Sunday Salon - July 22

I have three whole weeks without any books that are scheduled for reviews - although I've been reading nothing but great books for reviews lately so I'm not really complaining.

Just finished up the High Summer Readathon hosted by Michelle of The True Book Addict. As readathons go, this one was pretty successful for me. I always think I'll really try to clear the decks and devote all of my evenings to reading. Life never quite turns out that way. But I read 200 pages of The Flight of Gemma Hardy, which I reviewed last week, as well as reading The Absent Traveler and The Book of Jonas, both of which I'll review this week.

Flavorwire's getting to be one of my favorite sites - they've been compiling some great stuff lately. Check out the artwork on their compilation of The 20 Most Beautiful Children's Books of All Time. I was delighted to find several fairy tale books; Maurice Sendak, Chris Allsburg, and David Wiesner all made the list as well. I was even more delighted to see that a book by Nebraska's very own Ted Kooser was included on the list - House Held Up By Trees.

This link courtesy of Mental Floss and Quirk Book's Facebook page: 17 Famous Literary Characters Almost Named Something Else. What do you think of "Pansy O'Hara?" Doesn't begin to do justice to the character's strength or spirit, does it? And Small Sam just doesn't tug at the heartstrings in quite the same way Tiny Tim does.Also at Mental Floss, I found this link to 14 Movie Cameos by the Authors of the Original Book. Be sure to scroll down and check out more in the comments. Makes me want to rush out to the video store and check out these movies for the camoes alone!

Last week I asked about bookstores or libraries you've seen in movies. Linda, of A Rich Tapestry, pointed out the Reading Room of the London Library. I tried to find an image from the movie but there wasn't one. Of course, I had to at least find an image of the Reading Room so I googled it and stumbled across Bibliolatry, a site where you can find images of famous libraries the world over. Some of them are so incredible, I don't know how anyone can actually focus on reading! The libraries are posted by country.

Congratulations to Joann, who won my ARC copy of The Chaperone! Thanks to everyone who gave me the great book suggestions; I'm looking forward to checking all of them out. This week my reading plans include The World We Found, Thrity Umrigar's latest, and The Women of the Cousins War by Phillipa Gregory. What are you reading this week?