A collection of all the contests on the blog
It is hard to believe in 2026 that women who wanted to write often had to use pen names. They knew that people would not take a book written by a woman seriously. Many men would certainly not have read a book written by a woman. Of course, after the books became successful, the truth became known and the reset is history. See if you
Recently the Post and Courier featured a report from the Charleston County Public Library. The library loaned out over three million print, digital and audiobooks in 2025. Wow!! The article went on to list the top ten books that were checked out. If you saw the article, you will have probably forgotten the order of the books, so this game is to challenge you to
Before I had a chance to post the finalists for the American Book Award in the Non-fiction catagory, I see that the winner has already been announced. The book featured below is the winner. Word of warning–not everyone will want to read this book. The author Omar El Akad has a very dim view of Western Society. Yes, that would be us, the society we
Already an Oprah bookclub book, A Guardian and a Thief is a story set in the near future about an Indian family coping with survival in a world ravished by the climate crisis. Descriptions call the book “a ravishing novel.” The second of three fiction books nominated for the award is written by Augustina Bazterrica and translated into English by Sarah Moses. A description of
I have always found the topic of etymology very interesting. Of course, many of the words we use come from Greek or Latin. Some words come from countries all over the world. Other words are invented to describe something in the word of science or technology. Believe it or not, authors can make up words and use them in their books. This quiz will give
Below are well-known “Last Lines of Novels.” See if you can identify the novel. This is embarrassingly easy, by the way. 2. “I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” 3. “But I don’t think us feel old at all. And
If you wrote a book, would you give the title a subtitle? According to mental floss, June 24, 2024, publishers would sometimes give a book a subtitle if they thought the title alone would not entice a reader to read the book. The subtitle gave a little more information or made the book sound more exciting. This quiz is to text several things on your
(Taken from a Mental Floss quiz, May 13, 2024) Sometimes authors begin writing a book without knowing exactly what the title will be once they finish. They may give the book a ‘working title.’ Other times, the author’s editor will suggest that the title be changed in order to better describe the subject or sell the book. This quiz is a shortened version of one
Have you ever had to write a ‘Dear John’ letter? It’s a cop-out of sorts because a face-to-face break up is probably better, BUT many people take the easy route. I ran across a very interesting article in the ‘mental floss’ section of the January 24, 2024 edition of Shelf Awareness, written by Ellen Gutoskey. I took a few of the excepts from the Dear
A few days ago, J. D. Biersdorfer published a quiz in the NYT to test our knowledge about sequels to best selling books. I have streamlined the quiz and eliminated the multiple choice aspect. You must come up with the name of the sequel on your own in order to win! Please, no cheating. No Internet searches, OK? After you take the quiz, please let
