Saturday, 15 October 2016

Stacking the Shelves #151


Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! Click on the link under the book to find its page on Goodreads or Smashwords. 

Please note that I always leave a message on your STS/SP if you visit me, but if you use DISQUS or a similar third party I will not be able to leave a comment on your page. I don't allow any company access to my social media accounts and I certainly don't allow them to edit and take over my accounts the way DISQUS does. So if you use DISQUS, I can't leave comments on your page so I can't really follow you back, sorry! I'm noticing that some blogs set with Google Plus are trying to force you to open a Google Plus or Facebook account before you can leave a comment. Well, I have no interest in rejoining Google Plus or joining Facebook so if your blog uses this set up, I won't be following it or commenting! And sometimes, I have problems leaving messages on blogs hosted by Wordpress-they try to block me so there might not be a message from me some weeks or you might get a double message sometimes! Blame them, not me!
     
This has been a much better week! I've been getting some good reading done, I've watched a couple of TV series and this weekend I hope to look at a couple of films. I feel like I am getting back to some kind of normal! Well, as normal as Chuckles can ever get...On the buying side of things I got a few paperbacks and some cheap dvd box sets, and I trolled around to find some nice free and cheap ebooks! 

We're still trying to tidy up after the chaos of the DIY recently and to top it all off we have a mouse invasion in the house! Now I'm not scared of them thankfully, but I do want them out the house for hygiene reasons so we're using humane traps that catch but do not kill, so they can be safely released. The little blighters are crafty though and my dad is taking it like a personal war to outwit them! They seem to really enjoy pizza crust!

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Friday, 14 October 2016

Using Copywritten Photos on your Blog

When I started blogging, one of the things I enjoyed most was finding the right images to go with my blogs as I'm a bit of a creative type and don't like producing plain text if I can help it. To be honest, I thought it was ok to just use images readily available on the internet to put in the blog and I never really thought about copyright. I figured that having a small blog with a small following meant that it was ok to use it as I wasn't trying to make money off it or cheat anyone.

Then I read an article on a blog which gave me a bit of a fright. It was about a company being sued for using one poor photograph that belonged to someone else. $8000 for copyright infringement of ONE photo! I think it is an article everyone should read so here is the link:

http://www.contentfac.com/copyright-infringement-penalties-are-scary/ 

I found this very scary. So even if you give credit to the owner and don't profit from it, you can get sued. Computer programs track usage of that person's copywritten material and can trace it back to your usage, even if you are a small blogger. That is worrying!

Help is at hand, however. I found an excellent blog post on the subject from the blog site Under the Covers which talks about the various kinds of misuse of copyright and why you should not break the rules. It tells you also how posting your own images on social media in certain circumstances can lead to others being permitted to use your images without your consent. It also provides good information about where you can find copyright free material to freely use on your blog.

http://www.underthecoversbookblog.com/2016/07/blog-it-out-image-copyright.html 

The images that I have used on this post were FREE and un-copywritten so anyone can use them and these are the only sites I will use in future. These images were from Pixabay. I do not fancy the idea of having to face fines and hire lawyers as I have no money to spare for that kind of thing. I am going through my blog and social media sites to remove anything that even might be copywritten to stay safe.

Protect yourself and your blog and please share the links to these posts!
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Chuckles Childhood Book Loves


My childhood reading started with my dad and his nightly bedtime stories. First it was nursery rhymes and similar but by the time I was seven, he had moved on to reading me this:


I loved the trolls and goblins as I had a wild imagination as a child! I loved the anticipation and danger, wondering what was coming next. Without a doubt, my favourite chapter in the book was Riddles in the Dark, where Gollum appears for the first time. My dad would do all the different voices and be hissing 'my precious' which I loved! 


He then introduced me right after finishing The Hobbit, to Lord of the Rings which I enjoyed even more. The above pictures are the actual book covers my dad had and I feel a wave of nostalgia just looking at them! He also bought me a map book where I could follow the characters on their adventures!


If I remember right, we had pretty much completed the second book when I got too old for bedtime stories and I read the third book myself when I was older. The ironic thing is, as much as I enjoyed these books and loved all the creatures, I never read anything else by Tolkien and never really developed an interest in reading traditional fantasy novels with elves and dragons and things! 

My dad loved reading and passed on that love to me, something that got lost a bit when I went out to college and work and got too tired and busy to read at night. I'll always be grateful that he has passed that love of reading to me and now I'm introducing him to the urban fantasy, horror and apocalypse books that I love! He's a big fan of The Morganville Vampires and Jeaniene Frost's Cat and Bones, and shares my zombie mania!
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Thursday, 13 October 2016

Book Review: Prepper's Crucible 5 by Bobby Andrews



In the fifth book of this thrilling best selling series, Cory and Ben continue their mission to find Ben's sons and Cory's sister. In order to do so, they must pass through a city that has become a no man's land of violence and destruction. They are determined to keep their own humanity, even as they witness the human race descending into unthinkable levels of depravity. Our characters face new challenges and dangers as they struggle to save their loved ones from the chaos that ensues in the city of Phoenix following a devastating EMP.

My Review:
This book follows the story of what happened to Cory and Ben on the dangerous journey to find their family members. It's only at the very end that we return to events at the ranch and get a resolution on what happened at the end of book four.

Cory and Ben are moving into the city, trying to avoid the gang warfare and armed psychos that are roaming the streets but Cory is not prepared to stand silently by when they witness the beginning of a gang rape, even if it puts their own mission in jeopardy. Cory's ruthless streak is concerning Ben who wants to stay alive and locate his sons but you can fully understand why Cory feels that all the scum deserve to be executed. I can't disagree with him.

Rachel is alive and with her doctor boyfriend Tim in a safer part of town. Cory wants both of them to come to the ranch for safety but they are not going to be easily persuaded, especially when Tim and Cory lock horns from the start. Ben is anxious to get moving to try and join up with his sons who are already ahead of them and moving towards the ranch so any delays here could be crucial. When the situation has been resolved, Ben can finally try to get his sons.

It is as Cory and Ben near home that they start to realise that things are worse than expected. They have run ins with a strange cult and are shocked to see military vehicles from the Mexican Army coming from the south towards their town. Not sure what it means, they move quickly towards the ranch where they are about to get a big shock.

It's hard to review this book without giving everything away so I have tried to be vague where possible. I enjoyed the change of scene in this book, seeing what happens in a city where law and order has completely broken down, unlike the community trying to work together in the town near the ranch. I also liked the chance to see Ben as a leading character in the plot as I very much like him. Cory is turning into a ruthless bad ass which is not a bad thing considering the way the plot is turning. I was very anxious to see what was happening back at the ranch after the book four cliffhanger but we didn't get much detail before the book finished. Gah!

Only one book left in the series so I'm a bit unsure how the latest twists are going to play out, given a short book to fit it into.

Read February 2016.
star rating photo: 5 Star Rating 5stars.jpg
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Chuckles Blog Revamp


My enforced time off has forced me to rethink what I want for my blog. I've never been the kind of blogger who needs thousands of followers or be mega popular...I like having some followers that are regular visitors and leave the odd comment. That is enough for me as I doubt I'd cope with 100 comments a day! But just a few more would be nice! I'd like to get a few more followers who are interested in zombies, horror, urban fantasy and dinosaurs and follow them back so if you know of anyone with these interests, let me know!

 I think I'm ok on the review side of thing, though I still have a lot of older reviews to upload. As an improvement to my reviews I plan to indicate whether this is an older review or review for something I just read, as I'm confusing my followers by doing both at the same time! That's the plan anyway. I hope to do a regular feature where I show off pretty book covers, and favourite books I've read in the past. I will be doing more 'favourites' lists as well, concerning favourite books, films, TV and other topics, and looking at books from my childhood.

I intend to get more time to watch TV and films this winter so I hope to have a regular review of what I've been watching. I had intended to do that this year but I've only watched a few films so that plan flopped a bit!  When I get time, I'll also be uploading more photos of places I've visited in a semi regular travel feature, instead of just when I go on holiday. I will also do the odd post about interesting things I've bought and am excited about. I'm not into make-up, jewellery, fashion, shoes or handbags so you won't be getting posts on those subjects.

I think it is time that I started doing more discussion posts-about book topics and other things that I can rant or rave about. Hopefully adding this will give a little more interest and variety to the blog. I'm keen to get your imput on these subjects to find out a bit more about my followers but I also hope to share a bit more about myself with you.

These things will appear gradually as I get more organised. I've also went through my followers on bloglovin and refollowed quite a few people who for some reason were showing as being unfollowed. I get that sometimes and it bugs me. I'm choosing not to follow back the handful who are not currently active or whose blog feed has nothing of interest to me ie one blog in the last month had nothing but beauty and fashion posts with no books or films or discussion posts, one was just celebrity gossip and a couple were just romance reviews. I am following back the vast majority of you though!

So that is what will be coming at The Book Cave over this autumn and winter. What would you like to see discussions about? What do you enjoy seeing on the blogs you visit? What annoys you on blogs you visit? What kind of posts do you like commenting on? Any imput will help with future changes to this blog.
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