dreary

Looks like day three of gray skies and rainy weather. Ugh. I'm up to page 315 with my latest Nook book. Only 775 pages to go! Good thing we have a four day weekend ahead of us.

Hubby and I wanted to attend a meeting last night regarding the forced consolidation of the county and city school systems. His client meeting ran over, by quite a bit, and we weren't able to attend. I've already read a couple of comments on facebook about it and plan on reading the newspaper article in a moment.  But, I did learn, that our town is having a meeting about creating their own municipal district next Thursday. Thank Goodness the girls will be graduated and out of this mess, but I have major concerns for the boy. Think I will note that meeting on the calendar and plan on attending.

Okay, happy Wednesday...rainy or not, it is all we've got!

why i have a love-hate relationship with excel

In my new job, which I shouldn't really call new anymore since I've been employed there for 8 months now, I have to use Excel almost every day. I love the ability to organize data. I hate to try and figure out how Excel thinks.

One of the nifty things you can do in Excel, however, is create charts and graphs. Pretty spiffy stuff when I can use it to chart my reading genres for 2011. Of course this idea came courtesy of Lisa S. She borrowed the concept from another blogger. Gotta love bloggers! That being said, I was able to take my list of books, assign them a genre and then create this chart. It sort of confirms what I already knew. I read a lot of paranormal fiction in a year. I also read a lot of mysteries. Truth be told, many of the paranormal novels I read have a strong mystery element to them. Whodunits with a vampire, werewolf or witch inhabiting the role of sleuth. So, for what it is worth, here is my chart. And as a result, I now have a spreadsheet set up to keep track of my reading for 2012.

Gotta love it when a plan comes together....even when the plan wasn't yours to begin with!

downton abbey

I'm a huge sucker for British period dramas and was very excited to watch the season two premiere of Downton Abbey last night. Two glorious hours of witty dialogue, gorgeous costumes, drama, romance and conflict. Maggie Smith, as usual, steals the show. Yes, she can do more than be Prof. McGonagall in the HP movies!

In other news, I read yet another book on my Nook. This time I zipped through a Meg Cabot title, "Overbite." It was an easy read, as is to be expected from Cabot.

Up next, I'm tackling the latest from George R.R. Martin. So far so good on that one.

Happy Monday!  Geaux Tigers. Roll Tide.  Who will be the winner?

are you still going to check out books?

I was asked that question yesterday by our library director after I told her about my new Nook Tablet. I rolled my eyes, she laughed, and said,  "Of course I will still check out books."

Now, just how many books I will be checking out versus their ebook counterparts remains to be seen. Right now the library, along with the other four libraries in their consortium, has a minuscule ebook budget.  I'm talking roughly $10,000 a year per facility. Peanuts. Everyone puts the money into one pot and we have access to each other's titles.

Personally, one of the first things I want to look at on the library board is the big budget. Just how much are we spending on DVDs? How much on audiobooks? Those items are pricey too, and yes they do create revenue, but they are on the way out. Perhaps it is time to reallocate some money.

When I logged into our account on Overdrive yesterday, only 45 titles were available for check out. I found two books I've wanted to read and checked them out. I also placed a hold on two more books. I'm in the queue as 20 on one title and 10 on another.

I have selected a variety of free books on the B&N website. I've looked at the titles on Gutenberg. I've purchased a few lower priced titles.

But, my main source of fodder for my Nook will be the Library's ebook collection. Bolstering that collection is my new mission in life.

All the other ebook readers in my town can thank me later.  Ha ha ha!

queen militant

Okay, so the book "The Lady of the Rivers" by Philippa Gregory isn't totally about a queen militant, but I just adore that term. It stirs up vivid pictures of a medieval woman behaving 'badly'. That image, for some reason, is very appealing to me!

Gregory's latest historical fiction adventure is told by Jacquetta Woodville, an eyewitness and major player in the War of the Roses. She is also the mother of Gregory's White Queen, Elizabeth Woodville. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Jacquetta is a fascinating character all on her own.

I enjoy reading historical fiction and between Sharon Kay Penman and Philippa Gregory, I can satisfy my itch to explore the 'what ifs' surrounding these figures and the aspects of their lives that didn't survive to fill the pages of a history book. Both ladies write about medieval women behaving badly, they capture the vigor of the more than one queen militant, and wonder about the powers swirling near the throne.

Dru, the anti Bella

For those girls like my daughters who'd like to slap some sense into Bella S, Lili St. Crow has written a series of five books featuring a heroine named Dru Anderson. Dru's final adventure is captured in "Reckoning," the fifth title in the Strange Angels series.

Now, be warned, Lili St. Crow is not a writer for the faint of heart. She specializes in creating characters who thrive in grit, danger, mayhem, and major in kicking ass. These are most assuredly NOT books for middle school readers, unless Mom or Dad has read them first and signs off. My former middle school self would have loved them, but my parents never censored what I read.

I adored the ending of this series and wanted to leap off the couch and pump my fist in the air. A happy ending does not require wedding bells, babies or even a boyfriend. Another St. Crow trademark: the woman knows when to wrap it up. Nothing worse than a series that goes on and on and should have concluded several books sooner.

I'm not going to attempt to recap this novel or review this series. I've made comments on the other titles and if you read those it is pretty obvious I'm a big fan of St. Crow's. So, if you are looking for YA urban fantasy, with an edge, a bite and a growl....check out this series. And when you are older....check out Lilith Saintcrow's other titles.

Jean Auel and The Land of Painted Caves

In 1980 I read Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" and was immediately enthralled. In the following years, I read the other novels in the Earth's Children series and have enjoyed Auel's unique way of storytelling. The basic premise of the novels is that a young girl, Ayla, becomes separated from her Cro-Magnon family during an earthquake and is raised by a clan of Neanderthals. She learns their 'language' and adapts to their customs as best as she can, but her inherent and genetic differences eventually cause her to leave the clan and venture out on her own. In subsequent books, Ayla has a variety of adventures that allow Auel to explore the ideas of domestication of horses as well as hunting techniques, medicine and cultural identity. Ayla eventually meets someone like her, another Cro-Magnon, and follows him back to his people.

Auel's final book in the series, "The Land of Painted Caves" is the first book I've read on my new Nook Tablet. In fact, it is also the first book I downloaded from our library. And since I read this title over the Christmas holidays, it brings full circle my relationship with Auel's books since I received other titles in this series as gifts when I was in high school. I still love getting books for Christmas!

By far, this wasn't the best book in the series. It was repetitive and I skimmed over many of the sections. The plot was plodding, the conflicts were predictable, and the book could have used some tightening down as the repetitive backstory rehashing became tiresome. But, I was glad I read it and finished Ayla's story.

After 32 years of having this interesting heroine in my reading life, I now have a conclusion. So, thank you Ms. Auel for gifting us with Ayla and Jondalar and all the rest of the Earth's Children. I enjoyed the ride.