This month has been one of waiting. An inordinate amount of waiting: in airports, at bus stops, train stations, in taxicabs; in fact my life over the last few weeks has felt like some fifth level limbo but with extra good books.
Tag: realistic research
Fight Like A Girl, Clementine Ford (or reorienting mindsets and book club bacchanalias…)
I belong to a bookclub…an in-person, meet once per month and have a glass of wine, whilst talking about a curated book that someone other than myself chose and forced … Continue reading Fight Like A Girl, Clementine Ford (or reorienting mindsets and book club bacchanalias…)
A Christmas Journey, Anne Perry, (Did you notice that in the 12 days of Christmas no one mentions alcohol at all?? So why are they all still so cheerful…?!)
A super quick mini review to satisfy Wendy the Superlative Librarian’s December’s TBR challenge (I can’t miss out a month — it would throw EVERYTHING out!) pulled from the depths … Continue reading A Christmas Journey, Anne Perry, (Did you notice that in the 12 days of Christmas no one mentions alcohol at all?? So why are they all still so cheerful…?!)
Bingo @ BlueCastle: October (or the month Valancy binge-read her way through…)
They say the first step to recovery is admitting it…so I am just going to come out and say it: this month was 31 consecutive days of over-reading, glomming and bingeing on authors that I insta-loved. In other words: single-author book bacchanalias.
Essays in Love, Alan De Botton (Or when souls are camels and therapy for Madame Bovary…)
This month’s TBR challenge from Wendy the Super-Super Librarian (I say it twice because she is like Awesome Squared) was Paranormal/Suspense…Just in time for, (if you follow it) Halloween.
Confession: I’ve never followed it. That’s not to say I don’t believe in it – because, evidentially it does empirically exist, but rather, my family, and thus myself, have never celebrated it, so it doesn’t really register on my life-scale. (I cite previous occasions referencing Puritanical-Baptist-Soul-Portion.)
September TBR: Joan Wolf (or Castles, Prince Charming & Blackmailing Love…)
This month’s TBR Challenge from the luminary Wendy The Super Librarian (as dictated from her Fortress of Solitude & Books) was No theme! No Theme! No Theme! This should have made it very easy – the reality?
Far far from the madding crowd… Nothing seemed quite right. I was overly picky, underly decisional and the result was just a big ole mess.
SO I made my OWN theme: The Joan Wolf Theme.
Flamingo Flying South, Joyce Dingwell, (or the best Pet Moppet in the world….)
<<TBR CHALLENGE: August 2016>> Today has been one of those warm, salubrious days, where time seems to slow and stretch out before you in a vast ribbon-like stream. It reminds … Continue reading Flamingo Flying South, Joyce Dingwell, (or the best Pet Moppet in the world….)
Sun at Midnight, Rosie Thomas (Or a rant and a review for your dubious reading pleasure…)
I wasn’t intending to rant. Only review. Unfortunately an article came randomly across my desk and made me mad like a spitting llama. So you get both.
RANT First or REVIEW??? mmm Rant. lol.
June Bingo (or the month that practically NOTHING went ANYWHERE…)
Yep. I am blaming the bingo card. Not my (possibly appalling) reading choices. Externalising blame…it’s much safer that way! I hadn’t noticed until I started BINGO-ing (can that be a verb?), … Continue reading June Bingo (or the month that practically NOTHING went ANYWHERE…)
May BINGO @ Blue Castle (or the month Valancy won NOTHING…not that that’s the point or anything….)
I had great hopes for May…Alas – twas not meant to be. In short: I read books, I filled squares. And NOTHING lined up in a row. It didn’t help that some of the books were so incredibly bad, that really using them as a BINGO square was the only thing that kept me going….
But here are the contenders:
Almost a Scandal, Elizabeth Essex, (or the worst named, best sea-faring romance ever…)
I haz shame. I am SUPPOSED to be doing a BINGO Post…and also a Middlemarch one…but here I am, pontificating about something else entirely.
But that is because it is just so good.
I am bringing out the wallow pig.
APRIL B.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.I.N.G.O (Or Dirty knees, All the threes & Sherwood Forest…)
SO, Valancy never wins at anything. ANYTHING.
Not at knocking over the milk bottles or ring toss. Laughing clowns have NEVER paid up. And, it is always the person next to me that guesses how many jellybeans in the jar.
But I will lament my horrid luck more
A Grave Matter, Anna Lee Huber, (Or there’s more of gravy than of grave about this…)
<<TBR CHALLENGE: FEBRUARY 2016>> There is a place where book series go to perish. It’s just outside of BlueCastle. You walk down the green valley and take a sharp right and there before … Continue reading A Grave Matter, Anna Lee Huber, (Or there’s more of gravy than of grave about this…)
Banished to the Harem? (or my foray into the world of sheikhs…)
I am nosy by nature. I like ferreting out information, seeking clues, finding answers and generally just knowing. My previous life was filled with research, statistics, funding submissions, quotas and … Continue reading Banished to the Harem? (or my foray into the world of sheikhs…)
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan (or Renaissance in an Information Age)
Nostalgia is a curious beast. It is small, slight and seemingly innocuous. It is easy to indulge in, difficult to escape from and has a habit of glossing over important … Continue reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan (or Renaissance in an Information Age)
About a Boy: Minuscule Thoughts on a Book…The Unfinished Garden, Barbara Claypole White
Musings, reflection, rumination, cogitation: more of this than an actual review – because I am just not sure how I feel about the whole book really. I discovered Barbara Claypole White’s The Unfinished Garden, whilst browsing.
It was in that nifty little section that triumphantly advises ‘people who liked your book also liked these’; meaning if YOU had the good taste to stumble upon this book, then surely you will like to purchase these OTHER books that people who may have BETTER taste then you liked too…
Again (or How I’ve Climbed onto the Gilles Seidel Love Wagon)
For those following – or caring – I was last writing in the midst of a terrible, horrible, no-good, purple-spotted book slump. It was like being in the fire swamp from the Princess Bride: flame spurts, lightning sand, rodents of unusual size and worst of all: deeply terrible stories.
Fortunately, I managed to stagger through, out into the light, and when I did, I was clasping Kathleen Gilles Seidel’s Again.
Valancy and the pile of MEH
I am sad to report and and even more loath to write it… BUT I think it may be possible that I have entered a wee doldrum of book reading.
Yes, like the muppets of treasure island ilk, I have sailed the distant oceans, traversed the waters and just when the I was avast ye-ing into the horizon, I encountered the doldrums…or in this case: the-enormous-pile-of-books-I-started-and-threw-down-again-in-frustration/hatred/annoyance/disdain.
It’s a big pile. My cats edge quietly around it, wondering if its precarious lean to left will end in a squished tail.
A Valiant Bride or Revisiting The Past & Endangering Childhood…
I offer this post in the light of a cautionary tale. Much like the mouse that went to town and wished he was back in the country (or vice versa), I have discovered that revisiting innocent days gone by can be somewhat surprising and even down right dangerous to one’s mental well being.
Blue Castle Considerations 
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