The Golden Road

What other weekly memes or round robins do you participate in? Is this the only one? Why Tuesday Thingers and not some other weekly Tuesday meme? Or do you do more than one?

Before participating in the “Tuesday Thingers” group, I had never joined a blog ring, never even really heard of these weekly memes. I’ve never participated in any others, for one thing because I think I’m somehow out of the loop when it comes to social blogging. I seem to have missed the boat on that in some way. I just don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s much the same way I look at social networking. I can get behind the utility of the site and I can make a few friends, but when it comes to true networking, I’m a complete dunce. I’m good at reading blogs, bad at commenting on them. Good at finding blogs and websites, bad at finding a specific rota of things that I absolutely can’t live without. Maybe I’m a failure in the blogosphere, but I enjoy what I do.

That said, I might take a look around and see if I can’t find another weekly thing that interests me. Since my reading has slowed down, my posting has slowed down. I have a couple of things up my sleeves but I just haven’t gotten to writing about them yet. I feel a bit guilty knowing my blog goes largely unappreciated (by me) except for one day a week.

I’m a naughty blogger, but I promise that I’m going to try to be a less naughty blogger!

Posted by Laura on August 5, 2008 at 10:09 AM
Tags: librarything, thinging through tuesday, website
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Cataloging sources. What cataloging sources do you use most? Any particular reason? Any idiosyncratic choices, or foreign sources, or sources you like better than others? Are you able to find most things through LT’s almost 700 sources?

I never really paid attention to which sources I use, but LibraryThing keeps track for me! According to the statistics, 101 of my books were pulled from amazon.com, 68 of them from Amazon.com (I’m not sure how it’s different), and six from Library of Congress. I don’t remember why I chose Library of Congress - it may have been because I couldn’t find one of mine on Amazon for some reason. Other than that, no thought goes into it. I just use whatever the default selection is.

I do wonder why Amazon.com and amazon.com are listed separately, though. As far as I would understand, they’d be the same thing. Oh well. My cataloging habits aren’t terribly interesting, nor do they seem to be very calculated.

Posted by Laura on July 29, 2008 at 9:56 AM
Tags: librarything, thinging through tuesday
2 Comments »

Do you use LT’s recommendations feature? Have you found any good books by using it? Do you use the anti-recommendations, or the “special sauce” recommendations? How do you find out about books you want to read?

Whoops. I’m a day late with this. Somehow, the combination of things this week and a busy work day had me completely forget to do it before I toddled off to bed last night. Oopsie!

Anyhow: at the moment, I don’t use recommendations. I have a hard time with recommendations anyway, and a lot of the time, the ones from LT either seem obvious (meaning I’ve either checked out or already own the book in question), or they’re completely off-the-wall. This may not actually be the case, though, because I haven’t checked it out completely. My list of books that I need to read (aka, Mt. TBR) is still far too long for me to go acquiring new ones.

I have tried to use the recommender once or twice, but usually the books that I plug in come up with a great big nothing. Books like Sara Hylton’s aren’t the most widely owned and read, so it’s impossible to get a recommendation from them at this point. That’s okay, though, because as I mentioned: I don’t have the time for more books! I am desperately trying to shorten my list first.

The recommendations feature is an excellent function, though. It’s not because I don’t like it that I don’t use it, just out of a guilty feeling that acquiring more books at this point would impede my progress and kind of turn all my work this year at reading books that I might not otherwise pick up.

Finding out about books that I want to read is far too easy. I get recommendations from coworkers and books from the ER list. I see the trend things on Amazon when I’m browsing for something, and of course new books by authors that I already like. It’s not hard, unfortuntely, to find new books to read! One advantage that I seem to have, though, is that I don’t get the amount of ARC books that a lot of book bloggers seem to get (actually, I only get the ones that bloggers pass along or the occasional one from the ER program at LT - I don’t put myself out there much), so I’m able to try to catch up before I dive into book acquisition again.

Posted by Laura on July 23, 2008 at 6:33 AM
Tags: books, librarything, thinging through tuesday
4 Comments »

After two disappointing books right in a row, I decided that I needed to read something that I would definitely enjoy. I picked up Fragile Heritage off the shelf because it’s been a while since I read it. I was about due.

I have to say right now that I adore this story. I love the time span, the time period, the characters, the scenery… Hylton describes a scene without over-describing it. I could see the locales clearly in my head, and I could even see the clothing the characters were wearing without being bored by all the minutae of the outfits. This puts the book ahead of the last two that I read by far.

The story is about Ellen Adair and her travel through life. She and Kitty McGuire are friends in their tiny village full of sanctimonious people who seem to have missed the boat when it comes to “Christian charity.” I don’t want to talk much about the story, because it’s so complex that trying to sum it up would be insufficient and giving full details would ruin the story. It does deal with WWII, take place in England and France and have a rich and interesting cast of main and supporting characters.

The whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking what a good movie it would make, and wishing I had the money to make that happen. More people deserve to hear about this fantastic book and aside from my shouting from the rooftops about it, I can’t think of many other ways to share it.

The downside to Sara Hylton’s books is that many of them are not readily available. Some of the older ones are out of print which means buying them from Amazon’s marketplace, half.com or Alibris. I’ve found the books for reasonable prices, but this is not always the case. Most libraries have the books, though (that’s where I first found them) so I definitely recommend checking them out next time you’re at the library.

Posted by Laura on July 16, 2008 at 7:03 AM
Tags: books, review, sara hylton
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What site(s) do you use? How did you find out about them? What do you think of them? Do you use LT’s book-swapping column feature for information on what to swap? Do you participate in any of the LT communities that discuss bookswapping, like the Bookmooch group for example?

I have at one time or another signed up for probably all of the book swapping websites, but I consistently run into one problem: I don’t really want to part with that many of my books! So far, the only books that I’ve actually passed along are… well, just the one. I gave my copy of The Moon in the Mango Tree to someone else because I didn’t enjoy it enough to keep it on hand. I’m thinking of passing along Summer Blowout as well, and maybe some of the books that are in my Good Will box (the box that’s eventually destined to go to Good Will if we ever remember to do it). It just leads to another problem, though:

I’m really, really, really bad about getting to the post office. My work schedule has me at work on Saturdays, and during my weekday off, I’m generally useless. It took me far too long to send The Moon in the Mango Tree along, and while the person was very patient with me, I don’t want to go out of my way to put people through that. After all, it isn’t fair to them. I don’t know why I’m so terrible about it. I think it’s just the way my work schedule is, with my days off split up. I never used to be this bad about remembering! Circumstances being what they are, I had to have Johnathan ship some things for me recently because even though I remembered to get them together into packaging, I never remembered to go to the post office. I’ll be honest: I don’t even know where the post office in our town actually is. That’s how often I go there! It wouldn’t be fair to other people, is really what I’m saying.

I’ve looked at the swapping feature on LT, but for the same reason that I don’t swap books on the other sites, I haven’t pursued a swap on LT. It just wouldn’t be fair.

I guess in short: I don’t swap books, but not because I don’t want to, but because ultimately it wouldn’t be fair to the people who are swapping for the books. Whoops. I probably ought to work on my habits a bit more so that I can actually acquire books for very little cost in the future.

Posted by Laura on July 15, 2008 at 6:23 AM
Tags: books, librarything, thinging through tuesday
11 Comments »

After reading and being wholly disappointed in Rococo, I was hoping that my new ER book, Summer Blowout, would be satisfying and enjoyable. The comments on the Early Reviewer group on LibraryThing weren’t very glowing, but I still had hope. After all, chick lit is one of my favorite genres!

As I’m sure you could tell, my anticipation and my enjoyment did not turn out equal in this. The book was quite disappointing. After reading a book that was overburdened with too much description, I was annoyed at how much description goes into nearly every makeup application. I felt like it was a walking advertisement with all the name brands that were being described - and not even high-end ones at that. I doubt any self-respecting makeup artist would use Mabelline mascara on a regular basis. Even if they do use it, I don’t think it’s necessary to describe the brand name every time. I just felt like I was getting smacked in the face by it. I hope she’s getting paid for the advertising.

That said, the main character didn’t seem to go more than skin deep. Her anger, her “trepidation,” her annoyance… all seemed to be on the surface. I kept waiting for things to go deeper, for her to become more real to me, more human, and it never happened. The relationship that she “didn’t want” as per the back of the book really turned out to be more like two people tiptoeing around a small circle, and most of the time it was him, not her, who put the brakes on it. The book reads not like fluffy, fizzy, fun chick lit but like a subpar romance novel. (Or maybe a good one, I don’t know. I don’t read a lot of romance novels.) There were a few enjoyable moments, and the character’s assertion of what needed to happen in the end was nice, but overall the book was lacklustre. I’m sad to say that I did not enjoy it as a book at all.

Posted by Laura on July 14, 2008 at 7:44 AM
Tags: books, librarything, review
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I was given this book as part of a swap from a community on Livejournal. I really, really enjoyed Lucia, Lucia by the same when I read it a couple of years ago, and I thought that I might like to try some of her other books. Rococo was the first that I came across that didn’t require going to a regular bookstore to buy. Sure, it cost me $12 in international shipping, but the fact that it came with a personalized card inside made it all worth it. Nothing beats knowing that your “new” book was once enjoyed by someone else. (I do admit to enjoying brand new books just as much, though…)

Suffice it to say that I really, really wanted to like this book. In my experience, really, really wanting to like it generally leads to a big disappointment. Unfortunately, this book was no exception.

As someone who has no idea what Rococo actually is, I started the book with no real expectations other than the description on the back of the book, which in my experience, rarely gives the actual idea and scope of the storyline. This one did, come to think of it. From the outset, I felt there was far too much description and far too little plot. I never did figure out where the plot began and it was so weak that when it ended, where one should usually feel a sense of elation at things working out just the way they should, it just felt preachy in the pretty little group ending. Honestly, it felt like the ending of a sub-par movie that never really got its plot off of the ground.

When I say too much description, please bear in mind that I love descriptive works. I love to have an appropriate amount of description of clothes, settings, scenes and decor - when it is right. I felt like the main character, who is an interior designer, was used as an excuse to describe everything. Recipes show up in the middle of scenes, descriptions down to the most minute detail are given about most of the characters at one point or another, focusing mainly on what the character is wearing rather than their own features. It was only mildly annoying at the beginning and became more and more maddening as the story progressed. I do not want to hear about how the ottoman was decorated with short, purple fringe against an avacado fabric rather than the long drippy fringe that was iconic of the 1920’s. I would rather have some plot. The recipes felt out of place in the middle of the story and I think they would have been better suited at the end of the book. For one, if people want to make them, then they won’t have to try to find the recipes somewhere in the middle of the book and for another, I won’t have to read them or at least skip over them to continue with the story. As far as I’m concerned, the recipes were speed bumps which did irreparable damage to the story.

The main character was more a source of irritation than of pleasant reading. He was petulant, selfish and constantly in denial about something. Well, when he wasn’t telling the other characters how to live their own lives. This main character was flawed, and not in the human-and-I-want-to-read-about-him kind of way. He was annoying. He was exactly the kind of person who I want to spend as little time as possible with. And yet I read nearly 400 pages of him as a vessel to the other characters.

To be frank, this book started out vaguely promising and ended up as a waste of my time. The ending was sweet but I wasn’t convinced to like the characters enough to actually care in the end. My recommendation would be not to read this one if you don’t have to.

Oh, and while I’m here, I looked up rococo because nowhere in the book can I find a reference to what the hell it actually is, and if I gain nothing else from this book, I will gain a definition:

ro·co·co

1. A style of architecture and decoration, originating in France about 1720, evolved from Baroque types and distinguished by its elegant refinement in using different materials for a delicate overall effect and by its ornament of shellwork, foliage, etc.

2. A homophonic musical style of the middle 18th century, marked by a generally superficial elegance and charm and by the use of elaborate ornamentation and stereotyped devices.

3. (initial capital letter) Fine Arts.

• Noting or pertaining to a style of painting developed simultaneously with the rococo in architecture and decoration, characterized chiefly by smallness of scale, delicacy of color, freedom of brushwork, and the selection of playful subjects as thematic material.
• Designating a corresponding style of sculpture, chiefly characterized by diminutiveness of Baroque forms and playfulness of theme.

4. Of, pertaining to, in the manner of, or suggested by rococo architecture, decoration, or music or the general atmosphere and spirit of the rococo: rococo charm.

5. Ornate or florid in speech, literary style, etc.

Posted by Laura on July 12, 2008 at 7:20 AM
Tags: books, review
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I finished The Magician’s Nephew almost all in one day. I’m sad to be nearly finished with these books! Here’s the sixth part of my Narnia books read-together:

The Bear was especially kind. During the afternoon he found a wild bees’ nest and insted of eating it himself (which he would very much like to have done) this worthy creature brought it back to Uncle Andrew. But this was in fact the worst failure of all. The Bear lobbed the whole sticky mass over the top of the enclosure and unfortunately it hit Uncle Andrew slap in the face (not all the bees were dead).

I think I’ve read the beginning of this book about four times in the last year, with the best of intentions to keep reading. The size of the book made it kind of illogical to travel with me, and since I do the majority of my reading away from home lately (and did about a year ago as well), obviously it didn’t go so well.

Even though the religious imagery was more obvious in this one, I actually quite liked it. Digory and Polly seem like very real children who are genuinely perplexed by their situations and adventures.

I rememebered pretty well the beginning of the book through about the time that Narnia was beginning. I forgot the rest of the story, except for vague bits about The Garden of Eden and The Temptation, which I didn’t specifically remember was in this story. (It could have been in another one and I would never have thought differently.) I forgot about the Cabby and his wife and the fact that Uncle Andrew got into Narnia (actually, I forgot about him almost entirely except for his fascination with The Witch). I remembered Strawbery/Fledge and the beginning of Narnia, though, and I enjoyed it just as much this time as I did before.

It’s really interesting to take note of the difference in types of women in Lewis’s stories. Nearly all of the bad people are women (at least the ones who aren’t redeemable) but then there are also those who are good and sweet tempered with the occasional one with personality. The men seem to be generally inherently good, with the exception of Uncle Andrew who was pretty much mad with his “power.”

The reversal of roles in the garden of eden bit was interesting, but it’s not the first time that has appeared. It was in The Silver Chair, too, where the female witch was the tempter/serpent. I don’t really know what this says about C.S. Lewis and his views on women, or if it was even intentional. On the one hand, he gives almost all of the stories a female companion who is usually almost perfectly good, enough to make them pretty boring.

Aslan’s warning to Digory and Polly before he put them back into their world was really interesting. Since this book was published after World War II, but takes place long before either world war, it’s an interesting commentary. I don’t think there’s anything else to say about that, I just found it interesting to include. As a world, we’re not doing much better, really, even if we aren’t in the throes of worldwide warfare.

I found myself analyzing the religious elements in this one rather than being annoyed by them. Somehow it wasn’t very bothersome to me.

I wonder whatever happened to that toffee tree. Was I just not paying enough attention to see it in other stories, or was this a new unusual retroactive addition to Narnia?

This one really was enjoyable for the variety of its universes and the action that happened in the story. Most of the others had action in the form of battle, but the most battle in this was a carriage crash. I liked it.

Originally Published: 1955

Posted by Laura on July 10, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Tags: books, c.s. lewis, review
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I enjoy marking momentous occasions, and usually can time things just right, but without realizing it, I passed this one.

I’ve hit 100 posts! Actually, the post about The Horse and His Boy was my 100th post, but I didn’t realize it until afterward, and then I didn’t want to post about hitting 100 yesterday, since that’s reserved for the LibraryThing blog ring post. So, here we are! 100 posts!

If I’m being honest, I thought I would have hit this mark long ago, but my own waffling behavior about this blog has put me back in posts. Bad, Laura!

Here’s to another few years and hundreds more posts, yes? Yes.

Posted by Laura on July 9, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Tags: website
2 Comments »

What are your plans for the summer? Vacations, trips? Trips that involve reading? Reading plans? If you’re going somewhere, do you do any reading to prepare? Do you read local literature as part of your trip? Have you thought about using the LT Local feature to help plan your book-buying?

Since I started a new job in mid-March and have absolutely no seniority, little vacation time accrued and missed the vacation booking rota, my vacation will be nearly a week in September when my parents come to visit for when Johnathan and I get married and about a week in October, for which I think we’re planning to visit my friend Allison in Indiana, then drive back the other direction and go to Knoebels. The last time we went to Knoebels was on our way back from New York City in late April, when I was already feeling quite ill. The day at Knoebels was short and fairly uneventful as a result. I’d like to go and be able to spend a normal day there, and Johnathan says that it should be beautiful in mid-October. Anyway, this isn’t about my autumn vacations: this is about summertime!

Since I have no trips planned, my reading will be the same as it has been in the last few months. I’ve got a few read-togethers going on and I’ll be reading those books through the end of the summer. The books that I should finish by the end of August are: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling, The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis, Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery, Emily’s Quest by L.M. Montgomery, Big House in the Little Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It’s a lot of books, and it certainly won’t be the only ones I read. I’m expecting Summer Blowout by Claire Cook from the June Early Reviewers batch, and I’ve got a list of books that I have on my shelf but haven’t read to work through. I’ve been averaging about one of those per week in addition to my read-together books (which are about 1 and 1/6 of a book per week).

Generally, I don’t think deeply enough about trips to consider local literature, but I do make sure that I have a fair store (usually four or five books, at least) for the trip so that I don’t get bored on the flight or during any waiting around. I’ve never looked at a travel guide, but then I go places like Orlando, New York City and Los Angeles, where I can see big things that I won’t get at home (Broadway, Disney parks, etc) and then go back home. I’d love to go somewhere like Prince Edward Island, and if I were taking a trip like that, I might consider a travel book or two. (I think I’ve got one of the local authors fairly well covered… )

As for LT Local: there’s nothing listed in my area still! If I wanted to drive half an hour to an event, I could probably find something in the greater Cleveland area, but in my little city, there’s really nothing. The local library has a lot of programs, but none for people my age - mostly for kids, teens and retirees. I love the idea of LT Local, though. I’d probably use it if it would show me things going on in my area.

Posted by Laura on July 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Tags: books, librarything, thinging through tuesday
9 Comments »