celticdragonfly

What the heck.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Turn to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal. Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

When Abney brought me here this morning, to consider what was to be done, I instantly perceived that you had been obliged, throughout the meal, to look at this creature; and, naturally, I realized that the spectacle of a ferocious beast, in the act of springing upon its prey, could not be thought conducive to conviviality, and might, indeed, be offensive to a person of sensibility.

From The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer.

I have not gotten caught up on my email post-sick.

I need to. One of my literary lists is having a group discussion on a book I like. I need to leap in and catch up.

I'm totally blocked on doing it.

Life's been a bit more chaotic than usual lately.

FenCon prep, what little of it there was. Coming down sick just before the con. Being sick afterwards, and dealing with sick kids. selenite's mom visiting, and having time with the grandkids. Etc. I'm hoping to have things settle down a BIT now, and get back to the rich online life I was having, interspersed with the busy local life. Which is getting busier - Wednesday nights at church are back up and going for the kids, Maggie has dance on Thursday, we've been entreated to start coming back to ORAC stuff, etc. And of course the sheer busy wonder that is baby Alanna.

Today I am tackling a goal I've had for some weeks. I've been checking LOTS of knitting books out from the library - many through Interlibrary Loan. (Which you can request ONLINE now, at least in my area. Bwahahaha. Dance, my puppets, DANCE!) I've been reading and sending some back, but have realized I ought to do better than that, and I want to write up little informal reviews of each of them. I will put them up here, but also in the Knitting Book Talk forum on Ravelry. Hopefully this will be a helpful resource for other knitters, and also useful for me to go back and read over and recall just WHERE that cool glove pattern was from, and such.

At some point after this is done, I'd like to get back to being online and actually getting to chat with people. That'd be nice... although everyone will have to be patient with me and my much-interrupted life. Nursing at the keyboard works better for reading than typing.

Ooooh! Mail just came. A BOX. For me. Sterzings I will have to find time later WITH NO KIDS. Mine mine MINE. They wouldn't properly appreciate them. Well. Maggie might. But it'd be a clear case of the Shrimp Principle[1], as discovered by my grandparents.

[1]They urged my dad rlseiver and my uncle to try shrimp. Got them to really like it. Then they realized - wait, now they needed to buy shrimp for 4, not 2. This caused budget problems.

I just vacuumed in the living room, so Karl went and sat in the library with Alanna in his arms. Maggie's wandered in there now.

Apparently she asked him about a book. I can hear him enthusiastically pitching Heinlein's Star Beast to her. Maybe I can get him to start reading SF to her.

I've been having some reminders recently of why I'm SO happy to have the church that I have.

The youth ministry is getting ready for their summer mission trip again. Our high schoolers do one every summer. I'm sure Maggie will be looking forward to it someday when she's older.

Now, lots of churches' idea of "mission trip" would involve knocking on doors and telling anyone that doesn't believe just as they do how wrong they are. Not our church. This year:

Where: Cairo, Illinois
Why: Cairo is a small impoverished community that is a victim of the deterioration of commerce and river industry. Approximately 33% of the population lives below the poverty line.
What: We will be working with a Kid’s Club, assisting with minor home repairs and partnering with a non-profit called Mission Build who works to create affordable housing for lower income families.

Now this I heavily approve of. Take care of people. Good.

What made it even better was the two pages in the most recent church newsletter. They're going to be reading to the kids, and trying to promote literacy and bookowning, and here's a list of books they'd like to get, new or gently used. A page of younger kid books, and a page of older ones - a lot of great classics, books I love. This is definitely a project I can get right behind. I'm a happy bookpusher with a good outlet.

We already had an extra copy of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, so that went off to the church. Yesterday I got by a Halfprice Books and picked up some more. A copy of The Secret Garden, a copy of A Wrinkle in Time, and a complete 8-volume set of the Anne of Green Gables series. We'll try to get those delivered to the church in the very near future.

Oh, the Narnia series was on the list, too. I didn't grab those, I figure with the recent movie that'll be a popular enough choice that someone else is quite likely to get it. But I'm pleased that while some church types might be arguing about censoring those books, ours will be reading them to kids and hooking them on a love a books with them!

You know, someday I really want to see a story in which a significant female character has nausea and/or vomiting, possibly when presented with breakfast, and then turns out to have the flu. But no. Especially if written by a male author, it's a Great Big Neon Sign, This Character Is Pregnant But Won't Realize It For A While.

I mean, come ON. It's so hackneyed. Maybe she just has food poisoning. Maybe she should think hey, am I pregnant? And then find out she's NOT. Maybe they should come up with something better, if they must have the foreshadowing. Come on. Not all pregnant women barf when breakfast is placed before them. Okay, I'm sick horribly when I am, but honestly, brushing my teeth is more likely to set off the vomiting first, and then actually breakfast might be a good thing.

At least some of the female authors I've read do a better job of the various possible symptoms that can herald early pregnancy. Like a recent Bujold book, in which she used a combination of feeling sick, major fatigue, and hunger. Oh yes, that rang very true.

I *NEED* a good ebook reader. Really really really.

I've been reading stuff from one of my Baen CDs - the ones that come in the back of new hardbacks and will have the whole previous SERIES in them, and more - on the computer, and enjoying it. Transferring another one to the computer now. And yes, right now I'm in the recliner mostly horizontal anyway, so it's not much harder to crane my neck to the monitor than it would be to use an ebook, and sure, I can knit easier that way (I need a way to page down that doesn't require hands, darn it) - but I WANT these on ebook, and it'll be way more convenient in the long run.

These guys are working on it, yes. But I want it SOOOOON - going to drop them another email and ask what's up with the news.

(And why does LJ not have an "impatient" mood icon? Don't they know me at all?)

Oh COOL! I get to review another book through the Harper Collins ARC people. Just got the email notification that it's on its way. This one is The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory by J. M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page. Sounded interesting, and hey, more books, throw me in the briar patch.

For some time now I've seen various bits online with people praising His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. Right, something about it being Patrick O'Brien with dragons, okay. Vaguely interesting concept, and yes, I'd tried Patrick O'Brien before, interesting time period, some charm, but oh my the writing got so terribly turgid, and trying to keep track of sailing details got to be too much to me. So I didn't think terribly much more about it.

Then recently I was trying to come up with other things to give my beloved Karl for Christmas, and went through his Amazon wishlists. It was on there, along with several other SF books that I thought likely to actually be in a local store - so I'd copied out the list, and went shopping. I got him that, and a Niven book.

Shortly after that, there was a figurative loud sucking noise, and Karl disappeared into the book. In a "wait, didn't I have a husband?" kind of way. Friday evening he made a point of making sure we got into a bookstore, before they closed, after our early New Year's Eve dinner out, and got himself the 2nd book, Throne of Jade. After he'd clearly liked the first, I'd offered to get him the 2nd for his birthday - and when he had it in hand, he tentatively offered to let me wrap it and hold it for his birthday - but he clearly did not want to wait. Saturday there was an even louder figurative sucking noise, and I totally lost Karl. Despite earlier promises about getting up early to bathe kids before church - he was up most the night, and I ended up going alone and rather miffed.

In curiosity, I'd picked up the 2nd book where he'd left it, and read a page or two - seemed rather interesting. Yet I realized I was quite reluctant to read the first one myself - expecting it to have the dreadfully turgid style of O'Brien. I mentioned this to Karl, and he assured me it was not so, and made encouraging sounds about me reading it. So I picked it up earlier today.

There was a loud sucking sound. I had Karl come up later - after I'd *finally* put it down just long enough for an overdue quick shower, and explained that aha, now I understood. I'm into the second book now. Clearly we're going to have to go buy the third book shortly. I expect Karl will get dibs.

Last night we'd tucked the kids into bed as usual - then when I came upstairs later to go to bed myself, I went to check on them as I often do.
( Maggie asleep )
I wasn't surprised to find Rorik on Maggie's bed - he often sleeps there, and will raise his head and give me a LOOK if I come in, usually with a few catly words that I think translate as "she's sleeping, don't disturb her". And he'd curled up on her pillow when I put her to bed.

But that wasn't why I was so charmed and had to take the picture! I'm so proud - that's our girl. Fell asleep 'reading' her book. Karl says "when she can read, she'll be ready for it."

Books read this year so far - 98. Looks like only 11 of them are nonfiction, and one of those was a reread. (and a few of the new ones were, honestly, pretty fluffy) Last year's nonfiction was 28%. And a lot of those were big chunky books, as I got caught up on whatever Research Subject Du Jour had caught my attention.

For that matter, this year's fiction has been pretty fluffy. I'm not all bothered by that as I would once have been - heck with it, I do not have to justify everything. If I'm enjoying it, that's good enough for me. And it's been a busier social year than in the past. Whee.

I have had good luck lately with some odd recommendations - mostly nothing personal, stuff I see mentioned on the Bujold list or stuff I see as a side effect of searching for something else. But now I'm going to downright ask.

What books can you recommend to me? Particularly interesting nonfiction. If you really want to be nice to me, go here
http://www.fortworthgov.org/library/ and toss whatever you think I might like into Search the Catalog over there on the left. If the system has it, I may be able to check it out. (I can check out books from the actual branches with my nonresident card, but not from the associated cities)

If you want to see what I've been reading this year so far, look at my journal page - I went ahead and left this year's list public, but lj-cut.

Links that currently amuse me.

A good post with info on Ebooks

And let me always enthusiastically pimp for Baen Books, as mentioned in the post, bookpushers extraordinaire, ebook supplier, and source for the Baen Free Library.

A filk song I was sent a while back and finally listened to - well, the lyrics anyway
http://www.bsutton.com/Brenda/music/lyrics/costumers_lament.htm

A song I found today and like a lot
http://www.autographedcat.com/songs/keep_you_closer.html

In fact the whole collection is worth going through, as I'm doing bit by bit
http://www.autographedcat.com/songs/

And can anybody tell me anything about a comic book character called "the goddess dawn"?

Bit of a book review and author review here. Back last November I came across the book A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer. I can't remember what directed me to it. Possibly a mention on the Bujold list, possibly it popped up on Amazon recommendations? I don't recall. In any case, I took it out from the library.

I read it and enjoyed it VERY much. Catherine Asaro's review of Wen Spencer is "Don't plan on getting anything else done if you start a Wen Spencer novel; they are exceedingly hard to put down!" She's RIGHT. It grabbed me. I enjoyed it, and I told Karl about it, and shortly after that I was requesting it from the library again for him, and he enjoyed it, too.

That book is a standalone, not part of a series. She's written the Ukiah Oregon series, but from the couple-of-word descriptions I'd seen, that didn't sound as interesting. I finally figured what the heck, and requested the first one, Alien Taste, from the library. I just finished it yesterday.

It gets hard to explain why I'm liking these books so much. I think the best description is that she writes characters that really grab me, and I really want to know more about them and find out more of what happens to them. I regularly say that good characters and character development are the most important thing to me in good stories.

Alien Taste was published in 2001 (for comparison, A Brother's Price was published in 2005), and from what I can see on Wen Spencer's wikipedia entry, it looks to be her first published book. And it does have first-book, new-author problems. Partway through a main character believes and accepts things about the main character, too quickly and too easily, IMO. The pacing in the book shifts abruptly - which can be okay, but it felt rushed and I noticed it. There were some continuity issues, I guess that's the best phrase for it. Nonetheless, it was a good read. [1] Just as the other book, the characters grabbed me and I didn't want to stop reading it. I've set it aside for Karl, and requested the rest of the series from the library.

The other book by her that I have from the library at the moment is Tinker. It's not part of that series, it seems to be the start of a new series. [2] The next book comes out in summer 2006.

Here I go again. I'm quite sure that yes, I could put this book down for days if I had to. Well, hours anyway. It's just that I don't *want* to. The fact that after I got gas this afternoon I came down Camp Bowie with all the stoplights, rather than cutting back up Bryant Irving to immediately get back on the freeway was due to a desire for something different, and had nothing to do with reading a few more paragraphs whenever I was stuck at a stoplight. Right?

I started it at lunch. I'm 62 pages in. Check back with me for further opinions when I come up for air. Whenever that is.

Anyway, if you enjoy good character-driven stories, you might want to check out Wen Spencer.



[1](Hm, Alien Taste also won the Compton Crook award, which I'd never heard of before, which is for the "best first novel of the year in the field of Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror by the members of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc,")

[2]Tinker was the winner of 2003 Campbell award (best new writer), and won 1st place (novel) 2004 Sapphire Awards for the Best Science Fiction Romance, according to the wikipedia entry. I can see why.

We must be careful. The way the Fort Worth library marks the Exciting New Books, that you have to bring back in a shorter time period, is to mark the lower spine with a colored star.

Yes, as those who helped with the Great Gallagher Libray Cataloging know, exactly like the ones we use to mark our fiction collection as being ours and having been cataloged.

Well, we'll just have to be careful, that's all.

Well, I've just plunged through the seven main Liaden books. Chapbooks, I'm gonna need chapbooks. Right now I'm wondering if I can talk Karl into preordering the hardback version of the collection of Liaden chapbook stories. (Everyone's heard my rant about trade paperbacks, right? Thought so) Maybe if I do the big wide cute eyes thing at him.

I have two Taltos books left. Well, one and a half. And a couple library books, one the first of a series by a forensic anthropologist, the one that's getting a series this fall. (Something to make me actually want to see TV. Pity, I can't.) Hm, I realize I've been putting that one off. I wonder why?

Oh, wait, I also have the play version of Busman's Honeymoon. Which I need time to read, WITHOUT the kids around, because it is delicate and fragile, and then I have to mail it back. Given that most of my reading time these days is while eating, in the bathroom, or with a kid climbing over me, I don't dare. selenite, honey, help me remember to carve out cave time JUST for that book.

The local library doesn't have the Crystal Soldier Liaden book, or Balance of Trade, although the latter is apparently on order. Just not requestable yet.

Then I'm going to need to find MORE! Or start doing more rereading. I've been doing such a good rate of NEW books this year, I hate to lose momentum. Maybe I'll love the books by the forensic anthro lady. I wonder why I'm putting that one off?

I have to go drop off books at the library today and I don't have anything to pick up. Feels a bit distressing.

Okay, I think I'm a Liaden convert.

I'd heard about this series many times, mostly from Bujold listees, but hadn't read it. At cons, I would see bookdealers with confusing piles of "chapbooks" and various books, and never could figure out where to start. So a while back another listee sent me a package of the first two books to start with. Then he emailed me to wait, the Liaden list wanted to see what a new reader's reaction would be to start with this other, newly-published book first. Would I be willing? I said sure, did they want me to? And emailed back a few times, and never heard.

So finally when looking for reading to take to Conestoga, not wanting to take a library book or something fragile that was loaned to me, I said to heck with it and opened the package. By this time I'd forgotten which order I was supposed to read them in, and just started with Conflicts of Honor. When I came home and dug out the Liaden webpage I found out oops, I should have started with Agent of Change. I don't think it hurt anything so, and probably just as well. Conflicts of Honor grabbed me right away. When I got to Agent of Change, the beginning of it did NOT grab me, I didn't like it, but I stuck with it a little longer and got caught up. I still like Conflicts of Honor better.

So I did the best I could to navigate the Liaden webpage and figure out what to do next. They have titles listed under various publishers, and a list of order to read - except several titles aren't on it, I guess maybe they're all multi-book reprints? And I'm still quite confused by the chapbook thing.

Anyway, the library is holding for me Partners in Necessity - which I think is the two I already read PLUS the next one - and Pilot's Choice, which is apparently two prequel books. I'm still waiting for them to get Plan B on hold. Then I'll figure out where to go next.

Did I mention that the library's new online catalog webpages are back UP? Now that they actually have it up and running, I find I approve of the change. It isn't radically different from the old system, a bit easier to use, and has some nice new options. So good. (None of this helps me not having a car today, but perhaps after all today's craziness is over, we can go by there in the evening.)

I have handed Agent of Change over to selenite, although he's making noises about finishing those library books I got him first. I have 2 1/2 unread library books myself, but we'll see if I get to those or not.

A discussion of book cataloging software has come around on the Bujold list once again. And once again I'm seriously considering it.

Dear flist, do any of you have experience with Readerware that you'd like to discuss?

If I get it, I will not be using the barcode scanners, even though they'll give me a cheapy one free. Those you have to carry all the books over to the computer. There are wireless versions of the scanner, but I don't have that kind of $ to toss around. So it would involve me sitting at the keyboard and selenite or other victims assistants standing in the library and reading ISBNs out to me.