Happy Birthday to Me! Contest

My birthday is in late October. And so are the Breeder’s Cup World Championships! I’ve come up with a contest that will make race day even more fun for me. Your prizes will be riding on the outcome of each race held on the second day of the Championships.

Prizes: 1 grand prize of 10 points plus 10 points for your favorite BookMooch Charity and 8 first prizes of 5 points
Selection of winners: Each entrant will be randomly assigned a horse racing in the Breeder’s Cup World Championship races to be run on Saturday, October 25th. The assignment shall be done by random draw the weekend of October 18th. Entrants will be distributed evenly between the races. The prizes will be taken by the entrant whose horse crosses the finish line ahead of any other entrant’s horse. Grand prize to the entrant who wins the Breeder’s Cup Classic, all other winners will be given a first place prize.

To enter the contest, tell us about a book you’ve read that was either better or worse than you expected. Please avoid spoilers, they will disqualify you. And, don’t forget your userid and your favorite BookMooch Charity so I know to whom I should send the points. No need to hurry, entries will be accepted until October 18th at 8 am PDT.

For example: I expected to really like Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian. I enjoy nautical tales and the Napoleonic era is one of my favorites. C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower books have been favorites of mine since I was young. Unfortunately, this tale was full of the day-to-day details of a sailor’s life. Really, really full of that stuff, including a tour through the ship that acquaints the reader, as well as one of the characters, with every part of a ship. This detail, while fascinating in its way, slowed down the narrative. I want my adventures full of adventure and this story seemed very pedestrian. I missed Hornblower and Bush.
(BTW, Mr. H thinks I should start Alexander Kent’s Bolitho series. He says every chapter’s “out of the frying pan and into the fire.”)

Ooh -- fun (slightly complex, but fun) idea. And I love the charity spin.

Here's a book I read recently and wasn't sure I'd like, but did... I read Trailerpark by Russell Banks at the recommendation of a fellow reader & writer. I'd also read Banks' longer novel Continental Drift before and liked it a lot, although parts were incredibly dark and difficult to read. Trailerpark has dark bits too, but also more compassion and comedy to add balance. It's organized like a collection of short stories, each of which examines a single resident or family living at a semirural - you guessed it - trailer park in New Hampshire.

To avoid spoilers, I'll offer just one image: "the Guinea Pig Lady." That's the first story in the collection, and could EASILY stand alone. Sweet, sad, and utterly bizarre. The story grossed me out and pulled at my heartstrings simultaneously, which is why I thought to mention it here. So if you've never read Banks before, I'd recommend grabbing Trailerpark and reading the first tale, "The Guinea Pig Lady." Worth the price of admission on its own, as they say.

My ID is 'fullmoonblue' and my charity of choice is Books 4 Kids and their Providers (WV).

(And PS, happy early birthday VeraMarie.)

2> Luckily, the complexity is in choosing the winners, which is at my end. And, since we don't have any chickens, the ponies seemed like the most entertaining way to choose.

Awesome contest idea! *gets giddy just thinking about the horses* hehe

I recently grabbed a book from the library called Horowitz Horror: Stories You'll Wish You Never Read. I usually love these kind of books, short-ish horror stories that you just HAVE to read in the middle of the day in a brightly-light room, lest you have nightmares that night.

This book was very disappointing. I was sure I'd like it, I was all excited about it... (and of course this is just *my* opinion, but...) Thing is, the stories weren't so much scary as just plain weird, and sometimes downright stupid. Kind of like a youngster who tries so hard to tell a scary story, uses so many cliches and "scary" elements, that it's actually not scary at all.

My BM id is Heather19, and the charity I'd chose is "asdfriendly".

Ooh, a contest! =) Here's my entry.

My book was The Balance Wheel by Taylor Caldwell. I was aware of her other books, & knew that she was a popular author of her day, so when I came across a copy of this book at my local Goodwill, I grabbed it.

Let me just say that that was one boring book! It took at least half the book before it began to be interesting. I'm not sure why I hung on that long, except that I can be tenacious... Anyway, I can't say that I recommend it.

My BM user ID is iwillrejoice, & my charity is the Word of Life library.

Happy Birthday! And thanks for the contest!

Gail

Great, a contest! Happy Birthday!

And I like the question too.

My book is A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. Of course I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time first, but I found that a bit over-hyped. I don't even know why I bothered to read a second book of the same writer. I certainly did not expect a lot of it. But this one really grows on you. It's all really subdued and unspectacular, the account of the life of an ordinary family, but it's littered with those little observations that really hit the spot. When you've finished the book, you have not only come to know and love this family, but you have connected with something larger than that. And bits of it will keep coming back to you. I very much recommend it.

My user id is wester, my favorite charity is reader2reader, they really make full use of their BM account to get books to needy kids.

What a great idea and happy birthday in advance!

I recently read No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay, it was so good I read it in a day. Nothing overly deep, but a fast paced plot with plenty of twists - would love to see a film of this IF done well!

I hadn't expected to like it as it was a popular book club choice here in the UK and most times I can't get into these choices so this one really surprised me, in a good way!

BookMooch charity I would pick is - La Leche League of Huron County

My ID is Tiare

Thanks again for doing this.

Happy Birthday! Thanks for the contest!

I recently finished Survivor by Tabitha King. I am a huge fan of her work and I sat down to this one with great expectations. Halfway through I realized I just didn't care about the characters anymore. I was especially upset with the way the book ended. It was right in the middle of a dramatic moment and it just stopped. Like some of the pages got lost somewhere when she submitted it to the publishing house.

So, to anyone wanting to enjoy Tabitha King, I would not recommend this one as a first read. Try her 'Nodd's Ridge' books instead.

My Bookmooch ID is VictoriaPL and my charity of choice is Hercules Invictus

Ooh, sounds fun! :)

I recently read Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters. I've read a few of the Discworld books and have enjoyed them. This one would have been much more enjoyable, however, if Pratchett hadn't kept making jokes about sex with animals. I'm sorry, that just isn't funny. It's perverse. I did like the story and the characters were fun, but overall it wasn't as funny as some of the other Discworld books I've read (like Reaper Man or Guards! Guards!). If this had been my first Pratchett book, I don't know if I would have read any others.

I'm wisewoman on BM and my charity of choice is operationpaperback. Thanks so much, Vera! :)

You put a lot of thought into this one!

I recently picked up The Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell with very low expectations. I had loved her earliest books but had just stopped reading as they became more and more self-involved and soap opery.

Well, this book surpassed my lowest expectations with sloppy writing, a ridiculous plot and the most insulting stereotypes found outside of a minstrel show. After the first murder victim was described as being found fully clothed and entirely naked within a few pages, I should have closed the book and returned it sealed in a zip-loc baggie to the library. Instead I kept reading for the delicious sense of outrage that flooded through me chapter after chapter.

My BookMooch userid is kayhardtmann and my chosen charity is readertoreader.

Happy late October birthday Vera!

from another late October birthday person

This is a great idea, and it's really interesting to read about books and people's expectations!

I recently read The Eight by Katharine Neville. My expectations were pretty low - it's billed as female-Indiana-Jones-meets-the-Da-Vinci-Code, and I hated the Da Vinci Code, so I was afraid this was going to be bad. It's full of conspiracy theory stuff, which is always either really horrible or really fun, and I wasn't sure which to expect. I got an ARC of the sequel, The Fire, through LT, so I wanted to read The Eight before I read the sequel.

I was pleasantly surprised! It's not outstanding literature by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a really fun read. The female-Indiana-Jones aspects were really fun: the main character finds herself involved in this big secret game involving a bunch of ancient chess pieces, and she traipses all over the world in scary and exotic places to gather the scattered chess set. The conspiracy theory aspects are hokey, as they always are, but since the book doesn't purport to tell "the truth" like the Da Vinci Code, and doesn't take itself too seriously, it was a lot of fun. The puzzles and clues in the book are way too complicated to even try to piece together, so you don't have to try and that's fine (unlike Da Vinci code, where they are so absurdly simple that the main characters come across as really simple). The Eight was great brain candy - just a good fun read, with some surprisingly likeable characters. Skip the sequel though: a lot of The Eight's success is it's uniqueness, and The Fire ruins that by trying to be just like The Eight.

My BM id is Gwendydd and my charity of choice is Eco-Libris.

Happy birthday! Go, horsies!

>11 silverbooks:
Thanks, silverbooks. You know, no matter how many birthdays I go through, I always look forward to them. But now, I get as much from giving gifts as getting them.

And for everybody - Thanks for your entries. I've really been enjoying the reviews. Some of the books mentioned are on my TBR pile and I'll be interested to see if I have a similar reaction. Plus, there are a couple that I am considering adding to my wishlist based on the descriptions given.

As an avid Audio Book "reader" I loved Phllipa Gregory's the Boleyn Inheritance. She gives an interersting perspective into the lives of women in that time. This is story of three aristocatic women and the restrictions on their lives because of the men they are forced to live with. If you choose to listen instead of read, The three women are narrated by three different voice actors, which is very effective. Be prepared for some very unflattering and graphic descriptions of an aging Henry VIII. Yikes!

Thanks for this great idea! Have a great Birthday.

My bookooch id is NitaLaabs and my chosen charity is Youth Intitative High School right here in beautiful Wisconsin!

I'm bumping this to the top as a reminder.

I will be accepting entries to my Happy Birthday to Me! contest for another week. The prizewinners will be selected on October 25th. There will be nine prizes - eight of 5 points each and one grand prize of ten points plus ten points for your favorite charity. Currently the odds of winning a prize are 3:1.

To enter, let us know about a book that you either liked or disliked more than you expected. Please avoid spoilers and include your BookMooch userid and your favorite BookMooch Charity.

Oooh, great contest. Let's see, a book I liked much less than I anticipated was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I think it's because I had such high expectations because that book received so much amazing press, that when I read it and it was just okay, I was sort of like "so what's all the fuss about?" I often what my reaction would have been had I read the book without any background.

My bookmooch name is the same at LT, and my favorite BM charity is Operation Paperback.

Have a great birthday!

>VeraMarie- I'm sending you an early Happy Birthday wish! There are several birthdays in my family during October, including my wife the Halloween baby!
The book that caught me by surprise was The Known World by Edward P. Jones. I was expecting a dry hard-bitten novel about slavery and came away with a true masterpiece. Highly recommended!
My user-name on Bookmooch is also MSF59 and I'll select Operation Paperback as my charity. Good job on the contest!

Happy birthday, Vera :) Hope you have a good one when it arrives.

The book that surprised me the most lately, was Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

I read a lot of YA fiction as part of my job, so picked it up and was expecting a similar sort of thing to normal. But - wow! It was one of those read-in-one-sitting, totally rooting for the characters type of books that was utterly addictive. It made me grin and remember being that age again. There were some things that were an immense amount of fun.

I'm MissMac on Bookmooch as well (I get confused if I have more than one log in!) and my favourite charity is ASDfriendly. In fact, if I do win anything, you can give all the points to them.

With the help of the Estimable Mr. H, I have assigned horses to all the contest entrants. There were 36 entrants from the three BookMooch forums I frequent, so there were four entrants per race. The fields will not be completely set until later in the week, and some horses are eligible for more than one race. If a horse is not in the field of the selected race on race day, another horse will be selected for that entrant.

To see what horse you were assigned, check out my ning member page. The races will all be run on Saturday, October 25th and winners will be posted immediately after the races. Of course, if you have access, you can watch the race and find out right away. Good luck everyone!

It's almost midnight out here in the Philippines, and am waiting on the results of the races!!!
Can't wait to find out who wins :-)

Me too! I watched Seabiscuit this morning while I was on the treadmill to get me in the mood for the races.

Yay! My horsie won his race! Thanks, VeraMarie, for the points, for the charity, and for a really fun birthday contest!

Happy birthday - I hope you're having a wonderful day!

Yay!! I just saw Gwendydd post 3 minutes ago and realized that my race was happening right then. I started reading about my horse and then the results were up! Thanks VeraMarie for such a fun contest :D

Thanks so much VeraMarie!
This was so generous of you.
Many, many, many thanks!!! :D

Well, I've had such a good time today. I did have to assign a couple of new horses when the original horses were scratched from their race, and those were posted as I assigned them on my page here: http://bookmoochers.ning.com/profile/VeraMarie. I also posted the winners as they happened and will leave them posted for a week if anyone is interested in the details.

For those of you who couldn't watch the races, or had better things to do on a weekend, here are the winners of my contest:
First prizes to: fullmoonblue, Debbie S, Martha, Gwendydd, Jon, Laurie, Shauna, and Andrea. They have all been given 5 points.
The grand prize was won by Angela Wolf, who chose Quezon City Public Library as her charity. Both Angela and her charity have received 10 points.

My only regret is that everyone couldn't be a winner. I thank everyone who entered.

Wow, thanks so much VeraMarie! It took me awhile to figure out where those extra points came from. I really appreciate it!

I was so excited to see that my horse won the marathon... it was sweet of you to design such a fun contest! Thanks to you, VeraMarie, and best wishes to all. :)