It's official!  The first Mystery Read-A-Thon of 2010 will take place on January 16 to January 17 with the goal being to read strictly mysteries during those two days.  I have so many mystery novels on my TBR it's daunting so this should give me a chance to start moving circulation.  Really, the only thing I can seriously see hindering my reading is the Golden Globe Awards, and it's always a mystery who will commit fashion suicide!

Right now, I'm consciously watching what I eat. I don't believe in dieting, but I know how to watch "how much" I eat and "when". This used to be a habit, like karate five times a week, but after kids, well, I slipped. My pants got too tight and I felt blechy. Funny thing was, once I made the decision, I wanted results now. It bugged me that after a few days of being dedicated, my jeans were *still* too tight and I didn't want to wear my baggy sweaters even one more time. Ridiculous, I know – but there's nothing quite as frustrating as doing something difficult and not seeing at least a little bit of change in order to encourage me to keep going. Sometimes, I wear larger pants just to remind myself, tangibly, what success feels like. I like the immediate satisfaction of a loose pair of pants.

This is a lot like publishing.

Once I made the decision to become a published author of my dreams, I wanted it now (and, for the most part, pretty much got that. If we disregard the first 20 years of noodling around...) and once I got an offer in hand, I wanted to see my book in print now. Or get the ARC now. Or the copy edits now. Or my editor's letter now. Or my publishing date...

You get the picture.

But it doesn't happen "now" (and doesn't happen at all if you don't start and stick with it). It takes time, a looooong time! An excruciating, frustratingly nebulous, torturous amount of time. It is a million little baby steps out of a million different conscious decisions that may have no immediately measurable results until you look back and see how far you've come. It takes years. No one really knows how long. It can be frustrating doing everything I can to be a "good writer": writing every day, reading lots, joining groups, going to conferences, learning, investing, working on websites and trailers and marketing ideas and following up on leads and contacts and new ideas...and have nothing solid to show for it. Nothing to point to and say "Look! See that? That is *concrete evidence* that what I'm doing is working. This will get results!" And, without a tardis, I can't make the time go faster.

What I really want is a loose pair of publishing pants; something that reminds me that I'm doing it and if I keep this up, I will eventually get results. I will reach my goal.

Am I anywhere closer to publishing a novel? I sincerely *hope* so – this has been a major investment in time, money & head-space! But the only thing I can do is keep going for me because this is what I want to do. It takes dedication and a whole boatload of patience (and if there is ONE thing I've learned so far is having more patience!); one day at a time, every hour that I can spare, during naps or late nights or early mornings or between appointments – I make it happen and it's hard. Like putting down the fork. Like drinking 64 oz. of water. Like not grabbing a piece of bread just 'cuz it's there. One more good decision. One more baby step.

I'm sitting, Butt In Chair, in a loose pair of pants.

Hey Daddle Daddle
by Jim C. Hines

Hey daddle daddle, the cat went to battle
the werecow beneath the moon.
The zombie dog drooled to see such flesh,
and ate the cat’s brain with a spoon.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

India Foxtrot Yankee Oscar Uniform Charlie Alpha November Uniform November Delta Echo Romeo Sierra Tango Alpha November Delta Tango Hotel India Sierra, Charlie Oscar Papa Yankee Alpha November Delta Papa Alpha Sierra Tango Echo India Tango Tango Oscar Yankee Oscar Uniform Romeo Lima India Victor Echo Juliet Oscar Uniform Romeo November Alpha Lima.

The fake-cuts lead to the reviews and details :)

I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago by Hape Kerkeling
Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
Angle of Impact by Bonnie MacDougal
Already Dead by Charlie Huston
Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry
Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett
Nemesis by Agatha Christie
The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Atlantis by David Gibbins
The Red House Mystery by A.A.Milne - Spoiler-Alert!


Cross-posted like crazy, i.e. to 50bookchallenge & bookshare.

It's Complicated was what I like to call an exercise in horror, with Alec Baldwin being rotund, and hairy, and half naked a lot of the time.

I spent a lot of the movie cringing — it probably wasn't all that bad, but 20-somethings are surely not their target audience (except for that group that cackled the whole way through it. I almost thought they were drunk).

The one redeeming feature:


Because John Krasinski in a cardigan can never be a bad thing.

+ +

From bookdepository.com:

We're giving away over 11,000 free eBooks. From cookery books to children's classics, from Conrad to Zola.
Why are we doing this?
It's a great way to discover lots of great ebooks (many of which are strange and obscure like, A Honeymoon in Space) with no risk. And, who knows, if you like it you may even want to buy a physical copy!

So if you don't care that they're on the computer, clicky for the free ebooks!

...before I start washing up the wine glasses from last night's festivities, when this very lovely and elegaic commercial comes on, celebrating the nobility of the family farmer and responsible land use. And guess who sponsored this commercial? Go ahead, guess. Nope, guess again. Give up?

Monsanto. That's right. Monsanto. And no, the irony is not lost on me.

I had a little treat waiting for me when I got home. As my guests arrived last night, a few of them handed me hostess gifts. I don't like to open those kinds of gifts in front of the other people who didn't bring one, so I just set them all under the Christmas tree. Well, I was so tired after my guests left last night that I forgot all about them. So tonight, I'm opening presents. Yay, me!

What is hotter than a geek? NOTHING. Both Wired.com and Tor.com have an ode to the sexiest geeks they can think of. (One list is by nomination and voting process, one is a more personal list, intended to start discussion.)

So out with it. Whose sexy brain tops your list?

 thanks to the folks over at Rabble.ca for this



His name really should be Richard -because he really is a capital Dick.

First, copied from irony_rocks

India Foxtrot Yankee Oscar Uniform Charlie Alpha November Uniform November Delta Echo Romeo Sierra Tango Alpha November Delta Tango Hotel India Sierra, Charlie Oscar Papa Yankee Alpha November Delta Papa Alpha Sierra Tango Echo India Tango Tango Oscar Yankee Oscar Uniform Romeo Lima India Victor Echo Juliet Oscar Uniform Romeo November Alpha Lima.0:) Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Mike Echo Mike Echo.


Now for a more picturiffic (totally a word) meme.
Find a picture that fits each item in the list for your person. If you'd like to play, comment on this post and I'll give you a person!

savepureness gave me Stephen Fry (yay!). I somehow managed with a distinct lack of Hugh, which is odd, but yeah, here we go.

I read too much "classical literature".
I would like to know which contemporary books are "profoundly moving", and brought you to tears at the beauty of sadness/fragile dignity - that sort of thing.

I would prefer smaller books, but all are welcome.

Wally Lamb?

It's only the 8th of January and I've already finished a book! That is quite unheard of. Finished the first Sherlock Holmes — A Study in Scarlet, which was obviously full of DEATH and MYSTERY and what have you.

I was a bit taken aback in book two, when the story suddenly switched to the deserts of Utah, but Conan Doyle wrote that every bit as well as the parts in London.

I'm not really sure what to say about it, but it was rather fun and Conan Doyle is good at words (and good with words, though I suppose you'd have to be good at words to be good with words?), and Watson seems quite the Sherlock fanboy at the moment. And Sherlock is a bit smug, and it's funny.

+ +

The more I think about the Eleventh Doctor, the more I get annoyed that he intruded on my sadfaciness. And then I tell myself I'm being ridiculous, and then feel better, and then remember that Ten is gone, and go all sadface again.

Doctor Who: really not good if you like to keep your sanity.

+ +

Being Human starts again this weekend in UK, I believe, which is terrific news. Everyone, go watch series one if you haven't. It's excellent!

+ +

Going to see It's Complicated with my mother and aunt. I don't really want to, and have no expectations, but I haven't left the house all week, so outsideyness might be good. Would much rather see Sherlock Holmes again. Who said that?!

+ +

Uni subjects... are really crap. They have offered hardly anything for second semester, and nothing I've found that I want to do as of yet, so I might have to bloody take a semester off just because there's nothing. For such a big university with so many courses, you'd think they would offer more than they do. *is frustrated*

In the Woods (2007)
Written by: Tana French
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 429 (Trade Paperback)

The premise: ganked from BN.com, because I'm seriously lazy. ;) As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

My Rating

Worth the Cash: Actually, it almost feels like a "Keeper Shelf." I really, really enjoyed this book. Especially the characters, and I enjoyed it so much that I was tempted to get the sequel written in Cassie's POV before I ever finished reading In the Woods. I held myself back because I knew some people were really unhappy with the way In the Woods ended and I didn't want to end up as one of those people but with the sequel on my hands. That said, I could've bought the sequel and been perfectly happy. This book haunted me, folks. Its ending and resolution is such that after I finished the book, I dreamed about it, my brain making a desperate effort to understand everything and to give me a kind of extended ending. That's kind of cool and kind of creepy, but I was very satisfied with the ending, even though it doesn't wrap the book up in a nice, pretty bow. The ending isn't for readers looking for escapism, or readers who want to see order and justice in every pocket of the world. It's not to say it isn't there on some level, but this book should disturb you on a certain level, for what it says about humanity and its unsolved mysteries. It's a good book with excellent characterization, and I really felt for these guys and wished to hell certain things hadn't happened in the book that were perfectly inevitable. Oh, how it broke my heart. But oh, how satisfying this was. I look forward to French's next book featuring Cassie, which is called The Likeness.

Review style: spoilers, so beware. While reading this I had no desire to flip to the end to spoil myself, and I'm glad for it. So if you have any interest in this book, don't click the link below. It's a MYSTERY for goodness's sakes: why spoil the mystery for yourself?

If you've read it and want to discuss it, feel free to read the full review at my LJ. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)

REVIEW: Tana French's IN THE WOODS

Happy Reading!

ALSO: my 2009 Top Ten list has been posted, along with a giveaway. If you're interested, just click here. That's the link to the giveaway, which contains the link to the top ten list. ;)

ALSO:

Book club selections @ calico_reaction. Hop on over! We'd love to have you!

January: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
February: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

In the Woods (2007)
Written by: Tana French
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 429 (Trade Paperback)

This book has had my attention for a while. For starters, the cover, which we'll talk about later, is striking. Second, and this is a me-thing, I kept wanting to call the book "InTO the Woods" after the musical, Into the Woods, which I performed in my senior year of high school (which was forever ago). Lastly, this was SHU's residency read immediately following my graduation. It received some mixed reviews, but despite those, I couldn't ignore the book. It was one of those I put on my wishlist and hoped someone would get for me, and finally, someone did. :) And because I'm trying not only to read gifts ASAP, but also whittle down my TBR pile and expand my genre-reading, In the Woods was a perfect fit.

The premise: ganked from BN.com, because I'm seriously lazy. ;) As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

Review style: spoilers, so beware. While reading this I had no desire to flip to the end to spoil myself, and I'm glad for it. So if you have any interest in this book, skip to the "My Rating" section. It's a MYSTERY for goodness's sakes: why spoil the mystery for yourself?

( IN THE WOODS: spoilers )

My Rating

Worth the Cash: Actually, it almost feels like a "Keeper Shelf." I really, really enjoyed this book. Especially the characters, and I enjoyed it so much that I was tempted to get the sequel written in Cassie's POV before I ever finished reading In the Woods. I held myself back because I knew some people were really unhappy with the way In the Woods ended and I didn't want to end up as one of those people but with the sequel on my hands. That said, I could've bought the sequel and been perfectly happy. This book haunted me, folks. Its ending and resolution is such that after I finished the book, I dreamed about it, my brain making a desperate effort to understand everything and to give me a kind of extended ending. That's kind of cool and kind of creepy, but I was very satisfied with the ending, even though it doesn't wrap the book up in a nice, pretty bow. The ending isn't for readers looking for escapism, or readers who want to see order and justice in every pocket of the world. It's not to say it isn't there on some level, but this book should disturb you on a certain level, for what it says about humanity and its unsolved mysteries. It's a good book with excellent characterization, and I really felt for these guys and wished to hell certain things hadn't happened in the book that were perfectly inevitable. Oh, how it broke my heart. But oh, how satisfying this was. I look forward to French's next book featuring Cassie, which is called The Likeness.

Cover Commentary: Love it. I love the design and creativity of it all, how the woods spring out of the words and kind of take over the cover. Very eye-catching, and that along with the title were the primary reasons I kept coveting the thing.

Next up: because I can't give you the review for Mary E. Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox until January 31st, you'll just have to make due with a review for Carrie Vaughn's Kitty's House of Horrors. You can do that, right? :)

#2: The Chocolate Snowman Murders by Joanna Carl:

I hit the snowman with twenty pounds of chocolate.

Synopsis: She totally did. Then she had to run screaming through the snow like Jason XI: Jason Freezes His Tail Off.

( Life in Warner's Pier isn't much like a box of chocolates at all. )

Hey booklovers! First review ever on this community! woo! It's also my first book read for 2010! yay!



Book: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters
Year: 2009
Pages: 344
Grade: C

Thoughts: I initially grabbed this book as a way to "ease" myself into Jane Austen, as I wasn't sure I would enjoy her work and thought it would be fun to try the "silly" version of the novel. I've been meaning to read some more classics, so Austen was an obvious author to go to (that and I loved the movie adaptation with Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson;etc, so... sue me, haha).

That being said, I found the addition of all the nautical themed jargon to be really irritating and overdone. I wish I had just read the original version instead of going for the collaborative effort. I don't think Winters quite captures (as far as I can tell) the original personalities and traits that Austen had intended for her characters and ends up pushing them into weird situations for the intention of the Sea Monsters sub-plot. Winters' additions to the novel were fairly obvious and mostly distracting within the context of the original story and dialogue.

Overall, the writing was done well enough so I had read a good portion of it before becoming thoroughly annoyed with the Winters' additions. Unfortunately the last half of the book was an extreme effort for me, and I forced myself to get through it. I don't usually force myself to read books (I'll just drop it and move on after a few pages!), but I was just hoping to glean the original work as best as I could from all of Winters' bits. Again, wish I'd just grabbed Austen's original, because I think I would have rather liked it. I won't be picking up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies any time in the near future! :(

For those of you who have not read Beautiful Creatures yet, please do not be turned off my the comparisons to Twilight or other "typical" YA supernatural novels floating around out there. This novel deserves the acclaim and fervent fan following it has received in the few short weeks since its publication. Please give it a chance.

Thanks so much, ya'll!

(mods: please feel free to delete if posts such as this are not allowed)

Author: Michael Moorcock
Series: Hawkmoon's incarnation as the Eternal Champion
Genre: Epic Sci-fantasy and Alternate History
Year: 2003
Pages: 646
Rating: B

It breaks my heart to give any work of Michael Moorcock less than an A grade as he is my favourite author.  However I feel that out of all the Eternal Champion books I have read, and at this point I'm only lacking the Cornelius Cycle, that Dorian Hawkmoon is the weakest and least like-able incarnation.  As a whole the book works well, it is worth purchasing and most certainly worth reading.
I also had an epiphanic realization a couple days ago as I was digesting the over-arching theme of the Runestaff cycle.  If the gods had been kind and allowed me to actually have a fourth year at University I would have devoted it to studying the Eternal Champion period.

( cut for spoilers and bitchiness )

Playing viola has given me sore muscles... I guess that is what you get for going from minimal playing to playing 3 hours 2 days in a row...

That said its my left arm which stays still, and my fingers aren't actually feeling that bad considering I have no calluses at present.

Originally posted on janicu.vox.com

My brother's kitty (cat... she's almost 5) is sick. We're all sorts of worried. After an unhappy Tuesday night of vomiting, the vet was called and an appointment was made for today. Other than that, she hasn't had any food or water and has been sick to her stomach since.

It turns out her neck is bothering her, but the vet couldn't tell if it's from the strain of vomiting or if she actually fell. She jumps around so much on a regular basis, we wouldn't be surprised if she winded up falling when we weren't at home or didn't hear. Her blood results will be in by the morning. Depending on how that goes, she may need an x-ray, but the vet gave her some anti-vomit medicine and an IV drip to hydrate her.

Right now she's resting.

:(

Saw this on The BBC news tonight and I notice a couple of others have put it up as well, including byslantedlight, but I just couldn't resist posting it too. This is the snowfield that is Britain at the moment, from space:



Photo from the BBC but originally from Dundee uni, via NASA, I believe. Stunning.

I walked into my church, dressed casually and (hopefully) nicely in a pair of dark jeans that covered my purple wedges and a red and black plaid shirt that buttoned down the front. My sister and her husband entered behind me, laden with my niece, their church materials, and my sister's large black diaper bag. I clutched my Bible to me, noticing the raggedness of the binding, the way it slipped and slid if my hand moved to a certain spot, and the papers spilling out the top from many a youth group or Sunday school meeting.

I smiled as we made our way into the Sunday school room and slid into a seat. Our Sunday school lesson went by pleasantly, as I sipped my hot chocolate and nibbled on a cinnamon roll. My sister gave a good lesson, although -- as per usual, since we were teenagers, after all -- we ended up getting off topic. We discussed everything under the sun, laughing at my niece's antics and bemoaning both school and work, since it was a particularly bad week.

Finally, as the lesson was winding down, my sister talked about the Christmas play the younger children were putting together and told us the songs that we would be singing. She told us that we would be working on the songs during Sunday school, and we had to work hard because we only had a few weeks to get them down.

Although we dragged our feet, in typical small Maine town fashion, the play ended up coming together fairly well. I was certain that I couldn't sing, but I sang out as loud as I could. I made sure I attempted to keep in tune, at least, and enjoyed myself. That's the thing I remembered the least about that service, however. Instead, I remembered most the event that happened before the play began.

That Sunday morning, crisp and snowy, ended up being the 50th wedding anniversary of one couple in our church. The wife came up to the front to be recognized by the church and was told that there would be a reception in their honor following that morning's service. Then a few people entered the stage from the door behind the large Christmas tree -- and the pastor's daughter, beside me, whispered that it was the woman's daughter and the rest of her family from Florida. I soon heard that the church members have kept in touch with the woman's family, making sure that her children could be up for the holiday.

I smiled and clapped along with everyone else. How nice, I thought.

--

Flash forward to Christmas Eve.

My sister, although she was going through a severe bout of morning sickness, managed to slide into the seat next to me ten minutes into the Christmas Eve service, as we began singing an unfamiliar Christmas hymn. My brother-in-law ribbed me, glaring at me and just generally being obnoxious, as brother-in-laws are certainly programmed to do. I playfully glared back; I knew our relationship by heart by now, and both of us knew that underneath it all we did care for each other. This was just our way of showing it -- which was typical in my family.

Thankfully, my sister and brother-in-law did not miss the best part: a dance set to Christmas Shoes, put on by the newest members of our church, an enthusiastic couple interested in doing whatever they could in the church.

As I watched, my eyes almost filled with tears, as I listened to the heartrending lyrics of a boy who just wanted to buy a pair of shoes for his mother for Christmas.

Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my mama, please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time
You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight.

...

So I laid the money down, I just had to help him out
I'll never forget the look on his face when he said
Mama's gonna look so great...

It was hard not to notice the feeling of fellowship and love flowing through the room at that moment and when we raised our candles, bright with our own tiny flame, singing Silent Night, it finally felt like Christmas to me. I felt a kinship with that tiny church I had come to call my own, full of joy and family and love.

--

I came down off the high brought from being at church, amongst the kind faces and genuine care, when later I glanced at my LJ friends-list. Low, lower, and finally lowest: it hit me as I was reading through certain articles about those "hate crimes" committed by Christians. How is it that those same people I had just seen -- or people with the same beliefs as those people I had just seen -- could be so nice to me and yet so indifferent, maybe even mean, toward those people who were different from us? How could they be so accepting of the trials and tribulations of the straight-laced Christian trying to be Christ-like, but not understand that to be Christ-like, you had to treat others as you would like to be treated?  How could they forget the Golden Rule, that rule which I had been aware of ever since I was five years old?

I did not understand how Christians could claim to be so, and yet not feel bile when they spoke casually about voting against gay marriage. I did not -- and still do not -- understand how they can say humans should not judge other people, yet go about judging homosexuals, women who have had abortions, atheists, evolutionists. I don't understand how they can say they're showing love to people when they vote against the very thing they are pushing to achieve, that very thing that will make them equals.

I see this half of Christianity all the time. I see it on the news. In fact, we probably all have. The most recent example in my own town is Question 1, but that is not the only time this issue has affected my own town. Although I haven't been there when this has been happening, I hear my dad tell stories about Christians standing in front of Walmart, holding signs.

"If you don't believe, YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!"

"If you've had an abortion, you're going to HELL!"

"God hates fags!"

"God hates atheists!"

"Repent or go to hell!"

Ring a bell? Yeah, I'm sure they do.

So often, this is the only half of Christianity that gets any air play. Sure, there might be a scene on the news that says a Christian organization donated to a charity, but more often than not, we hear stories of Christians barring the entrance to abortion clinics. Of Christians breaking up gay pride rallies with the aforementioned signs. Of the Catholic church, funding support for Prop 8. Of Christians displaying homophobia, sexism. Of intolerance.

Whenever I see these stories, I feel pity for those Christians who just don't get it. I sympathize with those people who are under attack for their lifestyle.

The "better half" of Christianity goes unnoticed under all this hate and bigotry expressed by TV fundamentalists, Catholic church leaders, and Baptist pastors who just don't understand that what they are doing is wrong. The better half of Christianity is made up of people like me.

People like me do not judge or try not to, at least. They are working to accept people for who they are, not who they wish they could make people out to be. They do not try to bar gays from getting married, because they realize by doing so they are taking away certain rights that every person should have, not just the straight male. They are willing to put together a reception, not only for a heterosexual couple who has been together for fifty years but for a gay couple who has adopted their first child. They are willing to welcome a young woman contemplating abortion into their church, to welcome and support her, even though they might not agree with her choices. They are willing to grow.

I want to say people like me, who grow everyday, learn everyday, and change their views nearly everyday to suit an ever changing world, are the future of Christianity.

I hope we are -- because I, for one, would like to see more generosity and kindness toward those different from the Christian norm.

--

This has been my entry for therealljidol. Thank you for reading.

What books are you eagerly awaiting in 2010? I've got quite a list going already:

• The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig -- the sixth "Pink Carnation" book. Happily, I only have to wait another week or so for it! :)
• Something About You by Julie James.
• The Summer of You by Kate Noble -- sequel to Revealed, which I liked.
• Changeless by Gail Carriger -- because Soulless was so darned entertaining.
• A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner -- the next book in the series that began with The Thief. I've been waiting for this for far too long!
• The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn -- to be honest, I have no idea what this book is about; but I really enjoyed her "Silent" series, so I'm willing to take the risk!
• Almost forgot The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett -- sequel to The Magicians and Mrs. Quent! Alas, this one doesn't have a picture yet, because it's not coming out until September. Rats.

Yep, that TBR list is getting longer by the second!

I have a web page at www.kateelliott.com

Let me ask you guys:

what kind of content do you look for on web pages? What would you be interested in seeing there? Are you a minimalist? mostly want an accounting of what books I have, and who the publishers are? A link to my blog? And some news? (that's about what I've got now)

Or do you want more?

And if so, what?

I want to keep track and review all the books I read in 2010, so here are the couple I read yesterday.



I love the Perry Bible Fellowship, so I picked this up at the library, hoping maybe there were a couple I hadn't read before. Unfortunately, the only "extra" strips included hadn't been on the site because people didn't get the punchline, and I am included in that group. Also, re-reading the comics I found that without the surprise of the last panel that comes with the first read, the jokes just seemed weird to me, not to mention bleak. I still understand what I liked the first time, but I don't think I'll be buying the hard copy of this comic... and yet I still want to read the other of his books. Ah well.

3/5

( Walking Dead Vol 1 under the cut. )

Stones from the River
Ursula Hegi
Historical fiction
525 pages

Returning to Burgdorf, the small German community she memorably depicted in Floating in My Mother's Palm, Hegi captures the events and atmosphere in the country prior, during and after WW II. Again she has produced a powerful novel whose chilling candor and resonant moral vision serve a dramatic story. With a sure hand, Hegi evokes the patterns of small-town life, individualized here in dozens of ordinary people who display the German passion for order, obedience and conformity, enforced for centuries by rigid class differences and the strictures of the Catholic church. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, the Zwerg (dwarf) who becomes the town's librarian; (she and most of the other characters figured in the earlier book). A perennial outsider because of her deformity, Trudi exploits her gift for eliciting peoples' secrets--and often maliciously reveals them in suspenseful gossip. But when Hitler ascends to power, she protects those who have been kind to her, including two Jewish families who, despite the efforts of Trudi, her father and a few others, are fated to perish in the Holocaust. Trudi is a complex character, as damaged by her mother's madness and early death as she is by the later circumstances of her life, and she is sometimes cruel, vindictive and vengeful. It is fascinating to watch her mature, as she experiences love and loss and finds wisdom, eventually learning to live with the vast amnesia that grips formerly ardent Nazis after the war. One hopes that Hegi will continue to depict the residents of Burgdorf--Germany in microcosm--thus deepening our understanding of a time and place.

I am so glad that we picked this one for our first book club read of the new year! The only reason that I did not give this book five stars is because it seemed to drag and lag on at the beginning and end of the book. There were times that I found Trudi to be annoying, honestly. However, I do not know how it is to grow up in that time period and to be like her, so I cannot say if her reactions to people/things is wrong, but I don't think she had a heathly outlook on things all of the time. If you are into pre-WWII and holocaust survival stories, then I highly recommend this book. I am now reading another book by Hegi, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in which Trudi plays a minor role.

Stones from the River
Ursula Hegi
Historical fiction
525 pages

Returning to Burgdorf, the small German community she memorably depicted in Floating in My Mother's Palm, Hegi captures the events and atmosphere in the country prior, during and after WW II. Again she has produced a powerful novel whose chilling candor and resonant moral vision serve a dramatic story. With a sure hand, Hegi evokes the patterns of small-town life, individualized here in dozens of ordinary people who display the German passion for order, obedience and conformity, enforced for centuries by rigid class differences and the strictures of the Catholic church. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, the Zwerg (dwarf) who becomes the town's librarian; (she and most of the other characters figured in the earlier book). A perennial outsider because of her deformity, Trudi exploits her gift for eliciting peoples' secrets--and often maliciously reveals them in suspenseful gossip. But when Hitler ascends to power, she protects those who have been kind to her, including two Jewish families who, despite the efforts of Trudi, her father and a few others, are fated to perish in the Holocaust. Trudi is a complex character, as damaged by her mother's madness and early death as she is by the later circumstances of her life, and she is sometimes cruel, vindictive and vengeful. It is fascinating to watch her mature, as she experiences love and loss and finds wisdom, eventually learning to live with the vast amnesia that grips formerly ardent Nazis after the war. One hopes that Hegi will continue to depict the residents of Burgdorf--Germany in microcosm--thus deepening our understanding of a time and place.

I am so glad that we picked this one for our first book club read of the new year! The only reason that I did not give this book five stars is because it seemed to drag and lag on at the beginning and end of the book. There were times that I found Trudi to be annoying, honestly. However, I do not know how it is to grow up in that time period and to be like her, so I cannot say if her reactions to people/things is wrong, but I don't think she had a heathly outlook on things all of the time. If you are into pre-WWII and holocaust survival stories, then I highly recommend this book. I am now reading another book by Hegi, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in which Trudi plays a minor role.

My thanks to all of you who commented on my recent posts, one asking for suggestions for reading for a girl turning 12 who likes Twilight, and the other a discussion of what "age appropriate" means to you, and should it mean anything?

I try to respond to all comments, but sometimes there are so many in such a short time frame while meanwhile I am trying to deal with other things that I can't keep up. I was particularly interested in the discussion of age appropriate. Is it my imagination, or is lj in general disproportionately inhabited by very serious readers who started when they were quite young? Or does such a question simply tend to attract answers by such people?