Non-book Post: What I’ve been doing instead of reading, Part 2

(Archive post moved from BookLikes)

Last weekend, we took off for 2 nights for a place we’ve been trying to visit for years: Kingbilli Estate. ‘Estate’ might be a stretch, but to each their own. It’s, in essence, a working farm. A Llama farm, to be exact. But in its previous incarnations it was a goat/donkey/horse/pony farm and a wildlife rescue hospital, so there’s a little bit of everything (except goats) rambling around the llamas, including a flock of Indian peafowl.

Years ago, the owners built two stone cottages on the property; one for international volunteers, and one to let out to tourists. Their daughter has since taken over the property, and while the llamas, ponies and horses still have their space, she’s restored most of what was once grazing land back to natural scrub and forest.

Our Cottage

The property still acts as a half-way house for injured wildlife, and there are no limitations as to where guests are allowed to roam, so we – I – went in with the hope/expectation of seeing a lot of Aussie wildlife I’d normally have a hard time seeing: wombats, bandicoots, sugar gliders, etc.

I soooo should have known better. They heard I was coming and took themselves off. There were wombat holes EVERYWHERE but not a single wombat did we see. Nothing but llamas, donkeys and ponies, oh my. And birds, thank goodness. So many birds, it was a constant riot of birdsong around the cottage, which sat right on a little stream (which, until the drought, had a platypus in it, dammit).

All in all it was gorgeous and as they only have the one cottage to let, we had it all to ourselves. Three days of total peace-out bliss – and no phone reception or internet service.

I’ll only share the interesting, colourful birds with y’all as I know not everybody is a bird lover. But everybody loves baby llamas, right?

Baby llamas!

White-faced Heron

Pacific Heron

Superb Fairy-wren (I just report the names, but you can tell, he thinks he’s superb.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo – rocking the mohawk

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo – falling off his perch

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo

Leaden Flycatcher

Silvereye, blending in

Golden Whistler- this one kept throwing himself against our bedroom door’s glass; eventually we figured out he wasn’t attacking his reflection, but picking spiders and bugs off the eaves and the door frame.

If you stayed with me up to this point you’re either very kind or really like birds. Either way, thank you. That’s it though – until tomorrow, when we’re off on another expedition. It’s a rather unusual one, but I promise to keep the bird pics to a bare miniumum. After that, I suspect MT is going to enforce a ‘rest period’ and my attention will be solidly back on the books. 🙂

Small Magics

Small Magics
by Illona Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781596069619
Publication Date: December 1, 2019
Pages: 455
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Subterranean Press

An anthology of short stories in the Kate Daniels universe.

When I saw here on BookLikes that Sweep with Me was out, I went to Ilona Andrew’s website to find out more, and noticed the release of a new anthology, published by Subterranean Press. Yes please!

This is a compilation of the short stories Ilona Andrews has written, all previously published elsewhere, and for the first time in print, all the Curren POV’s Gordon Andrews has written and posted on their website. Interspersed are 3? full color illustrations.

It’s a nice book – not the most impressive I’ve seen put out by Subterranean, but a good solid book. I’d read some of the stories before, but enough of them were new to me to make me appreciate having bought it.

My only gripe with the book is with the Curran POVs. As a character, these stories don’t always flatter Curran, but that’s trivial. What is really disappointing, though, is the poor copy-editing of the Curran stories. On the website, they’re clear to state that the stories were written for fun, not edited, yada yada. And that’s totally understandable. But I’d have though when it comes to publishing a limited release, numbered, signed, illustrated edition, the publisher, if not the authors themselves, would have wanted to take the time and make the effort to correct, at the very least, the most glaring omissions and errors (lots of the, a, an articles missing, or misplaced).

Ah well, a good collection that might have been great, but still welcome on my shelves.

Non-book Post: What I’ve been doing instead of reading, Part 1

(This is a post brought over from BookLikes)

As mentioned in my previous post, we’ve been getting out into nature the last few weeks (with another hike scheduled for tomorrow). The first was a morning hike at a local park we’d never been too – an old reservoir-turned-parkland.

I was expecting primarily birds, because the park is still in a pretty urban area, and I got birds, but I also happily got a bit of everything else too. I’ve recently become a member of inaturalist.org as a way of keeping track of, and identifying, what I find when I’m out and about; it’s also a way to contribute to science. So I got pictures of all sorts of flora and fauna. I’ll limit my sharing to a few birds, some mammals and one reptile (lizard).

The bird:

White-faced Heron

The mammals:

Eastern Grey Kangaroo

Eastern Grey Kangaroo, exiting stage right

Swamp Wallaby (no swamp required)

Swamp Wallaby also exiting stage right

And the reptile:

Blotched Bluetongue – it’s blotchy, and it has a blue tongue

Sweep with Me (Innkeeper Chronicles Novella)

Sweep with Me
by Illona Andrews
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781660140022
Series: Innkeeper Chronicles #3.5
Publication Date: January 14, 2020
Pages: 136
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: NYLA Publishing

"Thank you for joining us at Gertrude Hunt, the nicest bed-and-breakfast in Red Deer, Texas, during the Treaty Stay. As you know, we are honor-bound to accept all guests during this oldest of innkeeper holidays, and we are expecting a dangerous guest. Or several. But have no fear. Your safety and comfort is our first priority. The inn and your hosts - Dina Demille and Sean Evans - will defend you at all costs. But we hope we don't have to."

Every winter, the innkeepers look forward to celebrating their own special holiday, commemorating the ancient treaty that united the very first inns and established the rules that protect them, their intergalactic guests, and the very unaware/oblivious people of planet Earth. By tradition, the innkeepers welcomed three guests: a warrior, a sage, and a pilgrim, but during the holiday, the innkeepers must open their doors to anyone who seeks lodging. Anyone.

All Dina hopes is that the guests and conduct themselves in a polite manner. But what's a holiday without at least one disaster?

Fun; brief, but it packs a punch at the end. This one is for those who’ve already read the other Innkeeper Chronicle books, though there’s enough ‘tell’ sprinkled throughout that a first-timer wouldn’t be totally confused. They would be totally spoiled for the others though, as there are spoilers to previous plots in the text.

A lot of the secondary cast are ‘away’ for this story, so Orro gets a bit more attention, and it appears Dina is making new friends. Not sure if we’ll see them again, as this novella has a pretty tidy HEA ending, but they’ll be welcome additions to any future Innkeeper books.

The Book(ish) related summary of what I’ve been doing

(Archive post moved from BookLikes)

Hey, it’s me again; I’ve temporarily (I hope) turned into one of those BL’ers that pops in and then promptly disappears. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, that will cease and I’ll be back to my regular living-here routine.

The school year started back up on January 28th here, which means all the IT related stuff that should have been done in the previous year’s last term is suddenly being plonked on my desk and never mind the 700+ iPads piled up around me, and oh, by the way, when can we have the iPads? This week? No?

The 28th was also my birthday. A Significant Birthday. As many of you know, this Significant Birthday is going to be ushered in (or out, as the timing of the trip is yet TBD) with a trip to Africa, so I can stalk, from a safe distance, animals that see me as lunch. But in the meantime, several smaller celebrations were … celebrated? A day at the theatre with my SIL and niece to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (excellent, though I could have done without the interpretive dance). A day hiking in a nearby National Park, and a quick weekend away last weekend in the wilds of country Victoria. Posts abut those two are following as it was all going to be too much and too photo heavy for one post.

So, where’s the book related part of this post, you may be asking. The first book-related part is my present from MT:

(I’ve edited out some of the more nitty-gritty details; as we all know, discussing politics or money in mixed company is just not polite).

A couple of verbal caveats were added: This is in addition to my normal book buying budget, and it’s meant to be used on books deemed as collectible (by me), or a splurge.

My husband is a bucket of awesome.

The other part of the bookish update is the ongoing library project, which until today wasn’t so much on-going, as it was completely stagnant. Our neighbor (he with the necessary equipment to rip 12 foot/3m boards) was out of town two weekends ago, and we were gone last weekend. As I type this though, MT has headed over there to get started on the next lot of shelves, which might be the last ones, as we’re running out of salvaged wood. Once we see where they get us, we’ll figure out what to do from there.

Here it is as of right now:

I can’t get the whole wall into the frame – the room is too small, but we now have one wall and a quarter of another one done. Hopefully this weekend will see the rest of wall 2 done.

I think I’m slowly climbing out of my reading slump; I’ve been on an Urban Fantasy tear this last month, and not all of it has been re-reads. Progress!

When it rains it … hails + Bookshelf-fairy update

So far, I’m giving the side-eye to 2020.

The good news is, I’ve been reading; re-reads, so the TBR isn’t dwindling, but progress!

As y’all know, we’ve had record breaking drought and jaw dropping bushfires down under, but Mother Nature has relented, in her own twisted way, and for the last week or so, we’ve had rain. So much rain. This time last year, our YTD rain was 5mm / .2 inches of rain. This YTD: 92mm / 3.6in. For a Florida girl, it doesn’t amount to more than an afternoon thunderstorm, but for Melbourne it’s a godsend. Except that the majority of that rain all came in one day – last Sunday – and not before the hail. OMG the hail:

One of the hail stones MT grabbed out of the garden, compared with a quarter.

All of its friends, stoning my garden.

MT and I might be a little odd, but we were at the back door, videoing the icy golf balls falling from the sky, running outside (this was MT – I have my limits) to put boards over the fish ponds and generally oohing and ‘holy crap’ing. When it was over though, MT discovered that our skylight in the bathroom was no more. Smashed to smithereens by a hail stone or stones unknown. Less fun, but really, in the grand scheme of things, no more than a drippy, albeit expensive, nuisance.

So, we caledl the insurance company Monday, and they sent someone out to temporarily patch the roof/skylight until the assessor comes out tomorrow. And, here’s the punch line: he patches the skylight with the orangest tarp you’ve ever seen resulting in a whole new look for our sea blue bathroom:

Rave? Bordello? Old-school photo developing room?

The glow on a sunny day is so intense it pulses out the door into the hall. It’s hilarious.

In Bookshelf news, the hail storm ended up putting paid on our planned progress to cover the next corner of the library, though we did make some headway. This bookcase, which is really two bookcases stacked:

came out, revealing something we should have remembered – that the bookcases were installed before the room was painted.

Oops.

Luckily, we still had the paint, and we always have painting supplies, so this was not as big a show-stopper as it could have been, or the hail storm proved to be. And we did get some temporary shelves up above the fireplace:

Our neighbor is back home tomorrow, and MT has everything setup to get the new rails installed, so maybe we’ll be back on track this weekend, though I’m not holding my breath: we have family in town, and my SIL, my niece and I are going to see Cursed Child on Saturday, an all day affair, and Monday MT and I are going hiking for my birthday, which is on Tuesday which is also the first day of the school year and therefore my first day back to work. Fate can be such a fiend sometimes.

glingleglingle The bookshelf fairy finally arrived!

So I’m still in the midst of slumpaggedon, but in between constantly hitting refresh over the weekend, checking to see if BookLikes was back up, my attention was consumed by our latest home project, which I’ve alluded to in my previous 2020 post.

The start of this DIY saga goes back to last May, when MT took possession of what was to become the company’s new premises. It was formally a sushi bar, and the owners left the space abruptly, leaving everything in situ. The landlord refused to do anything to fit out the space, so MT negotiated with him to do it himself. This meant we (I) had first pick of salvage, before the contractors came in, and part of the sushi bar was the bar itself. A huge, solid, hardwood thing of beauty. The contractors dismantled it for us, and we’ve been storing it. Because I had plans ::rubbing hands together::.

It took some time to sort out exactly the way I wanted to do it, and the recent influx of furniture from MT’s parents caused a complete re-think, but over the holidays we finally fixed on a plan of action and started ordering the necessary bits.

Last weekend, MT and our incredibly kind neighbor with the cool woodworking tools started ripping the planks and cutting them down to size. As you see above, we started on the wall behind the door – that way, if we screwed up it would be easier to hide it.

As you can see, we have high ceilings (14ft), and we’re going all the way up. I’ve done shallow shelves up top, as I’m planning to put paperbacks up there, and I didn’t want the room to feel too top heavy. We’re also going to go all the way around the room, with plans to do the opposite corner this weekend. We’ve already started, in fact:

Those planks above the fireplace are temporary so I can get more books off the floor; they’ll be replaced with long shelves that span the width of the fireplace. We just have to wait until the neighbor returns from holiday so we can cut the planks for the next section.

Stay tuned for updates.

Confessions of a Bookseller

Confessions of a Bookseller
by Shaun Bythell
ISBN: 9781782835394
Published by Profile Books on August 29, 2019
Genres: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Literary Collections, Letters
Pages: 381
Format: Hardcover

"Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?"

Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms.

Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don't understand what a shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices.

The follow up to his Diary of a Bookseller, a book I enjoyed even more than I expected, so when I heard this was out, I immediately went out and bought it.

Every bit as good as the first, though where the first was primarily wacky and funny, this one had a sharper, more contemplative edge and, as far as my memory goes, this one feels a bit more personal. The book he read/talked about made more of an impact with me in this book too, though I can’t say why.

A great read if you like books about books, or memoirs of misanthropic booksellers.

2020: So far so … so-so.

On a personal front, 2019 started as it meant to go on: crap. This is reflected in my year in books, which I’m not even going to review, because I’m 100% sure it’s crap. I didn’t come close to my goal, my participation in all the games this year was sub-par, and my participation on BookLikes in general was almost non-existent.

2020 is at least starting on a more positive note. We’re busy beavers here at the funny/animal farm, but we’re both in good health and we’ve had some great news on the business transition front that will make life much more cheerful – or at least, less stressful. My in-laws have run out of furniture and pictures to give us (I think / hope / pray), and I’m a lot in love with my new camera and itching to book my safari.

However, I’m still feeling down in the slumps, reading-wise. This might be because we’re up to our eyeballs in a home improvement project that has MT and I taking bets as to which of us is going to be the first to lose a kneecap in the middle of the night. I don’t want to count on it, so I’m setting my 2020 goal at 150 books, maybe 125. 2019 has me spooked.

Australia is also in the midst of trying to destroy itself; the stats are staggering, and I won’t hit you with them here, but every state and territory in the country is on fire in a really, really big way, and where the fire isn’t, the smoke is. I honestly believe it will be a miracle if, by the time it’s all over, there’s anything but sand and concrete left.

December 18th was the hottest day ever recorded over the entire country: the average temperature for the nation (which is roughly the size of the USA) was 107.4 / 41.9C. That includes Tasmania, whose nearest neighbor is Antartica. 3 days ago (Saturday) an outer suburb of Sydney hit 120 / 48.9C – the hottest place on the planet that day. Melbourne reached 111 / 44C. I mention all this because we haven’t had a day over 60 / 16C since Sunday. My AC is having an identity crisis, and Australian weather is weird.

Meanwhile, we’re all fine, but the chickens are complaining about not being able to get the smell of the smoke out of their feathers, and the cats have retired to bed for the foreseeable future; the fish don’t understand what the fuss is all about but are requesting someone do something about all the bees stealing their water. I can’t imagine a scenario where we’d be in serious danger, but I catch myself wondering if the car is big enough for 2 cats, 4 chickens, and 2 humans, and how many of each species would come out intact at the end; please God may I never have to find out.

Owl be Home for Christmas (Meg Langslow, #26)

Owl be Home for Christmas
by Donna Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250305312
Series: Meg Langslow #26
Publication Date: October 19, 2019
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

This was the only Christmas story I read this year, and I started it just as everything started going pear shaped in RL, so it took me forever to read it. I know this is a ‘me’ problem, but the longer it takes me to finish a book, the more scattered the story feels to me, so this entry by one of my favorite current authors got short shrift from me this year. Still, it was good; the mystery was well constructed and the holiday spirit was high. The Christmas dinner almost made me misty eyed and made me love Donna Andrews as an author just a little bit more than I already did.