LET'S PLAY KETCHUP . . . er, CATSUP, um . . .

Well, the inevitable has happened. My nightstand TBR pile fell over on me and no one could hear me scream! It's true! I was forced to read myself out from under. It took days. No, really. It did. And that means . . . it's time to play catch up!

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge all of you who have signed on as Followers. Thanks! And, welcome! It's really nice to open up this blog and see your smiling faces and/or happy icon-thingees. I hope you find the time you spend here to be worthwhile. Many of you can actually take a lot of credit for this blog, either directly or indirectly, because you've been nice enough to share your knowledge and answer my beginner-blogger how-to questions or because I've learned so much from reading your blogs over the past year. So, thank you again!

Secondly, I must say I am floored by the response to the Hachette Giveaway I'm hosting for MADE IN THE U.S.A. by Billie Letts. I set it up to run for 3 weeks because, being such a new blog on the block, I thought I'd need a longer run to spread the word around. As of right now, though, there are 89 comments posted, and that's waaaaay more than I was anticipating -- with still 13 days to go! So, more thank you's to all who enter here . . . Next time, I promise not to make you wait so long for the drawing!

Next, A Sea of Books is the stunned recipient of 2 blog awards. That's right, I'm not even steady on my blog legs yet, and 3 people have been kind enough to bestow these honors on my work. Since I'm so new, I'm going to consider these awards to be votes of confidence, and I hope that over the next weeks and months we'll all come to believe that I've truly earned and deserve the recognition.

Allison of Allison's Attic and Wanda of A Season to Read were both so sweet to award me with the One Lovely Blog Award. Actually, I'll be making improvements to the design of this blog for a long time to come, but I accept this award in the spirit it was given. Thank you, ladies. Your blogs are lovely, too!

Jessica Marie from Books Love Jessica Marie was kooky enough to bestow upon me the Zombie Chicken Award. The standards for receiving this distinctive award include the ability to "regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words." Well, that's my plan. I think it'll be obvious if I let you down. Thank you, Jessica!

And then, as if receiving awards didn't make me giddy enough, a real honest-to-goodness author stopped by and left a comment on my Waiting on Wednesday post about her forthcoming book. My first author visit! No names here, but you can still check out the post if you just have to know . . .

And finally, what it's all about -- I did get quite a bit of reading done while I was trapped in bed, so I'll be playing ketchup with book reviews, too. Over the next few days, you can look forward to my thoughts on the following:

THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE by Alan Bradley

NORTH OF MONTANA by April Smith

RUBY THE COPYCAT by Margaret Rathmann

O.K. I think I've squeezed out all the ketchup. Anyone have any Grey Poupon?