Books in Bed

A Walk in the Woodszzzzz

2005, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

OK could someone explain to me why people actually love A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson? More to the point can you explain why people call this a really funny book? Why they say things like “laughed my head off” and “extremely funny” when describing it?

I know I was sick but I didn’t laugh. OK I laughed once but it was in the second half of the book which most reviewers seemed to find less funny. I kept wondering if I had checked out the wrong version from the library or something.

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Curmudgeonalia

2 Comments / Books in Bed, Bookstores /

On Friday when I was checking to see if Cedar Key had added any new vegetarian restaurants to their tiny town, I stumbled upon the Curmudgeonalia website and blog. I think all bookstores ought to be blogging, don’t you?

So when TW said to me very late on Friday night, “You didn’t pack many books this time” I knew we were going to be book shopping at Curmudgeonalia the next day.

The first thing you should know about the Curmudgeon is that he does look very much like the cute little Curmudgeon on the website and he acts pretty curmudgeonly too, in the nice way that curmudgeons are. Quirky, outspoken, cranky but interesting sorts of people. Only interesting people should own bookstores, that should be a law.

The next thing you should know is that the Curmudgeonalia store is a tiny little thing with an interesting array of books. There was a nice selection of books about Florida, nice selection of young adult books. The young children’s selection was a little weak, in my humble opinion, but since I didn’t have any young children with me I didn’t particularly mind that.

The Curmudgeon offers internet access on one of his computers and it’s a wee bit pricey though he has a nice note on his computer telling you how much you’d pay for the service at an airport (apparently he hasn’t heard about all the folks grabbing free wifi in airports lately). It’s a nice service because there simply was no connection to be had on the island and there was a moment when I thought I might avail myself of it to email my kids because my cell phone also wasn’t working. But, I resisted spending the $10 and we bought books instead. 😉

TW bought “The Passionate Vegetarian” and the Curmudgeon told us all about the author’s days as a strung out hippy in Haight Asbury and how she’s made a gazillion dollars with a hotel and B&B in Arkansas and how interesting she is because he’s met her a few times. TW also bought “How We Eat” which is going to provide me with all sorts of inspiration for work. I bought “Tellable Cracker Tales” and “Florida’s Fabulous Natural Places” for the kids. I wonder if I can convince the kids to “retell” these Cracker Tales in a podcast…. I bet RJ would do it!

If you find yourself in Cedar Key, Florida then you must check out Curmudgeonalia and the Curmudgeon who runs the place. I bet you will find it as interesting as we did.

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Weekend Reading

Books in Bed, Reading Lists /

books-002.jpg Sassymonkey posted her TBR list so I thought I’d share a photo of the books on my TBR shelves. There are four more waiting at the library for me and two not on the shelf because TW and I are currently reading them. 😉

We are going away for the weekend and I expect to get some reading done. Here’s what I just tossed into the suitcase for the weekend (all hardbacks, ugh):
A Walk in the Woods – Bryson
Until I Find You – Irving
The Virgin of Bennington – Norris
Envy – Harrison
Never Let Me Go – Ishiguro
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Foer
Looking Back – Lowry

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Daily Dose of Books – Blogs

2 Comments / Books in Bed /

I spend time with some friends on a message boards, imagine that. We post about our day. We rant about our kids. We argue with each other about parenting and religion and politics and even blogging. (I am always right though and they should know better than to argue with me but they still do it. Probably because they just like to argue even when they know they are wrong.) We take silly quizzes. We wish each other “Happy Birthday” (though I’m bad at remembering to do this). You name it we have or we will talk about it there. And as much as we all enjoy the message boards, it just hasn’t worked well when it comes to talking about books and keeping track of our books.

Sassymonkey mentioned a book blog and I told her I’d been thinking of it. She told me to do it, so I did. Then, our pal Katie the librarian started one and now sassymonkey has one too. Now skeeter and ghir and gam need book blogs, don’t they?! Yes. They. Do.

Our little message board community has moved to blogs! We have a little book blog network going on! I love it! I am thinking community indicator… how about you?

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Vanishing Acts

2005, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /


I’ve been a Jodi Picoult fan since the days of women.com. Kyra wandered onto a board one day and talked and talked and talked about The Pact. She talked so much about it that I went out and bought it in hardback and read it immediately. I’ve been hooked ever since on Picoult. (And I still own that hardback of The Pact and think of Ky every time I see it on the shelf.)

Vanishing Acts is not my favorite of Picoult’s library of family/relationship fiction. It’s pretty low on the list now that I think about it. I tend to enjoy Picoult telling the story from various points of view but this time none of the characters seem to see a single flaw in Delia (the woman who discovers her father kidnapped her from her mother when she was a child). Nobody is perfect, except Delia.

I saw some reviews that suggested the scenes from jail were too long and too violent and a distraction from the rest of the story. I didn’t feel that way at all. If those were glossed over and all was fine and dandy in prison, I’d have found that pretty unbelievable, ya know?

I wonder, did Picoult really need to add the scene where she “loses” her own child? Or toss in the “disclosure” from Andrew on the witness stand? Just a little too much, I think.

If you are a Picoult fan, you won’t really be sorry to read this. But, if you haven’t read any of her novels then I recommend you try My Sister’s Keeper or The Pact first.

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Childrens Books – Heir to the Throne

Books in Bed, Children's Literature /

I realized just now that I might need to somehow keep track of books I’m buying for my nephew , otherwise known as “heir to the throne”. So, I think I’m going to track that in this blog too. (And if you have ideas for great children’s books, share them. I particularly am interested in non-mainstream or often overlooked books.)

So far here’s what we’ve sent:
Pat the Bunny (because it was my sister’s favorite book)
On the Day You Were Born (because TW has some weird fondness for it. I do not.)
My Good Night Book and My Good Morning Book because these were my children’s favorites)
Babies (another of my children’s favorites)


I am considering, for this Christmas, Everyone Poops and The Gas We Pass. What do you think?

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Mass Murderers & Teen Sleuths

2005, Books in Bed, Favorites, GLBT, Mystery /

It was a slow reading week for me but would have been slower if it hadn’t been for the car service fiasco. Work has been a little busy, moderators on vacation and such, and blogging has been even busier.

I skipped over a large stack of books that TW has already read in favor of Dearly Devoted Dexter. I was more excited about the release of the second Dexter than I was about Harry Potter and it did not let me down.

We discovered Darkly Dreaming Dexter last year, right before we headed to Miami for a cruise. It was amusing to drive down along the docks of Miami and see all of those metal storage containers that played such a large role in Darkly Dreaming.

Dexter is a bad bad guy. He’s not even really human. But he looks human and most people find him pretty charming. Women seem to fall at his feet and he’s not sure what to do about that. What he’d rather do is let his “dark passenger” take over and just KILL. But, he doesn’t…unless a really really BAD person comes along. Preferably one who is not nice to children, that’s Dexter’s preferred victim.

The Dexter books manage to be funny and gruesome at the same time, but not in the way a Christopher Moore slasher novel would be. It’s hard to explain, you just have to read it for yourself and find out.


After Dexter, I grabbed the next book from the library stack with a quickly approaching return date and that just happened to be Confessions of a Teen Sleuth. What a switch from Dexter to a grown up Nancy Drew! Ha!

I was a huge Nancy Drew fan as a kid. I’d use my allowance every weekend to buy a new Nancy Drew book and finish it within a couple of hours. Then I’d beg my mom or dad to take me to Sam Solomon’s (which was closer than the bookstore and a place my parents seem to like pretty well so it seemed like a good shot…) and get them to buy me another one – because I was bored and I neeeeeeded to read another and another and another. I didn’t read them all, I got sidetracked by adult novels or something – I’m blaming The Female Eunuch because I know I read that around the same time as I was reading the last of my Nancy Drews. Germaine Greer, DAMN YOU!

OK back to this little “parody”, it was ok. Not great. I like the gay girl version better but it had it’s amusing moments. Nancy and Frank Hardy and their love child that grew up thinking he was Ned’s child. Ha! Very amusing, indeed.

I’m about to pick up a book by another of my favorite authors but I’ll tell you about that in a couple of days…

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Reading in Bed…

Books in Bed, Reading Lists /

I use to hate to read in bed. I’m not exactly sure how that changed, but it has. TW and I spend a lot of time in our eclectic bedroom with my even more eclectic quilt reading and reading and reading. Lately we’ve been spending more time blogging and blogging and blogging but I doubt that will ever take the place of reading real live books.

I’ve been trying to find a good way to keep track of the books we read. I tried writing in a cool notebook that our friend LJ discovered but that didn’t work so well. I tried keeping amazon lists but that didn’t work well either because amazon listmania doesn’t always work so well. TW started a special blog for tracking books but the software was always down and it constantly took away my right to post a new dog gone entry so I gave that up really quickly.

The sassy monkey mentioned a blog for books recently and I told her I’d been thinking of doing one. She said do it, so I’m doing it. Surely this will work better than the other things we tried, right?

So, on with the books…

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Daily Dose of Books – Meme

Books in Bed, Memes and Quizzes, Sights & Sounds /

Profgrrrrl posted this little Book Meme. I’m amused that I got Animal Farm. I’m an Orwell fan, much to Michelle’s chagrin since I made her read 1984 last year (and watch the movie, too). As much as I like this “hopelessly idealistic to tragically jaded” and agree that it is ME, I’m sort of sad that I didn’t get Lolita. I miss my “old image” sometimes. 😉



You’re Animal Farm!
by George Orwell
You are living proof that power corrupts and whoever leads you will
become just as bad as the past leaders. You’re quite conflicted about this emotionally and waver from . Ultimately, you know you can’t trust pigs. Your best moments are when you’re down on all fours.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

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