Robynettely

I had the idea a couple of weeks ago to try to read all the books for the Cybil awards. So, I started requesting them from the library (so far I've requested three and received two). This was the first one I read. In fact, I may have been the first person to read this particular copy of the book from the library. The hard cover had a satisfying creak when I opened it. I hope other people pick it up. I don't quite know what I expected. Maybe the title led me to think it might be vampires or something. I started it without even reading the back or the flap, and I think the library had placed the branch sticker over the label that indicated it was the first book in a trilogy. (The boy, however, read the back first, and then put it down because the first blurb was from Nancy Farmer, and he read a couple of books by her and was Not Impressed. Interesting how marketing fails. ) There are two non-concurrent storylines, and the chapters alternate. One storyline happens far in the past ...

You know in The Fellowship of the Ring, where Aragorn and Boromir walk through chest-deep snow, clearing a path for the smaller members of the party? The snow we've had here lately makes me think perhaps Tolkien had never seen more than an inch or two of snow. We got maybe eight inches, and I could barely walk through that.

Believe it or not, nothing to do with the Batman character. But you can't go wrong with a 100-page factbook about poison ivy written by someone who has a couple of books of poetry listed in the front flap, right? I bought this book back in April for my sister, who has a lot of poison ivy growing in her yard and is afflicted every year. I learned lots of awesome facts. You can get it from petting a dog. If you burn poison ivy and and breathe in the smoke, that's a bad thing. if you go swimming in water with poison ivy growing right up to the edge, you can get poison ivy. Don't bother trying to dig up the roots. It's related to mangos and cashews and pistachios. Seemed long for the amount of content, however. Repetitive. I read in an amazon review that this book was a must-have for the well-stocked medicine cabinet. Who has a book about poison ivy in their medicine cabinet? I don't even have a girl guides first aid book. Apparently everyone who visits my house is luck...

It all started when one of the other writers in my office left last November. I may have gotten taken advantage of with what seemed like a disproportionate amount or his work dumped on me (temporarily, I hope). Anyway, so I found myself one weekend knowing that a major project I had picked up needed an index, and needed it soon because who knew when the thing was going to product release (still any day now). So one Friday evening I backed up the entire manual onto a thumb drive and brought it home to work on during the weekend. This was actually a watershed moment for me. I had six hours in my weekend, every weekend! that I didn't know about. Sure, sometimes when we're done with our Saturday activities, we rent a movie or go to a friend's, but most of the time, that time is mine, and I didn't know about it. I usually frittered it away with knitting while watching home improvement shows, and even when I did have a social activity, well... I bet I waste a lot of Friday ni...

My younger sister claims my older sister asked for Doris Lessing books for christmas. So, since my older sister is pretty poor about providing a wish list, and she buys everything she needs, pretty much all she got was Doris Lessing books. However, she says there might have been only one she was interested in. Probably it wasn't this one. As my dad put it, when he saw me feverishly reading it on the 23rd, "Your sister is not interested in children." But this book isn't really about children, anyway. It's about British society in the 70's, the shift in cultural values away from the traditional family, and young thugs and crime. When I heard my sister wanted Doris Lessing books, I immediately ordered this one from Abe Books, because it was the Doris Lessing book on my list (not the one I provide my sisters and my dad every year at Xmas time, but the one I carry with me in case I find myself with a few spare hours in a library or something). I had read about it o...

"Angels on Toast" by Dawn Powell This book came up passing in some article I read online. I don't remember the thrust of the article, but the author said somewhere that Angels on Toast was one of the best stories about a bad marriage, like ever. So I requested it through my local library. I got it about a week later. If I can use the speed with which a book reaches my branch through the TPL system to judge its popularity, I would have to say this book is not popular. But it's a spurious statistic, I know. The introduction by Gore Vidal discusses how popular Dawn Powell should have been, but I can sort of see why she's not. Her characters are middle class, and they are mocked mercilessly. People might see themselves a little too much in these characters -- their hopes and dreams and why they fail. It's like nagging, maybe, to read about why we fail. I had a hard time remembering which of the two main male characters, Lou and Jay, was which. I didn't have a ...