Category: Other Posts

The events:

1. A few years ago, MT thought it would be fun to be a Nielsen family, so they came and put their supremely annoying box in and part of the deal was we accumulated points for just about every little thing: using it, service and support calls, etc.  We could redeem these points for any number of items whenever we wanted to, but we never did, and when our time came due to hand in the box (blessed day that was), we had not only accumulated a bucket load of points, but they’d changed the redemption so you got your pick of a zillion store-based gift cards.  None of which were useful to us except Bunnings (home improvement store) and Amazon (the only bookstore in the list, dammit).  So I ended up with a 300 dollar credit with Amazon, and we have another hundred with Bunnings.

2. Late last year, LibraryThing released a new recommendations algorithm.  Normally I’m not much interested in recommendation algorithms, but LibraryThing has nothing to gain from theirs (unlike Amazon and other retail vendors), and they generally are quite earnest in their desire to create honestly useful features.  When my recommendations were generated, I had a couple of thousand titles, aggregated but also broken down by genre.

3. After all the rush, rush, rush of getting caught up at work, things have slowed down and I have some time on my hands.  Which I decided to use by weeding out all the ‘are you kidding me?’ recommendations from my LibraryThing lists.

4. The two-week Easter holidays start next week.

5. I’m going to be sitting around a lot over this break, while people tear parts of my house up and put it back together again.

So, I have decided to give LibraryThing’s new recommendation engine a thorough try.  I have been going through the genre lists and ditching the obvious titles (bodice rippers are always going to be a no-go for me, as are cookbooks), but also earnestly checking out any titles I think I might like.  I used part of my Amazon credit to buy 12 of them, 6 of which arrived over the weekend.

The two cozy titles, while they did show up on my recommendations, were gimme titles, since I’ve already read books from those series and liked them.  Same with Sinister Booksellers of Bath.  The other three are new to me authors.  5 of the remaining yet-to-be-shipped 6 are also new to me authors.  Big leap, but it’s all funny money.

I’ve also reserved another 11 from my local library – 5 of which are ready to be picked up, and I checked out another 3 digitally, with another 4 on hold through my other libraries via Libby.

With the time I’m going to have in the next two weeks, I’m going to test drive all these titles and see where I stand, and how much I can rely on LibraryThing to help me find new titles.  Might be a complete bust, or there might be some genuinely interesting new books waiting to be discovered.  Likely, a bit from column A and a bit from column B.

Should be an interesting two weeks!

It’s been a week.  Not bad, just busy, with a moderately busy weekend ahead as we prepare for stage one of the Great House Restumping project.  Because our house was built with a crawlspace, but NO CRAWLSPACE ACCESS (who does that?!), they’re actually going to have to tear off the back wall to gain access to the stumps, so we have to clear everything away from the back wall.  Luckily, I’m using ‘we’ in the royal sense, since people bigger and burlier (sort of) than I are coming around to assist with moving the big pots.  I’ll be focusing instead on washing all the new bedding we had to buy for our new king size bed, which will be delivered on the 11th of April, just after we’ve had our bedroom floor sanded/refinished.  Good times.

Laundry lends itself to to reading though, and this is what I have going currently:

I’m really enjoying this so far – it’s a very practical discussion of microclimates, rather than the weather forecasts meteorologists focus on, and how to gauge the weather you can expect to experience in your own backyard.  It’s written in a very conversational tone, but is full of hard information, with the science behind it all.  Full color photographs too!

I just started this one, so early days yet.  While I generally enjoy Pandian’s books, I always struggle at the start; something about her writing style trips me up at the start of each book.  Eventually the story clicks and the issues fade away.  Hopefully that will be the case with this one.

I don’t know how much of this I’ll listen to, as I mostly listen to audiobooks only when driving, but it’s a current read.  I struggled with the French names and the narrator’s English accent at the start, and while that’s gotten better, I’m still not sure I’m really retaining much of the narrative.  I may have to follow this up with a print re-read at some point.  My take on it at this point though is that, while interesting, it’s not as engaging as the two other titles I’ve read so far of Wulf’s.  Might just be my built-in boredom with all things space, or it might be that this is one of her earlier works and she hadn’t yet hit her stride.  Might even be a bit of both.

The 20 tales in A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories were written by Pratchett in the 1970s and 1980s for a regional newspaper, mostly under the pseudonym Patrick Kearns. They have never been previously attributed to Pratchett, who died in 2015 aged 66, eight years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The collection was bought by Pratchett’s longtime publisher Transworld for a six-figure sum, and will be published on 5 October.

 

Full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/27/rediscovered-terry-pratchett-stories-to-be-published

I’m back and I’m titanium free!  The surgeon said he was surprised/pleased at how easily the rods/pins/plates came out, but the ankle was a hot mess of scar tissue, which he cleaned up/out.  I was in and out in a day – and walked out of the hospital on my own two feet, no assistance! –  but for the first time, I struggled a bit to recover from the general anaesthesia, so I’ve been draped across my couch for the last few days, knocking a few books off the pile and enjoying the nice weather we’re having while waiting for all systems to reboot.  Meanwhile, the big bandages you see below are already off and I’m just down to the waterproof bandages and a bit of compression sock, which stay for another 10 days or so.

 

The Kennel Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine Publication Date: December 1, 1946 Pages: 243 Genre: Fiction, Mystery Publisher: Bantam Press Archer Coe, a collector of Chinese ceramics, is found dead in his bedroom, the only door to which is securely bolted on the inside. District Attorney John F.-X. Markham and Sergeant Heath of the Homicide Bureau--and even the Medical Examiner--regard Coe's death as suicide. But Philo Vance soon proves that it is a sinister and subtly concocted murder. The circumstances surrounding it are so mysterious and contradictory that, for a while, no solution seems possible. But in the end Philo Vance, through his knowledge of Chinese ceramics and Scottish terriers, brings the case to a conclusion as satisfactory as it is startling. The story moves swiftly, one mystery crowding another. For sheer action and suspense, and for interesting characterization, it is one of the very best of Van Dine's incomparable Philo Vance novels.

I bought this way back during Bouchercon, and it came sealed in a plastic bag, where it’s remained until last night, when I opened it up and started reading it.  When I opened it, I found a funny/interesting little left-behind by, I’m assuming, the previous owner:

MT and I were able to read most of it, but not really make a lot of sense out of it.  Obviously the previous owner intended to write a review and these are their notes.  I thought it was fun and figured I would share.

I’m only a few chapters in, but so far it’s reading as if it will be fun – a bit of tongue-in-cheek fabulousness combined with a locked room mystery.

I normally have two books on the go at any time – one fiction, and one non-fiction – and it’s rare that I finish them at the same time, but today is one of those days.  And it’s Friday, so I figure, what the hey, I’ll do a version of Friday Reads.

So the two books I’ve selected are:

The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Haywood Hill 1952-1973 by John Saumarez Smith (Editor) isbn: 9780711224520 Publication Date: January 1, 2004 Pages: 191 Genre: Non-fiction Publisher: Frances Lincoln This collection of previously unpublished correspondence with Heywood Hill is filled with gossip about life in Paris, tales of her writing life, and her own personal request for books. Hill in turn provides news of customers - many of whom were the elite of post-war London - and reports on how Mitford's books were being revived in London. It is an intimate and charming look at a world that has all but disappeared and will appeal to anyone interested in postwar English literature and/or high society.

Did you know Nancy Mitford worked in a bookshop?  I did not, and having just finished Don’t Tell Alfred recently, this seemed a timely choice.

Tell Me No Lies by Shelley Noble isbn: 9780765398741 Series: Lady Dunbridge Mystery #2 Publication Date: May 11, 2019 Pages: 364 Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery Publisher: Forge A modern woman in 1907, Lady Dunbridge is not about to let a little thing like the death of her husband ruin her social life. She’s ready to take the dazzling world of Gilded Age Manhattan by storm. With the elegant Plaza Hotel and The Metropolitan Museum of Art as the backdrop, romance, murder, and scandals abound. Someone simply must do something. And Lady Dunbridge is happy to oblige.

I read the first book in this series and remember very, very little, but I have a vague idea that I sort of liked it.  So I bought the second one.  We’ll see.

I’ve been communing a lot with my TBR shelves recently and as I whittle away the long-languishing books the communing is taking longer and longer, but this morning the shelves spoke quickly and loudly: Miss Benson’s Beetle and it felt right and good.

Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce isbn: 0857521993 Publication Date: June 11, 2020 Pages: 389 Genre: Fiction Publisher: Doubleday Margery Benson's life ended the day her father walked out of his study and never came back. Forty years later, abandoning a dull job, she advertises for an assistant. The successful candidate is to accompany Margery on an expedition to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty is not who she had in mind. But together they will find themselves drawn into an adventure that exceeds all Margery's expectations, eventually finding new life at the top of a red mountain. This is a story that is less about what can be found than the belief it might be found; it is an intoxicating adventure story and it is also a tender exploration of a friendship between two unforgettable women that defies all boundaries.

I also continue to whittle away at Histories of the Unexpected and I’m about half-way through.  Maybe, maybe, maybe I can get through the rest of it this weekend.  If I push.  It’s killing my average days to read curve.

Histories of the Unexpected by James Daybell, Sam Willis isbn: 9781786494122 Publication Date: October 1, 2018 Pages: 467 Genre: History, Non-fiction Publisher: Atlantic Books In this fascinating and original new book, Sam Willis and James Daybell lead us on a journey of historical discovery that tackles some of the greatest historical themes - from the Tudors to the Second World War, from the Roman Empire to the Victorians - but via entirely unexpected subjects. You will find out here how the history of the beard is connected to the Crimean War; how the history of paperclips is all about the Stasi; how the history of bubbles is all about the French Revolution. And who knew that Heinrich Himmler, Tutankhamun and the history of needlework are linked to napalm and Victorian orphans? Taking the reader on an enthralling and extraordinary journey through thirty different topics that are ingeniously linked together, Histories of the Unexpected not only presents a new way of thinking about the past, but also reveals the everyday world around us as never before.

I’ll leave you with a little Pikacu action, as she quietly reminds me of reading that needs to be done: