tales of passion, tales of woo

not really, but someone from another library once called the reference desk looking for that book for one of their own patrons and the actual title is "Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe." It makes me smile to think of it AND it sort of reminds me of the card throwing at Rocky Horror. It's an ADD moment to be sure.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. If you don't celebrate the holiday, I hope you had a fabulous Thursday :-)

I was at KT's house from Wednesday to Friday and had a blast. Cookies, games, Christmas decorations, frivolity, and controlled chaos were the order of the days and I've rarely had such a rollickin' good time! I fell off the portioning wagon fairly badly but mananged to eek out a .2 pound loss for the week of Thanksgiving. And you know what? I'll take it.

I'm still REALLY loving my new used car and just zip in and out of traffic like a little bumblebee. I don't know if I'll ever want something other than such a small car. They are very zippy and fun.

So far, I've failed at my endeavors to blog more, but I did delete a few of the more obsurdly time consuming things in which I participated on Facebook in an attempt to free up more time for other things. I've frequently found myself coming in from work and getting straight on the computer for the rest of the night and not doing anything really other than staring at Facebook and hitting the refresh button. Not good. I have too many books to read and a monthly subscription to Netflix to be spending all of my time playing games and hoping my "friends" will talk to me. I'm also going to harshly weed the feeds in my Google Reader. I just have too many and the thoughts of logging on are too much to bear. I miss checking in with the sites and blogs that I really enjoyed before I got all bogged down in too much info. It's time for a fresh start!

I hope I haven't lost everyone with my blogging laziness. Are you all still there?

library archaeology

Mr. Johnson moved on to something more lucrative after Miami Vice...

Inside Bowling by Don Johnson and Jack Patterson

october reads

I'm still racking up on my reading! I managed to get in 13 books last month and am going strong here mid-November. I'm feeling REAL strong on my goal of reading 150 books for the year!

What is Man? by Mark Twain
Controversial and, dare I say, irreverent essay on the humanity of humans in the form of a Socratic dialogue between an Old Man and a Young Man. The OM takes the position of human as machine, working as programmed and motivated only by his own contentment of spirit. The YM, as young men tend to do, takes what he considers to be the high road. Great companion read to Bernard Beckett's Genesis, coming up a little later on this list.

Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr by Garth Nix
This is the middle book in Nix's young adult fantasy Abhorsen trilogy. Magic, necromancy, adventure, danger, loyalty, and bravery - something for all and I loved the whole series!

Winter Kissed by Michele Hauf and Vivi Anna

Two winter-themed tales of romance from Harlequin. Okay, but not great. LOTS of awkward dialogue.

Genesis by Bernard Beckett

One of my favorite books. It was published as a young adult novel in the author's native New Zealand and it gets catalogued both ways around the country. A young girl, Anaxamander, is presenting her historical research on Adam Ford in an attempt to get into The Academy. Adam's life was a pivotal moment for a society that had already been devastated by a world-wide plague and suffering extreme isolation for many, many years. Anax's historical research uncovers so much more than she intended or is ready for. A++

Abhorsen by Garth Nix

The concluding volume in Nix's Abhorsen trilogy. This is a great series to pick up for Potter fans!

The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan

A mind-bending, reality-shredding tale of dread from an author Neil Gaiman describes as "the poet and the bard of the wasted and the lost." Author Sarah Crowe is attempting to get away from her grief over the death of her lover, Amanda, but burying herself in work in an isolated New England farmhouse. Her discovery of an unfinished manuscript on the evil history of an old tree on the property doesn't help her situation much. VERY, VERY good. One of the very best works of cold, dead-weight dread I've read in recent memory.

The Curse Workers: The White Cat by Holly Black

A first novel in a new young adult series from Black, set in a universe where curse workers have been officially outlawed, but are so common that everyone is required to wear gloves so that no skin-to-skin contact, and thus no curses, can be transmitted. Of course, some people cheat, and that is what currently has Cassel in so much trouble. The audio is narrated by Jesse Eisenberg and he does a great job!

Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

Everyone born Post-Shift has the ability to see ghosts. Aura has capitalized on that by working in her aunt's law firm seeking justice for the wrongly killed. She takes some pride in her work but it's a pain in the ass overall. That is, until her boyfriend, on what should have been the best night of his life, accidentally dies instead. Now she's caught between the ghost of the boy she loved (who still considers them to be a couple) and the possibility of new love with Zachary. This is a young adult novel, but I would only recommend with confidence to high school age and up for language, sex, and drugs.

Private Pleasures by Bertrice Small

Are you familiar with Bertrice Small? If so, 'nuf said. If not, let's just say I was more than ready to get off the YA train and in to something a whole helluva lot *bit* more grown up. In plain language, this is erotica so if that is not your bailiwick, beware! I wish WE had The Channel.

Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

We've booked this author to speak at our library next year so the whole department is reading his books so we can start the handselling. Chaz pushes his wife overboard while on a cruise celebrating their anniversary. He was concerned that she'd found out about his shady dealings on the job and thought this would be a convenient way to shut her up. Unfortunately for him, Joey's years as a champion diver in college hold her in good stead and she's ready for revenge. Fast moving story with lots of funny characters and humor, some of it very sexual in nature, but the author's CONSTANT use of every character's full name, first and last, was SO F*&^%ing ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sometimes more than once in the same sentence. I want to read some of his other books but can't make myself do it as that was SO offputting.

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okarafor

*sigh* I sooooo wanted to love this but it just didn't happen. It got lots of good press but it just didn't resonate with me. It most reminded me of Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy. I am newly horrified by rape and female circumcision, in detail. Lots of sperm and other bodily fluids tossed willy nilly. I could see the point the author was trying to make, or shine light upon, but it took away from the central story for me. However, I think I will remember Onyesonwu until the day I die. A job well done, I'd say.

Poems Bewitched and Haunted edited by John Hollander

The main thing I learned was that there are billions and billions of poems out there on how evil/witchy/demonic women are. Poems suitable for a Halloween collection about evil/warlocky/demonic men are apparently pretty thin on the ground. *sigh*

Mates, Dates, and Inflatable Bras by Cathy Hopkins

A long running, VERY British young adult series so it's "mates" as in friends rather than any other definition. Short, funny, and highly entertaining! Lucy is an outsider in her family and feels like everyone knows what they want to do with their lives, already, at the ripe old age of 14...except her. A new girl horns in on her BFF and the hottest boy in town turns out to be SO VERY unattainable. I really liked it and am reading the second one now. There are a lot of books in this series so I hope they stay fun!

What are YOU reading?

go elf yourself!

In honor of the fact that I am on staycation this week AND that I am indeed putting up my Christmas tree today, I present to the world my elf self! It is so much trouble getting out all these decorations that I want to look at them for way more than two or three weeks! I have lots of trips and pics to post about, but I've got to get the tree up since KT and the rest of my fav fam of five are coming over for dinner and decoratin'. Enjoy!

drag, confetti, and toilet paper..oh my!

Dr. Frank-N-Furter 2.0

He's got a little captain in him :-)

Great Scott!! I suffered a very minor rice grain to the eye during the wedding, but this was a rice, confetti, toilet paper deluge and I had my newspaper out for protection!

I had to brush my hair out on the front porch to get all the rice out and my shoes and bra were full as well, but I didn't undress outside. Rice vacuums up just fine! A few butter smears from the toast and a handful of cards for sorrow, cards for pain are all I really ended up with. And we've all decided that if we start NOW, there could be some EPIC costumes for next year!

Oh, and I am no longer a f*%&#ing Rocky Horror virgin!

That is all.

I would have signed it twice if it were ethical to do so!

Defund NPR?! These people are daft and not in a good way like Daft Punk. I absolutely DO NOT listen to any radio stations in the area except WBHM because they don't have anything interesting, enlightening, or entertaining to say. When I want news, that is the station I tune in on all my radios. I am a no-TV household and proud of it. Don't take away my public radio.

Morons. How can anyone honestly take them seriously?

Sign the petition!

poetry parade

I am enjoying my Poems Bewitched and Haunted challenge, but the glut of "women are evil and deadly" selections, while flattering in a very Dexter kind of way, is disheartening too. I really would have like to see it more balanced out with some evil and deadly dudes. I know they're out there. There have been some fairly decent ghost poems and I'll shortly have some favorites picked out to share. At the end, I'll pick out some of my favorites overall and list them here too. The spooky poems have been an enjoyable event, might have to make poetry a permanent feature. I don't read enough of it anyway.

Also, the Kia was retired in a very dignified fashion. This is the new hotness:

It's a 2008 Hyundai Accent hatchback and I'm loving it! So nice to be more confident in the fact that I can get back and forth from work without dying! The poor Kia was just falling apart on me. It was a great car but I drive 80 miles a day, minimum, on crappy Alabama roads. There's just no sane way to make a car last under those conditions and I don't expect it. I shopped via Carmax and had one of my best car buying experiences EVER!

witchy woman

one of my fav Eagles songs

I FINALLY made it through the "Hags and Beauties" section of Poems Bewitched and Haunted. It was a chore. I sure hope men get equal treatment somewhere in this book because it was depressing how hard the woman-bashing went on. I thought, perhaps, somewhere, there would be an empowering sort of hag or beauty but no, they all could have starred front and center on Days of Our Lives or some such show. Powerful, shallow, ignorantly cunning...pshaw! I was glad to get past all that.

The "Dangerous Procedures" section was disappointing. Really, it was merely an extension of "Hags and Beauties," with recipes! Blissfully short.

Now we're getting to some good stuff, "Dangerous Venues!" Edgar Allan Poe's "The Haunted Palace" was pretty good, obviously, but my favorite so far is Thomas Hood's "The Haunted House." I will set it down for you here, but I will also be posting it, a stanza per day, over on facebook. It's perfect for it! Creepy and atmospheric with a gothic spice...good stuff!

Okay, the book only has Part I of this three part poem, in total there are 88 stanzas! It's too long to set down here, but click through if you are interested!

Read scary,
Holley

October challenge

I've set a challenge for myself that, admittedly, has not gotten off to a very auspicious start but I have high hopes for myself and you should too! I have checked out a book of poetry, Poems Bewitched and Haunted, and plan to read it throughout the month, noting down my thoughts here. I counted up the poems to see how many I would read each day to make it last the entire month. I didn't read my 4 poems yesterday and haven't gotten to them today yet either but I WILL READ 8 poems when I get home tonight!

All of them so far have been fairly witch-y in subject. Cold, beautiful, otherworldly women who lure brave men to their death. Blah, blah, blah. I think it goes just as much in the other direction, but I guess that doesn't makes for good poetry?

Several of the poems were about a cold, beautiful, otherworldly woman named Circe, which of course reminded me of the Cercei of the much beloved A Song of Ice and Fire series. She too is cold and beautiful, though not otherworldly. Grasping, manipulative, and vicious, yes, but often devastatingly foolish. Not that that makes her enemies any less dead. And so it goes for the victims of the poetic Circe as well. Quite a few of them end up as pigs. I'm not sure when or why that became the go-to punishment for witches to assign.

Are you reading anything scary???

September reads

I thought I was on track to be reading a lot less than last month, but 16 isn’t too shabby! I’m just a few books away from beating last year’s total and still basically have 3 months of reading to go, including another staycation in November. Would it be too greedy to shoot for 150 books this year? Surely not. Anyway, here’s what I read last month!

Leaving Unknown by Kerry Reichs
Maeve Connelly is a chronic non-finisher. To her embarrassment, she’s just been fired from yet another job and her parents are expressing some heavy disapproval at having to take care of her yet again. In a fit of inspiration, Maeve decides to move cross country from the Carolinas to take up residence with an old friend in California. With her ancient car, a chatty bird, and a sparkling sense of adventure, Maeve feels like nothing can stop her now…except, perhaps, that ancient car. The town of Unkown, Arizona will never be the same again.

No Doors, No Windows by Joe Schreiber
Greeting card writer and frustrated novelist Scott Mast has returned to his tiny New Hampshire hometown for his father’s funeral. His alcoholic brother and vulnerable nephew make the stay particularly uncomfortable in their separate ways and Scott is ready to head out. Before he can make his escape, he stumbles upon an unfinished manuscript of a horror novel begun by his father before his death. Now The Black Wing consumes him and he begins to wonder just what legacy has been left to him after all.

Marked by Elizabeth Naughton
This is the first book in the author’s Eternal Guardians series featuring Greek gods and demi-gods, demons, and, of course, eternal love. Ummm, of the hot variety. I’m sure you understand.

Vampirates: Blood Captain by Justin Somper
This is the third volume in the young adult series about the twins, Conner and Grace, each of whom were rescued by pirates after they were shipwrecked. Conner’s rescuers were human, Grace’s were not. Now Grace’s nemesis, the vampirate Sidorio, is back and amassing power to threaten the human and vampire world alike.

Dracula, My Love: The Secret Journals of Mina Harker by Syrie James
A further fictionalized tale based on the original fictionalized tale. What *really* happened to Mina and Jonathan Harker and the rest from Stoker’s classic horror story of darkness and obsession. I wanted to like this, I really did, and it was great up until about the last ½ or 1/3 and then she lost me. Dark, sensual, and more than a little depraved. Still good Halloween-ish reading!

Shadow Bound by Erin Kellison
Death broke a cardinal rule when he stepped through the veil of Shadows because of the love he bore Kathleen. Now the dark creatures of Shadow can pass through as well and the wraith menace grows, sucking the souls from humanity. Twenty some odd years after that event, the child created from that union, Talia, is on the run for her life. The wraiths want something from her but she has no idea that she is a banshee. Adam, leader of the wraith research group Segue, knows she may be the key to destroying the menace if he can only keep her alive long enough AND keep from falling in love with her.

Vampirates: Black Heart by Justin Somper
The fourth book in the series. Sidorio just won’t die and now has joined forces with Lady Lola Blackwood, a very dangerous vampire in her own right. Grace and Conner are quickly running out of places to hide and avenues of escape.

Summer at Tiffany: A Memoir by Marjorie Hart
Marjorie and her best friend Marty became the first female floor sales pages when they were hired for the summer at Tiffany in 1945. This is her story of that exciting, life-changing summer when they donned the trademark blue of Tiffany and Co.

A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn
A retelling of Sleeping Beauty. No where near as good at the author’s Beastly, but entertaining nonetheless.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Full of the flash and fire of Kerouac’s On the Road, but in Spain. Fishing, bullfighting, absinthe by the bucket loads, and the hectic, mercurial affection of one Lady Brett Ashley.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Grace has been obsessed by the wolves in the forest behind her house ever since she was almost killed by them when she was a small child. One wolf in particular, yellow-eyed AND the one who saved her life then, keeps her attention now. After one of her school mates is attacked, a group of men from town take their guns in to the woods, determined to rid the forest of wolves. Grace desperately tries to stop them, to no affect. When she returns home that night, she finds a naked, shivering, shot boy on her back porch. A boy with disturbingly familiar yellow eyes.

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater
The sequel to Shiver. The third novel in the trilogy, Forever, is due out next July. Linger finds Grace and Sam struggling to acclimate to their new lives, unable to escape the feeling that nothing good lasts forever.

Sabriel by Garth Nix
Sabriel’s father, Abhorsen, is missing. She knows something is terribly wrong because he sent a very weak shadow hand to bring her his magically-enhanced sword and the bandolier of seven bells he used to bind and defeat the dead. Sabriel refuses to believe he is truly dead so she must leave boarding school, cross the Wall back in to the Old Kindgom, and find her father immediately. Something dark is brewing, the dead are rising, the dead creatures that rise with them becoming even more vicious, and only Abhorsen can do anything about it. With the help of the magical creature Mogget, he only *looks* like a small white cat, Sabriel must journey to death and beyond to find her father before it’s too late.

How Did You Get This Number? By Sloane Crosley
Humerous essays by the author of I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Not quite as ascerbic as David Sedaris, but definitely funny!

Vampirates: Empire of Night by Justin Somber
The fifth and most current volume of the continuing adventures of twins Grace and Conner. The twins have learned of their true history and nothing will ever be the same. Hard choices must be made, sides chosen, battles fought…I love this series!

Shadow Fall by Erin Kellison
Sequel to Shadow Bound. Adam and the banshee Talia show up in this book as well, but it focuses on Adam's friend Custo. He has made an unhealthy trade with an adversary he really shouldn't have pissed off but he has to help Adam at all costs. Something is free of the Shadowlands, hunting an innocent young woman, and it's his doing that the creature made the leap into life from the Shadows.

103, and counting!