Out with the old, in with the new: Hello, 2014!

The thing about New Year's Day is that it always comes sniffing around when I'm not ready for it.  But, so long, 2013 - it was nice knowing you.

My goal was to read 120 books - so I read 167 books last year, of course, since I'm that sort of over-achiever.  That made 49,369 pages read (or so, I think a few things didn't have a page count in GR).

I read books of all kinds, so definitely a different genre spread than last year, and so many great books came out this year that I couldn't choose just one favorite book this year: When Women Were Birds, Cloud Atlas, Eleanor and Park, Fangirl, A Sport and a Pastime, No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, The Secret History, Night Film, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Once Upon a Tower, and Sex Criminals (easily the best comic I read this year).  As to least favorite book, that one goes to Joshilyn Jackson's Someone Else's Love Story which I loathed with the fire of a thousand suns and wonder why I didn't give it one star (if you want to know why I finished it, I had to review it for Brazen Reads).  I had one official DNF, Big Girl Panties, because I really couldn't get past the "hero's" i-can't-be-seen-with-an-unattractive/overweight-person-because-it-will-make-me-look-bad attitude (sad, because I got it for review from Avon, but I really didn't want to waste my reading time).

Speaking of Avon, I had some bookish adventures this year.  I lived up to my resolutions of "Be brave" and "Take a vacation" by taking an overnight trip to see Eloisa James and Tessa Dare at Anderson's Bookshop (PS: we did not coordinate our clothes, haha).

I went all by my little lonesome and had a wonderful time at a pre-event meet-and-greet at a chocolate cafe nearby and met some of the lovely ladies from the Eloisa's Ambassadors Facebook group.  That same day I found out that I had been accepted into the Avon Addicts program, which I had applied to on some wild-haired whim, thinking I'd never get accepted in a bazillion years.  Such a great group of ladies, editors, and authors!  It threw my romance reading-and-reviewing schedule into a tizzy, from which it still hasn't recovered but I'll catch up.  My third bookish adventure involves book subscriptions.  I decided to try on the new streaming/lending ebook service, Oyster, once it came available for iPad - it has a gorgeous interface and a ton of books to borrow for only $10/mo.  This has the backlist that my local public library can't afford so it's so worth the price.  I also subscribed to Melville House's Art of the Novella series and it's been fabulous so far.

The one project I didn't do so well with was my Overdue Reads project and other ongoing projects I have (see the tabs up there? Those).  Although I tried to be more focused with my reading it was still all over the map, very mercurial, and my reviewing is shamefully behind.  To that end, here are my new resolutions:

1.  Be mindful in my reading and bookish purchases - I do not need to purchase every, single book I come across, which is a serious vice of mine.  I cannot single-handedly keep the book industry floating (that has to be the subconscious urge, I'm sure of it).  I already own a ton (literally, I'm surprised the house joists are holding firm) of books and therefore need to read or start/dnf what I already have rather than purchase more books to join them on the unread shelves.  I also need to stay more current with my reading projects so those actually move forward and be smarter at managing my "start-itis" with books (and knitting).  I have challenged myself to read 130 books this year.

2.  Be timely on reviews - reading a book will always be more enticing than writing a review, but I have so many unwritten/half-written/not-even-started reviews that I have some major catching up to do.
3.  Drink more water.
4.  Move more (the Fitbit is helping, but I need to be better at going to the gym).
5.  Cook for myself - ongoing, but I did much better in 2013.  I didn't eat nearly as much fast food.  Coffeehouse lattes/mochas are still a weakness, though.
6.  Be brave.
7.  Take a vacation (I have plans....).
8.  Relax.

Happy New Year, everyone!!

ETA: It was actually 168 books in 2013 (with 49,401 pages read) - I had missed getting the date on the third issue of Sex Criminals. Oops.

Well, hellooo there, 2013!

Here I am again, looking down the barrel of another year.

Ugh, that sounds way more depressing than I meant it to come out but, howevermuch I avoid it, a New Year it is and, hence, a time for me to reflect on goals both reading/blogging and personal.

On the book front, I challenged myself to read 120 books in the 2013 Goodreads Challenge.  I figure 120 is a good compromise between the 110 I used as my goal last year and the 191 I actually ended up reading.  That's the easy-to-set-up goal.

The harder-to-set-up goal is currently going by the moniker "Read the Books I Meant to Read Challenge".  Inspired by Carrie's challenge to read one book per month she's meant to read (and others are reading with her) I am going to do something similar.  I live in a house with a re-donk-ulous number of books and I haven't read a good chunk of them.  Oh, I mean to, of course, since I purchased them, but I just haven't got around to reading them yet.  So the "Read the Books I Meant to Read Challenge" will consist of a list of books I've been meaning to read "for some time" (this is flexible) with the plan to read and finish at least one of them per month.  I haven't sussed out the stack of books/shelf of books/entire bookcase filled with unread books as yet but when I do I'll set up a separate challenge/project post for it.

On the personal front, I really need to get myself in shape, physically, mentally, and financially.  My goals for the year are (unfortunately, they're really vague, and since I learned in my self-improvement crazy-train reading, vague goals are hard to fulfill so they still need work):
1. Drink more water.
2. Get more sleep.
3. Move more.
4. Improve my money management (step 1: finish getting everything into Quicken)
5. Relax.
6. Take a vacation.
7. Be brave.
8. Cook for myself (I have discovered that my kitchen is cleaner when I'm actually cooking in it, random).

I should write those down and leave reminders in multiple places.  Really.

The first step:  I'm drinking coffee and staring at an empty water bottle.  I should fill the water bottle.

Bye-bye, 2012 (and where I reveal how many pages I read)!

2012 was an odd-ball year for me. 

I simply could not read to task.  I couldn't make plans to read certain books - they either had to hit my fancy or not.  This year, my fancy leaned toward...

...romance novels.  Almost to the exclusion of everything else.  I read my way through Eloisa James (nearly everything she wrote), Mary Balogh's Bedwyns, Julia Quinn's Bridgertons, Smythe-Smiths, and Bevelstokes, and discovered Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, Caroline Linden, Miranda Neville, Sophia Nash, and Elizabeth Hoyt.  I even tried out the grand-dame of historicals Georgette Heyer (and if you can get Richard Armitage to read it to you so much the better).

I think this had to do with the fact that all I could do was worry about my mom.  I couldn't guarantee that her chemo and radiation would do the trick (so far, so good - the MRIs are clear, cross my fingers and toes) and I couldn't fix it so all I could do was read.  I used to read romance novels in junior high and high school because Mom usually had a few laying around the house.  While we don't read to the same taste (she usually read contemporaries while I prefer Regency historicals followed by other historicals) I found that being able to read a 250-300 page romance novel with an almost gold-plated, guaranteed Happy Ending in the two hours between coming home from work and falling asleep not only helped me relax but delivered a weird sense of accomplishment.

So much so that I read 191 books this year when I only meant to read 110:

That is 63,496 pages.  HOLY CRAP ON A CRAP CRACKER!!!  Almost twice as much as last year when I read 102 books.

I guess having an ereader really does make me read faster.  As far as the breakdown of books goes I did like almost everything I read this year (5 stars being "amazing", 3 being "it was OK/readable", and 1 star being "sucked hardcore"):

Likely the best book I read this year is either The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (which just tore my heart out) or One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean (and since it's not pubbing until the end of January 2013 that's sort of cheating).  The worst book I read this year was The Husband Hunt by Lynsay Sands - if I hadn't pre-ordered the ebook I would have lit the damn thing on fire (see reasons why here).  One book is unrated (The Duke Diaries) because I haven't decided where my opinion lies yet - it's for a review in March 2013 so I have time for a re-read.  Nothing was officially DNF'd this year, so that was good.

Speaking of reviews, I started reviewing romance at Brazen Reads this year!  The brainchild of Pam, Brazen Reads is a collaborative blog where romance of all types is reviewed.  I concentrate on Regency and historical so drop on by if you're interested.

I also tried on graphic novels for size this year.  DC Comics had a buy-2-get-1-free sale from late August to mid-November so I decided to rectify a "blind side" in my reading life.  I started with Watchmen, Fables #1: Legends in Exile, and Sandman #1: Preludes and Nocturnes.  I had read Watchmen back in high school in a hopeless attempt to impress the boys in drumline (snare players are uber-cool) and didn't really like it.  This time around I was much more able to appreciate the art and storytelling.  Fables was a great intro to an alternative fairy tale world but Sandman just about blew my mind.  I'm halfway through the series now.  Neil Gaiman is a national treasure (since he lives stateside but is still a Brit I guess we'll have to share him).

The downside of all the reading I did is that I am hopelessly behind in reviews.  Almost shamefully.  I'll catch up don't worry.

Have a safe and happy New Year, everyone!

Petition: Remove Broun from House Science Committee

You know, I don't usually get terribly political. Too much bickering.

But this petition - I think this is important. Science literacy in this country is terrible. We do not need people like Broun who are unable to separate their religious ideologies from rational, scientific concepts to sit on a House Science committee that promotes science.

Please visit the Change website link and sign the petition - they need 150,000 signatures.

Change.org|The Proven Petition Site

Mars and Venus post-alignment

Just having fun with the Instagram filters. I am actually amazed that the stars showed up at all!

In which I discover Instagram (and consequently love my iPhone a little more)

I finally downloaded the Instagram app to my iPhone.

First pic?

Yup.  Knitting (and a cute little project bag from Jennie G).

Iowa Nice

So it's Caucus time...bleah.  But in other Iowa news, remember that whole Stephen-Bloom-thinks-we're-all-stupid-hicks article he wrote?  UI President Sally Mason wrote an open letter and some of Bloom's colleagues wrote an article for the Gazette.  The ISU journalism director weighed in, too (Bloom just needs to start looking for another job - not go on Brian Williams and act like a condescending jerk and talk about how no one is "getting" his "satire" -  because, tenure or no, he's in hot water - I never met anyone who actually wanted him for a professor, even before this).  Here's another response (it drops the F-bomb, FYI).

2011: Later, gator!

Well, 2011 has crept out of my life.  The year was chuggling along smoothly with surprising new reads (I finally hopped on the A Song of Ice and Fire bandwagon and remembered that romance novels aren't quite that bad when I need a reading boost) and surprising talents (I wrote a book - almost done with draft 6 and feeling like I might, just might, let other people read it) when December hit. 

My world shattered into a thousand tiny pieces when my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor December 4.  Things still haven't settled after three weeks of crazy but we are moving forward.  The surgeons did a fantastic resection, Mom is recovering well, and the radiation and chemotherapy schedule is set to start January 4.  The path ahead of her is uncertain but she has good doctors and therapists and we're going to put up one hell of a fight.

In the middle of all this, the poor little book blog gets neglected.  I still haven't caught up with my reviews.  Oops.  Being a reader I was presented with a dilemma.  I could (a) write my reviews (which takes about 30-45 minutes/review depending on what I have to say), (b) read a book, or (c) edit my own book.  It's safe to say that (b) and (c) won out, with (c) taking a bit of an edge because I almost didn't finish the biggest, but simplest, challenge I ever signed up for.

The Goodreads Challenge

I said I would read 100 books this year.  I've wanted to do this for several years now and always fell short.  Goodreads's little challenge seemed well within my reach...until I started writing.  I didn't read a book for weeks unless you count constant re-reads of my own poor manuscript, quibbling over the placement of a "her". 

But I did it.  I read 100 books.  In fact, I read 102 books.  *cue trumpets*

I liked most of what I read (five stars is "amazing", four stars is "I really liked it", three stars is "it was good/ok/readable", two stars is "meh/uninteresting", and one star is "I really wanted to light this on fire" - I have no one star books because those books I usually don't finish reading and don't bother to review most of the time):











According to Goodreads the longest book I read was A Storm of Swords (according to me, I think it was A Dance with Dragons, but that's probably a quibble over format and the ebook format didn't have any pages listed for ASOS so I had to make do with the MM format just to get page counts).  My favorite book this year is either One of Our Thursdays is Missing, Shatter Me, A Game of Thrones (probably that whole series because I went on a serious binge), or The Wierd Sisters.  I never can decide. 

Also, according to Goodreads I read 32,330 pages this year.  Excuse me while I peel my contact lenses out of my dry little eyes.  I actually read faster on my nooks (yes, I said nooks because there are several...pardon me while I go beat down Mr. Collins) - if I don't have to turn a real page then I don't have to move my eyeballs and, somehow, that turns into reading faster.  Craze-balls.

I finally read some Jane Austen off-shoots (thanks to Sourcebooks' wonderful ebook sales during December - JA's birthday month) and remembered that, while I really, really still don't like Austen variations/sequels/straight-up modern re-tellings, I do like clever adaptations (cf: Bridget Jones's Diary and Clueless).  I find that I enjoy stories that use JA as a jumping off point (like A Weekend with Mr. Darcy) rather than one of her novels as a skeleton.  My reading of the collection Jane Austen Made Me Do It added more evidence for that conclusion.

I did some re-reading, too.  I picked up Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks (the NYRB Classics re-issue) and read it aloud to my kitty-boys one evening during a storm.  I pulled out my D'Aulaires (also re-issued by NYRB Classics) when I needed some inspiration from Norse mythology  I turned to Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series (with Eloise and Colin and flowery Regency spies) because Letty and Arabella are good friends in a pinch.  And my beloved Jane bolstered me with Pride and Prejudice when I inclined to insomnia due to worrying over Mom.

Other challenges...well, I sorta failed.  The Booker Challenge?  I had good intentions but barely scratched the surface.  I only read one Newbery book (yet to be reviewed).  Only one Best American.  Boo.  Fail, fail, fail.

My trouble is the writing.  What I read seeps into what I write.  Not a bad thing, necessarily (I generally find that authors who cop to the whole "I couldn't possibly sully my process by reading other people's stuff" attitude have the most ghastly prose), but when one realizes that she has unconsciously appropriated key words and phrases from well-known authors...and those words/phrases are unique to said authors' worldbuilding...one starts to sweat just a little.  And stop reading.  (This is where the romance novels come in...they somehow don't affect the writing and saved my bacon with the Goodreads challenge).

But enough about 2011.  On to 2012!

A hat for my mother

I am knitting a hat.

I am knitting a hat using a pattern I like.

I am knitting a hat using a pattern I like out of a yarn I loathe. 

I am knitting a hat using a pattern I like out of a yarn I loathe because I am sitting in the waiting room of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit waiting to go back and see my mother.

I am knitting a hat using a pattern I like out of a yarn I loathe because I am sitting in the waiting room of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit waiting to go back and see my mother because my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor less than a week ago and underwent brain surgery yesterday.

My mother needs a hat.

My mother is allergic to wool.

This yarn is acrylic. I hate acrylic.  It's a royal pain in the ass to cable with and it feels wierd.

But my mother needs a hat when she goes home because it is December in Iowa.  It is cold and I don't want her head to be cold. 

It took two hours of searching through my stash two days ago trying to find a non-wool yarn because I didn't have time to go to the yarn store.  It took two hours because I was crying so hard I couldn't see.

My mother has one of the best neurosurgeons available.  I know he does great work.  I know he does great work because I work at this hospital.  I know the SICU nurses are the best nurses you could find anywhere.  I know because I have worked with them on some of our research studies.  I know they will take good care of my mother.  I work here and I have made sure she is getting the best care anyone could ever find.  I know all of this and I am scared as hell.

I am wearing my staff ID and pager like a shield.  I slept with my pager last night, a talisman against the phone call in the night.  I work at this hospital and they will take good care of my mother.  They will.  I tell myself that with almost every stitch of this yarn that sticks to my fingers as I knit.  I tell myself this as I struggle to make this inflexible yarn work a C10F or C10B.  Every single stitch of this infernal yarn keeps my mother here.

This yarn is acrylic. I hate acrylic. It's a royal pain in the ass to cable with and it feels wierd, but it is going to be a hat for my mother whether it wants to or not.  When it's a hat, I will find time to go to the yarn store and get some natural-fiber, warm, non-sheep yarn and do the hat over again.

Because my mother needs a hat and she is allergic to wool.  I take a deep breath at the end of each row of stiff stitches and give thanks that my mother has come through surgery with flying colors.  The road ahead is still bumpy, though, and she will need a hat.  Many hats.  As many hats in as many colors as she wants, as fast as I can knit them for her.  Because she's my mommy and I still need my mommy.

So....I am knitting a hat using a pattern I like out of a yarn I loathe because I am sitting in the waiting room of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit waiting to go back and see my mother because my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor less than a week ago and underwent brain surgery yesterday and she will need a hat when she goes home.

This is why I can't be allowed in the craft store alone...

...with coupons and credit cards.

Exhibit A:

I will make flower arrangements.

Exhibit B:

I will overdose on Martha Stewart papercrafting punches.  Entirely too fun.

Yes.  Those are sheep.  I will now be attaching little sheep to gifts of knitwear (it's a pretty small sheep - hey, Martha - any chance on making a bigger sheep punch?).

Exhibit C:

I will be crafting a Christmas tree to hang on the wall where it will be free of evil kittehs who want to knock it down and chew on the branches/needles/ornaments.  It's not done yet.  I promise pictures.

I think the crafting bug double-dosed me since I was moving during the holidays last year.

Reasons I have not updated the blog...

1.  Not entirely sure, it suddenly became less appealing than previous.  I think this is called "burn-out".

2.  I read all four extant books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire in a little under ten days.  That's about 3,000 pages.  I may have fried my brain.  I think I am in love.

3.  I obsessed about the Game of Thrones TV show because I don't get HBO not does my cable provider participate in HBO Go.  (Note to HBO: I would PAY MONEY for online subscriptions to episodes, you can do it through HBO.com or iTunes, your choice - and then I would buy the DVD set ASAP;  PS: what's the release date for that bad boy of a Season 1?)

4.  I've been working a lot.  Work=teh suck.

5.  I was trying to read The Bone People by Keri Hulme for "Literature by Women" - it pushed the wrong buttons in me.  Normally, books with major issues like child abuse don't freak me out too much but something in this one hit me at the wrong time.  It is well-written and that probably is what's making the subject freak me the frak right out.

6.  I've been working on some deadlines for Alpha Chi Sigma....still got one coming actually.

and in the biggest surprise of all...

7.  I've been writing a book.  Un-freaking-believable.  I haven't written anything since high school (I do not recommend peer-review writing groups when one kid reads at a college level and the rest are somewhere back in junior high) and before Memorial Day I just sat down, opened a journal, and started writing out a plot I've had in my head for years.  I've got most of a first re-write done then I think I might be able to let it rest for a bit.  (And no, I'm not sharing, yet.  It's currently contained in three journals of nasty long-hand scribbling because I can't think at the computer, oddly enough.)  And then I have to read a book about dialogue because my lead-ins and lead-outs are getting repetitive.

So I've got some reviews in the hopper and they need a bit of polishing - don't be surprised if some reviews appear backdated.  If I accepted a book for review (*cough* HarperCollins *cough*), I'll get to it as soon as I can (good thing I stopped responding to my email, no new review copies piling up).  If I haven't yet responded to an email (*cough* My Friend Amy *cough*), I'll get to that soon, too.

Back to writing and plotting to rejoin the land of the interwebs.

Congrats, Will and Kate!

No, I did not get up at some obscene hour of the morning to watch the wedding in full.  Are you nuts?

That's what the Internet is for, picture and video recap.  The only thing I was really curious about was Kate's dress because she has a good eye for design and a very clean, simple style in her everyday wear; I was a little worried that people would get carried away and froth her up so I was pleased to see the Alexander McQueen gown...beautiful.  The Fug Girls (http://www.gofugyourself.com/) have live-blogs and re-caps for all the wedding finery, particularly the hats, and they do a much better job than I.

So congrats, Will and Kate, may you be very, very happy, although I think we're supposed to call you HRH the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge now.  But I'm older than you, so you're still Will and Kate.  Ha!

(Also, to that daft idiot who is already wondering what Kate will be called when she's queen...that's nasty, dude, Prince Charles is in excellent health and there's no reason why he wouldn't succeed his mother and then William succeed him; Kate's title and style as Queen Consort is a very, very long way down the road)

SAD: "Promises like pie-crust"

For Singles' Awareness Day, I have a little Christina Rossetti:

Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?

You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one:
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun:
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass,
And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again:
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain.
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less:
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess.

My "Who needs love?" display has been attracting a little attention.  I'm not sure what I'm going to read today, but there is an interesting discourse on love in Memoirs of Hadrian, the current read for "Literature by Women".

It's #Bloggiesta weekend! A tiny, tiny goal for me

Natasha is hosting Bloggiesta again this year!  Happy 4th Bloggiesta!  (If you're wondering, it's like a "working weekend" where bloggers do housekeeping on their sites, a little pruing, maybe a few mini-challenges and help each other out).

I did some Bloggiesta-ing last year - added my header picture and changed up the template to something a little more custom designed - but I won't be really joining in since I'm still unpacking boxes.  Although I could work on the Reading Chemistry blog...hmmmm....maybe.

But anywhoo the reason for this post has to do with programming.  I really don't understand how blog templates set out widgets, colors, columns, etc. and I have no idea how to read the code (I know a little bit about HTML but this seems to be CSS).  So this is my tiny, tiny Bloggiesta goal.  Ready?

Bloggiesta 2011 goal: Find a book/good reference so I can start to understand how blog templates/websites are put together so that next time we Bloggiesta I will be able to do some more customization/cleanup.

So this is where everyone else comes in - do you have good reference material that you use when you do tweaks and updates?  Books or websites are fine so tell me your faves!

Who needs love?

So every year at the store we go from Christmas signage to Valentine's Day signage - with a brief stop-over for New Year's resolution-type books - in a blink.  So for six weeks we get to live with the Valentine's Day table brimming with relationship, sex, and dating books in varying shades of pink, pink-er pink, and red.  For someone who is always acutely aware that Valentine's Day is SAD (Singles Awareness Day) it can get old fast.

So I got to thinking "Why not an anti-Valentine's Day type of display?" Not neccessarily against Valentine's Day, per se, but one where the love stories don't end happily or not as the reader would wish.  Also known as no HEAs (Happily Ever Afters).  Just for a little balance.  And would be full of good books to read.  Why not, indeed.  So I made one (with input from a few other booksellers - the display is buried in the fiction section but I plan on catching unsuspecting book browsers with the sign "Who needs love?"):

The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
On Love by Alain de Botton

I deliberately went with more recent novels than classics (because if I did classics, Anna Karenina would be front and center followed by Jude the Obscure and Wuthering Heights as well as very obvious plays from Shakespeare).  Do you think I'm missing anything essential?


(Looking at this list again I must have had Booker awards on the brain....)
ETA: One or two things on the display that slipped my mind writing this post.

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen! (PS: Free Sourcebooks ebooks today 12/16/10!)

In honor of Miss Jane Austen's 235th birthday (Many happy returns!) Sourcebooks is offering TEN Austen-inspired titles as free ebooks (my nook is currently busy downloading):

Eliza’s Daughter by Joan Aiken
The Darcys & the Bingleys by Marsha Altman
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll
What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie Brown
The Pemberley Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins
The Other Mr. Darcy by Monica Fairview
Mr. Darcy’s Diary by Amanda Grange
Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One by Sharon Lathan
Lydia Bennet’s Story by Jane Odiwe
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy by Abigail Reynolds

Sourcebooks is also offering free downloads of their illustrated editions of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Emma.

Strike while the iron is hot!  I believe these titles are free for today ONLY so check your favorite ebook outlet.

I've been burned by Austen-world off-shoot novels before, so I never read any of these after my experience with Mr. Darcy's Daughters, etc., but I'm not turning up my nose at free books!  I'll have them on my nook and when the inclination strikes, I'll be ready!
 
I found out about the sale via Laurel Ann's Austenprose posting :)

INCIDENTAL COMICS: Confessions of a Book Fiend

This. Is. Awesome.  Grant Snider has created a hysterical comic about book fiends.  It's so true.  Click through to see the comic - if you're a book blogger you will agree with the conclusion whole-heartedly.

As a bonus, Grant has posters of his comics available.  Methinks I will have to invest in one after I sort out my current moving/real estate messiness (no end in sight right now).

BBC Reading List - more than 6?

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here (not sure where the "6 books" part of this originated, because I can't find it on the web and it's not The Big Read List, that's a different list). Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. (Note to self: remember to tag people when this uploads on FB; also, I think I've done this before but can't find the original post)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
*36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
+88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
*98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Well....
14 = the number I haven't read at all
10 = the number I haven't finished
76 = the number I have read
* = something tells me the BBC hasn't actually done this list since there are duplicates; if you've read all of Shakespeare you've read Hamlet and if you've read The Chronicles of Narnia you've read The Lion,, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
+ = the likelihood of me actually reading this book is "nil"

Die Katzen sind nicht amüsiert

This is Chaucer.  Spam comments bore him.  They waste his mommy's time since she has to go delete them.

 Dante also doesn't like spam comments - spammers do not give tummy rubs.

Die Katzen sind nicht amüsiert.  Sie müssen ihren Bauch reibt.

So stop with the spam already!

Speedbumps

 Hmmmm....that's an odd lump....

Oh, it's just Chaucer - looks like he wants some privacy.

Anywhoo, just a little note to say that my precious laptop is going for a spa visit to the Geek Squad - hopefully they'll have an answer to the "blue screen of death" problem I've been getting lately.  Having no laptop available ASAP when I snap my fingers is seriously going to cramp my style.