35 posts tagged “library”
I'm going to see if I can break 100 books for this year. That means I should probably pay more attention to what I'm reading.
Book number 1. I enjoyed this. I'm pretty obsessed with stories about Henry VIII and Tudor England. I could have done without all the weird sex stories involving Elizabeth and Dudley. It was a bit over done.
Books number 2 and I don't know what.
Gooooooood. I like them a lot. I read Twilight in less than a day and read Eclipse almost as fast. I'm waiting for the last one now.
I finished this last night. Yeah, I'm totally reading the entire series. They're trashy and fun. Just what I need.
I love Anthony Bourdain. He makes me happy. I really enjoyed this book. I have never been a chef or cook, but I have worked an expo line and had to know how everything looks and tastes.
I liked this for the most part, but it ended without really explaining about Jain. I thought that was strange. Other than that, I loved it.
I'm at 6 for the year. Not a bad start!!
Right now I'm reading The Golden Compass, The 4th Gossip Girl and Middlesex.
I doubt anyone checks this anymore since I haven't posted in a long long time.
Let's see... I moved to Boulder a little over 3 weeks ago. I got a new job. I'm trying to adjust to a new city, new place, new everything. It's weird and hard.
I have a whole HUGE list of books to add to my reading for the year, but here are the two I've read since I've been here.
I really enjoyed the Real World chapter and all his odd little insights into life.
No TV and no internet at home sucks. I can deal with the TV thing, but I really miss the internet. Job searching, email checking, myspace stalking and too much time IMing people is very difficult to do at the library in small bursts. I'm constantly running down to one of the nearby branches to try to get something done and, without fail, forget half of what I needed to do only to remember on the bus ride home. Grr.
Since I haven't been able to post each book as I finish, here's a quick update on June/early July's reading. Once I get some more time on the computer, I'll add some reviews.
It was a very sensual book but not overtly sexual. I enjoyed that. I wish that some of the love letters that were referred to so many times had been included. Maybe just one at the end.
The cover art is gorgeous too. Always a bonus. (The picture here is not the same as my copy. I had the art that shows up on Amazon.)
Overall, I highly recommend this book. It was a quick and very good read.
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"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." So begins Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and it becomes even more unlikely as the novel unfolds. This slim volume contains the story of the sad life of an unnamed, only slightly talented Colombian journalist and teacher, never married, never in love, living in the crumbling family manse. He calls Rosa Cabarcas, madame of the city's most successful brothel, to seek her assistance. Rosa tells him his wish is impossible--and then calls right back to say that she has found the perfect girl.
The protagonist says of himself: "I have never gone to bed with a woman I didn't pay ... by the time I was fifty there were 514 women with whom I had been at least once ... My public life, on the other hand, was lacking in interest: both parents dead, a bachelor without a future, a mediocre journalist ... and a favorite of caricaturists because of my exemplary ugliness."
The girl is 14 and works all day in a factory attaching buttons in order to provide for her family. Rosa gives her a combination of bromide and valerian to drink to calm her nerves, and when the prospective lover arrives, she is sound asleep. Now the story really begins. The nonagenarian is not a sex-starved adventurer; he is a tender voyeur. Throughout his 90th year, he continues to meet the girl and watch her sleep. He says, "This was something new for me. I was ignorant of the arts of seduction and had always chosen my brides for a night at random, more for their price than their charms, and we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark, so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were ... That night I discovered the improbably pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty."
ReviewIt's a fictionalised account of the Salem Witch Trails. It's an okay book, but I wanted to smack some of the people around for not speaking up and telling the truth.
- Lilith Radmore-Stein, a newspaper mogul who is willing risk her entire empire in a demented effort to get her son admitted to Harvard Day
- Omar Kutcher (“Kutcher the Butcher”), a cold-blooded mob boss who seeks Ivy’s counsel on whether to bump off or pay off the powers-that-be to get his “little pistol” into the city’s best all-girls Catholic school
- Stu Needleman, Ivy’s most obnoxious client, who threatens to ruin her if she won’t help his four-year-old unibrowed daughter cheat on her kindergarten entrance exam
- Willow Bliss and Tiny Herrera, the biracial lesbian parents of an adopted wheelchair-bound black child who is the “triple crown of diversity” that every school will covet
From the backstabbers of corporate America to the leading toddlers of Fifth Avenue, The Ivy Chronicles is more than an insider’s look at this elite and utterly preposterous universe. It is also a tale of midlife reinvention and unexpected romance - for anyone who has ever lost what she holds dear and had to start over again.
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I finished this a few nights ago. I was unimpressed. It was light like I expected, but didn't really do that much for me. There were several characters that might have been interesting had a little more time been spent on them. I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't bother to read it again or recommend it.
Granted, I really should have re-read The Gryphon and Alexandria before reading this book... I was a little lost about some bits, but remembered as I got further along. I enjoyed the sensuality in this book, but it ended abruptly and felt incomplete.
The art, as always, was magnificent. I love the art in all his books. It just amazes me.
I had the best day I've had in a really long time yesterday. Thank you. 
There's a new Veronica Mars on tonight! Squee.
I remembered to cancel my Netflix this month before they charged me again. Go me. I wonder if my queue will still be there when I can afford to get it again. Oh well. It was pretty fun to make anyway and a lot of the stuff is at the library.
I walked to the library this afternoon not realising how many things were there waiting.... I should have taken my regular backpack. I ended up having to carry stuff back in a shopping bag.
I put some new stuff on reserve. I generally keep my DVD reserve list full. I just added the Discovery Channel Planet Earth series. I'm number 227 on the list. I'm a little surprised honestly. I thought it would be over 500. I added The Queen too and I'm number 1047 on that list. Whoa.
I'm off to shower because I kind of smell like High Street. Yuck.
Number 36 for the year and my second "K" book.
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This small, quite wonderful book shows all that knitting and meditation have in common--and it's more than some might suspect. In short essays, Lydon, a longtime knitter and dabbler in spiritual disciplines, winds her way through spiritual quests, physical problems, and, of course, yarn. Any knitter will readily identify with Lydon's take on the frustrations of knitting--the sweaters that don't fit, the half-finished projects that litter the house--but she also takes readers beyond the finished project and shows them how to appreciate the process. Seeing knitting as a road to contemplation may surprise some readers--perhaps even a few knitters--but by the end of Lydon's journey, most will agree that knitting "is the simplest and most ordinary of activities, yet somehow it mysteriously contains within itself the potential for expanding our conscious awareness."
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