I’m going to go out on a limb and make a little assumption right now about you. Yes, you- the person sitting on the other side of the Internet from me in this post. I feel very confident in declaring you to be an avid reader, a lover of words, possibly even a person who at one point in life was labeled a bookworm. My guess is that you can relate to the feeling that occurs when the last pages of a compelling book are flipped and the desire to talk about the story takes over. Have you ever been reading and had the need to say to a person nearby, “You’ve just got to listen to this!” Have you ever tried to slyly peek at the covers of books in strangers’ hands just to see what they’re reading, on the off-chance that you have something in common? Could you, right now, call to mind a book, a poem, or a short story that affected you long after you placed it back on the shelf?
If I haven’t been too bold with my assumptions here, then trust me when I say that a new website launched by SONY called Words Move Me is right up your alley. The tagline states their mission: Connecting readers around the literary moments they love. If you think along the lines of social networking for book lovers, you’ll start to get the right idea. After registering and setting up your profile for the site, you can share the ‘literary moments’ that are meaningful to you, in 255 characters or less, tagging them with the book title and author’s name. You also have the ability to tag your entries with up to three emotions that you associate with each particular submission, giving another level of searchability to the site.
My personal experience with the Words Move Me site has been interesting and thought-provoking, from both the perspective of a submitter and a reader. I’ve searched for other users’ moments about books that I hold dear in my heart, and I’ve enjoyed seeing the very wide variety of emotions that have been used as tags. It’s eye-opening to see how so many other people out there have been affected by the power of stories. As I began to ponder what to submit myself, there were some immediate books that leaped to the forefront of my thoughts, undoubtedly the books that have made the biggest impressions on me. My submissions number a total of nine (so far, that is!), and you can see what I have to say in just a few words about some of my favorite literary moments right here in this handy-dandy widget of my Words Move Me profile. (Click on the ‘pages’ on the sides to navigate through my entries.)
Now, as with every new social media site out there, the larger the group, the richer the experience for everyone involved! So, I encourage you to check out the site and register for your own profile, so you can begin submitting the literary moments that mean the most to you.
In their effort to promote the Words Move Me site, SONY is generously offering a fantastic addition to our Gift Guide & Giveaway. In the spirit of full disclosure- for reviewing the site and sharing this promotion, I’ll tell you that I will be receiving a SONY Reader Pocket Edition (TM), valued at $199.99, but the best part is that SONY is offering an additional SONY Reader Pocket Edition (TM) for one of you lucky 5 Minutes for Books readers! (I’m so excited, so please forgive me my infomercial voice!)
Here’s the info that you need to know to enter this fabulous Gift Guide and Giveaway contest. It’s a little different for this giveaway, so please keep reading:
1. Leave a comment on this post describing a ‘literary moment’ of your own around a book that you’ve either given or received as a gift by describing what makes this book special to you.
2. One entry per person, U.S. addresses only, please.
3. No purchase necessary to enter or win. Odds of winning are not increased by a purchase.
4. All entries will be read and reviewed by Jennifer and me, and we will assemble a list of our top ten favorites based on originality and content. A winner will be randomly selected from those ten entries.
5. The giveaway will close at 9:00 pm (EST) on Friday, 12/11, with the winners announced in a special post on Monday, 12/14. Please watch your email and check the site for your name, so that we can collect your shipping information!
6. My hope is that there will be enough time to get the SONY Reader Pocket Edition (TM) shipped to the winner before the holidays, but if it’s a few days later, it can always be considered a New Year’s gift, too!
So, start thinking like the avid readers that you are, and we can’t wait to hear all about your own special literary moments! Don’t forget to visit Words Move Me to experience a new interactive book lovers community.
This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to everyone who shared their wonderful literary moments!!
Dawn loves any opportunity she can get to talk (or type) about the books that live forever in her heart and mind. Life, as she knows it, is chronicled on her blog, my thoughts exactly.
I’ve give the book “Stargirl” as a gift to my sister and two of my best friends. The book is about a young girl labeled as “weird” and strange, so obviously all the “normal” kids at school do nothing but put her down and push her away. But one boy was brave enough to break through and get to be friends with her and she brought out all the best in him. She may have been different from everyone else, but that’s what made her great. I love Stargirl and thank Jerry Spinelli for writing it. I think it can change young girls lives, if only they would all read it.
Thanks for the giveaway!
My daughter loves to read and is 11. She reads all the time.
*Oh, The Places you will go* by dr. seuss… I give it as a gift for anyone graduating high school or college and as a baby shower gift!! The book is just amazing!! I love the language and expressions used telling about all the things one can do in life!!
I was gifted a book entitled “The Highly Selective Dictionary For the Extraordinarily Literate” by Eugene Ehrlich, for my 21st birthday.
I found it to be (and still is) one of my most favorite books and a constant companion whenever I have a moment or two to spare. I enjoy it so much as it opened up an entirely new experience of words that I never new existed before. There are so many wonderful ways to describe things, and I found that it brought me closer with the world around me; I was better able to more closely experience it now that I knew how better to describe it 😀
I have truly enjoyed reading all these comments. I think I will join the new site you talked about and thank-you for sharing it.
I don’t remember at what age I read “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn,” but I do remember it as a turning point in my life. It was the first thick(in my eyes) book I had borrowed from the library. I fell in love with reading and the library because that book moved me so much.
This is a great giveaway, thanks!
OOOOOOOOOOOOps I forgot to mention that I give “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” as a gift as often as I can. Hoping it touches others the way it touched me. Please combine my comments into one. Thanks!
i have many books that have special meaning through he years hard to pick one I was at Barnes and Noble a few yrs ago and came across a cop of A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN use but in very good condition it is special to me as it reminds us to never give up hope i also have a 1955 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook it was my late Moms and i treasure it
The Secret Garden has very special meaning to me. I remember my dad reading it to me as a child and the sense of accomplishment I felt when I was finally able to read it by myself. I look forward to sharing this classic with my daughter.
This would be a great present for my teenaged daughter
I had to read the OUITSIDERs in grade school, ended up reading it 6 times. Nothing effected me the same way since
I have read the Little House on the Prairie books from cover to cover countless times, and my husband also is a huge Ingalls Wilder fan. Her books have had a tremendous impact on my homemaking…I do many things from scratch, and I have a profound appreciation for how hard they had it in those days, and how blessed I am in my life.
When I was 7 or 8 years old,my Mom and I took turns reading The Secret Garden to each other.I had always liked books but that was my’literary moment’.The book really came alive for me and I couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter.I was sad when we finished the story.I wanted to start it again.I don’t remember the book that we read next,but I will always remember the book Secret Garden,the one that really started my love for reading:)
When i was eight i read my first novel; Helen Keller, and completely fell in love with the book. that is also when i discovered that i love to read.
My literary moment came after my daughter died and I realize that I could connect with authors or characters in the books I was reading. I was able to begin to heal.
My literary gift came from my sister years ago when she introduced me that “Anne girl” – Anne of Green Gables.
It was 1984. I was 14. She was 12 – still young enough to inscribe inside the front cover:
To Nikki, “84” Luv Toby and Fluffy
I read that now and it strikes me as silly. Our dog and cat, giving me a book! I’m sure it made perfect sense back then, when our pets were natural members of the family, capable of giving gifts (with the help of a 12 year old girl.)
Yet I think Anne and her author would approve. Such imagination, don’t you think?
Anne of Green Gables went on to be one of my all-time favorite books. My copy is treasured to this day, not only because I love Anne so, but because my sister gave it to me with love.
And with a little help from Toby and Fluffy.
🙂
I always get such joy out of reading a great book then handing it over to my mother to read. These are the wonderful moments for us. I love to read Jane Goodall’s books. The books are wonderful. For someone to commit their whole life on helping animals and improving the lives of people is amazing.
My favorite book is the secret. I have never read a book that has changed my life so tremendously as this book has , just relizing a confermation of what I somehow already new about life , was healing and thought provoking.and I have felt a lightness and burst of energy about my life ever since. this will always be my favorite book! thanks for the contest!
To Kill a Mockingbird was one book that really moved me
A ‘literary moment’ of my own would be giving my son his first bible
A ‘literary moment’ for me is when out of the blue, without warning, my sight suddenly becomes blurry and tears are falling down my cheeks. The book that I am reading moves me, literally moves me to tears.
Not myself, but my 16 year old daughter LOVES to read….i really love to watch her read because she just gets so involved in books…she asks for books as gifts. She is getting ready for college and a e-reader would be the perfect gift for her….thanks
i lent a few books to my friend and now he can’t get enough, he’s devouring my collection
My favorite books are The Little House on the Praire series and Luanne Rice’s books.
When I was little my mom would read me countdown to christmas books and when I got older I started reading them to her.
Every year my Grandma used to give my mom a Danielle Steele book. Now that I’m all grown up every year my mom gets me a Danielle Steele book! She’s always been our special author!
I love Harry Potter because it reminds me of my childhood. I have been reading them since I was 7 years old.
My favorite books are a series of Chinese novels by Mr. Louis Cha, such as The Legend of Condor Heroes, The Return of the Condor Heroes, and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber (we call it Condor Trilogy).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condor_Trilogy
I read them over 30 times. Every time I read I relive the story again. Now I have to go to local libraries in MA because I gave up all books when I moved to here. SAD!!!
When my family and I went to Taiwan last year, we stopped by a bookstore and my sister want to buy me the whole series as a gift. I struggled like 20 minutes but at the end I turned it down because my suitcase was overloaded already. Anyhow, it was an amazing moment and I will remember it for the rest of my life.
I will be really thrilled if all series can be read on ereader!
The Great Santini was probably the first book I remember reading that was such an emotional punch in the gut. I remember that after I got over the emotions evoked by the book, that I was amazed that this..a book.. could do that.
A friend of mine gave me Kresley Cole’s A Hunger Like No Other as a gift and I thought I was going to absolutely hate it. To my surprise, I not only love it, it continues to be one of my favorite books ever.
My best literary moment was reading the last page of the last Harry Potter book. Thanks for the chance.
[email protected]
The best literary Moments are when a person can relate to and/or apply the authors words to their own life. I remember reading The Giving Tree to my little one and she said that I was her “Giving Tree.”
i had read survival books before like hatchet and Robinson Crusoe but in the 10th grade i had to reread Huck fin and i ended up reading an entire line of books like treasure island, Robinson crusoe, mysterious island, hatchet etc just all books on going out to sea and find island. i had it in my mind that is what i wanted to do….retire to an island in the caribean at 26 and just stay there for the rest of my life. even got some blueprints of U-boat and redesigned it so it would be my personal yacht/submarine.
now i am a bit more realistic about it but it is still my plan in my early 50’s =)
I received a copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” from my eighth grade teacher. I still have and treasure it.
chrisny2(at) aol (dot) com
My favorite literary moments were perhaps when I took courses in Children’s Literature and had the opportunity to revisit some of the books I enjoyed in childhood through “new eyes.”
Last year my son-in-law gave me Stephen King’s Secretary of Dreams book for Christmas. It is special to me because I am a huge, longtime Stephen King fan and the book is very limited. I can’t believe how much my SIL spent on that book. But it meant the world to me that he bought me something that I really wanted but couldn’t afford.
I read a book every 2-3 days and they vary to all sections of literature. I also read a chapter of Scripture every day and this is what fuels my day and keeps me going.
“A Woman’s Worth” by Marianne Williamson changed my life and my relationship with myself when I read it in my early 20s.
When I started high school (7th grade in our district), my homeroom teacher was also an English teacher. To help homeroom pass by more pleasantly, I asked if I could read a book on her shelf titled, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I am so thankful I did. I never had the opportunity to read it as an assignment, and it was the first, of many readings. (Actually I am listening to it on CD right now.) Though I loved to read, I had not been encouraged to read “classics.” After high school, I purchased the book for myself, not having access to it in homeroom any more. The story moves me each time I read it.
(This is a great question. I really enjoyed reading others’ comments. Thanks!)
I read a lot of books that have affected me. The bible is the one that affected me the most. The bible has given me light in times of darkness.
I used to love reading the Little house on the prairie books growing up. I would always sit and imagine growing up in that time period and traveling with the wagon train. Those books really started my love for reading. =)
my husband & I couldn’t decide on a name for our 2nd daughter… so we named her after a character from our favorite book/series, The Belgariod… funny how all our daughters are avid readers, but only 2 of the 3 liked this series… namesake couldn’t get past the 3rd chapter… 😉 You figure it out… lol
My favorite literary moment was reading Walt Witman poetry to my son…
I think a book called Green Mansions really inspired me. An obscure classic I share with as many people as I can.
I still have a very vivid memory of being in second grade, walking up to the bookshelf in my classroom and choosing a book to read, called “Little House on the Prairie”. I’d never heard of it before and I fell immediately in love. Last year, when my oldest daughter was in second grade, I gave her my copy of “Little House in the Big Woods” so she could start to enjoy the Little House books as well. 🙂
My favorite literary moment was when, as a fourth grader, I realized heartfelt satisfaction with story-told that was well worth struggling through pages after page of thick Scottish dialect in the book Lassie Come Home.
I would have to say that I have been literary my whole life. My father used to call me a book worm and that I always had my nose in a book. I can say that I am still like that today! All these years later and books still as important to me as they were then; maybe even more important. Now I get to share my love for reading to my son. Just last night we read Dora goes to the Carnival. He was excited. I am glad to know that I will have an influence on another generation and pass along the love of reading. Anyone that I speak with I also tell them my love of reading and speak of the new books that I am reading. I subscribe to about 15 magazines as well. On top of college I have read 30 books in the last 10 months. I can always make the time to read.
sign me up
An Ayn Rand book signed with a little inspirational passage by a co-worker before I left a job.
When I was 11 my dad gave me Agatha Christie’s “And Then there Were None”. I was already an avid reader, but this set me on my lifelong love of mysteries. I still have that Agatha Christie book and re-read it occasionally.
I’ve always loved books. But my moment was when my two year old, whom I read to every night, picked up Green Eggs and Ham and started “reading” it to me. I’ve passed on my love and I couldn’t be happier.
I’ve been a big reader my whole life but due to school have slowly cut down how much I read per year. A series I have read from the beginning is the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. The books are geared towards a teen audience so I hadn’t read the latest one. My friend who knew I had loved them gave me a copy of the newest one, Intensely Alice, for my birthday. I read the book and cried as one of the characters died, realizing that I could never not finish the series because I had grown up with these fictional people. Reviews online complained the book was predictable, but to someone who has a connection to the characters it is overwhelming with emotions. It really showed me how much of a connection there is between what I read and how I feel. It also showed me that there is never an age where the content of a book geared for a younger age can’t move you. thanks for this amazing giveaway!