2014

The Museum of Extraordinary Things

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction /

It took me longer to sink into The Museum of Extraordinary Things than I expected. I think I was about half-way through it when it felt compelling enough that I didn’t want to put it down in favor of, oh let’s see, something like doing laundry. Once I reached that point, I really didn’t want to put it down. It shouldn’t have taken that long, feeling the way I do about freaks (real and imagined.)

Now that I’m thinking about this, it seems like this always happens to me when I read Alice Hoffman. It takes awhile for me to get hooked and I just need to hang in there til I hit that magic spot in the story.

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Three Non-Fiction

2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

First… The WORN Archive — shocking I know, but I really enjoyed this. It’s the kind of writing about fashion that I like. And, the photos were fabulous.

Second… Next Generation Real Estate because duh, moving in one year and 10 months and 2 weeks, lol. Mostly really it was an impulse pick up from the non-fiction new arrivals. TW read it first and that pleased me, though she now has her heart set on buying a house with modern electricity, lol.

Third… and horribly scary… All I Want Is a Job. Anyone who cares about poverty, the jobs crisis, and social services in the US should read this. It’s not pretty but it’s important to really think about and I really like how the material was presented. Yes, it’s dry reading. And depressing. But important. Really important. Could we pay our damn minimum wage people a LIVING DAMN WAGE, PLEASE? Not doing so is killing us. All of us. Really.

Now I’m moving on to some fiction. Heh.

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2 Non-Fiction (cooking and gardening?)

1 Comment / 2014, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

Did I mention the the non-fiction new arrivals are back downstairs where they belong? Heh. This means I’ve got all the fun non-fiction, just picked up because it looked interesting and because I love non-fiction.

First up, a cookbook. A cookbook I loved but TW made bad faces over. Heh. Stuffed: The Ultimate Comfort Food Cookbook. My kind of cookbook. Stuff all the yummy things with more yummy things! I’ve added The Food In My Beard to my feedreader (he wrote this book.)

Next, a book I want to buy but TW kind of rolled her eyes over. LOL. 5 Plant Gardens. I want all the gardens, with all of the plants (well with just five plants in each garden, of course. duh.)

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Reading in July

2014, Books in Bed, Reading /

All things considered, this wasn’t a bad reading month. It wasn’t great but with an entire week of non-reading (BlogHer ’14) I’m pretty pleased with how it went.

15 Total

2 – Audio
1 – LGBT
2 – Non-Fiction
7 – Cybils
5 – Graphic Novels (these were all YA graphic novels)

Not bad at all. I’m looking forward to August where I see a lot of non-fiction and a lot of children’s fiction/cybils in my life.

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The Care and Management of Lies

2014, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

Well it’s no Maisie Dobbs, but we enjoyed The Care and Management of Lies (on audio.) I kept wondering if any of these people were crossovers from the Maisie Dobbs series — even minor characters but TW looked it up and said no. I’m not convinced. If I had more free time, I’d go look a little bit and see if she is right.

War is hell. The ending was hell. Hell hell hell. I saw it coming but didn’t want to BELIEVE it was coming. Sigh.

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Landline

2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

We enjoyed Eleanor & Park so much that I didn’t even hesitate about reserving Landline and I totally enjoyed it, once I understood the weird magic telephone. I enjoyed it so much that I stayed up very late to finish it last night.

She’s big on the retro, isn’t she? I like that.

(Little note to myself — count this for July.)

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The Tree of Life

2 Comments / 2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Yes I’ve finished a book. Better yet, I finished The Tree of Life. Both are big deals because life is crazy and The Tree of Life was a little sluggish in the first half of the book. Not as sluggish as the second book in the trilogy, but difficult.

These would have been much better to read if I’d read them all straight in a row. Too many freaking characters. The timewalking also wreaked havoc on my ability to place people and events. Why do so many of the peoples (errr creatures) have to have so damn many names. (I know why, but sheesh.)

I enjoyed this book. I mostly liked the ending. It’s all good.

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Three Graphic Novels

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Young Adult /

All Cybils and all better than I expected.

I absolutely loved Templar and didn’t expect to.

Uzumaki was freaky. It’s hard to read a book while you’re covering your eyes. Also, I will never look at spirals in the same way. Shudder. Also, it’s been awhile since I read real manga (front to back) much less horror manga.

War Brothers is heartbreaking. I think I’d have liked the real book better than the graphic novel.

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The Non-Fiction Is Back!

2014, Books in Bed, Library /

A few weeks ago, we went into the library and while chatting with one of our favorite librarians I sorrowfully noted the lack of non-fiction in our stacks and she excitedly said, “they’re coming back downstairs!” I couldn’t believe it.

After we filled out the survey — nothing happened. I didn’t see it mentioned in the library newsletter or on their blog(s) so I thought maybe nothing would change and I has pretty much resolved to mourn non-fiction for the next two years.

But no — overwhelming support for bringing the non-fiction back. I didn’t blog about it because I didn’t want to jinx it. We were so darn excited early in the week when we ran in to pick up some holds and there was the non-fiction! So excited that I think we checked out 10 non-fiction just because we were so thrilled. (The travel guides didn’t make the move back downstairs — that’s disappointing since I’m a spur of the moment travel guide browser but that’s ok. Who has time to travel right now or even dream about travel right now, anyway. No big deal.)

Thank you Glenview Public Library for asking for patron feedback and then taking action on that feedback. Yippee! Long live non-fiction!

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