So many books…

…so little time.

I often joke with my husband that I love being able to go to the library and sites like PaperBackSwap because it keeps us out of the poor house. I go to the library about every other week and come home with an armload of books. I’ve slowed down a bit of late because I’m working on a show and I’m not reading as much at work as I once did. I’m still consuming books with a voracious appetite though. It’s a good addiction to have, all things considered.

The Bald One and I have a rather extensive library of our own. I spent today’s wet and dreary weather fest compiling it into a spreadsheet so that I could upload it to my Shelfari site. Well, at least my part of the collection. You can see my insanity here - a grand total of 153. About forty of those classified as “owned” are also appearing on my “planning to read” shelf. That’s a shelf that gets more out of hand every week. Partially because I get a chapter-a-day book service (thank you Suzanne of DearReader.com) and partially because I’m an NPR junkie and inevitably some book comes up that just gets added to the list.

I used to just drop the books onto my Amazon wish list, but then figured that keeping a reading list on a book-buying site was a very bad idea. First off, it was all too easy to buy books that I wasn’t sure I’d even like once I read them. The other reason is that Amazon tries to be very helpful and suggest books to you - and one of the ways it suggests is to look at your wish lists. Nothing is stranger than getting a suggestion based on a book you haven’t read to point you to another book you haven’t read.

The thing this reveals, overall, is I appear to have an insane sweet tooth that enjoys rotting my brain on fluffy romance. A good portion of the books I own could be classified as romance (Nora Roberts, Elizabeth Lowell) or fantasy/romance (Mercedes Lackey falls into this group). Then there is my Anne Bishop and Alice Borchardt books. Fantastic stories with sweeping worlds and real people that don’t shy away from the darker elements of life - but then I saw someone listed the Black Jewels Trilogy as a “paranormal romance” and I almost spit water all over the computer. Sure, there’s a bit of a love story in there - but anyone who thinks it’s all about the fainting girl-child into the arms of her demon lover needs to be smacked upside the head.

My sweet tooth, however, keeps me sane - I get to escape the “real world” into one where the bills get paid by mysterious means, the parties are excellent, the men are dashing and the women always say the right thing. And let’s not forget - the gal always gets her man.

 

home again, home again…

After the exciting travels of this week, I’m facing my last night in a hotel for a bit. Tomorrow morning, I’ll check out of here and DzB and I will begin the leg home. He’s looking forward to several weeks of making his son lunch and I’m looking forward to sleeping with cats.

I have work facing me though. I grabbed the database and promptly did no work for it. Granted, I was hoping I’d be able to but didn’t really know what to expect. Again, we were taken out to lunch and dinner by our handlers for the libraries and had a great time - which meant that my three hours off in between were spent sleeping, playing on email and hitting the gym. We’d get back late enough that we’d crawl into bed and sleep until we had to get up the next morning. So no data entry was done, despite my high hopes.

I also get to look forward to some time with the Bald One. Miracles happened and he was scheduled for a complete weekend off in the middle of the holiday season. Granted, he worked ten days straight to get it and will work another ten straight on the other side, but we have a weekend. There’s cleaning to do, decorating to be done and a tree to be bought. Our first real tree will go up some time this weekend. I’m so excited, I could cry.

My return will also require a trip to the post office. There, I need to buy a box for shipping a secret santa present, stamps for the holiday cards that are forthcoming and ship off a book for some others I’m getting through PaperBackSwap. Unfortunately, this will just increase my book debt of things to be read - I finished only one book this trip. That is, unless you include the audio book that had us spellbound today during the drive. If you ever want to be introduced to many thriller writers download The Chopin Manuscript. Fairly awesome twisty turning book…kept us entertained for the drive.

 

Protected: HP7 - just my thoughts all jumbled together

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next post - Harry Potter stuff

Here’s the deal, to prevent people for accidentally reading what they don’t - heaven forbid I spoil things for people - the next entry is going to be password protected. If you think hard, you can figure it out.

It’s the title to a song from a musical based on a children’s novel. Two words - but no spaces or punctuation. The item mentioned shows up in all seven of the Harry Potter novels. The song references hazel, unlike the HP novels.

 

Golden Compass: Daemon

I took the quiz, courtesy of a friend after evaluating hers…

Feel free to help me set my Daemon. And if you haven’t read the book, read it. It’s been compared to Harry Potter, but it isn’t. It’s more like Susan Cooper (Dark is rising). The movie hits in time for Christmas fun.

anyway, what do you think?

 

Thursday 13: books to read…

I have a lot of books on my backlog of things to read. Mostly because I keep getting distracted by things like work, theater and the new shiny ones showing up on the One Week Checkout shelf at the library. So, let’s peruse…
13 things I have to read

1. Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series I read the first one already…but have the remaining six to read. Someone on Paperback Swap is already lusting after the last one. So this is on the top of my stack.
2. A Bend in the Road Nicholas Sparks is supposedly this fabulous author…he put out a few novels that have shown up since then in movies. But I have yet to actually read one. This one looked good, so I requested it through PBS.
3. Tell Me No Lies I’ve really enjoyed Lowell’s books. This one just looked like it could be fun.
4. A Taste of Darkness I’ve read a few of Nina Bangs novels. They’re a different take on the supernatural than I’ve seen most commonly presented with the Anne Rice style. So it’s fun to have something different.
5. hello, darkness I don’t even know how I got referenced this novel. One of my half-dozen random leads on books - between Dear Reader, BD Reads and others…I get a bunch of fun suggestions. This one was good enough to burn a PBS credit on.
6. Myrren’s Gift well, this looks like a fun series. I think the second of this series showed up in Dear Reader. So I nabbed the second.
7. Yours Until Dawn I got this one as a present from the already twice mentioned Dear Reader column. Suzanne does all kinds of little giveaways throughout her columns. Five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year…and a good percentage have giveaways. Not that that’s the reason I get it. I’m getting new book leads through her. And other books at the library. But I digress. I entered a contest and received this one. I’ve already read it once, but I want to re-read it before listing it with PBS.
8. Valentine This one is the bald one’s fault. He got it from his mom (who’s an avid reader herself) and liked it and told me I should. So here it sits.
9. Every Secret Thing My other free book from Dear Reader…I have no idea. But it has a nice cover.
10. Jennifer Roberson’s Chronicles of Cheysuli My cousin sent this to me as a pass-the-love shipment. I read one of the two series that she sent. I haven’t gotten a chance to dive into these yet.
11. Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials series I got to start hearing this when I was working at GLTF’s costume shop. We listened to books while stitching. The first one was great, but now I need to listen/read the rest.
12. Lackey & Mallory’s Obsidian Trilogy I really like Mercedes Lackey’s novels so far. The first one was read mostly in a book store on a day where I had to kill a bunch of time. So then I bought it, and the second. And I’ve been waiting to read them until I had all three.
13. Invisible Ring These are set in the same world as the Black Jewels series, which I really enjoyed…so now I have more to read there. Good times.

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WW: Book Review

Witches Weekly can be found here if you’d like to sign up for yourself. This week….

A Book Review December 30th 2005

What book do you feel provided you with some of the most useful information towards your spiritual path? Describe what information you found to be the most important.
The book is The Circle Within. I found it while working in Asheville briefly for a show at a fabulous little independent book store. When I finally got to read it recently, I was floored by it’s simple approach. It doesn’t talk about you having to have x & y & z and set your altar just so…it’s all about the little things that make the most of a day that reflect your beliefs outward. The simple things a person does daily that helps ground & center themselves to truly put them at peace with their beliefs. Probably the most effective thing I’ve read in a long long time.

 

Friday?

hard to believe, but it’s true. the weekend will be upon us in seven hours. By then, I’ll be home and probably falling asleep on the couch. Hopefully, I’ll wake up by 8p in order to watch SciFi fridays. (Sad, that this is such a point in my weekend. I blame the addiction on elanova) But I had a long night last night.

I was at karaoke for the first time in a long time. Both bartenders chided me for having been gone. Sorry guys, work & finishing school will do that to a woman. The gang was all out though, since it was R&T’s last night in town. I even brought my cute little film camera to catch some of the hijinks. Good times.

In other news…I got something accomplished at work. I’m completely caught up with first round data entry for a database I content-manage. So yeah. Now I just have to get all the books off my desk and on the shelf. Should be a slightly harder problem…but I’ll manage.

Finally, I’m back to reading for fun. I love it. Currently up is Todd McCaffrey’s first solo Pern novel. He wrote one with his mom earlier, which I have on my bookshelf loaned from Dad. I’m reading this one first though, because I’ve had it out from the library forever and should read it so I can return the poor thing.

 

the week of the cancelled meetings

Yesterday I was supposed to meet with my current FMTC director. However, since the groundplan deadline got pushed back, we went over everything we might have needed to meet about on the phone. No need for me to drive out to Cary at night and spend an hour discussing the fine points of our upcoming project. Excellent. So what did I do instead of doing bookwork for the darn show? I read the Givenchy Code, which is a fun little book. If you need a quick, light weekend read - grab it from your local book venue. I guess that means I should work on putting my book together tonight.

I was supposed to have a photo shoot today too. Not that I’m really looking forward to that, but it got moved to later today. That means today wasn’t a total waste of make-up. Why am I having my photo taken? Because the powers that be (She Who Must Be Obeyed) wants there to be a photographic connection on the website so that people can see who they’re emailing and speaking with on the phone, since so many of the library clients never darken our door. I can’t complain, I’ll send the file to EbzB to replace the rigged shot that’s up there now for my headshot.

The other canceled meeting on my schedule is a coffee appointment. This was to be with a friend of mine who AD’d a show I worked on earlier this year (yet, it was last season…). Anyway, we were going to get together partially to talk about what is wrong with the Triangle theater scene and what we would do if we had our own company. Scary enough, it’s actually possible that I might be working with her on her own theater company. While this area needs another theater company like it needs a hole in the head, it’s nice to see the conception of one and possibly have a say in the matter on how it is directed. It’s a point to ponder…

See, the long range scheming has a few possibilities. Long range scheme #1 - D & I move to DC in a year or two, I start working with the theater companies in the area, eventually getting an APM job which might lead to a PM spot. LRS#2 - we move to DC, work the area for a while, then when Nicoli gets his butt down there from Boston, we start our own company - probably a dinner theater where we get J out of Chicago to play with us. LRS#3 - Nicoli gets me a job as his boss in Boston and we all live happily ever after up in really frickin cold weather with good baseball & football, but astronomical housing costs.

Who knows…right now, I’m happy when the bills get paid on time.

 

amazon resales?

Anybody try them? I’m thinking (gasp) that there are a few books I’d like to sell off, and I’m not sure about the used bookshops here. so, I thought I’d ask if anyone here has used them.

I’ve bought from them, and the experience has been good, but I haven’t sold through them.

Let me know.