Getting in under the wire

August 31, 2007 Bookstores,Lists,sometimes I ramble

I’ve decided that September is going to be a no book buying month.  Which meant, of course, that I had to go book shopping today. lol Even though I have *plenty* on my shelves that require reading it’s never enough is it? Although as the very nice man at the secondhand bookstore said, at least books retain value (if you can ever get yourself to part with with them).

First stop was Odyssey Books.  This is one of my two “usual” secondhand bookstores in Montreal (the other, being the good little McGill student that I was, is The Word and from what I can tell they do not have a website).

Purchases:

1. Balancing Act: A Canadian Woman’s Financial Success Guide by Joanne Thomas Yaccato.  I reviewed the anniversary edition of this last year. I bought a slightly older edition but I’m not concerned about there being a big difference. It’s the first time I’ve seen a copy of it in a secondhand store so I jumped on it.  The man at the bookstore said he just received it a few days ago when I told him I was happy to have a copy.
2. The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton.  A sort of must have in terms of personal finance books. Was not the first that I read but one that I appreciated. Again the version I have is slightly older than the link but again, it’s for reference so I’m not worried. At this point the man in the bookstore (whom at this rate needs a nickname…I’m going to guess from the website that his name is actually Bernard) asked if I was planning to become wealthy and my response was that I’d have to stop buying books first.
3. Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen by Kate Taylor. I know there were a number of people writing about this a year or two ago and I’ve always kind of wanted to read it.
4. The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell.  I had no idea I wanted to read about the Mitford family until I picked up this book.  Isn’t it funny how that happens in bookstores?
5. Undercover: The men and women of the SOE by Patrick Howarth.  Ah what can I say? Over the last couple of years I’ve become really interested in the women who worked as spies (and the women who were at Bletchley Park) but do you have any idea how difficult it can be to find books about them in Canada? So I’ll take them where I can get them.

And then right across the street from Odyssey Books is ye locale Chapters. Sigh. What’s a girl to do but buy more books?

1. The Foundling by Georgette Heyer. A friend just sent me a couple of Heyer’s novels as a housewarming gift. I finished one yesterday and started another today and I’m afraid they are going to be come a bit of an obsession.   (OH DRAT IT! While looking for that link I found there were a bunch of her novels in the bargain books. I can resist anything but the combination of temptation at a bargain! But I will resist!)
2. Avalon High: Coronation by Meg Cabot.  The sales person and I had a heck of a time finding this. The computer kept telling her there were two copies in stock and it took us 15 minutes to find them.  Thank you wonderful children’s floor employee.  No thank you to the adult male who had planted himself in front of the graphic novels with his coffee and refused to move out of our damned way even though it was clear that he wasn’t buying anything and was just reading. Hmph!
3. The 100-Mile Diet: A year of local eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon.  I’ve been wrestling with whether or not to buy this one or not. I’ve very interested in the “Eat Local” movement and I’m all for supporting local farmers. But I also am not about to give up pancetta or buffalo mozzarella or, you know, WINE.  I clearly decided to buy it mostly because I was tired of my inner voice debating whether to buy it or not.  I figure it will pair nicely with Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral which I also own and have not read.

Which brings me to something I’ve been realizing. I find that I’m almost organizing my reading into units of study. I have my military/war history books (with their various subsets).  I have my YA (and its various subsets). I have the personal finance reference books. I have the writing books that I’ve recently started collecting. I have my burlesque books.  I almost feel like I need to start organizing my books by topic instead of how right now they are largely arranged by “read” and “not read”.

Also have you noticed that there seems to be a trend of doing something for a year and then writing about it? Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping (and I’m still so very glad I didn’t),  A Year Without Made in China, The 100-Mile Diet… I’m sure there are others but those are the ones that are just popping out of my head. Plus then there’s Brotherhood 2.0 (Caution: Addictive! Go Nerdfighters!). I find it interesting. And I suppose I’m going a year without eating at McDonald’s (probably longer) but that’s neither interesting nor writing worthy (and the only reason it’s stuck is because I haven’t been hear a McDonald’s after drinking cause that tends to be when I’m at my weakest in terms of Big Mac cravings).

Ok, that’s it.  No more purchase updates until October!  And no, before anyone suggests it, I could NOT go a year without buying books.

Happy Blog Day

Blogs

Hey hey! I’m still here! I’ve just been hiding on patios drinking sangria and going to Ottawa to meet with work people (yes on my vacation) and bribing my coworkers with homemade jam and cigars.

But today is Blog Day! And on Blog Day you tell people about these wonderful new blogs you’ve discovered. And seeing as this is a book blog you would think that I would be talking about book blogs wouldn’t you? Yeah, well you’d be wrong!

Let’s get started!

1. ThreeSeven – Canadian! Gotta show my fellow Canadians some love don’t I? I gotta like someone who is on the hungover-must-have-poutine wagon.
2. Pioneer Woman Cooks – I *want* her kitchen. I think it’s almost bigger than my apartment and for those of you who have heard me ramble about it my new apartment ain’t small. Step-by-step photos, yummy recipes, and funny.
3. Cleaner Plate Club – Described as “one mother’s search for real food.” I’m all about the real food. Especially soup – I love making soup. When I was living in Toronto my closest grocery store was all about the HUGE boxes of overly processed CRAP. The post that earned it a permanent place in my feed reader? Friday Night Pizza – in high school a good friend’s family used to always do Friday night homemade pizza and it brought me back to one of the better memories of high school.
4. Boxing the Octopus – Writing. I like writing. I don’t have time to do it (read I don’t *make* time to do it) and I don’t think I’m very good at it but that doesn’t stop me from reading about how others do it. Are you a dabbler? (For the record I am not – I’m a lazy wannabee chickenshit, lol.)
5. 3 for 365 – Three good things every day, an exercise in positive thinking. Could you do it? Could you do it for a whole year?

Now go post your five and leave me a comment so I can go check them out.

Technorati tag: blog day

Updates

August 26, 2007 sometimes I ramble

Comments are now closed on posts up to the end of July.  Now I only have one whole other blog to do! One with lots of formatting issues. Yay!

I’m also been thinking that I’m going to have to reassess the A-Z challenge list since my library access is much more limited here.  There are some books on the list that I may need to replace with others.

I also need to come up with my list for the RIP II challenge.  I think I have a good start….

Austenland

August 25, 2007 Chick-Lit,Fiction,Recommend

I think I love Shannon Hale.

I’ll admit it, I was a bit skeptical. I mean I loved Shannon Hale’s young adult fiction but that didn’t necessarily mean that her writing would translate well to contemporary fiction…especially chick-lit. Especially Austen inspired chick-lit. I mean, it was called Austenland. It’s kind of a high order isn’t it?

I liked it. A lot.

Jane is well…Jane is a lot of people I know. Professionally successful, independent, her own woman. But when it comes to men? Pfft. Settling for less because she’s convinced the fantasy doesn’t exist, at least not for her. Her secret is her Pride and Prejudice DVDS (1995 with Colin Firth of course) which she keeps hidden out of sight. (Seriously??? Do women really hide them??? Why on earth for?) Her great-aunt discovers them and in her will leaves Jane a wee little inheritance of 3 weeks at Pembrooke Park – aka Austenland. She’ll spend three weeks in full Austen era gear, adhering to the social customs and rules of the time, all in the hope of either finding love or getting Mr. Darcy out of her system forever.

It could have not worked. It could have been a bad moved on Hale’s part. But it worked. Wonderfully. I laughed out loud multiple times. Actually if your promise not to tell someone (because it’s so very unladylike and un-Austen) – I guffawed.

While you don’t have to be an Austen fan to enjoy this it does add more depth to it. Austen characters and plots are frequently referenced.

I heartily recommend it.

Man, I’m loving being on vacation right now.

Technorati tags: austenland, Shannon Hale

Rises the Night

Fiction,Romance

I spent a lazy day today sitting on my butt reading Rises the Night and playing online. I left the apartment twice briefly today – once to go out and get sushi (when will I learn that the takeout sushi hear sucks and is wayyyyyyy overpriced?) and one to go feed my friend’s cat (and loot their movie collection). It’s positively dripping with humidity here and by the time I got up the hill after picking up the sushi I decided that I was going to stay inside with the a/c today where I could, you know, breathe.

Rises the Night picks up about a year after The Rest Falls Away. We find Victoria a bit older, and well…bored. She’s been playing the proper society role for the past year and is itching for some action. She finds it – both with the vampires and with the return of Sebastien Vioget. And then there is the mystery of what happened to Max.

I liked the Italian setting. There were unexpected twists and turns. It wasn’t predictable but didn’t leave you feeling like you were cheated at the end the way some unpredictable novels do.

A great way to spend a lazy Saturday.

Vacation plans

sometimes I ramble

Despite the fact that the other day I said that this vacation was planless I do have have plans.  They mostly involve me reading.

I have sooooooooooo many books that need to be read.  Aside from the pile I bought a few days ago I have oodles and oodles of yummy books on my shelves.  And even within that pile I want to make a dent. I want to read The Bermudez Triangle. And one of the Heyer’s. And on my shelves I really want to read Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. On my bedside tables I have The Ladies Lending Library and Their Hidden Lives. On my desk I have 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa. I have practically an entire bookcase of unread books.

I wonder how many books I’ll actually read this week? I mean I do have other things that I want to do to. Like go to the movies in the middle of the day during the week (I love doing that!).  And go to the market for fresh veggies and make yummy things to eat (ohhhhhhh maybe I’ll bake bread!). And oh yeah…possibly do some more unpacking and organizing and doing laundry.

And I’m thinking about getting a library card this week. And trolling some secondhand bookstores. Because I clearly don’t have enough to read!

But really, all of this kind of falls under the “whatever I feel like doing” category. I really plan to be as lazy as possible and rest and sleep and just chill.

And probably have lots of days like today where I look at the clock and wonder how the hell it got to be lunchtime!

Officially on vacation and other matters

August 24, 2007 Blogs

I am officially on vacation. I shut down my computer shortly after 4 and I’m done until September 4th! Woohoo! (Erm…unless I do a meeting in a nearby city next week…but that’s highly unlikely I think…)

I’ve had beer. I’ve read a book. Yep, vacation.  Technically the book was a re-read. One of the books I picked up yesterday at the bookstore was a paperback edition of Avalon High, which I read back in November.  I’m interested in getting the sequels to it which are actually graphic novels. I think it will work well as a graphic novel.

Also in the hours since I shut down I’ve been doing some blog maintenance. I’m getting tired for clearing out hundreds of spam every few days, most of which is caught by the filter but others sneak through, so I’ve been going through and shutting off comments on old posts. I hate to do this, really I do, but the spambots suck and I’m tired of living in Spamalot. As of right now all posts up to the end of August 2006 are closed to comments along with a few other posts here and there that I’ve noticed seem to be heavy spam targets.  Along the way I’ve been cleaning up some of the categories and some formatting issues. So should you ever be tiptoeing through the archives and happen on a old post that you absolutely MUST comment on let me know and I’ll temporarily open up comments on it.

I hope to do a lot of book reading this week.  In fact that’s my only expectation for this week aside from getting all the paperwork done for my new health card and driver’s license (sometimes moving provinces sucks). And if that goes well and they actually give me one of those…maybe, just maybe, I’ll be getting a library card.

Listen, I was having a really bad day ok?

August 23, 2007 Lists,Mount TBR

Photo is a bit blury because I took it with my camera phone.

The five on the bottom are:

Austenland by Shannon Hale
Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson
Avalon High by Meg Cabot
Tithe by Holly Black
Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason (Hi Colleen! *waves*)

I’ve had a rather stressful number of weeks of work and had a bit of a melt down this morning. One really, really nice thing about working from home is that you can have a melt down without anyone seeing! And then you can go take a really long shower and pull yourself back together. And one really nice thing about being back in Montreal is calling Cat and asking if she wants to do lunch. And then you can go eat crappy food court food and go to the dollar store and buy sequined devil horns and then go to the bookstore and blow your budget.

So that’s what I did. I blame it on whoever shelved Austenland.  It was supposed to be in the adult section. It wasn’t. So I decided to check the romance section and it wasn’t there but you know, G is right by H so I was reminded that I hadn’t picked up Colleen’s latest yet. And then Cat and I ended up wandering into the YA section and um…I found 3 books! And then I decided I wanted to look for one of Hale’s fantasy books because some of them are shelved in YA and Cat hasn’t read them and lookie there it was Austenland. So if Austenland had been shelved in the right place I wouldn’t have bought so many books.

Then when I got home my doorman (why do I always say “doorman” when there are like 5 of them because obviously the same person can’t work around the clock 7 days a week) had package for me.  The Georgette Heyer’s, The Grand Sophy and Venetia, that a coworker sent me as a housewarming gift!

It’s been a very bookish day.  Now I just have a wee bit of work to do and I’m going to shut down for the night and READ.

Um…so what do they do?

August 22, 2007 sometimes I ramble

One in Four Read No Books Last Year

One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn’t read any, the usual number read was seven.

I’m being very serious. I am not poking fun. I’m not making judgment on any of the non-readers. I seriously want to know – what do people do when they haven’t read a single book in a whole year?

I honestly can’t imagine not reading a single book for a whole entire year. I really, really can’t. It hasn’t happened since I learned how to read.  I can’t fathom not reading. I certainly do get that not everyone reads as much as I do. And I know that not everyone has the financial ability to buy as many books as I do.  I get that, I really, really do.  Especially the financial part. I remember when money was tight what a treat it was to buy a book, especially a new book.

But what do people do when they don’t read? TV? Computer? Video games? Work? Read magazines? Sports? School? Craft? Blog? Am I missing out on some really great activities?  I mean, I know I really ought to get out more (working from home turns you into a bit of a hermit…) but I’m pretty sure I haven’t isolated myself *that* much.

It confounds me. It really does.

More vampiness

Fantasy,Fiction

I seem to be heavy on the vamps lately.

I think I enjoyed The Good, the Bad and the Undead, the second book this series that I don’t know the name of by Kim Harrison more than the second one. Maybe I was in a better mood. Or maybe not. I think in the first one I felt like there was a lot of waiting and explanation time. This one had less of that…or at least it felt like to me.

Things I liked: ummm I still like Jenks. I liked the continuing story with Trent – actually I really did like the twist it took.

Things I disliked: evil Ivy, more demon (sick of the demon already), and I wanted to puke every time Nick called Rachel “Ray-Ray” (although I think Ivy could have gotten away with it…).

What I hated: the nightmares I had last night. lol It involved living vampires and doxy dropping dust (yes that part was very Harry Potterish, whatever…).