My current library haul

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I’m talking about my library haul with Linda Mottram on ABC702 this morning. Catch up radio will have the show on for the next 7 days (I’m on in the last 20 minutes) http://www.abc.net.au/sydney/programs/702_mornings/

My library borrowing is quite different to my book buying habits. At the library I feel at ease to borrow items that I would hesitate to expend money upon as they may be unknown authors, unknown TV shows or just unavailable. Here is my pic taken with my precision skills which my sons caption “The Veros School of Photography” – it is a family gift:

Library Haul November 2015

My own haul from last week:

3 DVDs:

Currently Watching:

The Mindy Project – I’ve been binge-watching Mindy Kaling’s 1st season with my son. She is very funny and I love her perspective.

Waiting:

  • Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing – Shakespeare retelling FTW!
  • The Thick of It – I am in the mood for some sweary Malcolm Tucker

Books:

Currently reading:

Anne Gracie’s The Spring Bride – the 3rd of a Quartet (but the first that I am reading). A young lady in georgian England who had a poverty-stricken upbringing only wants a stable and rich marriage to keep her from ever being poor again. Then she falls in love with a spy while she is betrothed to a duke. I’m early in the book but I already love it. This is also my only Australian author from my current haul. Continue reading →

The 100, 25, 12 Dresses

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The 100 Dresses by Eleanor EstesWhen I was in primary school, one of my favourite books was Eleanor Estes’ The 100 Dresses. It is about a young Polish girl, Wanda Petronski, who boasts about her 100 dresses. She is visibly poor so a number of kids decide to tease her and claim she is lying. By the end of the book they discover that she did indeed have 100 dresses – all of them were drawings. I’m not sure why, but this book left its mark on me. The cruel kids that taunted the young girl, her life of drawing, imagining, dreaming of the beautiful dresses that she could one day own, and considering her own drawings to be as much a reality and tangible possession as a material dress could possibly be.

I love wearing dresses. I love the way they feel when I walk. I love the way they sway. I love their airiness. Early this year, I realised that I didn’t even own a single pair of trousers*. I have suit bags that lovingly house my dresses from my thinner years. My dresses are not particularly expensive (except for that one, glamorous, plunging neckline, silk, green Merivale) but I can’t throw them out. In the last couple of months I have read two books on dresses. The first is 25 Dresses and the other is Dress Memory. Continue reading →

Victoria Dahl and Taking the Heat

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Victoria Dahl's Taking the HeateIt will come as no surprise to regular readers of my blog or my twitter, or even people who have met me in person, that I love Victoria Dahl’s novels. Do a search for her in my lookitupdooblidob to the side and you will find many mentions of her. So when she told me she was writing a male librarian – YES! a male librarian – I ordered her book when it finally came out and bit my lip in anticipation. Would he even come close to the hotness that is Richard Hindon in Lillian Peake’s The Library Tree. This would not be a difficult task.

I had my reservations. This book was perhaps too close to my own professional life. From the outset, I need to say that I mean no disrespect towards any of my current and former male colleagues, but I have never thought anyone in the LIS sphere to be particularly attractive. So the absolutely amazing, hot, sensitive, buff, amazeballs librarian Gabe MacKenzie in this book truly felt like a fantasy man. He didn’t feel real. He was so far from real that he started to edge toward a paranormal romance hero (this is as close as I can get to this month’s TBR challenge for SuperWendy) – he could climb rockfaces, he creates digital (*snort*) magic in the library, he has a talented tongue in the bedroom and a sexy trim beard as his mild superpower to help him out. He is a figment of Victoria’s imagination! No such man exists! This was becoming such a reading block for me, I decided I needed to discuss this travesty with my husband. Here is our exchange: Continue reading →

Returning to lifelogging my reading

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At the beginning of this year I decided that I was going to give up recording my reading on Goodreads. I have failed. I am a GoodReads addict.

When I was a kid, I was a casual list keeper, including one of all the books I read. I say casual because after an earnest beginning, faithfully writing down every title I read, I would forget my list until months later when I would call on my powers of recall and I would try to add to it again. Inadvertently, I would lose my list (probably my incredibly neat mum would put it somewhere I could never imagine searching for it like my own desk drawers) and after some time I just gave up on my list keeping. That is, until 2007, when I discovered the social aspect of list keeping. This is the only lifelogging I take part in. I don’t have map my runs (haha – make that walks), I don’t have a fitness logger (I probably should) but I do map my reading. Continue reading →

Sarah Morgan’s Playing by the Greek’s Rules

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I had seen Sarah Morgan’s name bandied about on fave author and autobuy lists for quite a while and it was recommended to me by Miss Bates Reads Romance.

I am so absolutely glad that I bought this book. I think that Playing by the Greek’s Rules has got to be one of my favourite category romances in the last 5 years, if not ever. I absolutely adored it.

But first, the blurb:

 It’s time to throw away the rule book… 

Idealistic archaeologist Lily Rose craves a fairy-tale love, but in her experience it always ends in heartbreak. So now Lily’s trying a different approach—a fling with her boss, infamous Greek playboy Nik Zervakis!

Anti-love and anti-family, Nik lives by his own set of rules. There’s no one better to teach Lily how to separate sizzling sex from deep emotions! But while Nik has the world at his feet, he also has dark shadows in his heart… 

It starts as a sensual game, but can Lily stick to Nik’s rules? And what’s more, can he?

*sigh* I hate the word sensual. It just doesn’t work for me. The word makes me think of 80s boudoir photography and this book is far from that.

The story opens with archaeologist Lily angry and despondent having just found out the man she loved was actually married. Lily, who grew up in foster homes, is horrified. Family and marriage is sacrosanct for her. Lily blames herself for she keeps looking for a long term relationship with the wrong men. She swears that she needs to have rebound sex and tuurn her heart to Teflon. Her pursuit for love blinding her to the faults of the men she meets. Lily is a typical 20something year old and works several part time jobs so as to earn money to pay off her student loans so she finds herself cleaning billionaire hero Nik’s house when she gets into a fight with his high-tech power shower and needs to take her sopping wet clothes off. Which, of course, leads to their cute meet. Continue reading →

Listening to Mindy

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I’m back on the ABC’s 702 Sydney show this morning. Linda Mottram is on holidays so I will be chatting with Deb Knight about audiobooks – perfect for roadtrips!

I have a deep, dark secret to admit here. But first, let me point out that I adore being told a story. As a young child, I don’t recall ever being read to but my parents were always telling us stories, and particularly my dad would embellish his with hyperbole (this apple does not fall far from that tree). This storytelling time was either at dinner or at bedtime. Bedtime stories would always put me to sleep, and here is my deep, dark secret. I choose my audiobooks for their ability to put me to sleep. Not in a “I’m so bored I can barely pay attention” way but in a search for calm, soothing voices that work their magic and send you into Morpheus’s arms. This is great when I am in bed, but not so good when I am driving. Continue reading →

Romancing the Duke: Tessa Dare, meta and the TBR challenge

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After several false starts, I have finally finished reading Tessa Dare’s Romancing the Duke from the Castles Ever After series for this month’s TBR Challenge. And to avoid even more false starts (particularly of the blogging kind), I’m going to do a quick blurb cut-and-paste:

Romancing the Duke by Tessa DareAs the daughter of a famed author, Isolde Ophelia Goodnight grew up on tales of brave knights and fair maidens.  She never doubted romance would be in her future, too.  The storybooks offered endless possibilities.

And as she grew older, Izzy crossed them off.  One by one by one.

Ugly duckling turned swan?

Abducted by handsome highwayman?

Rescued from drudgery by charming prince?

No, no, and… Heh.

Now Izzy’s given up yearning for romance. She’ll settle for a roof over her head.  What fairy tales are left over for an impoverished twenty-six year-old woman who’s never even been kissed?

This one.

Spoiler alerts early on in this review:

I enjoyed this book. Isolde inherits a castle but it comes with a duke (Ransom) who was not aware that his castle had been bought as he has been in a self-imposed exile to recover from injuries he received in a duel. He is mostly blind and he is adapting to life without full sight. Izzy is the daughter of a famous (now deceased) English author who wrote stories of romance and adventure with Izzy as the central character. Though she has been left destitute, there is national goodwill toward her and she has a strong, though a tad overthetop fans who follow her to her castle. Ransom has never heard of her father or Izzy and treats Izzy like an adult unlike most people who she comes across in her life. Ransom wants Izzy to leave his castle immediately but homeless Izzy refuses to give up her inheritance even if it seems to be an illgotten gain. Izzy decides to help Ransom tackle his paperwork which has not been read in months due to his inability to read. She becomes his eyes and reads aloud all his correspondence in order to uncover how his castle was sold without his knowledge. Continue reading →

Chchchchanges

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This past week has been quite busy for me. I started my research in 2012 and was (thankfully) assigned a research desk within my university’s research office. I had what I considered luxury. It was a large corner cubicle with plenty of shelves and drawers where I could spread out my papers when I was working on an idea and it also afforded me a lot of privacy. After 3.5 years in the same space, our research office has been moved to a different floor and I now have a smaller desk in a much more open space. This too is fine for me. As someone who is used to sharing spaces – I have never had my own bedroom, I did not even have my own chair (let alone a desk) at my first, second and third jobs, and though I have had jobs where I have had my own office, I still consider a desk of any sort to be an absolutely delightful bonus.

A corner of my old desk

A corner of my old desk

This move has necessitated me to go through all the paperwork that I had amassed in all this time. I can happily say that there was very little duplication and very little that needed to be discarded. I did have to sort through a lot of my paperwork as it was all mixed in. I have now ordered my work into boxes, files and trays which represent, to me, how I hope some of my chapters will come together. I also have had to sort through many post-it notes. There were many that had ideas that have continued to grow into more fruitful writing, some whose ideas are still relevant and others whose content perplexes me. Continue reading →

My metadata article, motherhood narratives and This One Summer

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I’ve been published again! I am honoured that The Journal of Popular Romance Studies has published my second (well third but I rarely ever mention my first paper published on hypermedia) scholarly paper. This article is on metadata interplays, the paratext of category romance and Public Lending Rights. I am particularly pleased that the Journal is open access so you can read the full text when you click here.

 

My reading in the past week:

Once again, Tessa Dare’s book is left waiting in my TBR pile but I still don’t have time for a prolonged read. It is now spring so maybe by next week I will have read it.

Last week, I also had a right royal whinge about JM Coetzee and how I didn’t like his short stories. Despite this, I ended up recommending the offending story for my son to use as a related text for his high school English assignment. A timely reminder why people must not only read widely but also engage with materials that they may dislike as you never know when they will be useful. Continue reading →

Impulse challenge

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I’m not really an impulse book buyer. However, I am a chronic impulse book borrower.

Last week, SuperWendy’s TBR challenge was to read an impulse buy and as I searched my burgeoning bookcases I realised that very few of the books I owned had been purchased without thought and planning. Each one seemed to have a back story. Either a review I had read, a cover artist I had admired, a recommendation from a friend or an award I wanted to consider. It isn’t as though I don’t purchase from bookshops. It is just that somewhere in the recesses of my mind I am hesitant to purchase a reading experience without having tried it out first. I have limited space in my small(ish) home and I also have a small(ish) book budget. Despite spending hundreds of dollars every year on my reading choices, these are more often for keepers as I cannot afford to make dud purchases. It made me realise how dependent on libraries I am for that serendipitous author discovery.

The other week, I went to the library to pick up two reservations that had arrived, and I left with 22 other books which I am slowly getting through. This past week I have read two of my serendipitous impulse borrows. Continue reading →