24. The Snake, The Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters
25. The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters
26. The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters
27. Seeing A Large Cat - Elizabeth Peters. The Amelia Peabody mysteries. Obviously, I'm really enjoying this series. I'll be picking up some more of them as soon as the next trip to the library comes up.
28. This Child Will Be Great - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Quite a good biography of Liberia's first female president. Even more appropriate considering the news the past couple of days. After reading her book I fail to understand why they are asking her to step down. She seemed to be quite open about her past, but I guess they felt it wasn't enough.
29. Drood - Dan Simmons. Interesting. Huge, but interesting.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Bump...a bunch of Books
Since I'm never really working much anymore, I've been taking advantage of the local library system.
12. The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King
13. The Clan Corporate - Charlie Stross
14. White Witch, Black Curse - Kim Harrison
15. Tangled Webs: a Black Jewels Novel - Anne Bishop. I love the Black Jewels books. They are high on my reread list. :)
16. The Hidden Family - Charlie Stross.
17. Death of a Bore : A Hamish Macbeth Mystery - M. C. Beaton. I'm enjoying the Hamish series on audiobook. These are definitely fun.
18. The Family Trade - Charlie Stross. Now I have to wait for the library to get the next one in the series.
19. Across the Face of the World - Russell Kirkpatrick. They only had the first one in the library. Waiting on that one too.
20. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World's First Consulting Detective - Baring-Gould. Fascinating "biography" of Mr. Holmes. Actually shelved in biography, too. :)
21. Bridge of Birds: a novel of an Ancient China that Never Was - Barry Hughart. Master Li and Number Ten Ox. I can't recommend this one enough. Awesome.
22. The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson. Would recommend this to anyone with an interest in Buddhism and what might happen in the bardo.
23. Death of a Witch: A Hamish Macbeth mystery - M. C. Beaton. Yet another audiobook, and I'm liking this author more and more. The reader for these books, Graeme Malcolm, is very good. I guess he's done hundreds of audio books but since I'm new to the genre, I'd never heard him before.
And that's all the books I've read since last time (that I remember).
In other news, the house is slowly coming together. Boxes being unloaded and keeping up on the rest of the house. Including giving the cat a bath. I can't say he enjoyed it, I certainly didn't and I know the fleas didn't either. But less fleas = happier cat.
Downside is that he's so fuzzy that it takes forever to dry him out. And I haven't unpacked my hair dryer yet.
The Wii Fit is also being used on a regular basis. Not that I'm seeing progress but whatever. -2 lbs. In a month. *sigh*
12. The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King
13. The Clan Corporate - Charlie Stross
14. White Witch, Black Curse - Kim Harrison
15. Tangled Webs: a Black Jewels Novel - Anne Bishop. I love the Black Jewels books. They are high on my reread list. :)
16. The Hidden Family - Charlie Stross.
17. Death of a Bore : A Hamish Macbeth Mystery - M. C. Beaton. I'm enjoying the Hamish series on audiobook. These are definitely fun.
18. The Family Trade - Charlie Stross. Now I have to wait for the library to get the next one in the series.
19. Across the Face of the World - Russell Kirkpatrick. They only had the first one in the library. Waiting on that one too.
20. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street: A Life of the World's First Consulting Detective - Baring-Gould. Fascinating "biography" of Mr. Holmes. Actually shelved in biography, too. :)
21. Bridge of Birds: a novel of an Ancient China that Never Was - Barry Hughart. Master Li and Number Ten Ox. I can't recommend this one enough. Awesome.
22. The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson. Would recommend this to anyone with an interest in Buddhism and what might happen in the bardo.
23. Death of a Witch: A Hamish Macbeth mystery - M. C. Beaton. Yet another audiobook, and I'm liking this author more and more. The reader for these books, Graeme Malcolm, is very good. I guess he's done hundreds of audio books but since I'm new to the genre, I'd never heard him before.
And that's all the books I've read since last time (that I remember).
In other news, the house is slowly coming together. Boxes being unloaded and keeping up on the rest of the house. Including giving the cat a bath. I can't say he enjoyed it, I certainly didn't and I know the fleas didn't either. But less fleas = happier cat.
Downside is that he's so fuzzy that it takes forever to dry him out. And I haven't unpacked my hair dryer yet.
The Wii Fit is also being used on a regular basis. Not that I'm seeing progress but whatever. -2 lbs. In a month. *sigh*
Friday, May 01, 2009
Books #4-11
So I'm way behind on this but considering 8 of these books is a series re-read, it's all good.
Books 4-11 were a reread of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series. I can't quite recall how I wandered across this series for the first time but when I read the cover blurb, "A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes" it intrigued me. I am a Sherlock Holmes fan, I read the Holmes canon about once a year. I've tried many Holmes stories but very few have lived up to the original and I wondered if this one would.
How was she going to keep Holmes his sharp, acerbic self and include a young woman into the mix without having the story fall down flat?
Mrs. King gave Holmes a true partner. Ms. Russell definitely has her own interests, like Theology, that Holmes has no interest in and Holmes has interests, like beekeeping, that Russell doesn't share. But Holmes trains her genius into becoming a detective. And not just any detective, but one that can work on the same level as himself. They are both brilliant minds and challenge each other's stereotypes and preconceptions of men and women. Russell doesn't outshine Holmes but neither does Holmes leave her behind in the investigation business.
I think that is what makes these books work. Mrs. King treats Sherlock Holmes as he was shown in his own canon, not changing his previous actions/emotions but brings someone in who can live on the same intellectual level as the Great Detective.
I really enjoyed this series and like to recommend it to friends who enjoy mysteries and/or Sherlock Holmes. My personal favorites are O Jerusalem and the next one in line, Justice Hall. Ali and Mahmoud Hazr are my favorite new characters that Laurie R. King has introduced me to.
Go! Get to the bookstore! Buy!
This reread brought to you because the newest in the series "The Language of Bees" is out in hardcover right now and I had to refresh my Mary Russell history to read the new one.
Enjoy!
Books 4-11 were a reread of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series. I can't quite recall how I wandered across this series for the first time but when I read the cover blurb, "A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes" it intrigued me. I am a Sherlock Holmes fan, I read the Holmes canon about once a year. I've tried many Holmes stories but very few have lived up to the original and I wondered if this one would.
How was she going to keep Holmes his sharp, acerbic self and include a young woman into the mix without having the story fall down flat?
Mrs. King gave Holmes a true partner. Ms. Russell definitely has her own interests, like Theology, that Holmes has no interest in and Holmes has interests, like beekeeping, that Russell doesn't share. But Holmes trains her genius into becoming a detective. And not just any detective, but one that can work on the same level as himself. They are both brilliant minds and challenge each other's stereotypes and preconceptions of men and women. Russell doesn't outshine Holmes but neither does Holmes leave her behind in the investigation business.
I think that is what makes these books work. Mrs. King treats Sherlock Holmes as he was shown in his own canon, not changing his previous actions/emotions but brings someone in who can live on the same intellectual level as the Great Detective.
I really enjoyed this series and like to recommend it to friends who enjoy mysteries and/or Sherlock Holmes. My personal favorites are O Jerusalem and the next one in line, Justice Hall. Ali and Mahmoud Hazr are my favorite new characters that Laurie R. King has introduced me to.
Go! Get to the bookstore! Buy!
This reread brought to you because the newest in the series "The Language of Bees" is out in hardcover right now and I had to refresh my Mary Russell history to read the new one.
Enjoy!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Book #2 and #3
Blueberry Muffin Murder and Strawberry Shortcake Murder by Joanne Fluke.
Nice little murder mysteries. (It seems I'm on a bit of a food kick with my recent reading.) Anyway, they have recipes included since the main character is the owner of a cookie bakery. They are fast paced and have decent character development and if I get the opportunity, I'll definitely pick up another in the series.
Nice little murder mysteries. (It seems I'm on a bit of a food kick with my recent reading.) Anyway, they have recipes included since the main character is the owner of a cookie bakery. They are fast paced and have decent character development and if I get the opportunity, I'll definitely pick up another in the series.
The premise of this little exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.
Here’s how it works:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 or less and force books upon them.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Ripped off from Blue Soup. Anything in italics either I mean to read this year or I started but didn't finish, therefore I need to go back and read.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friends never made
Just spent some time catching up on someone's blog that I knew for a time. I can't even say that we were friends. The potential was there but either I wasn't breaking through or they didn't want to. I know this is extremely vague and it is meant to be. I don't want any offense to be given or guilt trips to be handed out. Not the way to make friends and influence peeps.
I've tried to stay in contact but I've never been very good at that so maybe its my bad. Could be that association with me reminds them of the hellhole of a job they had. I know I started this blog because they inspired me to. I enjoyed our conversations and they had a pretty good sense of humor too. I received advice from them and I gave some. But we never moved to the "sending emails, inviting over" sort of relationship. I regret I that I didn't make that opportunity.
All I can do at this point is wish them well. I hope they succeed (which is what looks to be happening) and I have fond thoughts of someone who I should have tried to be a friend to a little better.
I've tried to stay in contact but I've never been very good at that so maybe its my bad. Could be that association with me reminds them of the hellhole of a job they had. I know I started this blog because they inspired me to. I enjoyed our conversations and they had a pretty good sense of humor too. I received advice from them and I gave some. But we never moved to the "sending emails, inviting over" sort of relationship. I regret I that I didn't make that opportunity.
All I can do at this point is wish them well. I hope they succeed (which is what looks to be happening) and I have fond thoughts of someone who I should have tried to be a friend to a little better.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Book #1
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry - By Kathleen Flinn
Interesting story of a lady struggling to achieve her dream of a degree, deciding to attend Le Cordon Bleu and what she went through to do it.
Now I'm hungry.
Interesting story of a lady struggling to achieve her dream of a degree, deciding to attend Le Cordon Bleu and what she went through to do it.
Now I'm hungry.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Yay!
Home just in time to watch my CSI. I'm enjoying Mr. Fishburne's performance, although I miss Grissom. 11th hour is a hoot more for being strange and laugh worthy than accurate.
I traveled to see the husband. Now I'm home. And packing. There's a house waiting for me, hopefully a job to work at, and a husband who wants me with him. Yet again, yay!
Life is good. Mostly.
I traveled to see the husband. Now I'm home. And packing. There's a house waiting for me, hopefully a job to work at, and a husband who wants me with him. Yet again, yay!
Life is good. Mostly.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Late Late Nights
It's pitiful. I'm watching late night t.v. All the time.
Partly because my mind won't let me rest and I'm all wound up from trying to get make sure all my loose ends are tied up for this move. And not making any sense in the process.
Arm hair. Yup, it's late.
Partly because my mind won't let me rest and I'm all wound up from trying to get make sure all my loose ends are tied up for this move. And not making any sense in the process.
Arm hair. Yup, it's late.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Packing, Part Deux
And here we go again. Packing, moving, setting up house (hopefully).
Actually, I have a shit load of stuff in storage. It's been there for a year or more now. What that tells me? Some of it I can definitely live without. So there will be some sorting and chucking.
I am the woman for the job and it's gonna happen next week. Get 'er done.
Actually, I have a shit load of stuff in storage. It's been there for a year or more now. What that tells me? Some of it I can definitely live without. So there will be some sorting and chucking.
I am the woman for the job and it's gonna happen next week. Get 'er done.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Murder She Wrote
Enjoying watching some "Murder, She Wrote" while DH is off working. Sometimes it's vastly amusing to go back and see old shows and sometimes how badly or how well they hold up.
Mrs. Fletcher must have a lot of nieces and nephews.
Mrs. Fletcher must have a lot of nieces and nephews.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Noise Machines
Men are noise machines. They try so hard to be quiet and then? They kick something and curse profusely. When we ask if they are okay, they respond with "Oh, did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet."
Like the thundering of a herd running through the middle of a piano concerto.
Like the thundering of a herd running through the middle of a piano concerto.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Teenybopper
New Hampshire has elected a 20 year old to a county treasurer position. Her opponent called her a "teenybopper" who got brain washed college students to vote for her and that's the only reason she won.
How lame is that?
How lame is that?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Hmm...
I'm going to see the DH.
I am looking forward to it.
I don't have to be at work for a week.
Oh yes, I still am writing it down.
I am such a bitch. :)
I am looking forward to it.
I don't have to be at work for a week.
Oh yes, I still am writing it down.
I am such a bitch. :)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Old Friends
Heard from someone tonite I haven't talked to in around a year.
It was good to hear from her and get the chance to vent on something that she totally gets.
Awesome.
It was good to hear from her and get the chance to vent on something that she totally gets.
Awesome.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Damn I'm Crude
I realized here in July that I was editing myself here on my blog to try to keep from offending anyone. I thought about it for a while and I'm going to keep details to myself but I'm not going to censor who I am anymore. It took this long to come to that point.
Watch out world, here I am.
Watch out world, here I am.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Walking
Lots of walking and working. Hubby came to visit last week - it was really nice to see him. I wish we could be together more often but such is life.
Walking to Rivendell - 179 miles. Camp in western part of marches. (3rd day from Bree.)
Walking to Rivendell - 179 miles. Camp in western part of marches. (3rd day from Bree.)
Monday, May 12, 2008
Walking...
Walking to Rivendell - 5 miles today - total 15 miles.
Ooph. And I feel it. Mother's Day. And we went to lunch. And planted flowers. And did yard work. And worked on the clogged drain. And on, and on, and on.
I'm going to bed now, G'nite.
"All knowledge is worth having."
- Anafiel no Delauney,
Kushiel's Dart
Ooph. And I feel it. Mother's Day. And we went to lunch. And planted flowers. And did yard work. And worked on the clogged drain. And on, and on, and on.
I'm going to bed now, G'nite.
"All knowledge is worth having."
- Anafiel no Delauney,
Kushiel's Dart
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