jjmcgaffey's reading in 2017

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jjmcgaffey's reading in 2017

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1jjmcgaffey
Déc 30, 2016, 10:30 pm

Hi, back for my second year in Club Read! Last year I achieved my reading goal, blew away my goal for reading more new-to-me books than rereads, succeeded with my (very small) goal for discards...and failed, again, on reading the Books Off My Bookshelf. I own so many many books I haven't gotten around to reading - gonna push for that again this year.

I'm Jennifer; I live in Alameda, CA, with two cats. My parents live down the street (about a mile and a half away); one sister in Hayward, about 25 minutes away, and the other in Reno, about 4 hours' drive away. I'm a Foreign Service brat who grew up moving around the world (more or less literally); it's very strange to me to be living in the same house for the 12th year this year. I cook, garden, stitch, sew, weave, braid, program, fix computers (run a home computer repair business) - and oh yeah, read.

I read mostly genre fiction - primarily science fiction and fantasy, which get grouped together as SF (speculative fiction). Then romances, mysteries, animal books, children's books (which include examples of all the genres...). I also read a lot of non-fiction - biography, sciences, history, words, etc. And craft books and cookbooks, which don't so much get _read_ but do get used and referenced. I don't read horror, and I don't read literary fiction - in both cases, because I don't enjoy being depressed by my reading.

So the goals I'm setting for this year are: 150 books read (because I can do that without much difficulty), 50 books discarded (doubling my previous discard goal - see if I can do it!), and 50 BOMBs read. To help with the last, I'm modifying last years rereads rule - I have to read at least one BOMB for every reread I do. New books and library books don't count, this year.








2jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Juin 24, 2017, 10:00 pm

Reading Rules

1 BOMB read for every reread; cannot read in arrears. Netgalley/ER books (books received for review) count as BOMBs for this rule.

At least 4 BOMBs read every month

3jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Avr 28, 2017, 2:50 am

Reading January - March
# indicates re-read, % indicates borrowed book, @ indicates ebook, * indicates Book Off My Bookshelf (BOMB), ! indicates ER book (or similar early review source), ^ indicates new book (but not BOMB)

January
1. All Through the Night - * - by Suzanne Brockmann.
2. Caravan - * - by Dorothy Gilman.
3. My Enemy, My Ally - # - by Diane Duane.
4. The Romulan Way - #@ - by Diane Duane.
5. Swordhunt - @* - by Diane Duane.
6. Honor Blade - @* - by Diane Duane.
7. False Colours - @* - by Georgette Heyer.
8. (Mis)Fortune - @^ - by Melissa Haag.
9. (Un)Wise - @^ - by Melissa Haag.
10. The Empty Chair - * - by Diane Duane.

February
11. Infomocracy - @^ - by Malka Older.
12. Once Broken Faith - ^ - by Seanan McGuire.
13. Unwise Child - @* - by Randall Garrett.
14. Magic or Madness - @* - by Justine Larbalestier.
15. Penric’s Mission - @^ - by Lois McMasters Bujold.
16. The Clairvoyant Countess - @* - by Dorothy Gilman.
17. Kaleidoscope - @* - by Dorothy Gilman.
18. Stag and Hound - @^ - by Geonn Cannon.
19. Laddie; A True Blue Story - @* - by Gene Stratton-Porter.
20. The Dark Duke - * - by Margaret Moore.
21. Royal Escape - @^ - by Georgette Heyer.
22. Lochinvar Luck - # - by Alfred Payson Terhune.
23. The Wastrel - @^ - by Margaret Moore.
24. Boundary - @^ - by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor.
25. Threshold - @^ - by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor.
26. Portal - @^ - by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor.
27. Castaway Planet - @^ - by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor.

March
28. Smoke and Shadows - # - by Tanya Huff.
29. Smoke and Mirrors - # - by Tanya Huff.
30. Smoke and Ashes - # - by Tanya Huff.
31. Pistols for Two - @* - by Georgette Heyer.
32. The Hex Witch of Seldom - * - by Nancy Springer.
33. Heart of Dog - @^ - by Doranna Durgin ed.
34. Vardo at the Fair - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
35. The Foundling - @* - by Georgette Heyer.
36. The Forgotten Door - @# - by Alexander Key.
37. The Islands of Chaldea - @^ - by Diana Wynne Jones.
38. Mairelon the Magician - @# - by Patricia Wrede.
39. The Magician’s Ward - @# - by Patricia Wrede.
40. To Save a Mate - @^ - by Krystal Shannan.
41. Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
42. Time and the Clock Mice, Etcetera - @^ - by Peter Dickinson.
43. Beauty - @# - by Robin McKinley.
44. Cathedral - ^ - by David Macaulay.
45. Lady of Quality - * - by Georgette Heyer.
46. Simon the Coldheart - @# - by Georgette Heyer.
47. Demons of the Flame Sea - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
48. A Fairy-Tale Ending - @^ - by Jack Heckel.
49. Beauty and the Wolf - * - by Lois Faye Dyer.
50. The Gathering Edge - @^ - by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.
51. Shadow of Victory - @^ - by David Weber.
52. A Dance for Emilia - %^ - by Peter S. Beagle.
53. Curse of the Blue Figurine - @^ - by John Bellairs.
54. Althea - @^ - by Madeleine Robins.
55. Mutineer - @# - by Mike Shepherd.
56. Deserter - @# - by Mike Shepherd.
57. Defiant - @# - by Mike Shepherd.
58. Training Daze - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.
59. Resolute - @# - by Mike Shepherd.
60. Audacious - @# - by Mike Shepherd.
61. The Grand Sophy - @* - by Georgette Heyer.
62. Intrepid - @# - by Mike Shepherd.
63. Undaunted - @* - by Mike Shepherd.
64. Redoubtable - @* - by Mike Shepherd.
65. Daring - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.
66. Welcome Home/Go Away - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.
67. Furious - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.
68. Defender - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.
69. Tenacious - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.
70. Unrelenting - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.

4jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Juin 29, 2017, 11:19 pm

Reading April - June
# indicates re-read, % indicates borrowed book, @ indicates ebook, * indicates Book Off My Bookshelf (BOMB), ! indicates ER book (or similar early review source), ^ indicates new book (but not BOMB)

April
71. Bold - @^ - by Mike Shepherd.
72. Gods of the Flame Sea - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
73. Harriet the Invincible - %^ - by Ursula Vernon.
74. Silence Fallen - @^ - by Patricia Briggs.
75. Thief of Time - @^ - by S.P. Meek.
76. Subspace Survivors - @^ - by E.E. Doc Smith.
77. Subspace Explorers - # - by E.E. Doc Smith.
78. Subspace Encounter - # - by E.E. Doc Smith.
79. Arabella - @* - by Georgette Heyer.
80. Mira's Last Dance - @^ - by Lois McMasters Bujold.
81. A Second Chance at Life - @! - by Kassandra Lynn.
82. Magic for Nothing - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
83. Closer to the Chest - @^ - by Mercedes Lackey.
84. Aura of Magic - @! - by Patricia Rice.
85. Elite - %^ - by Mercedes Lackey.
86. Banana - * - by Dan Koeppel.
87. Children of Lucifer - ^ - by Peter O'Donnell.
88. The Dark Days Club - @ - by Alison Goodman.
89. Princess of Glass - @# - by Jessica Day George.
90. Princess of the Silver Woods - @^ - by Jessica Day George.
91. The Raven and the Reindeer - @^ - by T. Kingfisher.
92. A Fistful of Sky - # - by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.

May
93. Gratitude - %^ - by Oliver Sacks.
94. Covalent Bonds - @! - by Trysh Thompson.
95. Earth: An Intimate History - %^ - by Richard Fortey.
96. The Rake's Protegee - * - by Barbara Hazard.
97. Sorcerer to the Crown - @! - by Zen Cho.
98. The Seer - @! - by Sonia Lyris.
99. Of Mice and Magic - @^ - by Ursula Vernon.
100. Fire Hawk - @! - by Justine Davis.
101. Save Yourself, Mammal! - @^ - by Zach Weiner.
102. The Most Dangerous Game - @^ - by Zach Weiner.
103. Hunter - @# - by Mercedes Lackey.
104. The Rebel King - * - by Kathleen Creighton.
105. Magic in the Stars - @^ - by Patricia Rice.
106. Cable Left, Cable Right - @! - by Judith Durant.
107. Disney's Mulan - ^ - by Lisa Ann Marsoli.
108. The Case of the Vanishing Boy - @* - by Alexander Key.
109. Slow Dough: Real Bread - @! - by Chris Young.

June
110. A Natural History of Dragons - @^ - by Marie Brennan.
111. The First Casualty - @* - by Mike Moscoe.
112. A Certain Wolfish Charm - %^ - by Lydia Dare.
113. Past Tense - %^ - by Catherine Aird.
114. A Going Concern - %^ - by Catherine Aird.
115. Jane Eyre - @* - by Charlotte Bronte.
116. Dangerous - @^ - by Shannon Hale.
117. I Dare - # - by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.
118. Restoree - # - by Anne McCaffrey.
119. Birthright - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
120. Melting Stones - @# - by Tamora Pierce.
121. Battle Magic - @^ - by Tamora Pierce.
122. Homemade - @! - by Beatrice Ojakangas.
123. Cold Welcome - @^ - by Elizabeth Moon.
124. Chemistry of Magic - @! - by Patricia Rice.
125. Magic in the Weaving - @# - by Tamora Pierce.

5jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Oct 17, 2017, 4:07 am

Reading July - September
# indicates re-read, % indicates borrowed book, @ indicates ebook, * indicates Book Off My Bookshelf (BOMB), ! indicates ER book (or similar early review source), ^ indicates new book (but not BOMB)

July
126. The Wright Brothers - ^ - by David McCullough.
127. Hindsight - @* - by Peter Dickinson.
128. Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - @^ - by Jessica Day George.
129. All the Things You Have to Burn - @! - by Kit Abbey.
130. The Spectre General - @# - by Theodore Cogswell.
131. Saturdays at Sea - @^ - by Jessica Day George.
132. The Miracle Adjuster - @! - by Simon Campbell.
133. The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper - @^ - by Phaedra Patrick.
134. Magic Steps - @# - by Tamora Pierce.
135. An Ancient Peace - @# - by Tanya Huff.
136. A Peace Divided - @^ - by Tanya Huff.
137. Hold Zero! - @^ - by Jean Craighead George.

August
138. Black River Pack Omnibus - @^ - by Rochelle Paige.
139. The Blockade - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
140. Everything is Miscellaneous - * - by David Weinberger.
141. Steel Blood - @! - by J.L. Gribble.
142. Around the World in 80 Days - * - by Jules Verne.
143. Honey, I'm Homemade - @! - by May Berenbaum.
144. Miss Marple Complete Short Stories - ^ - by Agatha Christie.
145. Cotillion - @* - by Georgette Heyer.
146. Dragonbreath - @^ - by Ursula Vernon.
147. The Tomato Thief - @^ - by Ursula Vernon.
148. Masters of Space - @^ - by E.E. Doc Smith.
149. Jagger, the Dog from Elsewhere - @^ - by Alexander Key.
150. The Purgatorio Virus - @^ - by P.M. Griffin.

September
151. The Eye of the Beholder - @^ - by Nicole Ciacchella.
152. The Power in the Storm - @# - by Tamora Pierce.
153. Daja's Book - @# - by Tamora Pierce.
154. Briar's Book - @# - by Tamora Pierce.
155. Sky High - %^ - by Germano Zullo.
156. Tall, Dark and Wolfish - @^ - by Lydia Dare.
157. The Wolf Next Door - @^ - by Lydia Dare.
158. The Snow Queen - @^ - by Mercedes Lackey.
159. Heart Secret - @^ - by Robin D. Owens.
160. Heart Fortune - @^ - by Robin D. Owens.
161. Heart Fire - @# - by Robin D. Owens.
162. Heart Legacy - @^ - by Robin D. Owens.
163. The Fixed Stars - @# - by Seanan McGuire.
164. Stage of Fools - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
165. The Immigrant and the University - %^ - by Karin Sveen.
166. The Unfinished Clue - @* - by Georgette Heyer.
167. A Reliable Wife - @* - by Robert Goolrick.
168. Friday's Child - @* - by Georgette Heyer.

6jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Déc 27, 2017, 4:59 am

Reading October - December
# indicates re-read, % indicates borrowed book, @ indicates ebook, * indicates Book Off My Bookshelf (BOMB), ! indicates ER book (or similar early review source), ^ indicates new book (but not BOMB)

October
169. Alameda County - %^ - by Ruth Hendricks Willard.
170. The Killing Game - ^ - by Peter O'Donnell.
171. Northanger Abbey - @^ - by Jane Austen.
172. Snow Shadow - @* - by Andre Norton.
173. The Tower - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
174. Jade Mountain - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
175. Wings of Fire - @! - by Alma Alexander.
176. The Demon's Wife - @! - by Rick Hautala.
177. The Prince Commands - @# - by Andre Norton.
178. Miss Seeton Quilts the Village - @! - by Hamilton Crane.
179. The Boy on a Black Horse - @^ - by Nancy Springer.
180. The Black Box - @^ - by Malka Older.
181. The Rupture - @^ - by Malka Older.
182. Tear Tracks - @^ - by Malka Older.
183. Narbonic - ^ - by Shaenon Garrity.
184. The Paladin - @* - by C.J. Cherryh.
185. Gods, Graves, and Scholars - ^ - by C.W. Ceram.
186. Dark Watcher - @# - by Lilith Saintcrow.
187. The Family He Wanted - @# - by Karen Sandler.
188. Storm Watcher - @# - by Lilith Saintcrow.
189. Fire Watcher - @# - by Lilith Saintcrow.
190. Cloud Watcher - @# - by Lilith Saintcrow.
191. Mindhealer - @# - by Lilith Saintcrow.
192. Pack - @^ - by Lilith Saintcrow.

November
193. Remnant Population - @* - by Elizabeth Moon.
194. Shipwreck: The Strange Fate of the Morro Castle - @* - by Gordon Thomas.
195. Hunter - @# - by Mercedes Lackey.
196. Due Diligence - @^ - by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.
197. A Kidnapped Santa Claus - @^ - by L. Frank Baum.
198. Elite - @# - by Mercedes Lackey.
199. Apex - @^ - by Mercedes Lackey.
200. The Voice of Lions - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
201. The Act of Hares - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
202. In Little Stars - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
203. Heaps of Pearl - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
204. Never Shines the Sun - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
205. Through This House - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
206. Full of Briars - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
207. Dreams and Slumbers - @# - by Seanan McGuire.
208. The Outcast of Redwall - # - by Brian Jacques.
209. Thresholds - @* - by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
210. Phone Kitten - @^ - by Marika Christian.
211. Justice Calling - @# - by Annie Bellet.
212. Murder of Crows - @^ - by Annie Bellet.
213. Pack of Lies - @^ - by Annie Bellet.
214. The Rancher's Inherited Family - * - by Judy Christenberry.
215. Superwomen - @^ - by Albert Payson Terhune.
216. Of War and Honor - @* - by Gordon R. Dickson.
217. The Dark Birds - @^ - by Ursula Vernon.
218. The Wee Free Men - @* - by Terry Pratchett.
219. Martin the Warrior - # - by Brian Jacques.
220. Games Creatures Play - @^ - by Charlaine Harris.
221. Shane - * - by Jack Schaefer.
222. The Nonesuch - @ - by Georgette Heyer.
223. The Lion and the Unicorn - ^ - by Richard Harding Davis.

December
224. The Food of the Gods - @^ - by H.G. Wells.
225. Giants on the Earth - @^ - by S.P. Meek.
226. Ellis Peters' Shropshire - %^ - by Ellis Peters.
227. Fire Planet - * - by P.M. Griffin.
228. Ghost Garages - @^ - by Erin Hartshorn.
229. The Ghost in the Third Row - @^ - by Bruce Coville.
230. The Ghost Wore Gray - @^ - by Bruce Coville.
231. The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed - @^ - by Bruce Coville.
232. The Grove - @^ - by Jean Johnson.
233. The Mage - @# - by Jean Johnson.
234. Princess of the Midnight Ball - @# - by Jessica Day George.
235. Down Among the Sticks and Bones - @^ - by Seanan McGuire.
236. With Full Honors - ^ - by Donald McQuinn.
237. Off to Be the Wizard - * - by Scott Meyer.
238. Cross Country ABC - ^ - by Arden, Bobbie, and Carol Scott.
239. Temporally Out of Order - @^ - by Joshua Palmatier ed.
240. The Comedy of Agony - *! - by Christopher Spranger.
241. Age Doesn't Matter Unless You're a Cheese - * - by Kathryn Petras.
242. Penhallow - @* - by Georgette Heyer.

7jjmcgaffey
Déc 30, 2016, 10:37 pm

Reserved in case I need it.

8ronincats
Déc 31, 2016, 6:22 pm

Happy New Year! (dropping a star)


9The_Hibernator
Jan 1, 2017, 9:08 pm

10jjmcgaffey
Jan 2, 2017, 11:56 pm

Happy New Year to you two - thanks for dropping by!

11jjmcgaffey
Jan 10, 2017, 10:41 pm

Bleah. Well, I had a couple good days to start the year, in which I got many things done - one of them was moving from one (expensive) storage space to another, smaller, and cheaper. In the process I got rid of 6 totes of stuff! However, the day I finished the job, Saturday the 8th, I was feeling quite sick - wasn't going to leave it, I was in both spaces and paying for both, so I pushed through. And Saturday night I pretty much collapsed. My parents fed me and I went to bed at 8:30 pm, and woke up Sunday at 2:30 to Mom calling to see how I was and if I wanted to come over to eat. That got me up, I went over, ate dinner and read part of the paper (they get it, I don't), went home and fell asleep again 6 hours later. Monday morning I woke up with strange noises in my lungs and made an appointment with my doctor; Mom drove me in (I'm useful to them too, but I'm so glad I live near them!) and the doctor determined I probably didn't have a bacterial infection, but just some variety of cold/flu virus. Just. So she gave me lots of instructions on symptom-reducing medicines - sudafed and ibuprofen and nasal spray - I got them, Mom took me to their house and fed me again (and I took the medicines). I don't know if it was the medicines or just a short-term virus moving out, but by that evening I was feeling better - not well, but not utterly flat and lacking energy as I had been. Went home again, read a little, took medicines again and slept - and today I feel like I have a bad cold, not like I want to collapse. I'm not well, but I can do things. An unpleasant but short interlude. Oh, and the only thing I really had energy for was reading Twitter, which let me keep up to date on the latest Trump mess(es). Bleah again - maybe I should have skipped that. Oh well.

So! How was _your_ first week of the month?

I did manage to read two BOMBs (yay!) which means I can read the omnibus I was in the middle of (of which I've read the first two books). And it turns out it's not a five-books-condensed-into-four omnibus, it's four-books-condensed-into-three...fortunately I have the fifth book in paper. Actually I have all five (the omnibus is an ebook). I got out the two I'd finished and have been reading them on paper - easier that way - but after I finish the second book I'm going to have to burrow in my book boxes for the other three. I'll need to anyway, for the fifth book, so I might as well. And then decide if I want to keep them on paper (the first lot) - I may discard, since I have the ebook. Um. Which apparently (I just learned) updated some of the info to match other timelines...Oh well, nothing major.

12jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Jan 11, 2017, 12:22 am

Books Read
1. All Through the Night * by Suzanne Brockmann. Review - Interesting – main romance is M/M, though since it’s a Brockmann there are a couple others going as well. Very romantic, not at all explicit. Kisses and a few “Ah!”s.
2. Caravan * by Dorothy Gilman. Review - Very strange for a Gilman – not in the least quirky/funny. Very rich story. There is a rape, sort of...though her husband was worse, in his way. A very strange HEA, and a very female family…
3. My Enemy, My Ally # by Diane Duane. Review - Lovely as usual. I do love Ael, and how much she’s willing to change her mind – and how much she expects Kirk et al to change theirs. And it’s a Duane, so there are some _gorgeous_ bits of wordplay, and character interplay.

Currently Reading
The Romulan Way, next one in the Rihannsu series by Diane Duane. Not sure what else - I have some I've set down that I should pick up again, but I think I'll stick with Rihannsu for a while (two/three more books after this one). The nice thing is that I've only read the first two, so the latter two will be BOMBs to open up more rereads to me.

BOMBs
All Through the Night and Caravans. I had to slow down on reading My Enemy, My Ally to make sure I finished at least one BOMB before I finished that...but so far the rule is working (at least one BOMB for each reread, read _first_).

Discards
Not sure. I don't feel like I want to reread either of the BOMBs, right now...not sure how I'll feel about them later, though. If I could get them as ebooks, I'd dump the paper ones. And I _think_ that's what I'm going to do with the Rihannsu series (keep the last one until I can get the ebook, dump the others).

New/Reread
Two new (the BOMBs), one reread. And a reread in process.

13ronincats
Jan 11, 2017, 11:40 am

I hope you are feeling better, Jenn. So nice your parents are close enough to take care of you in that situation. I do miss my mom being so far away when I am miserably sick.

Coincidentally enough, Caravan was a book that I got from the Christmas Swap and I just read it for the first time as well, right after Christmas. A strange story, with many interesting features.

14jjmcgaffey
Jan 13, 2017, 4:09 am

(copied from Roni's thread because it's a good reminder to me what I want to do this year...)

(My BOMBs rule) might even get me to do some more organizing on my book boxes. In...2014? I cleverly pulled all the books I hadn't read yet off my shelves (fiction, at least) and boxed them up, with the intention of reading them and either discarding or putting them back on the shelves. Good idea, bad follow-through - I just went on reading the books on my shelves, and seldom touched the boxes unless I wanted a particular book. And as they're only partially organized, that (finding a particular book) was quite a pain. The F&SF, at least, was put in alpha by author (that's how I've organized my shelves for years); the only problem is that there's also two or three years' worth of accumulation stacked up in random locations. The romance is almost as organized as the SF; the mysteries are...well, most of them are in one set of boxes. The non-fiction is hopeless - I alternate between splitting and lumping (Ok, this box is cookbooks and this one is music and this one is history but there's a lot of room in it so I'll add geography but there's not quite enough room for all of those so I'll put some of them in with travel and...bleah). I need to pull them all out and start again. So (bringing this back to the start), if I need BOMBs to obey my rules, maybe it will get me to do the organizing so I can find them! (and this is all physical - listing their locations accurately on LT is a whole separate problem. I have numbered the boxes, though, which is a prerequisite).

>13 ronincats: Hi, Roni! Yes, feeling much better. Not well (coughing like a barking dog!) but much much better. I think I need to think about Caravan for a long time before I decide how I feel about it.

15AnnieMod
Jan 13, 2017, 6:56 pm

>14 jjmcgaffey: That is actually an awesome idea. I have a few *mumbles" of books that I am not sure I want to keep. As I moved recently, I am still unpacking books so I probably should leave them in the boxes until I have a chance to read them and decide if I am keeping them...

Hope you are on the road to recovery

16jjmcgaffey
Jan 21, 2017, 3:37 am

I'm finding myself in a dangerous frame of mind - I want to get rid of everything. I have a lot of my paper books in ebook as well, and I'm thinking I could get rid of the paper ones and just have the ebooks to read...and then I notice that I'm reading a book I have in both forms, and I'm a lot slower (more easily distracted, etc) reading it electronically. So maybe I want to keep the paper ones. But I could get rid of so many books...

Part of the trigger for the wanting to get rid of them was - I had to rearrange a shelf or two, and spent some considerable time _dusting_ the silly things. And if the dust is getting that heavy on them, maybe I don't need them. But still.

I'm going to concentrate on the BOMBs, and let the idea of culling everything I have in e-form simmer for a while. I suspect I'd be really unhappy with the result if I just dumped everything. But I may - once I've reduced my BOMBs in boxes - box up some of the paper books and see what happens.

17janemarieprice
Jan 22, 2017, 10:02 am

>16 jjmcgaffey: I'm strictly paper books (I find it difficult to absorb material read electronically) but am going through a massive spring cleaning/purge at the moment so I feel you on the dusting. Does anyone have any tips to help keep them from getting so yucky? My goal was to go through all my shelves and purge anything I didn't want/would't read and only ended up with a box of about 20 books. They are one of the few things in my life that I'm that reluctant to move on from. :)

18jjmcgaffey
Jan 24, 2017, 12:20 am

My wool duster did a good job, but I had to go over them three or four times taking off one layer at a time. If I dusted them every time I cleaned the room (theoretically, once a month) there would be no problem. But then we run into reality...

19ipsoivan
Jan 24, 2017, 6:45 am

I also struggle with the urge to just get rid of them all. In my case, it's not just the ones I have in both formats, but also anything I can get from the library as an e-book pretty much whenever I want.

I commute by streetcar, bus and subway, so don't want to lug a book as well as my computer and/or ipad. But last night I realized that I had left my ipad at work, with Knausgard's second volume on it, so I pulled the hard back off the shelf. What a pleasure! Really, it made me love the book even more.

20jjmcgaffey
Jan 25, 2017, 2:58 am

I'm still chugging through the Rihannsu series - finished the third/fourth book (in the e-version, they're combined, as they should have been) and started the last one. I'm not sure whether I'm enjoying it or not - good adventure, excellent Star Trek (characters, etc), but a lot of politics and mental maneuvering which is not something I enjoy much. Eh, it'll be worth reading. Haven't gotten around to reviewing yet, though, so not doing a formal post. Also, since I finished reading on my phone (the last book I don't have in e - reading it in paper), I went to set up the next book there - and found myself several chapters into Georgette Heyer's False Colours. It's a very different flavor of book from the Rihannsu... And while I'm reading it as an ebook, it's on my shelves as well, so it counts as a BOMB. I have a lot of Heyers both ways (another group I'm considering if I need the paper versions any more).

>19 ipsoivan: Yeah, it's handy to have the paper versions at home - for a while I was reading the same book on my phone while I was out and on paper when I was at home. But syncing them up got to be a pain, and I found myself just reading on my phone at home as well.

It's also a lot easier to _find_ an e-version - as I deal with the second lot of 6 boxes of books that need to be scanned, sorted, and integrated with the ones that are (theoretically) properly sorted by genre and author. Second lot, and there's a third and probably a fourth before I can do the sorting-in part. And then the ones on the shelves...not to mention the ones in bags and boxes...they've all been entered into LT (again, theoretically), but are lacking some data (and a scanned cover) and need to be sorted into the right places once I've got that done. Fun. Actually it is fun - nice to see these books I've known I had but not where - but it's also a pain. And three or four duplicates so far, some of which had been entered as duplicates and some of which hadn't been entered.

21ronincats
Jan 27, 2017, 12:32 am

Many of my books are paperbacks from the 60s, 70s and 80s, things that it can be hard to find these days unless they come out in ebooks. I have a great library system here in San Diego, but if I move to be back with my family when I become aged and infirm, I won't have that resource any more. I also have most of the Heyers in both formats--luckily because my original paperbacks are close to falling apart from rereadings. But many of my books aren't available in that format and when they are, do I want to invest the funds in acquiring them? At least my books are mostly on shelves and sorted and even accessible.

22jjmcgaffey
Jan 27, 2017, 12:36 am

Yeah, it's complicated. I keep an eye out for sales and free books, a lot - I've gotten a bunch of Heyers that way. But I have a good many books that I don't expect to ever see as ebooks - not in print any more, but not in the public domain either. Those are much harder to decide to get rid of, obviously. I have to decide that I never want to read this again...and never is a very long time. But if I manage to cull my physical books down to the ones I really want to read again, I should be able to keep them on shelves and accessible. Working on it!

23jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Avr 28, 2017, 2:53 am

Books Read (January)
4. The Romulan Way #@ by Diane Duane. Review - Rich, and confusing, as always. A lot of jumping back and forth, in time, in POVs, and in format. It’s a good story – several good stories. But it’s a little hard to keep straight. The last few scenes, in the Senate, are wonderful for wordplay and images though.
5. Swordhunt @* by Diane Duane. Review - The first half of a book split into two in the original release. It literally ends in the middle of - not even the action, the setup for the action. One battle and a lot of talking. Glad I didn't read this on release.
6. Honor Blade @* by Diane Duane. Review - The second half of the book - it starts with Chapter 6 (the next chapter after Swordhunt). Even treating it as one book - it still ends inconclusively. War is starting, but nothing is set or settled yet.
7. False Colours @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Nice fluff. I like Kit a lot better than Evelyn - and Cressy best of all. The mother is an idiot, and her sons are enablers, unfortunately. Nice disposition, though. I'd like to meet Faith, though as far as I know Heyer never wrote that one.
8. (Mis)Fortune @ by Melissa Haag. Review - It's fluff, but good fluff. I whizzed through it. Funny echoes of False Colours - nothing major, just the two brothers with the romance being for the more serious one. And beginning to find clues for the arc of this series.
9. (Un)Wise @ by Melissa Haag. Review - Also fluff, though the story is getting more serious - the arc of the series is now clear. Nasty power, dreaming all the past lives - and deaths. I really want to read Luke's take on this.
10. The Empty Chair * by Diane Duane. Review - Very rich, it ties up all the loose ends, lots of good interactions...and somehow not very satisfying. I liked the first two books best. This one feels like a Duane, but not so much like a Star Trek novel, that's part of it.

Currently Reading
See next next post.

BOMBs
The three Rihannsu books and False Colours. Doing well on this!

Discards
I think I'm getting rid of the first four Rihannsu books - not The Empty Chair yet, I don't have it in e-version. Though I mostly only want to read the first book again...well, not shedding it yet. False Colours - again, I have it in e-version, and that's probably the way I'll read it again. So yeah, out (and Heyers show up regularly in sales, should I decide I need it in paper).

New/Reread
One reread, 7 new. Excellent!

24jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Fév 5, 2017, 8:45 pm

January stats
10 books read
2 rereads
8 new books
3 rereads paid for - excellent!

3053 pages read, average 305.3

5 BOMBs - hit my goal for the month
0 ER books
0 Netgalley books

7 ebooks, 3 paper books (though most of the ebooks I also have in paper)

6 discards

4 SF&F
1 general fiction
4 romances

10 F, 0 M authors. Even more unbalanced than usual.

25jjmcgaffey
Fév 5, 2017, 8:39 pm

Books Read
11. Infomocracy @ by Malka Older. Review - Weird - rich, interesting, fascinating if you're an election wonk which I am _not_, especially not now. But worth reading.

Currently Reading
Almost done with Once Broken Faith - maybe even finish it today. I also started Unwise Child (also known as Starship Death) by Randall Garrett - I've started it several times before, maybe this time I'll actually get it done. Another e-BOMB (I have a paper copy, I'm actually reading it in epub). After that I'd like to go back and finish some I've started and abandoned - The Invisible Library, which I started in December; The Seer, which I started last April; and (argh, I have got to get to this one!) Sorcerer to the Crown, which I started December _2015_.

BOMBs
Nope, new book. A BOMB in process, though.

Discards
Again, nope.

New/Reread
This one's new.

26jjmcgaffey
Fév 12, 2017, 12:59 am

Books Read
12. Once Broken Faith ^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Finally finished - I stalled months ago and finally picked it back up. Pretty good in itself, valuable as the next part of Toby's arc. I'll have to read it again sometime and see if I stall again.
13. Unwise Child @* by Randall Garrett. Review - Not bad, glad I read it, unlikely to ever reread. My paper copy is titled Starship Death - the original title is much better.
14. Magic or Madness @* by Justine Larbalestier. Review - Weird and wonderful - my view of the villain kept switching. Find the next one!
15. Penric’s Mission @^ by Lois McMasters Bujold. Review - Lovely. More about Penric and Desdemona, new view of their (by this time, settled and comfortable) relationship. And a new development in Penric's life...hope it works out!
16. The Clairvoyant Countess @* by Dorothy Gilman. Review - Fascinating. Very Gilman - familiar turns of phrase ("forgivingly"), fascinating characters, neat world. I have the next one!
17. Kaleidoscope @* by Dorothy Gilman. Review - Still a fascinating world, and much more polished - not choppy individual episodes, but matters linking back and forth. The number of HEAs here, though, is ridiculous!

Currently Reading
Um. Nothing, actually - I may try Sorcerer now, or just go on using Calibre Companion's "find a random book" from the books on my phone. It's certainly working well - reading a lot, finding good books. And I've been rejecting some, but a book I also have in paper (that's a BOMB) often gets read

BOMBs
Most of these - not Once Broken Faith or Penric's Mission, but the other four are all books I have both in paper and e-versions. I read the e-version, but it still counts as a BOMB.

Discards
All four BOMBs. Keeping the paper version of OBF, and Penric is just an ebook so wouldn't count anyway.

New/Reread
All six are new to me.

OK! Finishing OBF seems to have broken a dam - I'm reading tons. And what I'm reading is all new books, and mostly BOMBs, and mostly ones I'm willing to discard (partly because I have the e-versions). Unwise Child I'd have discarded anyway, but the other three BOMBs are great. Still, I don't need the paper copies, I'll probably read them as ebooks anyway (as I did this time). And on top of that, the worst book in this lot (Unwise Child) is "worth reading, but I doubt I'll reread" - five excellent and one OK. Sehr gut!

27jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Fév 12, 2017, 1:23 am

I'm working hard on my boxes of books - sorting and scanning the ones that have piled up waiting for me to deal with them, and (once they're ready) sorting them into the older boxes. Which, I find, are mostly full of books with...adequate...covers. I may re-scan. Oh damn...I shouldn't be deleting the full scans, I should be saving them. Except most of them need so much work to be decent. Eh, I'll continue just keeping the cleaned-up covers - I'm finishing them at about 2000 pixels high, which is a decent size.

According to LT, I have about 1500 books to scan - which is...well, I can conceive of finishing that! Though there may be more I need to scan that aren't tagged. And then there's the ebooks, which need different work. But still. Real progress!

My reading's going really well - it'll probably slow down after a while, but I've done more BOMBs already than I've _ever_ done in the first half of the year, and I think more discards too. Yay!

Beyond that - I'm working (lots of clients with very assorted computer problems), and I'm decluttering my house. I'm a borderline hoarder - I've known that for years, but in the last year or two I went a bit past the border. Things stacked up in heaps, and paths between them for my living. Things somewhat clustered - so if I wanted yarn, it was over _there_ in one of those totes or in the rolling shelves...and garden stuff was over in _that_ corner...but still, I've bought things in the past year because I couldn't find the one I knew I had. And refused to buy things because I didn't know what I already had.

I'm doing a challenge through Habitica, 52 Weeks of Decluttering. It's a website and a series of tasks to be done each week of the year. Some of them are extremely easy for me - this past week was setting up recycling stations and trash, and I have those - they've been in place for years. So I used this week, and will probably use next week (coupons) as well, to work on my kitchen - inventorying my food, and decluttering my pots and pans and bakeware and storage containers and utensils and gadgets...

Fortunately, the White Elephant sale is going on - it's a huuuuge rummage sale, a fundraiser for the Oakland Museum. So I can drop off my stuff quickly and easily. The only problem is, each carload earns me two day-passes to shop...I've only gone twice, I still have three stickers. I got some really nice stuff, too - a dark brown hemp shirt from Orvis, a Stetson cap (not hat, cap. Like a cabby cap but with a longer bill and pull-down earflaps - perfect for the sunny, breezy days we're having right now), some Mason jars... It's less stuff than I'm getting rid of, at least. And very few books so far. That will probably come on the last day, the first Sunday in March. Half-price on everything and a bag sale for books. Hmm, need to find those red bags - if I use the bags I bought previous years, it's even cheaper ($4/bag, I think - vs $5 if I need a new bag).

So the books are part of the decluttering - both the scanning and sorting, and the discarding as many as possible (after I've read them, mostly!). Progress progresses. And back to work on them, now.

28ronincats
Fév 13, 2017, 12:27 pm

>26 jjmcgaffey: Glad you finally made it through Once Broken Faith, Jenn. It is definitely important in the story arc. And I love The Clairvoyant Countess and Kaleidoscope. They are the only Gilman's I keep on my shelves and some of my comfort reads. As are Garrett's Lord Darcy books, but not any of the rest of his. And of course Penric always leaves me wanting more. Good reading! And good luck with the decluttering. My piles are mostly up in the attic where no one can see them.

29jjmcgaffey
Fév 14, 2017, 1:48 am

Yes - I mildly like quite a few of Garrett's, but the Lord Darcy books are way up above all the rest. I love the early Mrs. Pollifaxes - I have those on my shelf - and like quite a few of Gilman's - but I'd never read Madame Karitska before, despite owning both the books for years. Or, why I've had a BOMB challenge every year... But this year it actually seems to be working, yay!

Broke my streak of good books, though. The random book chosen for me by Calibre Companion is Stag and Hound, which is...really poor. Trite plot (which I did _not_ expect to say about a book about werewolves in Occupied France!), sketchy characters, poor copyediting (people keep being in two places at once), and way too much and too graphic/clinical sex. I'll finish it - I want to know what happens - but this is not one I'll reread. At least I don't think so - I'm less than half-way through, and I suppose it might pull a rabbit out of a hat and be wonderful by the end. I just don't think it's going to happen. So to lessen the pain, I picked up (from the stack of books I was scanning the covers of) The Dark Duke by Margaret Moore. Her stuff is usually pretty fluffy, but well-written - should be a good antidote to Stag and Hound. I'm reading S&H as an ebook, The Dark Duke is paper.

30jjmcgaffey
Fév 18, 2017, 3:42 am

Books Read
18. Stag and Hound @^ by Geonn Cannon. Review - Yeah, no. Very graphic sex, sketchy characters, trite plot; the adventure made no sense in too many places. Nope, nope.
19. Laddie; A True Blue Story @* by Gene Stratton-Porter. Review - Cute romance, in a slightly different style than most of hers.
20. The Dark Duke * by Margaret Moore. Review - Not as good as I expected from this author; not bad, but nothing much to draw me in.

Currently Reading
Royal Escape by Georgette Heyer. I'm afraid it's going to be like the rest of her historicals (as opposed to historical romances) - accurately telling an uninteresting story. I've never much liked Bonnie Prince Charlie, and so far she hasn't changed my mind (admittedly I'm not very far into the book).

BOMBs
Laddie and The Dark Duke

Discards
Stag and Hound, even though it's an ebook and doesn't count - I don't want to own it any more. I think I will discard the paper copy of Laddie, since I have the ebook. I'll hang on to The Dark Duke until I've read the whole series, in case it becomes more interesting that way - I have that in paper and ditto the third book, though I have the first one as an ebook (which I haven't read yet...should have started that instead of Royal Escape).

New/Reread
All new. I'm doing magnificently on new books and BOMBs!

31ELiz_M
Fév 18, 2017, 8:01 am

>27 jjmcgaffey: Wow, congratulations on the de-cluttering progress! It is something that I dread doing beforehand but there is such a relief and sense of accomplishment once started.

32jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Fév 28, 2017, 9:58 pm

Books Read
21. Royal Escape @^ by Georgette Heyer. Review - Dull, despite what should have been interesting events.
22. Lochinvar Luck # by Alfred Payson Terhune. Review - Cute fluff – the magic of dogs, like most Terhunes.
23. The Wastrel @^ by Margaret Moore. Review - Annoying. Too much “I am not worthy”, too little actual communication.
24. Boundary @^ by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor. Review - Fun! Great space opera, with excellent characterization. Holes in the science, but still worth reading.
25. Threshold @^ by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor. Review - Still great space opera, with great characters. Nastier storyline, though. Starts a couple years after Boundary ends.
26. Portal @^ by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor. Review - Direct followup to Threshold – same great space opera (Martian-like), neat new discoveries.
27. Castaway Planet @^ by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor. Review - Not really a sequel – a new series in the same world. Still great characters, but a completely different set, mostly young – doesn’t particularly feel YA, to me, though.

Currently Reading
Smoke and Shadows by Tanya Huff - a reread (a re-re-re-read, I think). But it's been a while. Random book in Calibre Companion came up with Pistols for Two by Georgette Heyer - another e-BOMB.

BOMBs
Oddly enough, not a one. I've had the Boundary books long enough, but they're ebooks so don't count.

Discards
Royal Escape in paper - I'll keep the ebook, but I doubt I'll reread and I certainly don't need the paper version. If I could find an e-version of Lochinvar Luck I'd discard the paper version of that, too. Well, it's on Kindle, but too much - I'll watch it.

New/Reread
All but one are new to me - nice! And only The Wastrel is actually new to my ownership, all the rest I've had for a while (Royal Escape I haven't owned long enough to be a BOMB, though).

The Boundary books were clearly exactly what I needed, especially after some that were rather a slog. I'd haul out my phone any time I had a minute, and several times looked up to realize an hour or more had passed. Lovely.

I'm not going to put up the February stats just yet, I may read more.

33ronincats
Fév 28, 2017, 10:03 pm

Wait, there's not that much time left in February!!

Does the storyline get less nasty after Threshold? This series sounds like something I might like.

34jjmcgaffey
Fév 28, 2017, 10:08 pm

So it's been a busy couple weeks - my sister came down from Reno and stayed with my parents, and I stayed over there too. Lots of talking. Then it took me a few days to recover from that excess of socializing...I really am an introvert, I'm worn out after hanging with my family although I love spending time with them.

I did something to my shoulder last week - found it hurting on Friday, and babied it with aspirin and heat packs. This morning I was thinking that it was finally better, barely aching at all - stretched my arms over my head and something went snap. Owwwww. It's worse now than it was when it started. I put it in a sling for walking up to the farmers market with my parents, but that only helped a little. I think it's muscles rather than mis-aligned bone, but whatever it is it hurts like h*ll. Makes it rather difficult to type, actually - my left arm doesn't want to stretch forward - but I'm pushing through. However, it did mean that today was a pretty static day, and I got quite a bit of reading done. I expect to read more, too - it's only 7 pm (and full dark out - I hate winter). It was a lovely, sunny day, too, though chilly. Bah.

Less progress decluttering, because of family, but I'm still working on it. Not today though, since I don't want to try to lift anything.

35jjmcgaffey
Fév 28, 2017, 10:11 pm

>33 ronincats: Yes - and Threshold isn't really nasty, there's one really foul character who manages to make things difficult on several levels for the other characters. But he oversteps and gets outed - then there's still trouble, but not the nasty sneaky kind he was causing. It even ends hopefully. The third book feels a lot like The Martian - not one person alone, but a lot of improvisation and clever solutions to tough survival problems.

36jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Fév 28, 2017, 10:23 pm

Oh - and I got two ER books this month, both ebooks. Behind the Mask: A Superhero Anthology, which sounds interesting (though I hope there are more light stories than dark ones), and By Jove, which sounds rather like Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. It should be good.

37ronincats
Fév 28, 2017, 11:04 pm

I got an ER too, which sounds like fun. In Other Lands features a nerdy boy who falls through to magicland and is appalled by both the dearth of technology and the levels of fitness involved in swinging swords around.

38jjmcgaffey
Mar 2, 2017, 7:53 pm

February stats
17 books read
1 rereads
16 new books
8 rereads paid for

5958 pages read, average 350.5

6 BOMBs - hit my goal for the month

14 ebooks, 3 paper books

5 discards

10 SF&F
1 animal stories
1 general fiction
3 romances
2 mysteries

10 F, 7 M authors

A lot of reading, a lot of it right at the end. I did read more on the 28th, but didn't finish anything. Slightly more balanced in author gender. And hit my goals for both BOMBs and discards, yay!

39jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Mar 2, 2017, 7:54 pm

>37 ronincats: Oh yes, I requested that one but didn't get it. Sounds like fun! I'll keep an eye out for your review.

40jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Avr 28, 2017, 2:54 am

Books Read
28. Smoke and Shadows # by Tanya Huff. Review - Lovely as always. I like Tony.
29. Smoke and Mirrors # by Tanya Huff. Review - Again, lovely as always. Tony starts to step up.
30. Smoke and Ashes # by Tanya Huff. Review - And another. The only bad thing about this is that there aren’t any more books – I want to see Tony becoming a full wizard. There are short stories.
31. Pistols for Two @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Fun short stories - sort of condensed Heyer novels.

Currently Reading
The Heart of Dog by Doranna Durgin - a series of short stories, some of which I'd read before and some of which I hadn't. Very interesting collection.

BOMBs
Pistols for Two is an e-BOMB; I will discard the paper version, after I've scanned the cover.

Discards
Pistols for Two.

New/Reread
Three rereads (a series) and one e-BOMB.

I'd started Smoke and Shadows in February, but didn't finish until March 1st. I do love that series - better than the Blood Books. Wish she'd write more, or at least collect the Tony short stories (I've read at least two, and I know there are a few more). But now back to BOMBs (though The Heart of Dog doesn't count, because I only own that in e-version).

41jjmcgaffey
Mar 2, 2017, 8:22 pm

My arm is better but still achy, and it feels fragile - but if I don't move it and lift things etc, it gets worse (a muscle in my shoulder locks up). So I'm trying to use it and coddle it at once, kind of awkward. Getting some work done, though - a job today and another tomorrow, and some scheduled for next week. Not much else going on.

42jjmcgaffey
Mar 8, 2017, 2:15 pm

So my left shoulder has been improving but staying fragile. And day before yesterday, I went to a client, she warned me her cat bit, I petted him and he nipped at me. Oh, that's no problem, just duck or pull away and tell him that's unacceptable. So I petted him several times - and then I reached down under the desk to pet him, and - I think he decided he was trapped. He latched on and gnawed my hand before I could get away. Ow! Lots of blood, and it started swelling up. In 2006 I was bitten by a cat - a semi-feral I was fostering - and did nothing - ended up in the ER with both hands swollen so I couldn't bend my fingers. So this time I called in quickly, about 4 hours after the bite when it started swelling - and I still ended up in the ER because no one was available at that hour. Dad drove me to the ER, they looked at it and decided I needed IV antibiotics, at least two doses 6 hours apart. Which meant spending the night there. So I spent the night in an observation-room bed, with my right hand in a splint thing to protect it and a pulse and blood-oxygen detector on my left hand. Both hands non-functional makes things rather boring... I slept a lot, after I'd read the battery in my phone down.

They sent me home at noon Tuesday, after four doses of IV antibiotics and with a prescription for oral antibiotics (got a taxi home). My hand was and is quite swollen, but not nearly as sore as it was earlier - I can move my thumb enough that I'm typing ten-fingered (I meant to baby my hand but got distracted by thinking about what I wanted to type and found my right thumb doing its normal job). Sleeping on the couch (I have a loft bed. I'm not climbing up there!), taking my pills, doing very little. Reading a lot (I'll post my reading in a few minutes). Can't do handwork, I don't think - I might try some, later. And my shoulder is better than it has been in a while, but still limited - so things get very awkward at times!

And I had to delay my appointment to get a new crown on a tooth - can't drive to the dentist. So that will be at the end of the month instead of now. Bah. I'd rather have gotten it over with - but my parents are on a trip to Reno this week, so it didn't work.

43jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Mar 8, 2017, 5:12 pm

Books Read
32. The Hex Witch of Seldom * by Nancy Springer. Review - Wow. Not what I was expecting, and fantastic. And now I need to read Shane.
33. Heart of Dog @^ by Doranna Durgin. Review - Assorted stories – some cute, some tearjerkers, some rather obnoxious. Needs more editing.
34. Vardo at the Faire @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - Short story – it’s an odd world, and it’s been a while since I read any others. Not bad but rather disconnected.
35. The Foundling @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Fun! My only annoyance was that the title is about the catalyst, not the main character. Gilly is great.
36. The Forgotten Door @# by Alexander Key. Review - Oddly, not quite the book I remembered – still fun, though.
37. The Islands of Chaldea @^ by Diana Wynne Jones. Review - Vaguely disappointing. Interesting world, but the end was flat. I don’t think Ursula quite got it.
38. Mairelon the Magician @# by Patricia Wrede. Review - Lovely as always. Great distraction in hospital.
39. The Magician’s Ward @# by Patricia Wrede. Review - As above – love it, great distraction.
40. To Save a Mate @^ by Krystal Shannan. Review - Almost a very good book - goes flat at the end.
41. Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Fascinating – I wonder if it’s the same world as Sparrow Hill and Incryptid, or not.
42. Time and the Clock Mice, Etcetera @^ by Peter Dickinson. Review - Fun and funny. Hard to read the ebook, couldn’t see the pictures very well, but still fun.
43. Beauty @# by Robin McKinley. Review - Lovely as always. Great distraction in hospital.
44. Cathedral ^ by David Macaulay. Review - Interesting! Makes me want to read other cathedral books.

Currently Reading
A Fairy-Tale Ending by Jack Heckel. Not wonderful, so far. I may do some more rereads, to lose myself - recuperating is equally boring and physically annoying.

BOMBs
Hex Witch and Foundling.

Discards
Both the BOMBs, because I have the ebooks. The rest are ebooks, except Cathedral which I will keep for a while at least.

New/Reread
Four rereads, the rest new to me.

44jjmcgaffey
Mar 8, 2017, 5:11 pm

Ow. A catch-up day on LT is too much for my poor swollen hand - posting my own stuff and answering others posts has left it sore. Typing one-handed now, with the other on a coolpack. I'll review my recent reading later.

45jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Mar 10, 2017, 12:28 am

Books Read
45. Lady of Quality * by Georgette Heyer. Review - Fun fluff – a bit thinner than most of Heyers, but still enjoyable.
46. Simon the Coldheart @# by Georgette Heyer. Review - I remembered it as good – apparently, better than I thought of it right after I read it. Enjoyed it this time, though.
47. Demons of the Flame Sea @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - Not bad – these novellas will add up to a full story eventually, but there isn’t quite a complete arc here.
48. A Fairy-Tale Ending @^ by Jack Heckel. Review - No. I quit. I don’t want to read about all these utterly selfish people. Quit half-way through the first book.
49. Beauty and the Wolf * by Lois Faye Dyer. Review - Fun fluff. I want to find others in this series – I have one other, by the same author, there are lots more by different authors.

Currently Reading
Just got Magic for Nothing from the library, so that's next. Also randomly picked Curse of the Blue Figurine - I'd picked up a bunch of Bellairs in the Open Road Media sale on Amazon a few months back, need to find out if I actually want them. This is the first of the Johnny Dixon series.

BOMBs
Lady of Quality and Beauty and the Wolf.

Discards
Getting rid of both Heyers, because I have the e-versions. Also getting rid of A Fairy-Tale Ending, though it's an ebook and doesn't count - I don't want to have it around any more. Ugh.

New/Reread
One reread (Simon), four new to me.

I'm reading a _lot_ of books - well, being sick helps with that. I'm nearly almost fine again, but low on energy (which may be partly because I'm not eating well - it's too much work to go make a meal, so I'm mostly snacking). I also added a bunch of new ebooks to LT, that I've picked up over the last few weeks. OK, go read some more...

Heh - just noticed, we're not quite a quarter of the way through the year and I'm pretty close to a third of the way to all three of my goals. Nice! I doubt I'll keep this up all year (actually, I hope I don't, given _why_ I have so much time for reading), but it's nice to get some backlog early on.

46Narilka
Mar 10, 2017, 9:08 am

Cat bites can be painful. I hope your hand heals quickly.

47jjmcgaffey
Mar 14, 2017, 2:04 am

My hand's just about back to normal - the gash is still visible, but closed cleanly, and the swelling's just about gone. I'm still on antibiotics, though I stopped taking the ibuprofen when I started getting hives - I'm definitely allergic to something, and I _think_ it's the ibuprofen. So now I'm taking Zyrtec - allergy pill - in the hopes of settling the histamines down.

My energy level isn't _quite_ back to normal - I was out most of today, but I fell asleep in the car in Target parking lot this afternoon. If I get decent sleep for a couple nights, I should be OK.

And my reading is ridiculous - I've read 25 books this month so far, and we're not even half-way through the month. Some of them have been pretty small, but some are huge - average of 281 pages, which is about normal.

One of the places I went today was the library - found a book I enjoyed in the sale rack (Assembling California) so now I own that, and I checked out a couple other non-fiction books that look interesting - one that's been on my wishlist a while, another by the same author, and a cookbook. Dry Storeroom No. 1, Earth : An Intimate History, and...something else, I forget what the cookbook is. Ah, not a cookbook - Salt : A World History, about the geology and history of this edible mineral.

48jjmcgaffey
Mar 14, 2017, 2:09 am

Books Read
50. The Gathering Edge @^ by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Review - What Theo’s been up to – timeline overlap with Dragon in Exile. Verrry interesting stuff. Looks like she’s going back to Surebleak soon, yay!
51. Shadow of Victory @^ by David Weber. Review - Very confusing, but valuable – yet another set of viewpoints on events covered in previous books, especially Firebrand’s tricks. From the Havenite attack on Manticore, through the Yawata Strike, to Mike’s arrival in Mesa.
52. A Dance for Emilia %^ by Peter S. Beagle. Review - Weird little tale, very literary. Rather pointless, to me.

Currently Reading
Curse of the Blue Figurine. Good children's book, but I think the language/sentence structure is just a bit too simple to draw me in. We'll see, I haven't gotten to the climax yet. It's the first one of a long series - we'll see if I bother to read any more.

BOMBs
Not a one - all new books, as well as new to me.

Discards
Nope. Two ebooks that I want to keep and one from the library.

New/Reread
All new.

I read the Beagle book sitting in the library - that's one of the tiny ones, 87 pages. But then I'd just finished Shadow of Victory at 768 pages, so it averages out...

49jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Mar 19, 2017, 1:56 am

Books Read
53. Curse of the Blue Figurine @^ by John Bellairs. Review - Hmm… I'm really not sure what I think of it. The language is simplistic, characters are stereotypes...but there's something there. Try another one.
54. Althea @^ by Madeleine Robins. Review - Not my favorite Robins, which makes it only good. Her first book, too.
55. Mutineer @# by Mike Shepherd. Review - A many-reread, though not for years. The next step always makes sense...I do like Kris.
56. Deserter @# by Mike Shepherd. Review - Again, reread. The stories are pretty formulaic - my review contains "what happened in this book" just to keep them straight. But still fun.

Currently Reading
I'm hooked on Kris Longknife - though I may need to fit in a few more BOMBs to cover the KLs I've already read. Which would be easier if I could remember which ones I've already read... Also reading Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, a kids book. So far it could be excellent or a total dud, I'll have to see.

BOMBs
Nope. Two recently-obtained ebooks, two e-versions of books I've owned for years - and I've read them, though it was before I was on LT, or at least before I was logging reading dates (let alone reviewing).

Discards
None. All ebooks, anyway.

New/Reread
Two new, two rereads. I'm running low - only three more (two, after the Kris Longknife I'm currently reading). Dig up some romances or old SF and whiz through those in the intervals of Kris.

Kris Longknife is another series I may dump the paper copies now that I have e-versions. But I won't even think about that until I've read past the ones I'd read before. And it will help with my male/female author balance!

50Storeetllr
Mar 19, 2017, 12:28 pm

Hey, Jenn! Hope you're having a good weekend! I thought for sure I'd posted something here when I visited last week, but apparently I only dreamed I did. (I blame the house hunting/packing craziness.) But now that I've found a place and can relax a bit, I will (I hope) get back to my normal absent-minded self.

Sorry to read about your poor hand! Cat bites are the worse! I've been bitten by pet birds, a rat (yes, we had two pet rats when my daughter was little - Trixie and Scarlett were their names), a dog and a cat, and for some reason the bite by the cat was the worst. Glad it is healing well, but what a time you had!

My, you're blazing through the books! I love Madeleine Robins Temperance series starting with Point of Honour, but I haven't read much else by her. I'll have to get back to her stuff. What's your favorite?

51jjmcgaffey
Mar 19, 2017, 1:27 pm

Of the three I've read - The Heiress Companion, with Lady John close behind. I haven't read anything but her Regencies - yet! Fully intend to read all her books. And yes, this month is being ridiculous for number of books - it may be a record for me already.

Something about those little pointy sharp teeth, maybe - all the medical research agrees cat bites are a serious problem. And then there's cat scratch fever (which is not just a song or book title...actual illness thus identified).

I've been bitten by some really weird things (a deer in the Athens zoo, a raven at the Tower of London, a chimpanzee at a research station in...Sierra Leone, I think), but only my two cat bites have sent me to the ER. But this time I went quickly enough that it got dealt with relatively easily - I'm back to normal, now, with just a healing scab below my thumb to remind me.

Fun and busy weekend - library events, church events, and normal weekend tasks. I'll write about it later, though - need to run!

52Storeetllr
Mar 19, 2017, 2:45 pm

Wow! Bitten by one of the ravens of the Tower of London! Those things are magic! I wonder if they infected you with a little magic? :)

53jjmcgaffey
Mar 21, 2017, 2:41 am

Dunno. The Ravenmaster presented me with a feather from, he said, the raven that had bitten me...but I must have lost it at some point. I was...8, I think. I was kneeling in front of a bench, leaning over it watching a raven behind it, and he decided there were some tasty-looking pink worms hanging over the back of the bench - took a good nip out of my finger. The Ravenmaster put a bandaid on it, and gave me the feather and told me the name of the raven, but I forgot it almost immediately.

The cat bite has flared up a little again - so I'm back on antibiotics and hoping they'll deal with it. The doctor tried stabbing the lump under the scar to see if they could get pus out of it, but all it produced was quite a lot of blood. I'm supposed to soak my hand in warm water off and on until the lump goes down. Bah. At least it's not interfering with the use of my hand - it's just a little tender (more tender now it's been stabbed, but it was sore over the lump before too). So I need not to bump it in to things.

Still steaming through the books - I've read another Kris Longknife book and a short piece, and am half-way through the fourth book. I've got one more reread in the series than I have rereads paid for, so I'll have to interrupt for a BOMB - probably a Heyer. Then I get two BOMBs out of Kris, and then it's new books. I don't know how far I'll get in the series - 14 books and two or three short pieces is a lot in one universe. I suspect I'll stall out at some point. But so far I'm still hooked.

54jjmcgaffey
Mar 25, 2017, 6:26 pm

Books Read
57. Defiant @# by Mike Shepherd. Review - Another reread, though I remembered rather less of this one. Two stories in one.
58. Training Daze @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - Looks like bits cut out of a book – good side stories. Drafting Jack and getting kicked off a lot of planets.
59. Resolute @# by Mike Shepherd. Review - Good fluff. I may not have read this one...didn’t review it or give it dates.
60. Audacious @# by Mike Shepherd. Review - Another unremembered read. WEEIRD. I reviewed it, twice!
61. The Grand Sophy @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Fun! I was afraid I’d hate Sophy for manipulation, but it worked for me.
62. Intrepid @# by Mike Shepherd. Review - Last Kris I’d read – and equally unremembered. Some important stuff happening!

Currently Reading
The next Kris Longknife, of course - Undaunted. I'm still hooked. Also started Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey - hope it's better than Dry Storeroom #1, which was a good book spoiled by a lot of silly gossip. And still reading - or rather not reading - Seven Daughters and Seven Sons. I have to get past a very obnoxious scene, then I suspect it will be a quick read.

BOMBs
Just Sophy - as I said above, I had to stick that one in to keep up with my rereads. But now I'm on the BOMBs in Kris Longknife, so I'll be building up again.

Discards
I've decided to discard all the paper copies of Kris - I'll keep the ebooks, but I don't need to give her shelfroom any more. So 6 discards in one blow, and two more once I've read them.

New/Reread
Training Daze was new; so was Grand Sophy. The rest were (probably) rereads - not absolutely certain about Resolute, but I've counted it a reread. I don't remember it at all, but as I also don't remember the next two books and I not only read but reviewed them, that doesn't say much.

It is very strange for me, that I'd read these books and don't remember them at all. It has been 8-9 years, but I've had others I remembered for longer than that. I don't know what's up with Kris. Maybe it was what else was going on the last time I read? I don't know what that was, but that period I was doing a lot of job-shuffling. I truly don't know. Enjoying them now, though - good space opera.

55jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Juin 9, 2017, 1:54 pm

Books Read (for March)
63. Undaunted @* by Mike Shepherd. Review - Prep for the next major arc – meet the Iteeche!
64. Redoubtable @* by Mike Shepherd. Review - Kris gets shuffled off...and refuses to be shuffled. Amusing. But boy, this stuff needs a good copyeditor/proofreader.
65. Daring @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - Whew. The stakes get a lot higher...and Kris notices how much she’s being manipulated.
66. Welcome Home/Go Away @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - Fascinating – the end of Daring from Trouble’s POV. Very useful.
67. Furious @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - Very different - running from the law and others, rather than fighting her ship. Odd.
68. Defender @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - New twist...Kris is now a lot more adult. Married, even - and with even more responsibilities.
69. Tenacious @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - Lots more aliens - the BEMs and others. And problems within the fleet.
70. Unrelenting @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - Magic new tech, again - that isn't ready for prime time, though it has to be used. And an extra twist for Kris and some others - babies!

Currently Reading
See April's post.

BOMBs
Undaunted and Redoubtable - the rest are just ebooks.

Discards
I think I'm getting rid of all the paper copies (as I said before). Fun to read, but the eversions will do me just fine.

New/Reread
All 8 are new to me.

Whew! That's a lot of Longknife - but I didn't stall out or get bored. One more to go in the series, then I have to wait until next October...

56jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Avr 28, 2017, 3:02 am

Books Read
71. Bold @^ by Mike Shepherd. Review - New situation – Kris learns to negotiate. With Peterwalds!
72. Gods of the Flame Sea @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - Rounds off the story - but it still feels like a side story.
73. Harriet the Invincible %^ by Ursula Vernon. Review - Fun version of Sleeping Beauty - with a kickass princess (who happens to be a hamster…).
74. Silence Fallen @^ by Patricia Briggs. Review - Wow and wow. I like Mercy, but this may be the best one yet. Though the author makes Bran too sneaky.
75. Thief of Time @^ by S.P. Meek. Review - Little steampunkish mystery story. Interesting.
76. Subspace Survivors @^ by E.E. Doc Smith. Review - Short story that turned into the first chapter or so of Subspace Explorers.
77. Subspace Explorers # by E.E. Doc Smith. Review - Old favorite - though I like some bits of Survivors better, oddly. Gets very political.
78. Subspace Encounter # by E.E. Doc Smith. Review - Less politics, more adventure, and it finishes the story. More or less. Smith does like his mysterious Operators…

Currently Reading
Arabella by Georgette Heyer - need some BOMBs, I'm out of reread room. Earth:An Intimate History (it's non-fiction, so slow), Mira's Last Dance by Lois McMasters Bujold (haven't actually started, but it's in line), Elite by Mercedes Lackey (again, in line - that one's a paper library book). Lots! Not any of my old unfinished books, though, so I need to work on those soon - doing a Habitica challenge for those.

BOMBs
Not a one. New books, ebooks and library books, and then two rereads (using up my reread allowance). Need to read more. And so recently I was worried I was way ahead...

Discards
None. Bold is only an ebook, and the rest that I own are either ebooks or keepers (or both).

New/Reread
6 new, 2 rereads.

Finished Kris and burst out into all kinds of stuff. I did the random book in Calibre Companion and came up with Subspace Survivors - which is the first chapter of Subspace Explorers, which I have read many times before (but never reviewed). So of course I had to read that, and its sequel. Then I went to the library yesterday to return books...and came back with a bunch more, sigh. Need BOMBs!

57jjmcgaffey
Avr 5, 2017, 11:26 pm

March stats
43 books read (!)
14 rereads
29 new books
2 rereads paid for

12804 pages read, average 297.8 (!)

8 BOMBs - hit my goal for the month

35 ebooks, 8 paper books

13 discards

30 SF&F
3 children's
1 non-fiction
1 general fiction
8 romances

21 F, 23 M authors

Wow. I was sick a couple times, with different things (from a cold to a cat bite), and apparently that made for a _lot_ of reading this month. Also, Kris Longknife is a quick read (even the bigger, later books). She was also very helpful in author balance - I actually read more males than female this month, nearly all of them Mike Shepherd! And in discards, too - I'm nearly up to my half-year goal (25 books - I've discarded 24 already). Sehr gut! However, although I read a lot of BOMBs, I did a lot of rereads too, and had only two paid for at the end of the month (and I've used them up already, in the first week of April). Very good month!

58ronincats
Avr 6, 2017, 12:07 am

My goodness gracious! That is a lot of books, sick or not!

I stalled on the first Kris Longknife book where the author used some spurious psychological theory to establish her character and never got back to the series. Too many other books to read...

Sehr gut, indeed! I only did one BOMB last month but it was a long one at over 600 pages.

59jjmcgaffey
Avr 7, 2017, 9:30 pm

Oh yeah, Kris is definitely one to not think too deeply about. One thing that really annoyed me - no, two. One: he wrote, in the first book and two subsequent ones, about her and Eddie walking the spirals of the front hall of Nuu House...and each time he wrote about it, it was different (first her on black and Eddie on white, then him on black and her on white (and "what drew the little boy to the black?" sheesh), and the last time both of them on white and being careful not to touch the black). What? If you're going to put in a weird little detail like that, at least be consistent! And the other was...well, he was very consistent. He consistently used (and his copyeditor/proofreaders didn't catch) homonyms and wrong words. The one that showed up a _lot_ was breaking for braking - he had ships "breaking" into orbit over and over and...

And the books were fluffy enough I could ignore that (well, notice and dismiss) and go on reading. At least, while I was sick and possibly not at my strongest mentally. I was seriously surprised when I read all 14 books in a row - usually I stall in a series, even a really good one, after 3-4 books. But I kept wanting to pick up the next one. It worked well.

60ronincats
Avr 7, 2017, 9:51 pm

I think we all need series like that. I know I motored through Michelle Sagara's Cast In... Elantra series like that.

61Storeetllr
Avr 14, 2017, 2:44 pm

Haha, fluffy stuff is about all I can manage these days. Packing/moving is so stressful, I have absolutely no concentration for anything more substantial.

62ronincats
Avr 18, 2017, 1:08 pm

Missing you!

63jjmcgaffey
Avr 22, 2017, 1:49 am

I'm so busy these days...I am reading, and even reading on LT now and then (though I'm way behind) but I haven't found a moment to post here until today.

64jjmcgaffey
Avr 22, 2017, 2:03 am

Books Read
79. Arabella @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Not a favorite. Too many idiots.
80. Mira's Last Dance @^ by Lois McMasters Bujold. Review - Mildly interesting, but no conclusion.
81. A Second Chance at Life @! by Kassandra Lynn. Review - No. Good writing, really weak worldbuilding add up to not readable for me.
82. Magic for Nothing @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Nice – Antimony gets her chance to shine.
83. Closer to the Chest @^ by Mercedes Lackey. Review - Mostly very quiet book - I enjoyed that. Petty problems (though they got a bit bigger near the end).
84. Aura of Magic @! by Patricia Rice. Review - Good romance - nice solid characters and motivations.
85. Elite %^ by Mercedes Lackey. Review - Great! Team story - better than Hunter, looking forward to the next one.
86. Banana * by Dan Koeppel. Review - Odd - very interesting history, weird conclusion (GMO for the win!). But he sure did like suicides - dwelt on them lovingly.
87. Children of Lucifer ^ by Peter O'Donnell. Review - Three lovely stories, Modesty and Willie being their usual fantastic selves. Wahh, only one more book!
88. The Dark Days Club @ by Alison Goodman. Review - Excellent Regency not-quite-romance, excellent urban fantasy. Love it, next please!
89. Princess of Glass @# by Jessica Day George. Review - I'd read it and I didn't remember at all. Good, though.
90. Princess of the Silver Woods @^ by Jessica Day George. Review - Good, though I enjoyed the other two a little more. Nice HEA.
91. The Raven and the Reindeer @^ by T. Kingfisher. Review - Gorgeous. Ursula Vernon has a wonderfully quirky voice, in full bloom here. Best Snow Queen story I've found yet.

Currently Reading
Covalent Bonds by Trysh Thompson - an ER book, a collection of geeky romance short stories. Should be interesting, at least. Still Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey - interesting take on geology in general and the history of geology. I'm not learning much, but that's because I'm interested in the subject and _most_ of what he's said so far I was already familiar with. Not all of it, though. Need to read some BOMBs, because what I've read has triggered a desire to reread - I want to read Hunter by Lackey, and Princess of the Midnight Ball by George. First books in their series, read long ago; having read more in those series, I now want to refresh my memory.

BOMBs
Banana and Arabella were both BOMBs, which helped.

Discards
Banana. It was interesting, but not something I'm particularly interested in rereading.

New/Reread
Princess of Glass is the only reread - but since most of the rest were simply new, I net only one reread paid for.

65jjmcgaffey
Avr 22, 2017, 2:29 am

I've read quite a bit recently (not a patch on March, but a decent chunk). Also beginning to start my garden - seedlings in the Aerogarden, though the first batch is mostly going to the Earth Day fair for my gardening group's booth. I've picked (and eaten) my first snow peas. The peas and the fava beans (I got two starts from another gardening group; decided to plant them and harvest the beans, and plant out next year...if I have a plot next year) are being _ridiculous_. They're in a planter - an Earthbox - on my balcony - and they've shot up like fireworks. The fava beans have multiple shoots each; the tallest reached the ceiling (8 feet up - well, maybe 6 from the top of the soil in the Earthbox), then bent over and kept growing - it's more than half as long going down as it is going up. The shortest shoots are a mere 2-3 feet tall. The peas are pulling the same sort of nonsense - running into the ceiling and down again. At least the peas are producing peas - there are a few little tiny green fingers on the favas, from their literally hundreds of flowers.

I've picked a good few handfuls of blueberries, and there's still a lot of green and barely-blushed berries on the bush. Unfortunately the worms have shown up again too - I haven't found a solution other than going over the bush every couple days, finding where leaves are glued together and pulling them off along with the worms inside. If I keep up with it, there shouldn't be many moths next year to lay new eggs - hope!

The carrots are non-functional - little green feathery shoots that haven't changed in the last several months, aside from the ones that died. I need to start them again. I've harvested the New Zealand spinach once; the standard spinach is starting to show up, though I think there's not really enough sun for them (they're awfully spindly). The parsley is infested with little white bugs; need to wash them off, maybe with oil soap. It's starting to bolt, yay - I want the seeds. Not seeing any dill, drat it - they grow so well in my mom's Earthboxes, but I just can't get them started here.

It doesn't look like I'm getting a plot in my community garden this year - I kind of defaulted last year, clearing it in the spring and then not going back. I asked for a plot this year, in January, but haven't heard from the guy nor have I pursued the matter. It's a little late now - the rains are starting to tail off, and the weeds will have flourished in any unowned plot. I'll try again next year, and just garden on the balcony again this year.

I'm still working on clearing out the clutter and mess in my house. I'm making new foods - discovered a Slovak Easter bread and egg-cheese (hrudka) and made both, and they're lovely. Still making my own yogurt; tomorrow I'm joining an ethnic dining club my parents belong to and bringing labneh made from my own yogurt (it's yogurt cheese, made by draining the yogurt until it's pretty much solid, then marinating it in olive oil and spices). 18 of us sitting down to dinner in my parents' house - rather, in my parents' condo. Fun! We've spent the last week trying to work out how to seat that many, and plates, and glasses, and silverware... It'll work.

Nothing much has changed in the last...two weeks? Is that all? Better than usual. Sometimes I don't post for months (though I'm trying to make it that I post every week).

Next month is my busy one. Library book sale the first weekend; I'll be helping with setup and breakdown, though I don't work during the sale (just shop). Second weekend is currently free (how peculiar!). Third weekend (starting Thursday) is Maker Faire in San Mateo; I volunteer, and again I do setup rather than work during the fair. That Saturday is also my HOA's annual meeting, and since I'm on the board I have to come (drat it!). This is a perennial annoyance. I wish we could change the meeting to the second weekend, rather than the third - I wanna go to Maker Faire, not our stupid little meeting! Anyway. Then the next weekend is Baycon; again, I volunteer and will be doing setup from Thursday. I do work, a little bit, during the con - mostly because if I do they feed me. I'll also be doing panels, three panels with other people and my usual fingerloop braiding class. That's always fun - the class and the whole con. Need to do some prep for that, though - inventory my music so I don't buy CDs I already own, pack, stuff like that.

66dchaikin
Avr 22, 2017, 11:40 am

Cool that you're reading Earth : An Intimate History.

67jjmcgaffey
Avr 28, 2017, 1:39 am

>66 dchaikin: Yeah, it's interesting. He's simplifying maybe a little too much, and repeating himself - but I'm learning a lot, both about geology and about the history of the science in the period when people were figuring out plate tectonics (and the period before that, when they were observing odd stuff that didn't make sense until someone came up with plate tectonics).

68jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Avr 28, 2017, 3:12 am

Books Read
92. A Fistful of Sky # by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Review - Lovely weird story - I was just checking to see if I'd read it and I couldn't stop (I had).

Currently Reading
Still Earth : An Intimate History. Still Covalent Bonds (so far one story that made me wince at the start but turned out pretty good, and one utterly awful one. Why did I request this, again?). And I started The Bible Repairman by Tim Powers - like most of his, really weird but good. Pretty slow, this week. And rather than reading more BOMBs, I did a reread (accidentally, I was cleaning up, saw it, picked it up and couldn't stop until I'd finished it). And now I want to reread the second book. But I can't, until I read a BOMB - preferably, a bunch of BOMBs! Back to Heyer, I guess. Or dig out a box and start going through it.

BOMBs
Nope.

Discards
Nope.

New/Reread
One reread, and I've used up all my paid-for rereads. More BOMBs!

Funny. I haven't felt like I wasn't reading this week - part of it, of course, is that Earth is such a chunk that I can read quite a bit without finishing anything. But it's been a busy week in general, trying to get stuff done that's been put off too long. Last weekend was Earth Day, and I gave them all but one of my seedlings - that one is a tiny little seedling of a tomato I really like, so I kept it to see if I can get it to grow big. And I got a bunch of other tomato starts - three that need the same kind of nurturing, and three that really need to be planted, they're flowering already. Not much else - cleaning house, working.

Oh, the dinner party went well - another person wasn't able to come, so we were a total of 17. Which worked much better than 19 and better than 18 for sitting around the tables we had. Good food, too, though not enough rice. My labneh was greatly appreciated. I ate it instead of tzadziki on the keftedes (I don't like cucumber). There wasn't much left at the end of the night. Good conversations, the sun condescended to come out in time for sunset, a great party.

69ronincats
Avr 28, 2017, 12:43 pm

I love Nina Kiriki Hoffman's books! So I can see why you got caught up in a reread. Glad the party was a good one.

70jjmcgaffey
Mai 1, 2017, 8:24 pm

Yes. She has such a weird and wonderful outlook on things... The first I read from her, and still my favorite, is The Thread that Binds the Bones. I'm gradually spreading out into her oeuvre.

71jjmcgaffey
Mai 1, 2017, 8:41 pm

April stats
21 books read
4 rereads
17 new books
0 rereads paid for (used them all up!)

5672 pages read, average 270.1

2 BOMBs (low, but I'm ahead from previous months - if I read two in May and two in June, I'll still hit my half-year goal. But I do need more for rereads)
2 ER books
1 Netgalley book

15 ebooks, 6 paper books

1 discards (low, but I'm so far ahead - I've already hit my half-year goal!)

15 SF&F
1 children's
1 non-fiction
2 romances
1 graphic novels
1 mysteries

13 F, 7 M authors (back to normal)

Nice assortment of books - quite a lot of new ones, but not enough BOMBs. Still, I'm doing better on all three of my goals than I usually am by this time. This BOMBs-for-rereads rule is working very well.

72ronincats
Modifié : Mai 1, 2017, 11:28 pm

The Thread That Binds the Bones is my favorite as well, but I've liked all of hers except Catalyst, which was just weird.

ETA Be sure to check out the May Martians and Magic Theme read thread at http://www.librarything.com/topic/256332

73jjmcgaffey
Mai 11, 2017, 11:32 pm

Books Read
93. Gratitude %^ by Oliver Sacks. Review - Interesting series of essays, written after he learned of his cancer.
94. Covalent Bonds @! by Trysh Thompson. Review - Highly variable - some really good, one really bad, most in between. But they alternated - whipsawed me.
95. Earth: An Intimate History %^ by Richard Fortey. Review - Interesting discussion of geology - the facts and the history of the science. I learned some things - surprising, I know my geology pretty well.
96. The Rake's Protegee * by Barbara Hazard. Review - Pretty good fluff. It's pretty dark for most of its course - betrayal, on several levels. But the ending is good, and funny.

Currently Reading
Restarted Sorcerer to the Crown - got a lot further than I did before already. Restarted (or started - I don't think I got past the first few pages) Fire Hawk, by Justine Dare - it's another Netgalley PDF, but I dug up my tablet and it's actually readable on there. See if I can keep going. And I need to focus on BOMBs for a while, because I'm itching to do a bunch of rereads.

BOMBs
The Rake's Protegee

Discards
The Rake's Protegee - fun, but I'm not likely to reread.

New/Reread
All new; two library books (one read in the library), one ER, one BOMB.

I've been reading, I just haven't been finishing. I had to return Earth and The Bible Repairman - managed to finish Earth before it had to go back, but I had to abandon The Bible Repairman. I'll get it again, eventually, and read it. I actually read Gratitude standing in the library - I went there to get a card, but didn't want to check out any physical books because it's a long way from home. It's just a little book, 45 pages, so it didn't take long.

74kidzdoc
Mai 15, 2017, 3:39 am

Thanks for the reminder about Gratitude, Jennifer.

75jjmcgaffey
Mai 16, 2017, 12:05 am

So my crazy month is well started - last weekend (6-7th) was the library book sale, which occupied my Friday and Sunday (I skipped Saturday - did chores instead). This weekend was a history walk on Saturday, then the (one of the) local street fairs; Sunday we didn't do much but read the paper, and my parents packed. They left - I drove them to the airport - on a trip to Hawaii on a 7 am flight Monday morning. I slept over at their house so I could get up and drive them, then came back and fell asleep again. Did chores, and went to a client; now I'm home again, and getting around to logging my reading (finished two ancient books!) and entering what I got at the book sale. I've got two more days at home to get everything done, then Thursday, possibly Friday, and Sunday I'll be at Maker Faire - setting up on Thursday, attending and breaking down Sunday, and I'm not sure about Friday. Saturday is our HOA meeting (grump. I still want us to change the date so it doesn't conflict with Maker Faire! Not going to happen, but I wish, I wish...). I'm on the board, so I have to attend. Then three more days next week, mostly packing and getting stuff ready to be abandoned; on Thursday the 25th I go to Baycon (Bay Area SF Convention), to help set up. The con starts Friday - I've got at least one panel every day, including my braiding class on Sunday - I need to make kits for that! Baycon runs through Monday afternoon. Then I come home and collapse...

76ronincats
Mai 16, 2017, 12:23 am

Busy, busy, busy!

77jjmcgaffey
Mai 16, 2017, 2:08 am

May is always insane...and fun.

78jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Juin 9, 2017, 2:03 pm

Books Read
97. Sorcerer to the Crown @! by Zen Cho. Review - Finally finished - much easier to read as an epub than a PDF. Good story, though it's fantasy with only mild Regency-ish trappings. And the dragon seems highly unlikely.
98. The Seer @! by Sonia Lyris. Review - Finally gave up. I got through...maybe half, then put it aside for over a year. Skimmed through the rest, and whatever I missed I'm fine with missing.
99. Of Mice and Magic @^ by Ursula Vernon. Review - Fun, again. Harriet is cute. I like the Twelve Dancing Princesses anyway, and this is a great version.

Currently Reading
I'm going to indulge and read Mercedes Lackey's Hunter - first book in the series, I just read Elite a little while ago. That's a reread and will use up my one-and-only paid-for reread. Then more BOMBs - lots and lots, please!

BOMBs
Nope, ebooks. Old enough to count otherwise, though (the first two, at least)

Discards
Since it's an ebook, I won't actually discard The Seer. I might want to read it, someday. I can't imagine why, but I might.

New/Reread
All new books, and one (Sorcerer) a Netgalley book, sort of. I got it from Netgalley just over a year ago, but it was in PDF form...and I just couldn't read it (had to choose between teeny tiny type or scrolling back and forth for every line. And that was on my tablet, when I prefer to read on my phone...). Got it (from the library) in epub last week, and now it's read - and I discovered that my huge slog through the PDF got me up to almost the end of the second chapter. Bah. Still one reread paid for, though I intend to use it up soon.

Not a lot of reading, but very satisfying - two books that have been hanging fire for ages are now off my list. And Harriet is fun - I was just getting some ebooks from the library and couldn't resist reading her.

79Storeetllr
Mai 17, 2017, 1:29 pm

Wow, you have been busy so far this month! Hope you have more time for reading the second half of the month.

80jjmcgaffey
Juin 4, 2017, 12:56 am

Books Read May
100. Fire Hawk @! by Justine Davis. Review - Fun - improbable, but a good romance. I've read the middle book, but not the first of this series - it goes backward.
101. Save Yourself, Mammal! @^ by Zach Weiner. Review - Not bad, but a bit of an overload. SMBC is better taken in small doses.
102. The Most Dangerous Game @^ by Zach Weiner. Review - So what do I do - go and read the second book right away. Small doses!
103. Hunter @# by Mercedes Lackey. Review - The only problem is, now I want to read Elite again...I picked up a lot more info from this one, this time through.
104. The Rebel King * by Kathleen Creighton. Review - Not bad, really hot, and it even made the overwhelming lust trope bearable. Glad I read it, but see no reason to reread, and I'm not particularly interested in the rest of the series.
105. Magic in the Stars @^ by Patricia Rice. Review - I've gotten 2-5 of the series from ER - finally found #1! And...not as good as the others. These Ives are quite unpleasant, and the overwhelming lust trope rules all. Glad I read the others first.
106. Cable Left, Cable Right @! by Judith Durant. Review - Interesting, useful, and the directions look very clear. I haven't yet tried knitting from it, but I don't think I'll have a problem.
107. Disney's Mulan ^ by Lisa Ann Marsoli. Review - Cute. I haven't yet seen the whole movie - nice to get the full(ish) story.
108. The Case of the Vanishing Boy @* by Alexander Key. Review - Fun - he does write "kids with odd powers" very well. This one's nicely done.
109. Slow Dough: Real Bread @! by Chris Young. Review - Interesting - I'm a bit of a sourdough purist, though not as much as this author. Several recipes I want to try, though many are more complex than I want to bother with.

Currently Reading
See June

BOMBs
Rebel King and Vanishing Boy, the latter an eBOMB.

Discards
Both discards - I may want to reread The Case of the Vanishing Boy, but I have it in ebook so that's fine.

New/Reread
One reread, 9 new books. I end up with two rereads paid for.

81jjmcgaffey
Juin 4, 2017, 1:00 am

May stats
17 books read
1 rereads
16 new books
2 rereads paid for

4262 pages read, average 250.7

3 BOMBs
1 ER books
4 Netgalley books (trying to clean up backlog!)

12 ebooks, 5 paper books

4 discards

3 SF&F
3 children's
4 non-fiction
5 romances
2 graphic novels

11 F, 6 M authors

Not bad, for the month. I'm so tempted to count ER books and Netgalley books towards rereads... Not yet, maybe later. But it's good to get them read, even if they're (mostly) ebooks rather than paper ones. Not a lot of books read, and some of them were pretty short, but for May it's not bad at all.

82jjmcgaffey
Juin 4, 2017, 1:09 am

Books Read
110. A Natural History of Dragons @^ by Marie Brennan. Review - Fascinating - the language might be hard for some, but it worked fine for me. Great universe.
111. The First Casualty @* by Mike Moscoe. Review - OK military fluff, with Moscoe/Shepherd's usual word weakness.

Currently Reading
Homemade by Beatrice Ojakangas (a Netgalley PDF, so slow work); Jane Eyre (yes, the original). Super BOMB! That was one of the books I entered when I started on LT...

BOMBs
The First Casualty. I'll have to find the paper copy.

Discards
The First Casualty. I'll have the e-copy if I ever want to reread, though I can't imagine wanting to at the moment.

New/Reread
Both new (and one BOMB), so I have 3 rereads paid for.

83jjmcgaffey
Juin 4, 2017, 1:28 am

Maker Faire and Baycon were as fun as usual, and exhausting as usual. My class went well - and I seem to have developed an acolyte. A girl (10, maybe?) was in my braiding class last year, and took every opportunity to tell me this year that she'd be back. She was, went through the braid I usually teach and started a slightly more complex one and dropped it. Then came back later during open crafting, learned the new braid and how to set up kits. Then went away and was braiding in various corners for the rest of the con...

Next year the Worldcon is in San Jose; I'll be volunteering for that, too. But that's in August, so I'll have time to recover from May. I'm actually completely unpacked from the con - sometimes that takes most of June, but this year worked well. Though I haven't yet entered the books I got - one seller of used books was selling them all for $1 each, oh dear. I only got 10-12 books...and four for Dad, who mentioned he wanted the Lost Regiment series which showed up on their shelves.

My mom (who was at the con) went in for knee surgery three days after the con - she had a knee replacement several years ago, and it got messed up. They finally agreed to fix it. So she's limping around with a walker, but when it heals she should be much better.

I've got a bunch of tomato starts that really need to get into real pots, but my pots aren't ready yet. Maybe next week. I've been eating a lot of snowpeas (mostly straight off the vine) - the vines have a bad case of powdery mildew, though. The fava beans are also well ready for harvest - the first year I've grown them, so I'm not sure how to handle them, but online sites say they're good as beans at 4-5 inches (and a lot of them have reached that). I'll leave a few for seeds, of course. And my parsley and one carrot have bolted and started to flower - I want the seeds off them. Wish I remembered which kind of carrot that was, though. I fertilized my blueberries, which berried very early this year - and they promptly started berrying again. Silly things. I've also grown some basil from seed - Genovese and Thai types. Those also need to get into pots. And my NZ spinach is starting to spill out of the pots again - harvest it back. The ordinary spinach isn't doing well - a few leaves each, then bolting. I think my balcony is too shady for them. Some of the new carrots are starting to form roots, but they're still pretty small (despite being planted in January). They got disrupted a couple times, moving them from pot to pot. We'll see if they work.

84ronincats
Juin 4, 2017, 12:33 pm

Good to hear from you, Jenn. Oh, you are just starting the Lady Trent books? I love them, great voice! And the series is finished as the fifth book just came out earlier this year.

Worldcon is in San Jose next year? Really? Oh my. I'll have to think about that.

My snowpeas are long gone and I am missing them. We had good harvest from January through April, though. They always end up with powdery mildew at the end. Yeah, carrots don't like being moved--I always sow mine directly in the soil. And I've had excellent carrot crops this year. So tasty.

85jjmcgaffey
Juin 5, 2017, 2:26 pm

Yes - my review of A Natural History of Dragons starts with a comment about the recommendations I've gotten for Lady Trent, usually in the form of "Ooh! There's a new Lady Trent out!". I've had this one for quite a while, finally getting around to it - and the fact that the series is complete was part of the impulse.

Yes. Isn't it fun when Worldcon comes to visit? I've been to four now, and only one I had to travel any distance (Baltimore when I lived in DC, San Jose in 2002, Reno a few years ago, and Sasquan in Spokane...um, three years ago? Two? That was the longest trip). I've been at least a supporting member for every one since Reno, which means I get to vote on the Hugos and on where the next con will be; it's relatively cheap ($40-60) and very interesting. Especially when there's a Hugo packet, as there often is these days - many of the works nominated for the Hugo, given free as ebooks _just_ for Hugo voters. It's usually not all the works - some publishers/authors don't want to participate, for whatever reason - but it's a very nice bonus (and makes it a lot easier to have read some/all of the short works, when it comes time to vote!).

It'd be great if you made it there. We could have an LT meetup at Worldcon!

I don't usually move carrots, but I foolishly planted these in pots that needed work (soil refreshed), so it was throw them out or move them and see what happened. I did it early enough they were still thread roots - no carrots to them yet - which does seem to have prevented the twisting that happens if you move carrot roots. But they're being very very slow.

And my current book (besides Homemade) is Jane Eyre - which is a BOMB. I've never read it. Talk about classics...

86jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Nov 4, 2017, 2:23 am

Books Read
112. A Certain Wolfish Charm %^ by Lydia Dare. Review - Fun, as long as I don't think too hard about it. Good characters, though. Next please!
113. Past Tense %^ by Catherine Aird. Review - Not bad, though according to formula.
114. A Going Concern %^ by Catherine Aird. Review - Ditto previous - and less good because that's two Sloan & Crosbys in a row.

Currently Reading
Still Homemade and Jane Eyre - and my fourth library book is the second Lady Trent, so I'm planning to read that on paper (I have it in ebook - I guess this is a test, to see if my reaction is any different on paper).

BOMBs
Nope, all library books

Discards
Nope, again

New/Reread
All new to me...I think. I may have read A Going Concern before - I seem to remember the device of chapter headings being lines of a poem. But I don't remember the mystery at all, so she may have used that device in other books - that's the problem with such a formulaic series, there's not much to make an individual book stand out. And the mystery is rather dull.

I went to the library to drop off some seeds I won't use in the seed library...and of course, I checked the New Books shelf. And I'd been talking about Sloan and Crosby, so I picked up a couple of those. And confirmed that I should _not_ read them in quick succession - Past Tense was positively enjoyable, A Going Concern wasn't nearly as interesting (though that's only partly the order I read them in). I'll find the rest, and read them at long intervals. And review, so I know I've read them! I know I've read a bunch of them, the early ones, but there's a lot I haven't listed as read, nor reviewed. So I'll have to reread just to get the review on. I read them before I was on LT, is what it is - or at least, before I was reviewing on LT.

87jjmcgaffey
Juin 17, 2017, 2:20 am

Books Read
115. Jane Eyre @* by Charlotte Bronte. Review - Hard to read, because of course I know the twist…
116. Dangerous @^ by Shannon Hale. Review - Surprisingly excellent. It didn't go the way I expected, several times. Next, please!
117. I Dare # by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Review - Lovely as always...I didn't mean to read it, just scan the cover.

Currently Reading
Cold Welcome, by Elizabeth Moon. Still Homemade. And I need to get to the second Lady Trent book before it's due back, though I do have it as an ebook.

BOMBs
Jane Eyre - superBOMB, I've had it since long before I was on LT and I've never read it before.

Discards
Jane Eyre. Enjoyable, but I have it in e-version should I want to reread (not for a while, anyway).

New/Reread
One BOMB, one just new, one reread. Three rereads paid for.

I feel like I've been reading a lot, but I haven't gotten a lot done. Don't know why. And today I was scanning book covers, picked up I Dare, wondered if this was the Pat Rin one (it is)...and before I knew it I was halfway through. So I finished it, of course - a re-re-re-re-read. I think that's my favorite of the base Korval series, though Agent of Change is a close rival.

88jjmcgaffey
Juin 24, 2017, 12:24 am

I've been getting some actual gardening done (just on my balcony, though). I planted the last of my ten tomatoes last week, and today I took down the aging fava beans that were crowding four of them. I got a big lot - a double handful and more - of beans...but I'm not quite sure what to do with them. There's instructions all over the web for how to clean them, and paeans to their flavor...I should try it at least once. But the beans range from an inch long and fuzzy, to 6 or 7 inches and soft-skinned - with a lot in between, that are fat and glossy and clearly contain healthy beans. The soft-skinned one may provide me with seeds for next year, and I don't think the little one is edible yet. Not sure where to draw the line(s) for the others.

I also have a couple handfuls of sorrel I got from a friend, which I need to make into pesto; New Zealand spinach leaping out of the pots it's in (around those four tomatoes, and in another pot), which I need to harvest and use for the pesto (I find all-herb pesto too strong, so I usually mix the herb with a milder green). Also some spinach, which bolted almost instantly - it's long strings, but the leaves look right, so I should harvest right away. I think my porch is too shady for spinach (which is weird, it's supposed to be a cool-weather plant, but...). A bunch of carrots that are _finally_ becoming carrots; two blueberry bushes that continue to produce just a few berries, though they had the major harvest more than a month ago; a couple strawberry plants that refuse to produce any berries; and assorted flowers (marigolds and nasturtiums, mostly). Two of the tomatoes got in the ground almost a month ago; one is dying for no visible reason, but it produced a few tomatoes early on and they're turning color nicely (that's a Sungold). The other, a Jolly I think, has a nice fat tomato but it's still green (it's on the other side of the same pot). Oh, right - I also have a parsley and a carrot (of undetermined type) which have bolted and I'm letting them flower so I can get the seeds. And a big smartpot (the felt kind) from which I harvested a couple pounds of potatoes and in which I have now planted six assorted basils (Genovese/sweet and Thai).

Amazing what you can do on a 8x15(?) balcony...I love Earthboxes (that's what my tomatoes are in).

89jjmcgaffey
Juin 24, 2017, 9:57 pm

Books Read
118. Restoree # by Anne McCaffrey. Review - Fun as always. Want more in this universe, wahh!
119. Birthright @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - OK little story - I came at it bassakwards, but it's still interesting. I'd like to read more.
120. Melting Stones @# by Tamora Pierce. Review - Not a favorite. Evvy is too...too something for me. I didn't like her much in Street Magic either.
121. Battle Magic @^ by Tamora Pierce. Review - I read it wincingly - not as bad as I thought it might be, from Briar's and Evvy's reactions. Not a favorite, though.
122. Homemade @! by Beatrice Ojakangas. Review - Not the cookbook I expected - more of a (rather scattered) memoir with occasional recipes.

Currently Reading
Cold Welcome, by Elizabeth Moon. I just got The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, so that will be my table book for a while. And when I finish Cold Welcome, I'll start Sandry's Book (also known as Magic in the Weaving) - my mom wanted to borrow some Tamora Pierce because she's going to be guest of honor at Baycon next year and she'd never read any. I pulled out some of mine (I think I have everything she's written, either in paper or in e), and got an itch to read Sandry. That's my favorite of the Circle of Magic books. Which means that I'll probably want to read the rest, which means I need to read a bunch more BOMBs soon...so maybe I'll read a Heyer before I start Sandry. We'll see.

BOMBs
Nope, not a one.

Discards
Nope. Oh, wait, I am going to discard Melting Stones - I read it in e, but I have it in paper too.

New/Reread
Two rereads and three new - one of which is a Netgalley book. Yeah, I'm going to count Netgalley/ER books towards rereads. Which means I have a bunch...lemme see. Ten! I've got 10 rereads paid for, yay. Now don't use them all up, Jenn... read BOMBs and received-for-review books and keep the numbers up.

90jjmcgaffey
Juin 29, 2017, 11:11 pm

Books Read
123. Cold Welcome @^ by Elizabeth Moon. Review - Nice. Good to see Ky again, and a great story - and a great lead-in to the new series.
124. Chemistry of Magic @! by Patricia Rice. Review - Good fluff. It's not really a Regency - the more I think the more holes I find - but the series is addictive.
125. Magic in the Weaving @# by Tamora Pierce. Review - Lovely as always. I think I like Sandry best of the four. Many times reread.

Currently Reading
The Wright Brothers, in paper at the table, and Hindsight by Peter Dickinson on my phone. And 100 Greatest Science Discoveries of All Time on my tablet, but I probably won't pick that up again until I finish The Wright Brothers - that's also a table book.

BOMBs
Chemistry of Magic is an ER book so counts.

Discards
Nope.

New/Reread
Two new, one of them ER, and one many-times-reread. Sandry's Book/The Magic in the Weaving may have been my intro to Tamora Pierce...no, I think I read Alanna first, but the Circle of Magic series was what really drew me in. 10 rereads paid for, still.

Nice mix. New and interesting book - I enjoyed Vatta's War very much, I'm looking forward to the rest of this series (apparently Vatta's Peace). ER book in a series I'm hooked on. And a comfort read - as I said above, I lent it to Mom and got drawn in myself. Oddly, I'm not feeling much itch to go on with the series. Which is fine, I don't need to use up 4 rereads (this one was paid for by the ER book, so my rereads stayed even).

I'm greatly enjoying The Wright Brothers - I knew a bit about the history (you can't really avoid it), but not any of the details. McCullough was enormously impressed by their work ethic, he mentions it at least once every chapter. Hindsight is also interesting, though not really pleasant, like most of Peter Dickinson's work. He's an excellent writer, but wow does he like dark situations. And this one is weird even for him - it's a story within a story, about an author writing a book, and I can't tell if it's fully fiction (including the chapter where the author explains that he's fictionalizing himself because otherwise he can't handle it), or if Peter was actually in such a situation. No idea.

91ronincats
Juin 29, 2017, 11:58 pm

You remind me that I wanted to check out Moon's new series! I think that $14.99 is too much to spend for a Kindle book, even one by a favorite author, so I'm glad to see the library has it and I've ordered it to be sent to my branch.

92jjmcgaffey
Juin 30, 2017, 11:40 pm

I've paid up to $9.99 a few times - but not often. Usually I'll read the book from the library - electronically or otherwise - and wait until it's out in paperback to buy (at which time, often/usually, the ebook price has also dropped. Always, from Baen Books, sometimes from others).

93jjmcgaffey
Juil 1, 2017, 6:40 pm

June stats
16 books read
4 rereads
12 new books
10 rereads paid for (counting books-for-review as BOMBs)

5034 pages read, average 314.6

2 BOMBs
1 ER books
1 Netgalley books

11 ebooks, 5 paper books

2 discards

10 SF&F
1 non-fiction
1 general fiction
2 romances
2 mysteries

15 F, 2 M authors

Not bad. I read as many BOMBs/books-for-review as I did rereads, so kept my numbers even.

94jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Juil 1, 2017, 6:46 pm

Half-year stats
125 books read
26 rereads
99 new books
10 rereads paid for so far

37039 pages read, average per book 296.3, average per month 6173.2

26 BOMBs so far this year, 1 above my goal for the half-year
4 ER books
6 Netgalley books

94 ebooks, 31 paper books

31 discards so far this year, 6 above my goal for the half-year

72 SF&F
1 animal stories
8 children's
7 non-fiction
4 general fiction
24 romances
3 graphic novels
5 mysteries

81 F, 45 M authors

Better balance than I expected, in author gender - more than half as many male authors as female. Of course, the (literal) majority of those authors are Mike Shepherd/Mike Moscoe...oh well.

Way over my goal for books read - only 25 more in the next half-year to reach my goal (think I'll be blowing that away again this year). And over my goals for both BOMBs and books discarded, which is excellent - I don't think I've ever done this well.

Nice spread of genres - though more than half are SF&F. Well, that's my favorite.

And more than 3 times as many ebooks as paper books. I'm still reading paper (and if I manage to get into reading my paper BOMBs, that aren't ebooks, I should raise the ratio), but clearly ebooks are my preferred style. I think it's less the reading (though being able to carry the book in my phone, which I'll have anyway, is an advantage) and more finding the book - so much easier to search on the phone or computer than to search the shelves/boxes/piles...

95jjmcgaffey
Juil 1, 2017, 11:55 pm

Oww. Fun day, but a lot of walking (for me, anyway). At 9 am I joined a group called Alameda Walks, and we walked a route I wasn't familiar with (in parts) - saw a bunch of birds and discussed nature and history of the area. And then we walked back to where we started, arriving about 11 am - about 3.3 miles total, 9000+ steps. Then I went to my parents'; Mom and I went out yard saling, but it was late enough we didn't get much. Did some shopping as well. Back to the parents', did laundry, had three different clients call me, two with emergencies and one wanting to know progress on his comp. Ending the day with 14,000+ steps and 17 floors, 71 active minutes (according to Fitbit, who doesn't notice anything under 10 minutes). As I said above, oww. I'm going to bed early tonight (I've had short sleep the last several nights, mostly because I stayed up late doing something).

96jjmcgaffey
Juil 13, 2017, 1:15 am

Books Read
126. The Wright Brothers ^ by David McCullough. Review - Very interesting - lots more info on the iconic discovery than I knew.
127. Hindsight @* by Peter Dickinson. Review - Utterly weird. I still have no idea if any part of it was true - story within a story within...maybe the truth? Or another story. Weird! The murder is the least part of the mystery.
128. Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow @^ by Jessica Day George. Review - Nice! Multiple fairy tales/folklore melded into a fascinating story.
129. All the Things You Have to Burn @! by Kit Abbey. Review - The rotten editing almost - but not quite - obscured how much fun this was to read. Good fluff.

Currently Reading
100 Greatest Science Discoveries of All Time - not good. It might be a good jumping-off place, but each piece is way too shallow (even when I'm learning new things, I don't learn much) and there are so many of them that they pile up and I can't remember any of them. Even as a table book, I read a dozen or so each time, because they're so short. Big Buttes Book - also not very good. It's theoretically interesting - I am interested in medieval food and cooking - but so far it's so dry, and the language is so odd, that I can't get into it. I'll keep slogging. And The Lion and the Unicorn by Richard Harding Davis - short stories, somewhere between romance and general fiction/literary. Mildly interesting but not absorbing. I need to find/pick something better - I'm going on a trip for a week, starting Friday. I do have a lot of books on my phone, of course.

BOMBs
Hindsight. I read it as an ebook, but I have the hard copy somewhere (and have had for years).

Discards
Hindsight and The Wright Brothers. Both are - I'm glad I read, I doubt I'll reread. And if I should want to, I suspect I can find The Wright Brothers in the library (and I have the e-version of Hindsight).

New/Reread
All new, so with one BOMB and one ER book (All the Things You Have to Burn), I've got 12 rereads paid for. Maybe that's what I'll do on my trip, reread a bunch of old favorites.

97jjmcgaffey
Juil 13, 2017, 1:28 am

It's been a busy week or two - on July 4 I rode my bike in the parade. The route is officially 3.3 miles long - according to my bike computer, I did 8.5 miles along the way. A lot of looping back! The parade moves at a walking pace, and does a lot of starts and stops as well. Counting my ride to where the parade started, and from the end of the parade to the afterparty and then to my parents, I rode 14 miles that day. But with my little rides (a mile or two) over the previous few weeks, and maybe the new bike seat, I wasn't in agony the next day - not happy, and I left my bike at my parents' (hmmm, it's still there), but doing a lot better than I've done previous years.

Work has been busy too - lots of people with small problems that I can solve, yay! and a few with big problems I'm out of my depth on. That's bad, I don't like letting people down. But making them pay me when I'm just fiddling with the computer would be worse.

Next week - starting this Friday - I and my parents make our annual trip up to their timeshare in Nevada, near Tahoe. It's a hot springs resort, very nice (and right now, with my toes freezing, it sounds wonderful!). One sister will be coming down from Reno to spend several days with us; the other may join us, along with my nephew (not her son, the son of the Reno sister). It depends on whether her hockey team gets knocked out of the tournament they're doing in Vacaville, half-way to the timeshare. It seems rude to hope she does get knocked out...

I'm doing a lot of baking for the trip. I found a sort of recipe for a hands-off sourdough bread - an online friend (on Habitica) mentioned their method. When I tried to actually do it, I found the information a little short - so I've made two batches (of two loaves each) which are utterly, utterly different. The first one was seriously solid and dense, with a fantastic flavor; the second has a very chewy crust and a totally fluffy crumb, with not quite as much flavor. Two days of rising next time, like the first time. I've asked my friend for some clarification, we'll see - but there isn't time to bake again, anyway, so we'll take the fluffy bread on the trip (one loaf of the solid is entirely gone, the other (what's left of it) is in my parents' freezer. Maybe we'll take that, too).

And packing, and dealing with what's left behind (need to make sure there's nothing in my fridge to go bad). And two days after we get back I'll be doing a yard sale, so I need to choose stuff to sell and box it up so I can get it easily when I get back. Yeah. Busy days (though not a patch on May).

98jjmcgaffey
Août 4, 2017, 12:08 am

Good lord. Where did the time go?

Walley's was nice, as usual, though we came home a day early because the wildfires were sending smoke plumes and filling the valley. No fire anywhere nearby, but no clear sky either, and everything smelled like smoke unless we were in air conditioning (which is a guaranteed headache when I wake up, if I sleep in it). My sister and nephew did join us for one day (arrived 1230 am, slept, spent the day with us, went home in the evening). My other sister came for most of the week; her husband came down for the one day, then went back to work.

I'm glad we did come home early, because it made setting up for the yard sale easier - I found a bunch of stuff, and actually made a noticeable amount of money ($40, after the site fee). More importantly, I got rid of a lot of things - some sold, the rest donated (or trashed). Yay space!

The fluffy loaf was nice but not a patch on the solid one. I tried again, with a little more flour than the fluffy one and a longer ferment - but it was still pretty fluffy. I need to let it rise _out_ of the fridge, in the fridge the rise is so slow it doesn't count even when I do it over 36 hours. Plot, plan - I _will_ get a fantastic sourdough bread, eventually!

Since then...well, the day of the yard sale was my 50th birthday. My parents took me out for dinner after the sale, and the next day Mom and I went to the local senior center (which accepts only people 50+) and I registered, finally! They have great classes and events and I've been waiting for this moment for at least the last 5 years. We're going to do a ceramics class in the fall.

What else? I just got a new Fitbit - a Flex 2 to replace my One, which doesn't do a lot of the automatic stuff the newer gadgets do. It's a pod in a wristband. My immediate plan is to do a hollow braid and put the pod in it, because this rubber wristband is not particularly comfortable. But I have to figure out the pattern first (probably kumihimo, I know there are hollow fingerloop braids but I don't know them (yet)).

It's hot here (ok, all you Midwesterners and Southerners may now commence laughing) - high 80s, and not much cooler at night (high 70s). The days are fine, it's the nights that bother me.

I'm making some progress - not much, but some - in cleaning out the stuff that's accumulated in my living room. The problem is that I need to spread stuff out to deal with it, and there isn't room - so I can only nibble around the edges. But if I keep nibbling, eventually there will be room - and eventually eventually there will actually be a room in there, with only useful things in it and not neat stuff I _might_ use some day! Same for the boxes under my (loft) bed. Just keep nibbling.

I'm also reading quite a bit, as you'll see below. It's barely August and I'm 11 books from my goal...I think maybe I'm going over this year. As long as I also go over BOMBs and discards, that's fine!

And I have three knitting projects in progress - I usually finish one pair of socks before I begin another, but I ran out of the yarn for one so started another until I found the yarn I needed, and the third one is a gift (as is the second, actually). I haven't actually started knitting on the third yet, but I've found the yarn for it and it's ready to go. Also doing braiding.

Oh yeah! I don't think I mentioned here that I bartered a piece of my weaving (a 3.5-yard ribbon, in white, orange, and black) for a cheese press. The guy was making them for sale, and he wanted $60 for it - I said I couldn't afford it, and he suggested a trade for my weaving (though I don't know where he saw the weaving...hmm). I think I made out like a bandit; apparently, so does he. The best kind of bargain. Now I need to oil the press, and then actually make some cheese to press in it...

99jjmcgaffey
Août 4, 2017, 12:21 am

Books Read
130. The Spectre General @# by Theodore Cogswell. Review - Old favorite, now in e.
131. Saturdays at Sea @^ by Jessica Day George. Review - Fun ending to the series (I do hope she ends it here). A few new realizations, an adventure, and tying up a lot of loose threads.
132. The Miracle Adjuster @! by Simon Campbell. Review - No. Not readable, for me. Too surreal, and with a highly unreliable narrator - he keeps telling us so. Bleah.
133. The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper @^ by Phaedra Patrick. Review - Good and weird. Now I want to reread Trustee from the Toolroom…
134. Magic Steps @# by Tamora Pierce. Review - Fun as always. Nothing exciting, though.
135. An Ancient Peace @# by Tanya Huff. Review - Love Torin...fun as always. Well, maybe "fun" isn't quite the word…
136. A Peace Divided @^ by Tanya Huff. Review - Nice again. As usual, things get deeper.
137. Hold Zero! @^ by Jean Craighead George. Review - A...rather unsatisfying book. All kinds of adventures but the end loses the point of the launch.

Currently Reading
Everything I was reading in the last post, and some more (see the second post following this).

BOMBs
The Miracle Adjuster is an ER book, so counts.

Discards
The Miracle Adjuster. It's an ebook, so it doesn't really count, but I don't want it around.

New/Reread
Three rereads, the rest new, and one ER (no strict BOMBs). I end up with 10 rereads paid for.

100jjmcgaffey
Août 4, 2017, 12:29 am

July stats
12 books read
3 rereads
8 new books
10 rereads paid for

3400 pages read, average 283.3

1 BOMBs
2 ER books
0 Netgalley books

10 ebooks, 1 paper books

2 discards

5 SF&F
2 children's
1 non-fiction
2 general fiction
1 mystery

6 F, 5 M authors

Decent, not wonderful, but I'm so far ahead in my general goal...Well up on discards, too (33 out of 50 done) and well along on BOMBs (27 of 50). Hmmm, I'm actually a bit behind there - should have been at 29 by the end of July. I better get cracking. Still, I'm further ahead than I've ever been at this point in the year.

And a good balance of author gender, too - unusual, for me.

101jjmcgaffey
Août 4, 2017, 12:36 am

Books Read
138. Black River Pack Omnibus @^ by Rochelle Paige. Review - Too explicit for me, and rather stereotyped characters, but still definitely readable.

Currently Reading
Still reading all three from my early July post - The Lion and the Unicorn, 100 Greatest Science Discoveries of All Time, and Big Buttes Book. Also reading Everything is Miscellaneous, which is fascinating - and mentions LibraryThing, from very early on (it was published in 2007, so LT was - what, a year old?). I think I got it because Tim mentioned it in a blog post. That one's a BOMB... And also The Blockade by Jean Johnson, which is great. I'd read the previous two books in the series quite a while ago; I read her summing-up of events in the front of The Blockade, decided I needed to reread the final scene of the second book, turned (ok, tapped) the page to read just a little bit before I went to get the other book...and found myself four chapters in. I still want to read that final scene, but it obviously wasn't necessary to hook me.

BOMBs
Nope - not till I finish Everything is Miscellaneous.

Discards
Nope again. I will probably discard The Lion and the Unicorn when I finish it, but not before.

New/Reread
Black River Pack Omnibus is new. It's actually three books, but I'm counting them as one - they're very much all of a kind, anyway.

102ronincats
Août 4, 2017, 1:10 am

Welcome home, Jenn, and a belated happy birthday!

103jjmcgaffey
Août 22, 2017, 7:39 pm

Heh. And I've been running around in all directions so much that I don't get back to my own thread until the week before I leave again... Up to Tahoe next week, our usual August trip. It's a little odd this year because Mom took the train up to Reno on Monday to spend a week with my sister Margaret, so it's just Dad and me driving up. More room in the car, though we have to leave room for Mom's suitcase coming down from Tahoe (she and Mar will be joining us there); only the two of us driving; and Mom not here to make decisions about food and what she'll be cooking. We did do a schedule of sorts last week, so not entirely flying blind. And to top it off, this will be the first long trip in my parents' new Bolt, an all-electric vehicle. Checking out charger locations, recalculating packing (the Bolt has slightly more cargo space than their Prius, but it's completely differently arranged - much more upright), practicing just driving (they only got it three weeks ago). Fun!

I saw the eclipse on Monday - we were in the 75% (or so) zone, so a weird view of a crescent sun. There was enough cloud that frequently eclipse glasses couldn't see anything, and it was possible (and reasonably safe, as long as you were ready to look away as soon as the clouds thinned) to look up and see the crescent sun directly. I also made a viewer, from an Instructable - a long tube of black posterboard, with a lens from a pair of reading glasses at one end and some white paper on the other end of the tube. And a window cut in the side, to see the image. It's like a pinhole camera, but the lens magnified the image a bit - it was about the size of a dime, which is 4-5 times the size of a pinhole image. And it was dark in the tube (more or less), so it showed up better. I made the viewing aperture too large - I'll block it off more next time I try it - so it wasn't all that dark in there. Still, it worked well. I'm going to try to use it to see sunspots etc.

Eclipse viewer in use


Good sun image


Eclipse viewer and image


Reading some, and not tracking very well, and not reviewing everything. I really need to get on that. At least the ebooks are marked when I started (not when I finished, but I can generally figure it out) - paper books keep slipping through the cracks.

Oh! And on Saturday, we did a fun thing - I'm on the board of my HOA, and our construction manager decided to invite the whole board onto his boat for a "wine and cheese cruise". It was fantastic, but his definition of "wine and cheese" needs working on... I brought my parents - it was supposed to be board members +1, but nobody else on the board brought a guest, so I got to bring 2. It was a motor yacht, quite large. We arrived about noon, and they brought out cheese and crackers and served champagne - and when asked, orange juice, to make mimosas. I wasn't drinking any of this - I'm allergic to alcohol - but my parents were, and everybody else. Then they brought out more cheese and crackers - the first was just a couple boards, but this lot was a tray about 20 inches across crammed with every kind of cracker you could imagine, and a cutting board with four kinds of cheese plus pate and mousse. Then the salads came out - salsa, guacamole (and tortilla chips in two colors), peppers and olives, caprese salad (mozzarella pearls and tomatoes), a Southwest corn salad...probably more I missed. More champagne, and hard liquor for those who wanted it (whiskey, tequila, etc). Delicious, wonderful, so full...and then they cleared all of that away...and started cooking the barbecue. Skewers of shrimp, beef, pork, chicken, bacon-wrapped scallops - and the same with peppers and other veg interspersed. And corn on the cob. Oof. We rolled off the ship at about 4:30 pm.

During all this eating, we'd been sailing - from Emeryville on the east shore of San Francisco Bay, out to Angel Island - they intended to land, but there wasn't any space to tie up, so we just went close around it and on. Sausalito Harbor, with thousands (literally) of boats tied up, from a classic tugboat (for sale, if anyone's interested) to a houseboat that....someone took "floating palace" a bit more literally than most. Turrets and towers and onion domes, arches and filigree... From there we went under and just outside the Golden Gate Bridge, and took a lot of photos. Saw our second harbor seal of the day, and a lot of crazy kiteboarders and windsurfers - they're a long way from any shore they can pull out on, kiting under the bridge! Then along the San Francisco waterfront, including seeing the sea lions (seals?) that haul out on the low docks there - they're a tourist attraction, but I never saw them from the sea side before! Down a bit further on the west shore of the bay, and over to AT&T Park (the San Francisco stadium). I'm not interested in sports, but several of the board members were delighted. Then back to Emeryville, under the new Bay Bridge...I tried to take a photo when we were close under it, but my phone went nuts and I didn't get it. Phooey.

Floating palace


It was an amazing day. Oh...and after all this eating, we were due to go out to dinner at 6 pm! We did it, and nibbled - fortunately it was a family style (Italian) dinner at a restaurant, so we didn't have to eat much of anything. Wonderful food, but no room!

104jjmcgaffey
Août 26, 2017, 12:51 am

Books Read
139. The Blockade @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - Nice ending to the series.
140. Everything is Miscellaneous * by David Weinberger. Review - Fascinating look at tagging vs any other form of sorting stuff…
141. Steel Blood @! by J.L. Gribble. Review - Eh. The first book was better.
142. Around the World in 80 Days * by Jules Verne. Review - Ok, I've read it now. OK fluff, with a big error in its ending.
143. Honey, I'm Homemade @! by May Berenbaum. Review - Mildly interesting set of recipes.
144. Miss Marple Complete Short Stories ^ by Agatha Christie. Review - Yawn. I don't like know-it-all detectives.
145. Cotillion @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Cute and funny - and the silly ones are the heroes, for a change!
146. Dragonbreath @^ by Ursula Vernon. Review - Not a favorite. I like Harriet a lot better.
147. The Tomato Thief @^ by Ursula Vernon. Review - Nice! I love the setting and characters. I hope there's more.
148. Masters of Space @^ by E.E. Doc Smith. Review - Weird little book - very Doc Smith, mostly.
149. Jagger, the Dog from Elsewhere @^ by Alexander Key. Review - Standard Key. Enjoyable, not particularly memorable.
150. The Purgatorio Virus @^ by P.M. Griffin. Review - Nice medical drama, in the same universe as Space Patrol.

Currently Reading
The same three - haven't picked any of them back up. Currently reading Eye of the Beholder by Nicole Ciacchella/Elizabeth Darcy - it's a faithful retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but with a lot more from the Beast's POV than I'm used to. Nice, so far (she's just met the Beast for the first time).

BOMBs
Everything is Miscellaneous, Cotillion, and Around the World in Eighty Days. I thought I'd read the last, but I didn't recognize any of it except the end, and I could have picked that up elsewhere. If I read it it was so long ago it doesn't count.

Discards
Nope. The ones that aren't ebooks are either library books or ones I want to keep.

New/Reread
All new; the three BOMBs plus one ER book and one Netgalley book mean I now have 15 rereads paid for, but I haven't been feeling the urge recently.

I'm falling behind on discards and BOMBs - gotta step up my game. But again, I'm at a better place than I've ever been at this point in the year. I also need to finish or officially abandon a bunch of books on my Currently Reading list.

I own at least two copies of Around the World, possibly three or four - but the one I read was borrowed from the senior center (I'm a member, finally! Yay!). And now that I've read it I have no desire to own it. So that's several more discards, once I _find_ them. And the same for the Miss Marple mysteries - don't care to read them, I've had an overdose of Miss Marple just from the short stories. If I want to read them, I can get them from the library easily enough. But again, I have to find them before they count as discards.

105jjmcgaffey
Août 26, 2017, 12:55 am

Speaking of discards, I'm doing a challenge on Habitica - get rid of as many items as the date, this month. So one thing on the 1st, two on the 2nd... I've more than kept up, and there's actual floor in my living room that I haven't seen in well over a year. But I have to get rid of another hundred-and-a-bit items tonight and tomorrow, because I'll be on the trip from Sunday to the end of the month. The terrible thing is, I can probably do it without much difficulty - just have to cull my thread. I have so much sewing thread...and it's not like I use it all that much, either! Also yarn, though I do use that, and crochet thread ditto.

It's been rather spectacular, actually, how much stuff I've gotten out of the house with this challenge. I think I'll repeat it next month, just on my own. The challenge provides a nice push.

106jjmcgaffey
Août 26, 2017, 2:20 am

Heh. And I didn't even notice that I just hit my books-read goal. But that was always going to happen - it's only the BOMBs and discards that I need to work toward.

107jjmcgaffey
Sep 1, 2017, 2:51 pm

Reading along, but not finishing anything - I'm on our yearly trip to Lake Tahoe, and spending a lot of time doing things rather than reading. Fun, exhausting.

August stats
13 books read
0 rereads
13 new books
15 rereads paid for

3071 pages read, average 236.2

3 BOMBs, 30 for the year (it should be 33 or 34 by now).
1 ER books
1 Netgalley books

10 ebooks, 3 paper books

0 discards, 33 for the year

5 SF&F
2 children's
2 non-fiction
1 general fiction
2 romances
1 mystery

9 F, 4 M authors

Still running a bit behind on BOMBs; for discards I've now used up my buffer from early in the year, and need to get discarding again (find all those things I now know I can get rid of! Not a lot of books read, though not bad. And I did hit my year's goal this month. Not too bad, overall.

I did manage the discarding-stuff challenge, a full week plus ahead of time.

108jjmcgaffey
Sep 3, 2017, 10:59 pm

Oof, I'm fried. Drove down from Tahoe today, in 100+ degree heat the whole way - yes, the car has air conditioning, but it's not all that powerful. Or at least it wasn't - it might be able to be stronger than that, but new car, still figuring stuff out. So it was 80s in the car and 104 out. Got back to Alameda, where normal temperatures peak in the 70s or low 80s - and it was 98F. Bleah. Unloaded the car, went home, unloaded my car, took care of my plants and litterbox (the plants didn't suffer too badly, yay for sub-irrigated pots. Some dead branches on each tomato, otherwise OK), took a cold shower, went to a party, came home an hour later. The party goes until 9 or 10 pm, and I was falling asleep - left about 7:30. Still hot, long after sunset. Too hot to sleep for a bit yet - surf and read and knit and I may fall asleep on the sofa next to the French doors to the balcony (wide open, with a screen). My loft bed gets rather warm on normal days, right up by the ceiling. On the other hand, it would be really nice to sleep in my own bed for a change...we'll see.

Too tired to read, even - I can't focus that well. Knitting I can do, I think. But I may just play mindless video games.

109jjmcgaffey
Sep 13, 2017, 8:10 pm

It's stayed hot, mostly, for the last ten days - well, except for the day that was solid overcast and then rain, thunder and lightning at sunset. Exciting! But it's meant I didn't have a lot of energy for doing stuff. I've been slogging through some reasonably good books, and one reasonably bad one...The Immigrant and the University is a biography of Peder Sather, who made a name for himself in this area. Unfortunately the author wrote parts of three books, and didn't manage the mix well - a piece on finding data about a man who didn't write much about himself, and who was not particularly visible for a good part of his life; a straight biography based on that data (but the author has a poor grasp of timelines, and keeps jumping back and forth); and a historical novel based on that data, with the facts matching but all the dialog and the subject's thinking made up. So she spends chapters bemoaning how little data there is, followed by pages of lyrical writing about the visions of his family farm he had just before he disembarked in America...yeah, right. And she's constantly following rabbits off in all directions, covering several years of events...then backs up and says So in the year before this all started, this was the situation...Argh! I'm interested in the subject, so I'll finish reading it. But it drives me nuts! Book in translation, too, though I don't think the translator contributed to the problem (nor, as far as I can tell, did she produce any solutions). But even good books, new or rereads, are a bit of a slog at the moment.

I have, however, been working on a Project. I moved into this place about 12 and a half years ago...and I suspect it was just about 12 years ago I first looked at the tall cabinet in my kitchen and thought, that would be so much more useful without the center divider.... It's about 20 inches wide, 5 feet tall and 2 feet deep. It had a divider at the 15/5 inch point; on the 5 inch side, it was just a tall slot, useful for putting a stepstool in but not much else. On the 15 inch side, it had shelves - which at 15 inches wide and 2 feet deep, were great for storage, not so good for remembering what was in the back of the shelves and getting it out and using it before it went bad. So the other day, I finally put everything on the shelves into boxes, and took the central divider out (not easy - it was particle board, and I think it was nailed in from the outside. Not sure how they managed that, but...). I sawed slots in it and broke it out, then pulled all the nails and staples that were holding it in place. Now I have a big empty box, and I'm calculating the frame that needs to go in it.

About 4-5 years ago, I found a set of rolling shelves in a yard sale. They're nice wooden shelves, painted white, with a short lip on all four sides and rollers screwed in on the bottom edges, and they came with the other half of the rollers which need to be installed in the cabinet. They've been sitting around waiting for me to get moving on this for all this time. So now I'm calculating, and buying, what I need to install the other half of the rollers (the walls of the cabinet are a) particle board and b) somewhat inset from the door. So I need to put in some planks to screw the rollers into, so that the drawers will fit through the door properly). Need to scrub out the closet, prime the bits that lost paint when I pulled out the divider, put in the planks, paint the whole thing (white, with scrubbable paint - so I can see what's in there and keep it clean), install the rollers and I'll have an absolutely wonderful pantry closet. But I'm managing only short bursts of activity each day, so it's taking a while. Less time than 12 years, though...

110jjmcgaffey
Sep 13, 2017, 8:22 pm

Books Read
151. The Eye of the Beholder @^ by Nicole Ciacchella. Review - Interesting variant on Beauty and the Beast - standard story, but with a lot more from the Beast's POV.
152. The Power in the Storm @# by Tamora Pierce. Review - Good as always - it's a sad story, though.
153. Daja's Book @# by Tamora Pierce. Review - Loved it, as always.
154. Briar's Book @# by Tamora Pierce. Review - Another sad one, with some really scary bits (no, not horror - plague). Still good.
155. Sky High %^ by Germano Zullo. Review - Funny little GN with hardly any words and a complete story nonetheless.
156. Tall, Dark and Wolfish @^ by Lydia Dare. Review - Not bad. I do have a strong urge to shake all these Lycan idiots and make them wake up to sense, though.

Currently Reading
The next Lycan book, The Wolf Next Door. Almost half-way through The Immigrant and the University. Need to get back to Gods, Graves, and Scholars when I finish that - those are both paper nonfiction books, to be read at the table. A bunch of books - e and paper - that I've stalled on - get back to them.

BOMBs
Not a one, and I really need to work on that.

Discards
Ditto.

New/Reread
Three rereads, three new books - one library, two ebooks.

I'm doing some cleanup of my ebooks, both in calibre and on LT. This is triggering desires to _read_ some of them that I haven't yet gotten to - that's why I'm reading the Dares, I read the first one and got the omnibus but never got around to continuing the series. Now...well, I can finish what I have and not bother with them again, I think. They're OK, but not favorites. But I need to concentrate on BOMBs, or at least eBOMBs!

111avaland
Sep 28, 2017, 6:21 am

Hi Jennifer. I was going to say that we don't share much of our reading but then I checked via my profile page the books we "share" and most are SF books I read ages ago. I don't read much SF now, a few books a year at most, and mostly new stuff. The hubby reads a lot of SF but even he is reading mostly new stuff these days (not that the house isn't full of "old" stuff.

Have you read VanderMeer's Annihilation? Movie trailer is out (movie is due out in Feb,)

I know where Alameda is! I lived in Milpitas (at the bottom of the bay) in the late 70s, worked for the police department there for a year before I returned to New England. I so wish I had bought real estate there then. LOL.

112jjmcgaffey
Sep 29, 2017, 1:44 am

Yeah, I'm heavy on the SF - some mysteries and romances and etc (and non-fiction), but close to 2/3rds of my reading is SF (or I consider it SF - sometimes others disagree). I do read new ones - in fact, I'm reading a _lot_ of new SF these days, more than the old stuff. I want to read the old stuff so I can get rid of most of it! Working on it.

No, haven't read that one. And I don't watch many movies - I think the last one I saw in a theater was Frozen. No, I saw Pete's Dragon since then (I think). Some on DVD, but...if I watch 10 in a year, it's a lot for me.

Hmmm, looking at the reviews...I'm really not sure. I don't like horror, or seriously surreal; this seems to be skirting that edge (those edges, I suppose). Maybe. At least I'm aware of it now - thanks!

Right! I worked in Milpitas for a while - much later than you did, early this century. And yeah, real estate around here would definitely have been a great investment! That's what my parents did - bought a house in Fresno, moved up to one in Oakland, then another, then into Alameda - sold each to buy the next, and never lived in any until the last ones in Alameda. But working it that way got them a very nice condo apartment in Alameda. I lucked out, owned a condo in the DC Metro area and sold that to buy my current home (also a condo).

Thanks for stopping by!

113jjmcgaffey
Sep 29, 2017, 1:47 am

I need to review and post, and I'm not getting to it. Busy, these days, between work and the continuing effort to get the _stuff_ out of my house. I'm making progress... there's actual room in my living room, more than a walking path. But it all takes time. I'm still reading, and even tracking it (more or less), but haven't found time to review more than a couple and no time to post, even with my neat nearly-automatic spreadsheet. Soon, I hope.

114jjmcgaffey
Oct 9, 2017, 11:32 pm

Books Read September
157. The Wolf Next Door @^ by Lydia Dare. Review - Again, idiot needs shaking. Not all that interested in more of the series.
158. The Snow Queen @^ by Mercedes Lackey. Review - Lovely - I'd never read this one!
159. Heart Secret @^ by Robin D. Owens. Review - Filling in the two I'd missed of this series. Nice, I like them.
160. Heart Fortune @^ by Robin D. Owens. Review - The second fill-in - and I like these two even better. Celta's good.
161. Heart Fire @# by Robin D. Owens. Review - Hmm - rereading to keep things in order, and I didn't remember it at all. I did read it before…Nice story, anyway.
162. Heart Legacy @^ by Robin D. Owens. Review - Last Celta, for now. Way too much low self-esteem. Makes me want to read the other Yew story again, though.
163. The Fixed Stars @# by Seanan McGuire. Review - Reread - ancient history, laying foundations that affect Toby in "present-day".
164. Stage of Fools @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - And the first read for this one - somewhat less ancient history, but again, foundations.
165. The Immigrant and the University %^ by Karin Sveen. Review - Good info, bad book - wish she'd picked what she wanted to write before she published it.
166. The Unfinished Clue @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - I'm surprised I hadn't read this one, but it's not familiar. Better than many of her mysteries - not quite so many idiots, or something.
167. A Reliable Wife @* by Robert Goolrick. Review - Ugh, no. I thought this was a romance, not literary masturbation (almost literally, both protagonists spend way too much time obsessing over sex). I read, skimmed, read the end and quit.
168. Friday's Child @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Cute, but only funny if you like sitcom humor - watching people make wrong decisions over and over. Not my cup of tea. He's younger, mentally/emotionally, than she is (despite being 5 years older).

Currently Reading
See October's post

BOMBs
Two Heyers - I thought I'd read all her mysteries, but apparently I missed one. And I'm working my way through her romances. And one other, that I picked up a while ago and never got to in paper (like too many others!).

Discards
Both the Heyers - I may reread them, but if so in e. Most of the rest are ebooks without corresponding paper versions; the only one I read in paper was borrowed. And A Reliable Wife - I'm discarding that one from both paper and ebook library. Ugh.

New/Reread
Ten new books, two rereads - one to keep the flow of the series going, one because I thought I hadn't read it before (the title didn't remind me, and it's short enough that when I found I had read it I just kept going).

Quite a lot of reading last month, and I _think_ I got it all tracked. I did a lot of the reviews last week and this, though.

115jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Oct 10, 2017, 3:15 am

September stats
18 books read
5 rereads
13 new books
13 rereads paid for

5280 pages read, average 293.3

3 BOMBs - 33 for the year, still short of where I should be.
0 ER books
0 Netgalley books

16 ebooks, 2 paper books

3 discards - 36 for the year, also short (though not by as much).

6 SF&F
1 non-fiction
1 general fiction
8 romances
1 graphic novels
1 mysteries

16 F, 2 M authors

I'm behind on my BOMBs and discards goals, though not nearly as far behind as I usually am at this point in the year. And I'm reading three BOMBs that will probably be discards - a nice step in the right direction. Still need to focus on them...which is hard, right now I want to do a lot of rereads and read new books. Keep it balanced and I'll hit all three goals this year.

116jjmcgaffey
Oct 9, 2017, 11:56 pm

Books Read
169. Alameda, California Crossroads %^ by Ruth Hendricks Willard. Review - Interesting info, though it devolved into advertising talk near the end (the modern stuff). A slightly different angle on an area I know pretty well.
170. The Killing Game ^ by Peter O'Donnell. Review - Three good stories...but this is the last book, all the strips have been collected. Wahhh! Now I have to reread all of them.
171. Northanger Abbey @^ by Jane Austen. Review - Ugh. You have to know something to enjoy a satire on it - and I avoid Gothics for the same reasons Jane was making fun of them. Not for me.

Currently Reading
Snow Shadow by Andre Norton which is why I read Northanger Abbey - there are references to it at the beginning. But I don't know yet if it includes NA's prosaic explanation for all the horrors... Gods, Graves, and Scholars - still chugging through this. It's interesting, but dense. Age Doesn't Matter Unless You're a Cheese - small, thick book of quotations on aging. Reading it mostly to get rid of it.

BOMBs
None yet (and I'm still way behind). I thought Northanger Abbey was a BOMB, but apparently I don't own a paper copy. Oh well.

Discards
None.

New/Reread
All three new.

117jjmcgaffey
Oct 14, 2017, 1:45 am

Books Read
172. Snow Shadow @* by Andre Norton. Review - Fluffy, not terrible. And amazingly free of Norton formula - I guess that was only for the SF. Not worth rereading, though.
173. The Tower @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - Heavily erotic, but it fits in the plot - and neat to see events I already knew from a very different perspective. Nice.
174. Jade Mountain @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - Minor story. I need to read the Vulland Chronicles all in one sweep - but even then, they're pretty patchy.
175. Wings of Fire @! by Alma Alexander. Review - Fun, neat mixture of mythologies (including Christian).

Currently Reading
The Demon's Wife by Rick Hautala. Not a winner so far - being told 2-3 times a chapter that Samael is a demon "but Claire doesn't know that!" is really annoying. It's an old ER book. Still reading Age Doesn't Matter... and Gods, Graves, and Scholars - it'll be a while on both of them, I think.

BOMBs
Snow Shadow - eBOMB. I'll keep the e-version, in case I suddenly want to reread - doubt I will, though.

Discards
Snow Shadow (once I find my paper copy). The rest are all ebooks.

New/Reread
All new - a BOMB, an ER book (which is actually current!), and two new-to-me.

I'm resisting reading the next book after The Tower (The Grove), because I don't have the one after that (The Guild) (though it's out - I just haven't found it yet). Doing a lot of light reading, partly because I'm reading such a dense non-fiction (Gods, Graves, and Scholars), and partly because we're in the smoke plume from Napa and it's hard to muster up much energy. But light reading still covers books - I just need to aim in the direction of BOMBs.

118jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Oct 17, 2017, 3:52 am

Books Read
176. The Demon's Wife @! by Rick Hautala. Review - Eww. Vividly written and very nasty. I skimmed, after a while.
177. The Prince Commands @# by Andre Norton. Review - Old favorite - a dozen rereads at least. Nice way to take the taste of the last book out of my mouth.
178. Miss Seeton Quilts the Village @! by Hamilton Crane. Review - Not bad! I stopped reading Miss Seeton a while ago, but this one's quite decent - doesn't have all the problems that made me stop. Nice fluff.
179. The Boy on a Black Horse @^ by Nancy Springer. Review - Wow. She does write abuse survivors really well. Very rich story.
180. The Black Box @^ by Malka Older. Review - So...the point is that people can make even very advanced technology pointless?
181. The Rupture @^ by Malka Older. Review - The last sentence is the start of the real story. Sheesh.
182. Tear Tracks @^ by Malka Older. Review - Mildly interesting alien race - but again, the story just about starts where this ends. And the climactic realization is a real anticlimax.

Currently Reading
Still chugging through Gods, Graves, and Scholars. Not much else at the moment.

BOMBs
Nope. An ER book and a Netgalley book, but no actual BOMBs.

Discards
The Demon's Wife. I don't even want it in my ebooks. Ewww.

New/Reread
One reread, The Prince Commands - the rest are new to me. 16 rereads paid for, at this point - I suspect I'll have a bunch left at the end of the year, again. I don't think I really needed to count the review books - I should check what my count would have been without that.

OK! I have another Rick Hautala ER book - I think I'll read that soon, and if it's anything like The Demon's Wife I'll skim and dump it and never read another book by him. The Malka Older stories are less bad, but don't inspire me to want to read more by her - I've been on the fence about Null States, and right now I think I'll skip it. On the other hand, The Prince Commands was as wonderful as always, Nancy Springer made me cry hard, and the Miss Seeton actually inspired me to want to read some of the ones I've skipped (I quit because the books were getting unreadable - this one's much better).

I read a lot, in quick succession, to get the taste of The Demon's Wife out of my mouth. I also read a chunk of Gods, Graves, and Scholars, after putting it aside for a few days (a week?). Don't know what I'll read next, though it really needs to be a BOMB - an eBOMB, at least. Maybe another Heyer, they're always good. Actually, I really need to find all the books I've read and "discarded" as eBOMBs, and actually get the paper books out of my life - especially since the library book sale is next weekend, and I _know_ a bunch of new books will be coming in. Preferably, I need to get some of the books in the boxes sorted out in general this week. We'll see, it's still a pretty busy time for me.

119jjmcgaffey
Oct 17, 2017, 4:04 am

So what I'm doing - still working on my rolling-shelf cabinet (which means thinking about it, mostly - though I did buy some spackle to fix the back wall today). Still working on the painting I plan to do after the new counters - I also bought a sample of one possible color. Need to get another one tomorrow (the store that has that one was closed by the time I could have gotten there). It's kind of funny, because I'm buying quart samples - which is about how much paint I'll need to do the whole job. But the samples only come in low sheens, and I want semi-gloss because it's easier to keep clean. So the samples will be primer, of a sort...

Ceramics class again Thursday - last week we worked on the class project, which is a slab wall hanging with bas-relief work on it. Mine has a tree-stump with a few branches, on a slope, above what will be water (and is currently clay with some wiggly lines on it - that will mostly be colorwork). It's got some fish and a crab in it, too. I don't know if this will be something I'll love or if I'll think it's pretty stupid when it's done. This week, I think we'll be introduced to glazes, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to glaze my slab or if it will have to wait another week - depends on how well it's dried, and which firing they're doing this week. I think it's high-fire this week, which means I'll have to wait two weeks - bisque firing next week, then glaze it, then fire the glaze that week. There's only one small kiln, so they alternate firings. I may get to glaze my pinch-pot and slab plate this week - they were bisque-fired last week (last weekend).

And the book sale - since I volunteer for setup and breakdown, that's a busy time aside from the buying of books. And I'm still working on clearing out stuff from my house...working slowly, but every day there's a bit of progress made. I'm almost ready to get all my fabric together and get rid of huge swathes of it - don't want to try to discard when I can't see everything I have, that's one thing Marie Kondo got entirely right (I mostly disagree with her, but some of her techniques are useful).

120dchaikin
Oct 17, 2017, 11:22 pm

I picked up Gods, Graves and Scholars in my MiL's several years back and enjoyed it a lot. Wish all those stories were as nice as he lays them put. Sadly Schliemann had serious issues, lack of integrity being a. notable one. But Ceram may not have known that.

121jjmcgaffey
Oct 18, 2017, 2:15 am

Eh. He(?) simplifies a lot - I'm reading about the Egyptologists at the moment, and he's barely mentioning the controversies about the Europeans walking off with stuff. That wasn't his aim in this book...I can't tell, actually, if he didn't know this stuff, or just didn't consider it important. It is a pretty old book, and attitudes have changed a lot. It may have been the same with Schliemann - there's the _important_ stuff, and then the rest... I couldn't help wincing, through most of the descriptions of Schliemann's digging - so much data destroyed as he burrowed for gold. Ceram doesn't seem to have minded that, either.

Still an interesting book - for Ceram's attitudes as much as the stories he reports, at that.

122dchaikin
Oct 18, 2017, 6:23 am

Yeah, it is interesting. His attitude is of that era.

123ronincats
Oct 28, 2017, 4:14 pm

I want to throw out a request for participants in a group read of one of my favorite but relatively unknown fantasy novels, God Stalk by P. C. Hodgell. The "stalk" refers to stalking gods, not a stem. It is the first of a still ongoing series, but it is a complete story and easy to walk away from after the first book if you wish--indeed, all of us had to wait many years after this one to get a sequel. I am looking at possibly November, December or January for the time frame, but the actual month will depend on what those interested work out. If you would be at all interested, please PM me or drop by my thread and let me know.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/270239

124jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Nov 3, 2017, 8:41 pm

I brought back my first pieces from my ceramics class - going to show them off like Roni does, though mine aren't up to her quality...

More or less copied from Roni's thread.



The red plate is about 3-3.5 inches across; the green bowl is about the same size. The colors are pretty true. There's a fishbone stamp inside the green bowl, but the brown (which was supposed to highlight it) kind of washes it out. The bowl is a pinch pot, the plate is slab and mold (I rolled a slab, laid it on a plaster mold and shaped it a bit. Not much, the edge is still kind of raggedy).

I've actually used both pieces in the last couple days - the plate for an egg plate (I eat a hardboiled egg every morning, it's handy to have a little plate for salting) and the bowl for nuts for a snack.

125ronincats
Oct 29, 2017, 12:15 pm

But your picture is not showing on either thread, Jenn. I want to see them!

126jjmcgaffey
Nov 3, 2017, 8:42 pm

Bah. I put it on Google Photos which doesn't let you link easily! Did it work this time? If not, I'll just upload to LT, but it would be nice to have a place for photos of various sorts...

127ronincats
Nov 3, 2017, 9:14 pm

It did work this time. Very nice!

128jjmcgaffey
Nov 4, 2017, 12:37 am

I've got another little slab plate that's in the kiln now, and yesterday we did our first proper slab plates - on a plaster mold, but trimmed on the wheel. It'll be a lot smoother than my little ones! But it's a full-size plate, not sure what I'll do with it. And I still have to think how to decorate it, too. My wall slab piece is also in the kiln - that's the class project. Mine is a landscape - fish down below, a slope that's supposed to look like grass and beach, and at the top of the slope a stumpy tree. I've colored it with underglaze, still need to glaze it. And the classroom is having trouble with the kiln - not enough electricity, apparently! - so they're doing limited bisque firings but until it's fixed they can't do Cone 5 glaze firings (it's hotter - the Cone thing is how they used to tell what temperature it got to, the cones were made of stuff that would melt at certain temperatures. Now the kiln has a digital thermometer and so on...but the old terms still hold on).

129jjmcgaffey
Nov 4, 2017, 1:45 am

Books Read
183. Narbonic ^ by Shaenon Garrity. Review - Fun to read the beginning - but it makes me want to go read it online again. I forgot I'd read this (in September), stick it in here.
184. The Paladin @* by C.J. Cherryh. Review - She certainly likes getting down in the mud and blood. Rich story, but not wonderful for me.
185. Gods, Graves, and Scholars * by C.W. Ceram. Review - Interesting view on early archaeology. Ceram's attitudes towards archaeological looting and colonization was another facet.
186. Dark Watcher @# by Lilith Saintcrow. Review - Old favorite - I do love her romances. And Dante is less I-am-not-worthy than most.
187. The Family He Wanted @# by Karen Sandler. Review - I thought I was reading this for the first time - shows how much of an impression it made. Cute fluff.
188. Storm Watcher @# by Lilith Saintcrow. Review - Second Watcher book; Hanson gets really annoying with I-am-not-worthy, and Mari is nearly as bad.
189. Fire Watcher @# by Lilith Saintcrow. Review - Third Watcher. I like Remy and find Elise really really annoying for 95% of the book - she's OK at the end, but sheesh.
190. Cloud Watcher @# by Lilith Saintcrow. Review - Fourth Watcher. Now it's Anya who is obsessively I-am-not-worthy, and Jack, despite his (equally obsessive) guilt who comes out more sensible. And sheesh again! Watch briefings need to include "your witch will try to suicide to help you."
191. Mindhealer @# by Lilith Saintcrow. Review - Fifth Watcher novel, going off in a new direction - pity this was the last (to the best of my knowledge). Lots more about Lightfall and the way things work from the inside. And again, I-am-not-worthy, from both of them - grrr.
192. Pack @^ by Lilith Saintcrow. Review - Weird little post-apocalypse with werewolves. It's only the start of the story - wish there were more, though I might not be able to take it (Saintcrow likes to break her characters).

Currently Reading
See my next book post.

BOMBs
Two - The Paladin and Gods, Graves, and Scholars

Discards
Both of the BOMBs; I'll keep The Paladin as an ebook, not interested in GGS. I may also discard Narbonic, but not right now.

New/Reread
Narbonic is only kind of new - I'd read the strips, long since, online, but I'd never read the book before. The two BOMBs are new, of course, and Pack is new. The rest are all rereads, including the one I thought was new until I went to review it and saw I already had...(The Family He Wanted).

I went off on a reread flurry - but I'd read enough BOMBs and review books this month that my count barely went down (13 to 12 paid for).

130jjmcgaffey
Nov 4, 2017, 1:49 am

October stats
24 books read
7 rereads
17 new books
12 rereads paid for

4683 pages read, average 195.1

3 BOMBs, 13 short of my goal for the year - need to work on this
2 ER books
1 Netgalley books

20 ebooks, 4 paper books

3 discards, 10 short. Work on this, too, though it won't be all that hard.

9 SF&F
2 children's
2 non-fiction
8 romances
2 graphic novels
1 mysteries

20 F, 4 M authors - wow, heavy imbalance! Partly because of the series reread, of course.

A decent number of books read, though a big bump at the end with rereading the 5-book series. And a lot of short books this month. But a decent lot, and several BOMBs and discards (not enough - it's supposed to be 4 each - but as many or more than I've done the last couple months). And a Netgalley book (actually on time!) and two old ER books. Not bad.

131jjmcgaffey
Nov 4, 2017, 1:53 am

Books Read
193. Remnant Population @* by Elizabeth Moon. Review - Very interesting take on First Contact. I found Ofelia extremely annoying for about the first two-thirds of the book, though I understand her desires. But I really like the way it ended.

Currently Reading
Shipwreck: The Strange Fate of the Morro Castle. Age Doesn't Matter Unless You're a Cheese - still chugging through. I've got a lot of books I should pick up and finish, but I think I'm going to focus on my book boxes - I need BOMBs and discards.

BOMBs
Yep.

Discards
And I think I'll get rid of the paper copy of this. I've got the ebook, and that's easier to find...

New/Reread
BOMB, so new. So is Morro Castle, which I should finish soon (and will discard). I'll allow myself some rereads later, though I don't have anything bugging me to be read right now.

132dchaikin
Nov 4, 2017, 11:00 am

>129 jjmcgaffey: read and enjoyed a few of these reviews, including your review of The Paladin.

133jjmcgaffey
Nov 4, 2017, 9:54 pm

>132 dchaikin: Thanks! My reviews are mainly for me, so I can remember what _that_ book was, but I'm pleased if they're interesting to others.

134jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Nov 14, 2017, 2:13 am

Books Read
194. Shipwreck: The Strange Fate of the Morro Castle @* by Gordon Thomas. Review - Boring. Very heavy-handed writing - foreshadowing etc - and I never got interested in the Morro Castle or anyone aboard.
195. Hunter @# by Mercedes Lackey. Review - Lovely as always (third reread, second this year…)
196. Due Diligence @^ by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. Review - Interesting! Chi, and Daav's father - more info about Korval.
197. A Kidnapped Santa Claus @^ by L. Frank Baum. Review - Cute fluffy little story.
198. Elite @# by Mercedes Lackey. Review - Lovely again. Second reread - not third only because I restrained myself!
199. Apex @^ by Mercedes Lackey. Review - And a great finish. Hope there's more in this world.
200. The Voice of Lions @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Tybalt in London, another attack against his family.
201. The Act of Hares @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Tybalt in London, his court finally reopens.
202. In Little Stars @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Huh. Now I understand how Arlen was hidden so long - this is Gilad and her mother. I don't think much of him, though.
203. Heaps of Pearl @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Love it! The meeting of Patrick and Dianda. Now I want the next meeting…
204. Never Shines the Sun @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - The oddest part of this is that (seven-year-old) October doesn't have a voice at all - it's all from the Luadaig's POV.
205. Through This House @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Huh. I need to reread the books around this time - I don't remember what shows up in there about Goldengreen.
206. Full of Briars @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Nice. I like seeing things (briefly) from Quentin's POV.
207. Dreams and Slumbers @# by Seanan McGuire. Review - I'd read this in the book it's attached to (Once Broken Faith), glad to have it as a standalone too. Arlen and her brother, and the complications around waking him.
208. The Outcast of Redwall # by Brian Jacques. Review - Normal for Redwall; nice but not a favorite. Sunflash vs Swartt Sixclaw.
209. Thresholds @* by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Review - Started out rather confusing, drew me in, and ended just as things were about to start happening. But it's a NKH, so I want the next one…
210. Phone Kitten @^ by Marika Christian. Review - Bleah. Not in the mood for chick-lit, and I liked the characters enough I didn't want to see the trouble her idiocy was going to cause. Quit in the middle (read the end).
211. Justice Calling @# by Annie Bellet. Review - Still a good story - I picked up a lot I don't think I caught on the first read.
212. Murder of Crows @^ by Annie Bellet. Review - And this time I actually went on to the next book. Also good - Jade's original family.
213. Pack of Lies @^ by Annie Bellet. Review - And the next - this one is werewolves, and kept reminding me of other (good) werewolf stories. But it's told from Jade's POV, not the wolves. Interesting.
214. The Rancher's Inherited Family * by Judy Christenberry. Review - OK fluff, but I have no interest in ever reading again. Shallow characters and the misunderstanding trope in a rather egregious form.

Currently Reading
Superwomen by Albert Payson Terhune - bleah, but I'll finish it. Interesting data, obnoxious viewpoint.

BOMBs
Three, which brings me up to 4 for the month - first time I've hit my goal in a while. Still need to read more, to keep up for the year.

Discards
All three BOMBs are also discards. One I have as an ebook (Thresholds), the other two I don't care about (I'll even discard the e-copy of Morro Castle. Bleah). And one other book, Outcast of Redwall. I mildly enjoy the Redwall books, but not enough to give them shelf room.

New/Reread
Five rereads, 17 new books. Since I also read four BOMBs this month, I still have 11 rereads paid for. And three of the rereads were the beginnings of series that I went on to read new books in.

Reading a lot - mostly short books/short stories, but a lot of items. But still reading mostly ebooks, which mostly doesn't get BOMBs read - I don't have a huge number of eBOMBs, though I've got some (like three of the four this month). Need to get into the boxes! I'm only 6 short on discards, but 10 short on BOMBs - and December is _not_ a good reading month. So this month would be a good time to get ahead...

135avaland
Nov 16, 2017, 3:56 pm

>124 jjmcgaffey: Lovely, little pieces! I have always done clay sculpture and never thought I had the slightest interest in pottery/ceramics, although I am tempted by it these days (very tough to find a place to do sculpture). I look forward to your other projects.

>131 jjmcgaffey: I haven't read much Elizabeth Moon; I think the last was the 2002 The Speed of Dark, which really was kind of a departure for her. I remember it as a very good book.

136jjmcgaffey
Nov 18, 2017, 12:35 am

>135 avaland: I haven't read The Speed of Dark, though I've heard about it...I may even own it (hmm, wonder if it's a BOMB?...Yes I do, and yes it is). I mostly read her fantasy - I love Paks. And some of her SF, but I don't much enjoy her biggest science fiction series, the Serrano lot - I mildly enjoyed Hunting Party, liked the rest of the trilogy less...and then she went farther in that direction. I've read some of them, but never settled down to read the series. The Planet Pirates series and the related Dinosaur Planet books are good. She's one of the people I think of when I think of SF (that's speculative fiction, combining fantasy and science fiction - it's too complicated to distinguish between them).

Thanks! The class had some kiln trouble, though it seems to be fixed now, so stuff was delayed - I should have some more finished work after Thanksgiving. Those two are the only ones I've brought home so far. Do you fire clay sculpture, as you do ceramics? I guess so, or it would just crumble pretty soon. I really like functional pieces - I do a lot of decorative work (mostly fiber, cross-stitch and braiding and weaving and so on) but nearly always I turn it into a functional object as well. Same for the clay - the class project is a slab wall piece, and while I'm enjoying making it it's the least interesting thing I'm doing.

I've got another little plate glazed and ready for high-firing; a big plate was in the kiln for bisque firing this Thursday, so I'll decorate it on Tuesday and possibly get that in to the next high-fire too. And a cute little snake (I didn't have time to make something useful...) is also glazed and ready for firing. I don't have anything drying, except some kiln cookies - just little flat pieces to put under things that might have drippy glaze. We're supposed to do a broomstick piece next, but that won't be until week after next, since next Thursday is Thanksgiving. I want to try throwing! It's been many many years since I did any (throwing, or clay work at all), but most of what I want to make is thrown. Hmm...maybe I could make a mug via the broomstick technique, and try the pulled handle. We'll see.

137jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Nov 21, 2017, 3:32 am

Books Read
215. Superwomen @^ by Albert Payson Terhune. Review - Ewww. Interesting info on historical women, tainted by Terhune's nasty opinions.
216. Of War and Honor @* by Gordon R. Dickson. Review - I hadn't realized it was an anthology. One mildly interesting story, two too confusing to be interesting.
217. The Dark Birds @^ by Ursula Vernon. Review - Weird and wonderful - darker than most of hers, though. Read from Apex Magazine online.
218. The Wee Free Men @* by Terry Pratchett. Review - Fun! I haven't read much Pratchett - burned out quickly - but I enjoyed this. Waiting to read the next one until I've read some other things first, though.
219. Martin the Warrior # by Brian Jacques. Review - One of the best of the Redwall books - which makes it only good fluff, but worth reading.

Currently Reading
Shane - a BOMB, I've actually never read it before. Games Creatures Play, an interesting anthology - so far, all of the stories have been good (not necessarily enjoyable, but well-written).

BOMBs
Two BOMBs so far, and another in process. Doing well!

Discards
Three discards - actually, four, since I found I have two paper copies of The Wee Free Men. That's a likely reread, but I don't need it in paper. I can dump Of War and Honor now, and Martin the Warrior as soon as I get an e-copy.

New/Reread
Two new (plus the two BOMBs, of course), one reread. I've read all the Redwall books at least a couple times, but I've never reviewed them on LT - so I need to read them again for review. Then I can get rid of most of them -

Nice lot! BOMBs, and books I need a review on (as opposed to books I got in order to review...). I'm reading a lot - which is, unfortunately, only semi-constructive procrastination. I still need to finish reassembling my kitchen. A little bit happens every day, but only a little bit...

138jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Nov 24, 2017, 2:51 am

Books Read
220. Games Creatures Play @^ by Charlaine Harris. Review - Nice! Some stories I didn't love, but all good. And a comic horror that really worked (for me, who hates horror).
221. Shane * by Jack Schaefer. Review - Wow. I see why it's a classic - there's a lot of story in that little book.
222. The Nonesuch @ by Georgette Heyer. Review - I cannot remember if I've read this before. Good standard Heyer.

Currently Reading
Um...nothing, really. Try to finish some of my stalled books. And more BOMBs.

BOMBs
Shane - I'd never read it (or seen the movie) before. I'm not sure about The Nonesuch - I rated it, but didn't review it or give it reading dates. I didn't remember what would happen, except that it was all pretty obvious - a standard Heyer-style romance. I'm not counting it, but I really don't know. 7 BOMBs so far this month, and I need 7 more before the end of the year.

Discards
The Nonesuch (once I find my paper copy). Games is a ebook only, and Shane is paper only so I'm not giving it up. Nearly hit my goal - I only need 2 more books! (and to actually discard everything I labeled a discard...go dig in boxes soon).

New/Reread
Two new, one I truly don't know. 12 rereads paid for.

139jjmcgaffey
Nov 24, 2017, 3:16 am

We had our usual Thanksgiving - it's just my parents and me (my sisters are too far away, or celebrating with friends instead), so we don't cook but instead go to a restaurant that has a fantastic Thanksgiving buffet. We've done this...at least 3 years now, maybe 4. No, I think just three at this restaurant - I'm so glad we found Faz in Danville, after several years of trying other places that were just blah to OK. Faz has turkey, and prime rib; mashed potatoes, saffron rice, true Afghan naan (Indian naan/nan is a lot more common, and not the same thing. Indian to Afghan is brioche to sourdough - Indian has oil, eggs, yogurt, stuff in it and Afghan naan is just flour, water, and yeast); mashed yams, beans, carrots, stuffing. And then... smoked salmon, roasted salmon, literally a dozen different cheeses (though I wish they'd figure out that brie en croute is supposed to be warm!), handmade pizza, handmade potato chips, salads, mini bagels, hummus, baba gannoush, olives... and a table full of desserts ranging from pumpkin pie and pecan pie to creampuffs to melon and grapes. A huge variety of food, all of it at least good and much of it truly excellent - and since it's a buffet, I can try a little bit of everything. Faz is a good restaurant the rest of the year, too, but I love their Thanksgiving dinner.

Before that, I spent the day at my parents - helping them with tech stuff (Dad just got an e-reader, to see if it makes much difference to him. He reads on his phone and tablet constantly). And talking, and general stuff - a normal day.

I'll be shopping a little tomorrow - not rushing in, but there are some things I'd like if the prices drop enough. We'll see.

140chlorine
Nov 24, 2017, 12:21 pm

>139 jjmcgaffey:
This thanksgiving buffet does indeed seem yummy!

141jjmcgaffey
Déc 1, 2017, 12:30 am

November stats
30 books read
7 rereads
23 new books
12 rereads paid for

5955 pages read, average 198.5. Pretty small books this last couple months. Ah well.

7 BOMBs - hit (beat, by quite a bit) my goal for the month. I need 7 more for the year.
0 ER books
0 Netgalley books

26 ebooks, 4 paper books

9 discards - only three more to hit my goal for the year! I think I'll make it. But I need to find all the books I declared discards and actually get them out of the house.

21 SF&F
3 children's
2 non-fiction
2 general fiction
2 romances

22 F, 9 M authors

It's still November, but I don't think I'll finish any more books tonight. Especially since I'm wiped and going to bed early.

142jjmcgaffey
Déc 1, 2017, 1:07 am

So the last week I've been working on a project - get the last of my stuff out of my external storage unit and into my house, before they charged me again on December 1st. And I did it. My apartment, and my little storage unit that belongs to the apartment, are jam packed - I'm back to paths between stacks. But in a good cause - $100+ saved every month! Now I'm back to culling hard, reducing the volume of stuff I have.

December is going to be fun, for certain values of fun. Mom has a hip replacement happening on the 12th; Dad is being very slow and sleepy, not sure what's up with him (yes, he's talking to doctors). On the 8th, they/we are having their...51st? 52nd? annual caroling party. It's an established tradition - where, the food, the songbooks, who gets invited (anyone who wants to come, mostly!). I've been helping for years - which means doing a large part of the setup, and baking something. Mom's always made the Cossack Stew that is a big feature of the event. But this year she's not up to standing up as much as that needs, so (unless we luck out and she has a really good day or two) I'm going to be cooking it. At their house, under her supervision - I don't cook meat, I find it way too fiddly. I eat it, no problem, but the only meat I have in my house is frozen fully-cooked sausages, and canned stuff - heat and eat. The stew requires chopping and searing chunks of stew beef, chopping up lots and lots of veg (including beets)...magic happens, then everything goes into crockpots for heating through and serving. This year, for the first time, I'm going to be involved in the magic part. Yeesh.

And then - again, if Mom has her operation on the 12th, she's unlikely to be up for cooking for Christmas. That I won't be doing solo, though - my sisters (and their husbands) will be contributing. I just get to figure out what/who/where and how do we fit all the cooking into my parents' small kitchen. I'll be making all the pies, as usual; one brother-in-law is the Master of Meat, and he has a brisket in a crockpot recipe (whew, that helps). The other sister and brother-in-law are doing some of the veg, and my nephew(s) and I and my middle sister will be handling the rest of the veg. I _think_ that's everything... Oh, and Dad (and one nephew) will be making the eggnog - Dad for the caroling party, Dad and nephew for Christmas.

And timing, getting everyone together - coming down from Reno and over from the peninsula. Looks like we'll be celebrating Christmas on Christmas Day this year - didn't last year, that worked out nicely. But with a Monday Christmas, the employed in the family (three, this year - vs self-employed and retired) can't really celebrate the next day; Christmas Eve is no better. Christmas Eve Eve might work, but the day works too, so why not.

I'm still doing the ceramics class; I threw something for the first time today. Seems my muscle memory from...33 years ago, lordy...still stuck; I actually managed to throw something that looks like it might work. It needs some adjustment, and trimming, but I might have a mug! I also brought home two small pieces (a little plate, and a coiled snake), but I forgot and left them in the car. I'll get them up and take pictures tomorrow. I also have the big plate still in class - that's bisqued (first firing) and needs to be glazed. But every color I decide on we're out of, argh! I'll either wait a while, until a new supply comes in, or pick (yet) another set of colors.

I know the first ceramics class I took was 33 years ago, because Mom still has (and is still using) a little garlic holder jar I made then, and she wrote the date on the bottom, 1984. Sometime in the intervening years, she dropped the lid and broke it; I'm trying to make it a new lid. Which is really fun...I made it very precisely then, with an outer and an inner lip and a lid with a ridge that fit between them. But it's a pinch pot - very far indeed from even or smooth. I'd even call the line of the rim wobbly. So trying to make a lid that will fit - including trying to calculate shrinkage...gonna be fun. I've made one lid and we'll see. If that doesn't work, I think I'll make a larger one that will fit over the whole pot, and forget about the ridge. At least I don't have to worry about glaze - the only glaze on it is some rather faint letters that say Garlic Holder. The new clay doesn't really match the old...but that's OK.

There's only a few more classes to go, but I think I'll be doing the next semester. Mom won't, because of the operation - she might miss the first few classes for that - and then in February she and Dad are going on a trip, so she'd miss more. Maybe when she comes back she'll join me, the semester after.

I never reported that I did get my new kitchen counters, on November 3rd - they said it would be one day, and it was, but when the guy was finished he said, "OK, now leave it alone - don't press or lean on the counters, don't use the sink - until tomorrow morning." Hmmph. So I ate at my parents' that night.

Aside from that, I love it - the color is so much better, warmer, than the stark white, and the counters are so much smoother and more solid than the laminate. I haven't done the painting - instead, I got everything back into the kitchen that I had to take out. Which means I'll need to take it all out again when I go to paint - but I needed the space for the storage stuff. I also managed to cull quite a bit while putting things back - and I took down a set of shelves so the contractors could work, and put them back up much more solidly. And then I put up (yesterday) another set of the same shelves - Elfa, it's a great system. The only thing you fasten to the wall is a top bar (so it needs to be very solidly up...); then metal standards hang from that, and shelf brackets go into those. I've got ventilated shelves - wire mesh - in the kitchen; all my bookshelves are also Elfa, on wooden shelves. Nearly infinite adjustability, very high weight capacity, and nothing sitting on the floor (which makes it a lot easier to clean). So today I put all my jars, that had been sitting on counters and tables and in boxes for months, up on the new Elfa shelves. It makes things much more comfortable. I'll get the painting done eventually, but not until the great culling is done so I have room in the living room for all my kitchen stuff...and while I'll be working on that, I also don't want to mess up my kitchen just before the holidays. I do a _lot_ of baking (not much cooking, normally) for Christmas. And candy-making - that's some of my gifts.

143ipsoivan
Déc 2, 2017, 6:16 pm

Wow -- full life!I actually envy all your trying to cull and sort -- one of my favourite jobs, although it doesn't happen much here because my partner has a true fear of it. I have learned to tolerate.

144jjmcgaffey
Déc 4, 2017, 12:55 am

I don't have a fear of it...well, a small fear of "Oh, I know what I need! It's right...oh yeah, I got rid of it last month." But mostly I'm a little too comfortable with stuff crowding around me, and don't often need space to spread something out - and when I do, I make do. But when I can't find stuff I know I have (and haven't got rid of) because I have too much other stuff...it's time to cull.

145jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Déc 6, 2017, 1:49 am

Books Read
223. The Lion and the Unicorn ^ by Richard Harding Davis. Review - Each story was at least mildly interesting; the collection as a whole blurred into dull. Dunno why. I forgot I finished it, so it didn't get into November's count.
224. The Food of the Gods @^ by H.G. Wells. Review - Bleah. High-flown language that can't decide if it's action, humor, or social commentary, and weak at all of them.
225. Giants on the Earth @^ by S.P. Meek. Review - Mildly amusing pulpy SF. I think it's supposed to be prehistory and a Golden Age - based off the Bible quote.
226. Ellis Peters' Shropshire %^ by Ellis Peters. Review - Absolutely lovely - makes me want to go back, book in hand.
227. Fire Planet * by P.M. Griffin. Review - Fun - one of the better of this series. Usual dealing with disaster.
228. Ghost Garages @^ by Erin Hartshorn. Review - Neat new urban fantasy - nice balance of magic, everyday life, and love life.

Currently Reading
Nothing - still working on clearing my backlog (did some in the books above - Lion and the Unicorn, Shropshire, and Fire Planet were all on the immediate TBR list). Planning to read The Ghost in the Third Row, to see if I like that series, and The Grove by Jean Johnson, because I know I like that series! Both of those are ebooks, though, and I still need to focus on BOMBs.

BOMBs
Fire Planet is the only one.

Discards
The Lion and the Unicorn - cute, not interesting enough to keep. Shropshire is a borrowed book, and I'm keeping Fire Planet - the rest are ebooks (I'd discard both Food of the Gods and Giants on the Earth if they weren't, though).

New/Reread
All new - I have 13 rereads paid for, and I strongly suspect I'll have some left at the end of the year (same as last year).

Reading quite a bit, for no visible reason. I actually finished The Lion and the Unicorn in November, but forgot about it as soon as I'd finished it, so it missed the count. I'm doing a lot of other stuff, too - cleaning and culling, and prepping for Christmas - but lots of books are happening in the cracks.

This Friday is the caroling party - but Mom dealt with the meat (whew!) and will be doing a large part of the veg as well. I'll go over and help on Friday morning, when everything gets chopped up and assembled. Then I'll be doing most of the setup (well, Dad and I), and Mom will sit and supervise. That way she should be able to enjoy the party without being in too much pain.

My parents gave me the next semester of the ceramics class (it starts in January, but fills up a lot sooner) as an early Christmas gift, yay! I glazed a full-size plate today, though I don't think it will get fired until Thursday week - I think it's a bisque fire this week. Thursday I'll be working with the teacher on my first thrown piece - need to trim it and add a handle. So I need to research what, exactly, trimming is... also what's a pulled handle, since she says that's probably the technique I want to use. YouTube to the rescue.

Fixing computers for various clients (just dealt with a pain in the a** computer that refused to update - had to nuke it and do a clean install of the latest version of Windows 10. Then (re)install all the programs and data...lordy does that take time. Done and gone today). My usual scramble for Christmas presents...I never seem to be able to a) think of and b) make my presents ahead of time. Whatever, they'll all get something nice. And life goes on.

146avaland
Déc 6, 2017, 1:46 pm

>142 jjmcgaffey: I make all the pies, too. I made 7 for Thanksgiving. 3 apples, 2 chocolate, 2 sawdust (I love making "fancy" pies but these three are my kids' (and their spouses) favorites. My philosophy is that if I'm going to make a mess making 1 or 2 pies, I might as well make 7 (and the "cinnamon things" made with the leftover dough).

Don't underestimate your mom's recovery. They have the hip replacement patients up on their feet almost immediately and I'm told it's much easier than, say, knee replacement, which I had last year. I'd suggest, if she wants to cook, let her; but if she is happy to be cooked for, then go for it.

147ronincats
Déc 7, 2017, 12:34 am

I am excited that you will be continuing your ceramics class next semester! Also looking forward to seeing your plate and your mug. Trimming is what you do to the outside of your piece after it becomes "leather-hard"--trimming the excess clay, especially at the bottom of the piece and finishing the bottom, usually done with the piece upside down. And I do usually use pulled handles for my mugs--it's a technique I've not truly mastered yet but I do it well enough to get by.

148jjmcgaffey
Déc 13, 2017, 12:38 am

>146 avaland: Sawdust? Wazzat? I'm making a blueberry, pumpkin (maybe two pumpkins...hmm. We never have enough - but there's also the question of room to store them), mincemeat (that's for Mom), and a pecan. And yes, the piecrust twists with the leftovers.

Mom had a knee replacement several years ago, and she would have been up pretty quickly but they gave her opiates for painkillers. Standard stuff, but she's allergic - and she'd _told_ them so, grrr. So she came home, was up and walking with a walker...but three days later she was flat out on the couch with a leg fire-hot, bright red and twice as big around as it should have been. It took her two weeks to be up and moving again. Then they had to fix the knee replacement (bone spur into the back of her knee), and _again_ they gave her opiates, after assuring her that _these_ pills weren't. That time she spotted the reaction almost as soon as it began, and just had a slightly swollen leg for a day or two. And then the hip, which was probably reaction to how she had to limp with the bone spur for more than a year before she convinced them it was actually a problem that needed fixing (can you tell I'm a little annoyed with her doctors?). She went in this morning, and came out this afternoon; they'd given her an epidural so she couldn't feel anything, but she was up and walking. She is using the walker, until things settle down and she can actually feel what's going on, but yeah, she may be active very soon.

However, she's always been the one handling the main meal. I think she's pleased to pass off more of her "duties" to the rest of us. She can always help with the veg, if she's feeling up to it and interested.

>147 ronincats: Me too! It'll be fun. I trimmed my mug, though it was a bit softer than leather-hard - worked OK, though I was surprised at how much smaller it ended up. The pulled handle worked well, too. It's drying now - probably won't be ready for bisque until next week, which means it won't actually get fired until the week after (if they're firing then, not sure). I'll have to finish that - glaze it - next semester. My plate is glazed and went into the kiln last week, so it'll come out this Thursday, the last day of class; my wall slab will also come out then. Which means I need to find the cord I made to hang it with...where _did_ I put that?

Speaking of glazing the mug - what I'd like to do with it is something like that blue bowl of yours, with the streaks of bright glaze over a darker one. I'll have to see if I can figure out how to do that with the glazes we have. I did the plate, I hope, somewhat similarly - a pale green over the inner surface, then dark blue on the back and on the rim, lying over the green. I'm hoping it will drip down into the curve of the plate a bit. If it does, I may use the same glazes on the mug.

149jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Déc 13, 2017, 1:45 am

Books Read
229. The Ghost in the Third Row @^ by Bruce Coville. Review - Nice YA ghost-hunter story - Nine and Chris meet a ghost, and help solve a mystery related to her.
230. The Ghost Wore Gray @^ by Bruce Coville. Review - Next ghost story - they wonder if seeing the one ghost made them more sensitive to others. Great ending.
231. The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed @^ by Bruce Coville. Review - And the next, and apparently last - yay for Coville, not making this an eternal series. Very rich, deep story, and great ending again.
232. The Grove @^ by Jean Johnson. Review - Lovely. Another Destiny - fantasy, romance, and the second step in the new 8-book series.
233. The Mage @# by Jean Johnson. Review - The previous book showed events that happened here - had to reread to see the other POV. And read the whole thing because fun.
234. Princess of the Midnight Ball @# by Jessica Day George. Review - It's a lot richer than I remembered, and I remembered loving it. Galen's great, and I really like Rose, and all the girls.
235. Down Among the Sticks and Bones @^ by Seanan McGuire. Review - Whoo. It's much more...abstract? Distant? than Wayward Children - but still a fantastic story (in every sense of the word). Dark, but worth reading.

Currently Reading
Temporally Out of Order, a themed anthology - not wonderful so far, not even Seanan's story. I need to read more BOMBs!

BOMBs
Not a one - all ebooks.

Discards
See above.

New/Reread
Two rereads - The Mage, because I wanted to see the same events from a different POV; and Princess of the Midnight Ball, just because. The rest are new, but only new - not BOMBs.

I'm really close on both my goals, but if I keep this up I'll miss on both of them. Go dig some stuff out of boxes, Jenn!

150jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Déc 27, 2017, 3:54 am

Books Read
236. With Full Honors ^ by Donald McQuinn. Review - Bleah, no. I read three chapters and couldn't figure out what was going on aside from constant doing stupid things "for honor". No thanks.
237. Off to Be the Wizard * by Scott Meyer. Review - Bleah, no (again). Very very detailed description of idiot dealing with - Ok, the concept is neat. Not interested.

Currently Reading
Lots, for some reason - and mostly in paper, how odd. Picked up Age Doesn't Matter Unless You're a Cheese again - I'd gotten halfway through and put it down. Also picked up The Comedy of Agony - a BOMB ER book. I got it in 2008, from the third or fourth ER list (IIRC), and apparently never even opened it (I have no idea why I requested it, actually). Turns out it's (at least partly) short little two- or three-line bits, rather like Age Doesn't Matter - except that Age is highly optimistic, and Agony is...not quite depressing, because it's so disconnected that it doesn't hook me. It reads like quotes from Marvin the android, actually. I have no idea what the source for these bits is, either - quotes (if so, unattributed) or out of this author's head (if so, I don't want to be anywhere near this author). I'll finish it just so I can review and dump it. This is my oldest unreviewed ER book, I think. Someone sent me a gift of Cross Country ABC 1957; it's a report of a cross-country road trip taken by three teenage girls (the oldest was 18) in 1957. It could have been really cool, but it's literally a report of their trip - there's no story here. Lots of "we were so hungry we ate..." and "we were laughing so hard". Mildly interesting as a description of the time and places - I'll finish it, certainly - but not a winner. The authors also skim over unpleasant stuff - several pages of visiting a bar outside of Las Vegas and how much fun it was, with one line tossed off at the end: "The visit helped us forget a really unpleasant accident we saw in Las Vegas" (there's no other mention of this accident). I don't know - just doesn't work for me. And for a table book, I'm reading The Knife Man - fortunately, I'm not bothered by reading about historical surgery with my food. It might not be the best table book, but I do find it interesting. And also reading the ebook Temporally Out of Order - a time-travel themed anthology. I'm enjoying the middle stories more than I did the first few, not sure why.

BOMBs
Wizard is a BOMB. Three of the ones I'm currently reading are also BOMBs - I may make this yet!

Discards
Two discards out of two, and I'm up to my goal (yay!). I think I'll be discarding more before the end of the year, but goal achieved.

New/Reread
Both new - one new to my house, one a BOMB.

Reading a lot - if that includes _finishing_ a lot, I'll be at least closely approaching my last unachieved goal for this year. I've read 45 BOMBs so far, and three in process - add a couple Heyer ebooks and I'll hit it. _If_ I actually finish what I'm reading now, before the end of the year. Family coming in on Saturday, and I have to do some baking before that (and gift making/wrapping)...well, I'll work on it.

151chlorine
Déc 20, 2017, 2:02 am

>150 jjmcgaffey: Congrats on reaching your discard goal! I hope you make it for the BOMB (or should I say the BOYB? ;) as well.

Temporally out of order seems interesting. I plan to read a title every travel short story collection next year: The time traveller's almanac, edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer.

152ronincats
Déc 23, 2017, 5:13 pm

It is that time of year again, between Solstice and Christmas, just after Hanukkah, when our thoughts turn to wishing each other well in whatever language or image is meaningful to the recipient. So, whether I wish you Happy Solstice or Merry Christmas, know that what I really wish you, and for you, is this:

153jjmcgaffey
Modifié : Déc 27, 2017, 4:16 am

Books Read
238. Cross Country ABC ^ by Carol Scott. Review - Nope. Mildly interesting _report_ of a trip, no story to it. Gave it to Mom.
239. Temporally Out of Order @^ by Joshua Palmatier. Review - Assorted stories - some were quite good. I didn't like Seanan's, surprisingly.
240. The Comedy of Agony *! by Christopher Spranger. Review - Yuck. He's trying to be depressing and failing because the book doesn't hook the reader at all. My second-oldest, and oldest un-reviewed, ER book.
241. Age Doesn't Matter Unless You're a Cheese * by Kathryn Petras. Review - Unrelentingly optimistic - I was slogging through, but it made a nice antidote for The Comedy of Agony.
242. Penhallow @* by Georgette Heyer. Review - Yuck! Nasty people being nasty to one another, a murder with no mystery, and more psychological agony afterward. Yech. I'll read something light before I try another Heyer.

Currently Reading
The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker. Still reading The Knife Man, hope I finish it.

BOMBs
Agony, Cheese, and Penhallow are all BOMBs. The other two are new.

Discards
The three BOMBs and Cross Country ABC are all out (though I need to dig up Penhallow, since I read it as an ebook).

New/Reread
All new reads. I have 16 rereads paid for - I doubt I'll read any, at least until I get my BOMBs done.

I'm up to 48 BOMBs finished, and I'm reading two more. Finish those and I hit _all_ my goals for the year! Unfortunately, a string of really unpleasant books - well, Temporally Out of Order wasn't bad, but it wasn't anywhere near good enough to offset the rest of these. And Knife Man, while fascinating, isn't exactly _pleasant_. I'm turning to YA/childrens books in hopes of lightening things up.

My sister and her sons came down from Reno the day before Christmas Eve, and they and I stayed with our parents for Christmas. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of strain - I really am an introvert, and while I love spending time with my family and there's always interesting stuff going on...there's _always_ interesting stuff going on. No down time, and precious little alone time. They left this morning (Tuesday), I did some shopping with my parents, then came home. I've been sitting around doing very little and enjoying the quiet all day. I finished Penhallow - pushed myself to read it just to get it done so I don't have to (ever) read it any more.

Oh, BTW - The Comedy of Agony was an ER book - from the second batch ever, November 2007. Only ten years and a month later, it's reviewed! I have no idea why I requested it - I apparently didn't even open it to see that it consisted of multiple short bits. It's just been sitting around waiting... I've still got some pretty old ER books to review - one from January 2008, and one from February 2009, are my oldest un-reviewed ones now. Working on it!

154jjmcgaffey
Déc 27, 2017, 4:10 am

>152 ronincats: Thanks, Roni - that's lovely! The same to you.

>151 chlorine: Thanks for stopping by! The Time Traveller's Almanac sounds interesting - but a bit much for me. 65 stories in one book - it'd take me all year to get through it (or I'd burn out entirely, and abandon the book). Hope you enjoy it!

155jjmcgaffey
Déc 31, 2017, 10:41 pm

Books Read
243. The Frog Princess @* by E.D. Baker. Review - Cute fluff. Nice and light.
244. The Knife Man * by Wendy Moore. Review - Fascinating, though occasionally gruesome - didn't bother me. The beginning of scientific surgery. It's a biography, so of course it has a sad ending.
245. Save Yourself, Princeless 1 * by Jeremy Whitley. Review - Fun. I find Adrienne a little annoying, but then her situation is a lot annoying so I guess it evens out.

Currently Reading
Moths of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter. But I won't finish it by tonight, so it will show up next year.

BOMBs
All three are BOMBs - so I not only met my goal, I exceeded it (by one). Yay!

Discards
I'll dump the paper copy of The Frog Princess, since I have an e-copy. And...I think I'll get rid of The Knife Man too - it was fascinating, but I don't think I'll reread (I'll be keeping an eye out for anything else by her, though, she's an excellent author). I'm keeping PrinceLess, though, at least until I get and read the next book. I've already exceeded my goal there.

New/Reread
All new. Sehr gut!

After that string of foul books, I hit a really good vein - two fun fluff, two solid and well-written non-fiction (including Moths). Nice way to end the year.

156jjmcgaffey
Déc 31, 2017, 10:44 pm

December stats
22 books read
2 rereads
20 new books
19 rereads paid for

5621 pages read, average 255.5

8 BOMBs - hit my goal for the month
1 ER books
0 Netgalley books

13 ebooks, 9 paper books

8 discards

11 SF&F
4 children's
5 non-fiction
1 general fiction
1 graphic novels

13 F, 11 M authors

Nice! And I even managed to nearly balance my authors. I read a lot of BOMBs this month - had to, to finish the year. But it was possible this year, unlike last year when I think I started December having read maybe 30 BOMBs - which meant 20 in December to hit my goal (I didn't).

157jjmcgaffey
Déc 31, 2017, 10:54 pm

Full year stats
245 books read
50 rereads
195 new books
19 rereads paid for and unused

65344 pages read, average per book 266.7, average per month 5445.3

51 BOMBs this year, 1 above my goal
10 ER books
8 Netgalley etc books

190 ebooks, 55 paper books

56 discards for the year, 6 above my goal

130 SF&F
1 animal stories
21 children's
20 non-fiction
12 general fiction
44 romances
7 graphic novels
9 mysteries

168 F, 81 M authors

Interesting patterns - twice as many female as male authors, almost four times as many ebooks as paper ones. More SF/F than all the other categories put together.

I actually hit all three of my goals this year! I got rid of a lot of books - more than shows in Discards, because I also got rid of double copies of some, and some books that I decided I would never read (or never finish), that didn't get listed as read books. I also had more DNF books than I think I've ever had in a year - I decided it wasn't worth slogging through just to say I'd finished some of these. I'm going to keep that up, too - it makes my life much easier.

I've set up my thread for 2018 - come by and see me!