The fantastic month of May

Well Natalie and I have both enjoyed the Sydney Writers Festival which introduced us to a whole range of authors we hadn't known before and we have now added them to our respective reading piles, so stay turned for some new book reviews.

We have also been caught up in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy which has kept us awake at nights and we have now created EL James as one of our favorite authors because, although the books aren't literature wonders, they are funny, sad and entertainment, perfect to curl up on the couch with.

Inbetween that we have updated reviews in May 2012 for Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, Missing Shade of Blue: A Philosophical Adventure by Jennie Erdal, Salvage the Bones: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding, The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright and The Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward.

As usual we are trying to find ways to make the website more interactive and relevant, so any budding authors out there, stand by for our new section to assist you in editing and getting feedback on your manuscripts.  We are both excited at this concept as can see a real gap whereby independent authors find it hard to get into the bigger publishing houses and need to ensure that when they do submit their manuscript it has been reviewed in a proactive and methodical way.

As always, buying any books through our affiliate bookstores helps us keep the website going, so please feel free to purchase and also forward our website to your friends.

Thanks
Tracy

What books to read

We are all busy with work, after work running around after families that any "me" time is gratefully appreciated and limited. So how do we make the most out of any spare time we have. At OurBookClub we provide online book reviews that are independent and honest. We let you know if we enjoyed it or if it adds value to your time for example of there are books, games, tv series or movies all linked together.
I know there is nothing more disappointing that coming home from the bookstore, or even from uploading your Kindle or other eReader, to find the book just wasn't what you expected. Hopefully OurBookClub can take some of the nervous anticipation out of that wait. Plus if you want to be prepared we have a monthly newsletter that highlights our picks and what we will be reading in the month ahead - you can subscribe at OurBookClub Subscription page. If you don't have time for a lot of reading, keep up to date through our Twitter or Facebook feeds.
Any books that you purchase through our site also goes to helping the site keep running.
Thanks
Tracy

More reviews....wish I could read all day

Ok, well it was super hot for me with a couple of nice 42oC days. Of course this translated to switching on the air-con and spending hours on the couch reading (and watching the tennis, some amazing matches boys!). Suffice to say, have posted a couple of new reviews of some great books I have recently read. This includes The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. His latest book deals with the very ugly disease cancer and had me both laughing and crying. A really beautiful and moving book, which presented a very different side to the story, the cancer victim who is left behind. Earlier this month I had read his book Looking for Alaska, which is almost an ode to Holden Caufield and is a great coming of age story (note to self, pick up Catcher in the Rye again).

I also managed to finally get my hands on the second instalment in the Immortal Beloved series, Darkness Falls. Five hours later I was done and counting down the days until the third book hits shelves (Jan 2013, so a long time). I have to say I love this series so very much, primarily due to it's narrator, the completely hilarious, but deeply troubled Nastasya. Yes ok it's about immortals, but her struggles and fears are so realistically portrayed, I couldn't help but feel for her, even when she makes stupid decisions (particularly forcing herself to walk away from the Viking god Reyn). While the second book has me hoping things will work out for them, I now have an impossibly long wait to find out!

I also read Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, which despite being a really interesting and clever story, was just a little too drawn out for me (I'm impatient by nature).

And now I am back at work and have started reading Kirsten Tranter's second novel A Common Loss about 4 friends reeling from the death of the 5th member of their group and the knowledge that he might not have been the man they all thought he was.

If only I could go back to lying on the couch.....

Nat

Another day - more books

Well another rainy weekend here in Sydney has given me some time to update some bits on our website, finish off some books and post their reviews. In the meantime I have been reading Guerilla Social Media Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson and Shane Gibson to get a handle on all the social networking and technology that is so prolific. At ourbookclub we now have a web page, blog page, Facebook account and Twitter account and somewhere along the lines we also have to read books, watch movies and ultimately go to our day jobs to pay for our passion.
The book is certainly interesting and provides information about not getting too caught up in every piece of social networking software, but instead picking what you think the majority of your target audience will use and go with that, also finding the software that lets you post in one place and replicate in other places, so you are not repeating yourself on the different medias. That sounds good :-)
Also in the book are helpful suggestions on the secret world of search engine optimization. I have been struggling with this for some time. How to come up with the right site title tags, descriptions, page names and text so that those wonderful bots at Google and Bing can find us and make us more accessible to others. We seem to have got it right in some areas but not so in others, so that is an ongoing work in progress.
I am sure when the internet was developed words were mentioned about a paperless office - well we don't have as much paper, but we do spend just as much time online reading, reading and more reading.
Oh well finally now have time to sit down and read an actual book.

Tracy

New reviews!

Some new reviews have gone up - they might not happen as frequently now both of us are back at work (insert large groan), but we will try our nest! Under Literature and Fiction you can find reviews of Torn by Cat Clarke and Looking for Alaska by John Green. Under Bodice Rippers you can find reviews of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E Smith and Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tribensky and under Travel there is a review of Shanti Bloody Shanti by Aaron Smith. We hope you can find something exciting to read in all of this and for all of you returning to work after you break....we share your pain!
Nat

Yeah new books have arrived

I am now back in Perth, Australia although packing to head to Sydney for work commitments. However, this morning saw a large delivery from Book Depository and has now spurred me on to read. In the parcel was Richard Branson - Screw business as usual, Sebastian Faulks - On fiction, Christopher Hitchens - Hitch-22, Julian Barnes - The sens of an ending and Haruki Murakami - 1Q84.
In addition I also have the audiobook for the new Steve Jobs autobiography which is going to be my listening on the plan trip.

Happy reading
Tracy

Website Updates

Natalie and I have taken the Christmas break as a huge opportunity to rejigg some of our pages on the OurBookClub website. We didn't realise how many reviews we are writing and of course that is fuelled by the number of books we are reading. So bear with us for a few days as we finish off making sure our links work and everything is bedded down.

2012 is going to be a huge year for the written and electronic book worlds with lots of new releases which we can't wait to grab and have already pre-ordered. In addition Natalie and I will be attending the Perth and Sydney Writers Festivals to bring you the latest book news.

If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, drop us a line through the OurBookClub website.

Thanks
Tracy