance.

We started the program the evening of April 29th (slightly modified as we thought Daniel needed), and I took notes on the events of the first couple of nights. Note that I was positioned sitting/laying on an air mattress right next to Daniel’s crib, where I spent the entire night.

Day 1: Night
7pm put Daniel to bed. 8pm he finally sits down in the crib, 8:40 he finally lays down for the first time. Lots of crying. 9 pm he’s finally asleep.
10 pm, wakes up again, but actually falls asleep in about 5 minutes.
11pm, up again, very upset. Finally goes back to sleep at 12:30.
Up briefly at 3, then sleeps until 6:30

Day 2:
Day
We try for 90 minutes to put a tired Daniel down for a nap. He is only upset for about the first 15 minutes, then just fusses/cries a bit off and on. Although he probably lays down 10 times, he always sits back up and never naps until later when we’re in the car.

Night
Put him down at 7:30, a little crying, but not upset like the previous night or the beginning of the nap. He was mostly sitting, although stood a couple of times and laid down a couple of times. Within 20 minutes he was laying down quietly without me shshing or stroking his back. Asleep after another 10 minutes

By contrast, last night my husband put Daniel to bed. Daniel fussed a bit when first put down, but my husband made 30 seconds worth of “shhshh” noises outside Daniel’s room, and Daniel was asleep in the next 3-5 minutes without a big production. Less than three weeks, and in plenty of time for me to be able to relax about their sleep situation when I am in New York.

I would definitely recommend this book to parents whose children need help learning how to get to sleep. Daniel’s still not fantastic at putting himself BACK to sleep, but he’s getting better, and we’re working on it.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour. Check out some of the other tour hosts for more reviews. Links go to the host’s site, not to their specific review.

Monday, May 3rd: Simply Stacie

Tuesday, May 4th: Baby Dickey

Thursday, May 6th: As the Forest[e] Grows

Monday, May 10th: NOT Mommy of the Year

Wednesday, May 12th: The Daily Fuss

Thursday, May 13th: Kristi Maristi

Monday, May 17th: Red Headed Book Child

Wednesday, May 19th: Devourer of Books

Thursday, May 20th: Trapped Between a Scream and a Hug

Monday, May 24th: Tales of a Capricious Reader

Tuesday, May 25th: There’s a Book

This review was done with a book received from the publisher for this tour.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

TSS: In Which I Attempt To Read Like a Million Pages and Fail

May 162010

Okay, before I get into my likely long and drawn out apologia of both my attempt to read so much and my failure to do so, I want to spotlight a couple of things from last week, and one thing coming up on Devourer of Books.

First of all, I asked you all for your BEA Plans almost 2 weeks ago (by the way, if you have anything to add, you can still do so!). Early this week I am planning to make my own schedule and I will try to post a composite of my schedule and everything mentioned by all of my fabulous commenters by Thursday. If you need information before that, check out hte comments, there is some great stuff in there.

Secondly, I posted earlier this week about what I think is a very interesting topic: the different things readers do with author descriptions of characters. Basically, it all boiled down to whether or not you need to see what you read. Well, that whole discussion was brought up by Kristy Kiernan’s recent book “Between Friends” (which I really enjoyed). Kristy found the discussion so interesting and pertinent to her craft that she was moved to write a response, which I think brings up a lot of interesting questions about writing and reading.

Okay, so now the reason for the drama-filled title.

Thanks to an idea from Nicole, I have created a Reading Schedule for the summer. When I did it, I realized that I had waaay too many books I needed to finish before BEA, so I’ve been in a mad rush to read them. Basically, in the last 2 weeks I’m supposed to have finished:

The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash
Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwen
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
Sections 5&6 of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The last 180 pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The first 300 pages of Mattherhorn by Karl Malantes

Yes, that adds up to about 3,500 pages (give or take) in two weeks. Yes, my schedule for next week is almost just as insane. No, I did NOT manage to read all of those books.

The first full week of the month my reading got a bit distracted when my husband and I discovered “Twin Peaks.” We got both seasons and the movie from the library and watched the entire thing in about 8 days – probably at least 25 hours worth of television. You can see how I might have been behind from the very beginning. Not to mention the author event I went to that week, and the company we had over for dinner one night.

Still, I did pretty well, and out of those first 5 books I was supposed to read that week, I only missed reading “House Rules” by Jodi Picoult, and I finished that this Monday night. That did put me a good day behind, though, and of the books after “House Rules” on that list, at this point I’ve only finished “Saving CeeCee Honeycutt” (which, incidentally, is a fabulous book to read when you’re having a very bad day), “Queen of Palmyra,” and the 5th section of “Wolf Hall.”

I’m half-way through “The Post-Birthday World,” about 100 pages into “Matterhorn” and haven’t touched section 6 of “Wolf Hall,” so that means that, unless I happen to read over 500 pages today, I’m going into next week already behind, and I’m trying to read 1300+ pages next week before BEA. Oh, and getting my house, family, and self ready for me to leave for 4 nights.

Sleep is overrated, right?

TSS: Unitasking Failure

May 022010

Last week I talked about the fact that I wanted to try an experiment in unitasking. I was doing really well on Monday until about 3:30, when I got tired and no longer really felt like being too productive. Since then, I really haven’t been doing well at all. Part of the issue has been sleep, I didn’t sleep well last Saturday or Sunday night, and since then we’ve been teaching Daniel to put himself to sleep, which hasn’t yet resulted in great sleep for us, although he’s starting to get pretty good.

With Daniel’s sleep issues, I didn’t get a whole lot read this week. Here’s what I finished in print:

And one audio:

I also read half of section three of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” for the Classic Reads Book Club discussion and part four of “Wolf Hall” for my #WHall Twitter discussion.

I read “The Devil’s Highway” because Luis Alberto Urrea is going to be at an event at my favorite indie bookstore, The Bookstore in Glen Ellyn this coming week. He’ll be there for Cinqo de Mayo to celebrate his new work “Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush.” There will be books and margaritas – what could be better???

Here is what I reviewed last week (covers link to posts):

TSS: One Thing at a Time

Apr 252010

Good morning, friends!

I have been feeling a lot of frustration lately with what feels like an inability to get things done. Twitter is certainly a contributing factor when it sucks me into things, but I think there’s more than that, I can’t get things done even when I do ignore Twitter. For instance, I’ll try to write a post and then click over to my email and get caught up in that for awhile, or to LibraryThing and read through a couple of discussions, then I’ll realize that I’m *way* behind on my Google Reader, so I’ll click over there and read a few posts, back to my email…next thing I know 2 hours have passed and I’ve read email but not answered any, I still haven’t made any significant progress in my Google Reader, and my post is only half written. Substitute writing a post for cleaning the kitchen and putting away other random things for those other tasks and you see my lack of productivity offline as well.

This. Is. Not. Working.

I was talking about my frustrations with Nicole this week (surprisingly, not on Twitter), and she agreed to try a uni-tasking experiment with me this week. We are going to do our best to work on doing One Thing At A Time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to listen to audiobooks while I clean and I may leave uninteresting TV on sometimes as background noise, but if I am writing a post, I am going to write a post. If I am working on email, I’m going to work on email. If I’m picking up the house, I’m going to pick up the house. This may mean that you see me on Twitter less often, but hopefully it will give me more quality time to devote to everything, so maybe I’ll finally actually make it around to your blogs!

Starting tomorrow morning, I’m going to limit the number of browser windows I have open to 3. If I need to open another window for what I’m doing, something else (email, Twitter) will have to be closed entirely. My other tools this week will be Todoist.com, where I’ll be keeping my to-do list and the chronograph/countdown timer app I put on my Blackberry. Wish me luck! I’ll try to update you on my progress next Sunday.

In slightly more reading related news, I finished 6 books this week.

Before you get too excited, though, just three were actually novels:

I also finished two audiobooks:

And one 100 page workbook on sleep (and I didn’t read the parts that didn’t pertain to Daniel), because we’ll be trying some new stuff in that arena too.

Did you read anything good this week?

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This review was done with a book received from the publisher for this tour. * These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

This review was done with a book received from the publisher for this tour.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.