Are you a book slut?

Read this hilarious entry on Emily Barton's blog at Telecommuter Talk: http://emilybarton.blogspot.com/2008/03/1-book-slut.html

I have to admit, I qualify! I have partly read books by my bed, on the shelves, stacked in the kitchen (to read when I'm eating). I usually carry a book with me (these days, busing to work is the usual way I get anything read!), and as you can see from my 'currently reading list', I have several books on the go. I have to be actively reading a book - at least dipping into it regularly (and boy, doesn't that have connotations!) - before it qualifies for going onto my 'currently reading' pile. If I haven't finished a book within a few days, it's usually a sign I'm just 'not that into it' right now (hee hee), and it goes back onto the pile and I start speed-flipping other books to see what I am in the mood for (ha ha).

Yes, I am a book slut..... I am faithful to those books I love and cherish, but I'm always on the lookout for a new book to sweep me off my feet! I have loved books and lost them - Forty Words for Sorrow - by Giles Blunt, where are you? I know I had it, but I can't find it anymore on my shelves. All of my old Anne of Green Gables books, Trixie Belden, Little House on the Prairie, where are you? I'm buying new versions now. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich(sp) is the only book I have ever left on the bus by accident. At least I had finished it before I forgot it! but it haunts me as the book that got away. And that was over 20 years ago! I've never lost another that way, either, and I still go everywhere by bus. That is the book that got away, that I left behind.

Then there are the library books - those books bought by other people and unavailable now because they are out of print - Fantastic Owls, which is also one I want to buy for a dear friend; so many cookbooks, history books, books of interest that are not available anywhere else now - how they tease me so, I can look, I can even touch, but I can't have!!!!! Like a courtly kiss from a lady, a handkerchief given as a favor........

And other people's book shelves. I love looking to see what other people have. What do they read? Are their books proudly displayed? Or hidden away shamefully? Do they have secret places they hide books? Books say so much about a person, I think, their interests, how they view the world, what they love. Sometimes, I am ashamed to confess, I have book envy, especially if their books are properly arranged by category (and then alphabetical) and their shelves are neat......I am guilty of touching books without permission (though I usually ask eventually!) and of always, finding something to borrow, though I will only borrow from a good friend - that is like lending a piece of your heart, to lend a book, so I treat other people's books like their precious bits of soul lent to me. So I do it rarely now. I usually write down the information on my ever-present 'books I want next' list (several pages long now), and regretfully put back the owner's book, not without a surreptious stroke and last longing glance.......yep, that's me, book slut.

Are you one too?

look at these shelves!!

Stefanie over at So Many Books put this on her site for today's blog http://somanybooksblog.com/2008/03/12/book-obsessed/, wondering about being book obsessed. It's from Barnes and Noble in the US, showing videos from readers and their personal library.
http://media.barnesandnoble.com/?fr_story=ff8f05bdcd1e22403ed5b9f07f4cc4cb6795e695&rf=bm

Isn't that cool to say, "I have a personal library."? That's something I am building.....and I want Joe Perlman's bookshelves! I don't have enough shelves any more, so books are piling up in front of each other, and in front of shelves now. What he's done (Joe in the video) is kind of what my house will end up resembling if I have enough time. Except I don't think i can hide away books in the garage and attic. If I am going to own books, they have to be displayed on the shelves and organized so I can find them. I want to look at the books I own! I gave so many books away when I moved to England, and while I am rebuilding my library, it is taking time because starting a new family and buying a house eat up my book money!! I am so glad to know there are other book-obsessed people out there! (and note to my sister at lady p's cozy corner : see? there are houses that have more books than mine do!!! I'm not the only one!)

And I've bought 12 books so far this year, not 11 as I wrote in my earlier post - Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters, which I finally got a copy of a couple of weeks ago. I think I've bought more books than I've read, so far! Which only reflects the Veronica Mars spell I've been under. (At least I got another non-fiction title read out of that, too!) So my TBR pile is not getting any smaller! Whew! that was making me nervous, after I made all my lists for the book challenges. I love adding to my TBR pile!!

.....And I didn't buy a book!

The unthinkable happened yesterday. I went into my friend's Coles bookstore in Bayshore shopping mall, and my daughter Holly-Anne chose books for herself and Graham for Easter. As we were leaving the store, I suddenly realized that I hadn't looked at any books. I was leaving without a book for myself! Since we were on kind of a tight timeline - dinner out with my friend Patricia at the mall -a girl's evening with Holly-Anne with us - I decided I would wait until I had time to really browse. I love going into a bookstore and spending an hour there just looking over the shelves and seeing what's new, what I want, what looks interesting, possible gifts for others. Nothing quite gives me the same pleasure as a room full of books, all waiting to be lifted, each one, and the cover opened and try the first page and see if I like the writing enough to buy. This is how I often pick out new authors, based on the first page or two or three. I can tell I'm interested in a book if I end up reading 5 or 6 pages without realizing it! This doesn't mean that the book itself will be good, just that the beginning is. And have I ever read any of those? Oh yes!! My shelves and past reading lists are littered with books that I finished, but only think rate a 2 or 3 - so-so books that I read because I began them, not because they swept me away and that I thoroughly enjoyed. For example, from my books read for 2007, A Fistful of Sky - by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, The Songcatcher - by Sharon McCrumb, Killing the Shadows - by Val McDermid - are the books I could not whole-heartedly recommend to anyone, for various reasons, but mainly each are among the weakest books written by each author. Almost everything else I read last year I would be able to recommend happily, even though none swept me away completely.

I have to qualify this by saying that I did love my favourites - Jasper Fforde, which I am so enjoying! - Ian Rankin, Tanya Huff, Janet Evanovich, Peter Robinson, that I gave a copy of Sun Storm by Asa Larsson to my mother, bought Storm Front by Jim Butcher (the Harry Dresden files series, which was also on tv and we were both enjoying) for my eldest son, had lent A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons to a friend (she loved it also), and my mother and I yearly exchange Ian Rankin, which I got her reading when I lent her Black and Blue several years ago. But the thrill of discovering a new author I love - Fred Vargas might become one, if I can ever get my hands on a copy of Wash This Blood From My Hands to confirm my suspicions that she is a very good mystery writer! - that thrill wasn't outstanding in a book last year. And yet, it was a good year for reading, even though my totals are awful. 37 books! Except for 2005, where I read 23 books only - my lowest total ever, I think - last year was among the lowest total books read in year. There are so many books to read, I know there are countless treasures waiting for me out there. So when I left the bookstore last night, sans books for myself, I promised that I would be back as soon as I could. This is not counting the 11 books I've bought for myself since Jan 1 of this year! It was just surprising that I didn't even get a chance to glance at a book, and it felt strange. So, Gentle Reader, has this ever happened to you? and could you only leave by promising you would be back as soon as you could?

It's March break so I am home with Holly-Anne and Graham, and fights over the computer occur hourly, thus my silence this week. Speaking of which, they are circling again, so I will be back later to talk about THE STORM on Sat-Sunday, and how we are still coping with the snowfall. And for those who are curious - we had the most snow of any city, on Saturday, and are well within reaching the all time snow record now! I tried getting pictures of our street after the storm, but Blogger wouldn't let me on Sunday add them to this site.

The Canadian Settler's Guide - Catherine Parr Traill

Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill were sisters, who emigrated to Canada after their brother Frederick settled in Canada. It was 1832 when Catharine arrived in the Peterborough area of Ontario (northeast of Toronto). The Canadian Settler's Guide is her guide for women emigrating to the backwoods of Canada to settle. It was written in 1852, distilling her 20 years experience of living in the backwoods - deep in the dark forests that made up most of Ontario at the time. The settlers would arrive, and begin the painstaking work of clearing their land and setting up a cabin, a barn, and eventually clear enough to be able to farm. This is the guide that showed the second wave of settlers - especially the huge wave of Irish settlers arriving after the potato famine - in the 1850's and 1860's, as well as most other European countries beginning to emigrate then. The Canadian government was welcoming - encouraging - immigrants, as a way to secure hold on the land and grow into a nation. In 1832, when Catharine and Susannah arrived, Canada wasn't even a nation yet. It was under the control of the British Empire, and had settlements only as far west as London and Toronto. All the rest of western Canada remained to be developed. Canada was divided into Upper Canada (now the modern-day province of Ontario), and Lower Canada (Quebec and the Maritime provinces). Her book is based on her 20 years in the bush of Ontario.
I read this book with great interest, partly because I love history, and partly because during my own genealogical research I have discovered that one of my great-great grandfathers arrived in 1832 from Wales. He went to the Welsh settlement just outside London, which had begun to be settled in 1820 by Colonel Talbot. The Canadian government was anxious to put settlers in the area after the War of 1812 with the Americans. Detroit was well settled, but the peninsula between Toronto and Detroit was not. Another set of my ancestors arrived from Ireland in the 1850's, and settled in London Township. So as I read Catherine's instructions for building a log cabin - a shanty - and how to clear land, I thought of my own ancestors and what they must have gone through. Everything had to be done by hand (of course!), but what the book makes clear is that nothing went to waste -everything was used - because most often the settlers in the backwoods were very poor, and had to rely on their own skills and hard work for everything.
When Catherine wrote the Settler's Guide, it was directed towards women, who she felt had no instructional guide on what to expect when they landed in this new country. So she advises that those women coming from a village or town with a bakery, to learn how to bake bread, because they will have to bake their own if they are living away from a town in Canada. She discusses fermentation for bread, and advises growing hops for the fermenting process as brewer's yeast was always in demand and short in supply. How to grow an orchard, and begin a garden - there are so many useful tips for building a garden that work as well today as well as 150 years ago! She advocates growing as many vegetables as you can, and an orchard for the fruit, because these along with brown bread are the greatest for health! It is a book filled with sound, practical advice, and yet she doesn't forget about beauty - she says some flowers should be grown that will delight the eyes and spirits, and pretty an otherwise ugly yard, and for interior decoration, a rag carpet made up of the scraps of clothing, both kept the feet warm and added to the colour of the various rooms. She makes no bones about the poverty that most settlers are coming from and will experience the first few years as they wrest farming land from the forest; but she is also direct enough to say that only the lazy fail and fall into abject poverty in Canada; a comfortable living and the pride of owning your own home is what awaits those who come with an eagerness to work.
My favourite line is, in the section on fires (which were a great menace for most of the 19th century): "In cases of emergency, it is folly to fold one's hands and sit down to bewail in abject terror: it is better to be up and doing."
She adds little things like : "Canada is the land of cakes. A tea-table is generally furnished with several varieties of cakes and preserves."
If you are ever in Canada and driving in the countryside, most of the older farming houses have a verandah. She explains why: "Nothing contributes so much to comfort and outward appearance of a Canadian house as the erection of the verandah or stoup, as the Dutch settlers call it, round the building. It affords a grateful shade from the summer heat, a shelter from the cold, and is a source of cleanliness to the interior. It gives a pretty, rural look to the poorest log-house, and as it can be put up with little expense, it should never be omitted." Now you know!
Recipes for everything the backwoods settler would need to know are given, from potato bread to brown bread, to maple syrup and maple beer. Eating wildlife is covered, as well as keeping chickens and ducks. How to make cheese, 12 pages of corn - called Indian corn - varying from how to grow corn, to how to husk it, to how to make corn pudding, johnny-cake, hominy, fried corn, stewed corn, Indian pudding, supporne, and finally, corn straw beds and mats.
It is a fascinating compendium of early Canadian life, and is invaluable as a historical document of settler's daily life. She talks about the months of the year and what the settler generally did each month, and the weather to expect: for March, she writes: "The early part of March often resembles February,with this difference, the longer days cause a relaxation of the severe cold during the sunshining hours; the very surface of the snow thaws, patches of bare earth begin to appear towards the middle of the month; the weak but pleasant note of the little song sparrow and the neat snow sparrow in its quaker-like plumage may be heard and seen as they flit to and fro, picking the seeds of the rough green amaranth and tall woolly-stalked mullein which stand faded and dry in the garden patch or on the road side. The equinox is often attended with rough gales and snow storms: these past, the sun begins to melt off the snow, and a feeling of coming spring is experienced in the soft airs, and a look of life in the bark and birds. The rising of the sap is felt in the forest trees; frosty nights and sunny days call forth the activity of the settlers in the woods; sugar making is now at hand, and all is bustle and life in the shanty."

As I write this, we are beginning the second snowstorm for this week. Our sidewalks are not plowed yet from Wednesday's storm, so it is very difficult to walk anywhere. Buses let passengers off into snowbanks, which the city haven't had time to remove yet. We are expecting at least the same amount of snow, most forecasts are showing much more between tonight and early Sunday morning. If we get the 40 - 50 cms they are predicting (close to two feet) I will take pictures and post them here!!! The snow looks beautiful falling tonight - it began before I left work, and by the time I arrived home, the snow was falling in the lovely silence that comes with no wind, just the snow muffling all sounds so it is quiet and peaceful. I love this kind of snowfall. It is warm out (near 0 c), warm enough to not need a hat or mitts coming home. The tree branches and shrubs are covered with white (again!) and a couple of inches have already fallen. It is a beautiful winter night. Yes, Catherine Parr Traill was right - March is indeed like February! At least the early part of it so far......Tomorrow we get the winds and blowing snow. So from snowy Canada, I bid you goodnight, and I hope wherever you are, Gentle reader, you are warm and enjoying the weekend!

Booking Through Thursday - Female and Male Leads

As I wanted to do last week's meme but haven't been on my blog until yesterday, I am combining the two memes onto one blog: Who is my favourite female lead character? And why? And then today's meme is, of course: Who is my favourite male lead character? And why? So, here goes:

Favourite female lead character:
From my childhood, it would be the two Anne's - Anne Shirley of Green Gables, and Anne Frank, from the Diary of Anne Frank. Of course Anne Frank was real, but this made her diary all the more poignant for me . She was real, and she had lived under extreme circumstances. I was around 12 when I read both books, and they made an indelible impression on me. I had a very eventful childhood, some of which were traumatic events, and both characters inspired me. I would read them each of course for different reasons, but they both gave me the courage to go on, and to not give in to the despair that threatened me as I got older. This sounds very Jane Eyre, I know! But at the time, I was a child, and the events were all out of my control, and I did not know which way to turn, and books saved my life, these two in particular. I even got the idea of writing in my very first journal, given to me when I was 12, the way Anne Frank does in her diary - except I named mine Misty, whereas she called hers Kitty. I knew even at that age that what Anne Frank lived through was much worse than what I had to deal with, and this gave me courage. She has always remained one of my heroines, so even though she is not a fictional character, she is one of the reasons why books are such an important part of my life. As for Anne Shirley, I loved her. She made me laugh, and cry, and I watched her grow up in the 8 novels - the first three especially, and I could never get enough of her high spirits and joy in being alive. Even though she was an orphan, and Marilla hadn't wanted her, she brought joy with her, and she was - and is - irresistible. I loved her completely, and hated Mrs Lynd for her snide comments, and all the girls who made fun of Anne......she introduced me to the idea of kindred spirits, and poetry, and daydreams, and yet she gets into so much mishief! I read this series so many times, growing up. She is so familiar to me, and so much a part of my childhood, Anne of Green Gables.
I do have to confess that my middle name is Anne, and so I did feel a kinship with both of these fictional and real heroines.

As for male leads, I will have to think on this a little more, because no one immediately springs to mind as my favourite male lead. I want to give this some thought, because I think it's interesting to seee who our favourite characters are - not writers, but characters, as adults. For female, most of mine as an adult are mystery detectives (and no, Veronica Mars was never made into a book so I can't add her!!) - V.I Warshawski, Sharon McCone, Anna Lee, Stephanie Plum, Thursday Next, and of course, Lizzie Bennett! I have to say I admire Jane Eyre also, who wouldn't admire her spirit? I think there are too many names here for the special title of favourite, and since I just fell asleep briefly here - I'm fighting the same cold that kept my son out of daycare today - I might not be able to finish this entry properly. I will think on it and deliver an answer tomorrow, and for favourite male lead though I have a much smaller list on this one!! I am considering Mr Darcy however, as one of them!

more snow! and guess what I'm reading......

Guess what I am reading? If you guessed something to do with Veronica Mars, you'd be right! Neptune Noir, edited by Rob Thomas, the creator, writer, and producer of Veronica Mars. It is a collection of essays written by people who love the show, in various capacities (psychologists, teachers, writers, and fans of the show), and includes an introduction by Rob Thomas. His introduction is worth the price of the book, for he writes of how he broke into Hollywood TV land initially with great success, and then had a period of 5 years when nothing sold, nothing was picked up, and he had to write here and there for other shows before Veronica Mars was made.
What I find so interesting and food for thought is that Rob initially was a high school teacher and teen novelist, writing several books for teenagers before breaking into television with Cupid (a very short-run but delightful tv series some time ago). He describes how he initially had the idea about a teen detective, "a boy who becomes ostracized by his peers when his sheriff father botches a murder investigation of one of his classmates." The idea was sold as a book idea, but he didn't write it then, and eventually, over time, the idea morphed into a teen girl, and the boy became her father. Thus the roots of Veronica Mars is in a novel, and I can't help thinking that this is one of the things that underlays how good the show is. Of course, the story arcs, characters, and dialogues are all a result of the creative people who worked on the show from 2004-2007, not Thomas himself, but he oversaw each season and wrote some of the episodes, as well as produced the three seasons. I can't help but think that that novelist's sense of drama and character development is a large part of the success of Veronica Mars. And in case you hadn't guessed or heard, Veronica Mars is very noir, including Veronica's voice-overs as part of the narrative in each show, her comments on what she is doing providing clues to herself as well as the people around her. It is very Chandler-esque, and it succeeds wonderfully, even though we don't commonly associate females with the tough loner/outsider role that characterizes the hero/PI of noir mysteries. Veronica is a loner and outsider, and the series shows how she became that way, and yet, she is still capable of making friends and of loving, and the show is filled with humour and wry sarcasm and most of all Veronica's indefatigable sense of survival. She doesn't give up, she finds a way to go on. And she wants to make sense of the world around her, she wants to understand why. This I very much relate to - I've been accused of asking too many questions by people around me! It's not meant to be an invasion of privacy (for Veronica it is, but she is a PI whereas I am not!), I just want to understand why people do what they do. I want to know what motivates people.
So.....when I showed my husband that I had bought another book yesterday, his face fell until I pointed out I was reading again! and yes, I am still obsessed with VM.......first season finally arrived, so I am rewatching to see everything I missed the first time I saw it, especially now that I know how it all ends. In terms of continuity and referencing to other episodes, this is one of the best shows I've seen for doing it.
I'll write a final conclusion when I'm done the book, but meantime it is very enjoyable and gives a sense of how much thought other people have put into why they love it so much.


Well, we had our second snowfall in three days today. Between 25 -30 cm fell today. After freezing rain and 5 cm of snow on Monday, we have now reached a milestone: WE ARE AT THE NUMBER 2 POSITION FOR TOTAL SNOWFALL IN A SEASON!!!!! Yes, I had to capitalize that........not since 1971 have we seen this much snowfall! We still have a way to go to catch up - about 90 cm of snow. My thinking is, if we have to do this much shovelling, then we might as well go all the way and try to break the record! so bring it on! there is still three weeks of March to go......right, now you get the idea of what we talk about in the winter here in Canada....the cold and the snow! Has anyone noticed the daylight lasting longer??? I have, and I am so thrilled to leave work at 5 pm and it's still sunny out! (when the sun shines, that is)..... I no longer feel like a vampire!!!

Kidnapped by Veronica Mars

I'm back! For those of my regular Gentle Readers, I have been missing in action for a week.....but a word of explanation is in order. Two words. Veronica Mars. A U.S tv show, that was aired for the last three years, and sadly cancelled last May.
Yes, me, who can count on one hand the tv shows I watch regularly, was CAPTURED by this wonderful teen mystery/drama three weeks ago when I was home with a virus. I couldn't read, and needed something to let me rest in front of the tv mindlessly because I was too tired from the virus to do anything. I had heard friends talking about the show over the past year. So, I picked up season one on DVD from our local video store.......and from the opening episode, I was HOOKED. I watched the whole season in 3 days, late into the night, as soon as the kids were gone to school and daycare, any moment i had I was watching. Then came Season Two, as the virus spread to my glands and I had another week at home. By this time I was dreaming about Veronica, Logan, Lilly, the bus crash, the murder, Cassidy, Wallace. I would wake up and think Veronica and Logan HAVE to get together, and start wondering how the show would do it. Last week I watched Season 3....finished on Monday.....and then I had a day off from watching, where I went online to read about the show....then back to V.M. again on Thursday, this time to take it slower, to watch each episode carefully. Yes, I am hooked!
It is like the very best books - Veronica Mars has interesting stories, wonderful characters and setting, and witty dialogue. It's smart and topical without a hint of preachiness, the acting is superb, and best of all, it's like a modern Nancy Drew, with just a hint of Twin Peaks - a comment often seen in other reviews - it is good.
I can't rave about it enough, mostly because this show has everything - romance, mystery, death, desire, bad boys and good boys, friendships, alienation, set in the fictional town of Neptune California (where it NEVER snows! Ok, my secret is out, I need sunshine so badly that I'm watching a California based show!!). It's intense, and the characters are realistic, and it avoids formula anything for the most part; even with solving the episode mysteries, each relates to the greater story arc for the season. Characters move forward, and storylines connect. This is really storytelling at its best, and so for those of us who read, I can't recommend it enough as an example of really good - the best kind, of tv that can be done. And it's funny, and warm, too, with Veronica's relationship with her dad Keith, as well as her friends and boyfriends, at the heart of the show. I simply love it. I've ordered Season 1, and as soon as it arrives, I will be starting all over again. And I really wish Veronica Mars hadn't been cancelled!! The morning after I finished Season 3, I woke up feeling such a great loss that there won't be any more Veronica and Logan, no more Wallace, no more Neptune.

I have to explain also that there was a death in my family on Feb 17 and as is usual for me, I withdraw while I cope with the emotions. It was a distant part of my family, but someone connected intimately with my core family - my stepmother's mother passed away, and there are intense emotions and conflicts with this part of my family. So, I have been coping as best I can, while seeing my own beloved sisters (it was their grandmother who died) and attending the funeral.

Normally I would read to cope with loss, but Veronica Mars has been totally unexpected, and i have given myself over completely to absorbing this tv show. And one of the best things I am learning is watching the story develop, and applying that knowledge to my own writing. What do I like best about this tv show? Why? Are these qualities in my own writing? what writing moves me? There are the occasional flaws with Veronica Mars, too - but not many - and these also I examine.

So I have not abandoned my challenges, I am just behind! And still have not located Ulysses, so I will have to read Dubliners instead, for my February birthday month.

I am not quite ready yet to read - I am working my way through The Canadian Settler's Handbook, and have about a quarter of it left to read.

So, in lieu of any memes for the past few weeks that I have missed (and there are about 4 that I really want to do!), here is my question for my Gentle Readers: Have you ever been captured by a tv show or movie series? and why? And are there any books or writers that give you the same experience?

For myself, for books, I would have to say:
- the best of Stephen King - The Shining, It, are two of my favourites - and his new one is getting raves so it's now added to my birthday list! I have stayed up nights reading him, not able to put the books down, and have had times when parts of the books have haunted me long after reading it. The Shining is one of my all-time horror novels. It is one that scares me so much that I have to have someone around me, to be able to read it. Is this great writing, or what? And he does dialogue like no one else can.
- Gorky Park - Martin Cruz Smith - one of the best mysteries ever written. This is a book I've given to other people. And it's set in Russia, which at the time (mid 1980's) was still unknown territory. Setting, dialogue, characters, this is unputdownable.
-Anne of Green Gables series - as a child, I read the whole set - all 8 books - over and over again. I am still the only person I know who read Rilla of Ingleside and Rainbow Valley, the last two in the set. The first three, Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island, were and are permanent books that went everywhere with me in my multitude of moves. Anne and her red hair, and Gilbert the love of her life, the wonderful Matthew and Marilla. This was my first exposure to small-town Canadian life, and still remains among the best for capturing Canada at the turn of the century.
- The Lord of the Rings. Once I start these, I cannot put them down! I have read these at least, at least, 5 times. And the Silmarillion at least 3. I am so counting down to when I can start reading The Hobbit to my children. This is among the standard-bearers of modern fantasy, and has a rhythm of storytelling that echoes the Norse myths it is based on. My only complaint has always been the lack of strong female characters, but since I love Aragorn and Frodo and Faramir, and Sam best of all, and Rivendell, and the evil of Mordor is so well-depicted, it is still the standard to beat, for me. And, I still stay up late in the night to read just one more chapter....
- Sorcery & Cecilia, or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot, by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede,
- Bellwether - Connie Willis
- Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
- Black and Blue - Ian Rankin
- In the Garden of Iden - Kage Baker
- Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy
- Summon the Keeper - Tanya Huff
- Anne Frank, the Diary of a Young Girl
These are books that I have given copies to other people to read, that I have re-read, and still enjoy. It's not my permanent nor exhaustive list - my shelves are all double-rowed and piled in front with more books, so it's the list that first comes to mind when I think of books I can't put down. Each of the above books have powerful images (for me) that are now part of me, that the book evokes in me. I can't put them down, when I read them. And that for me is the very best way to read, and why last year was a disappointment because I didn't find a book that did that for me. So, here's hoping that in amongst my challenges I find an unputdownable book for this year! It is as rare as the very best of tv shows. It's actually nice to be able to say there have been things on TV that I love, that I have fallen in love with.

And, IT'S MARCH 1 today!!!! Hurray!!! 19 days to spring......I am ignoring the 10 +cm of snow that fell over night last night, after having the two coldest days and nights of the winter so far.....spring is nearer!!

Oh, and to finish my own quiz: tv series I can't live without, that I have bought the dvd set and do watch again and again:
- the new Dr Who from BBC in the UK
-Battlestar Galactica (the new version from the US)
-X-files
-Buffy
-Firefly
-Veronica Mars
-Six Feet Under
-the Office (British and US versions)
-Original Star Trek (when the price drops)
-Babylon 5
-Twin Peaks
- House Season 1&2
- Lost Season 1

Looking at the list, I see that it is made up of science fiction mostly. Interesting. I wonder if it is the ideas that science fiction presents - speculation, what if? - or just that I like space travel and would give anything for us to be able to travel in space! - that makes it better than sitcom tv? I have watched Friends, Frasier (Frasier was a must-see for years), but I don't need to own the seasons - I don't need to watch them every few years or so. I will have to think awhile on this list. Maybe there is something I should be including in my own writing that I have missed....though I have an idea for a space opera/station story, which is currently big in the SF world, I would always make it less science and more people oriented, like Babylon 5 was. And how does Jane Austen fit into any of this?? H-m-m-m, a space station story with witty dialogue and romance between the rich and poor! Anyway, food for thought on this snowy March day. I hope you are enjoying whatever you are doing, today.