Musings on Libraries

I still fall into the book trap when I talk about things I've borrowed from the library, though I can borrow more and there was a time when you could borrow pictures.  There are places where you can borrow seeds, toys, tools and other things. There are new things coming on stream with the libraries like emagazines and I'm sure more to come, it's interesting times, but where we're going I don't know.

I had an interesting moment in a Starbucks I regularly visit with one of the baristas where she was discussing how she was having minor problems with English and I suggested she go to the library in the ILAC centre and use the resources of the Open Learning Centre, She had never heard of it and I thought that was a shame, we have so much to offer and people complain about things they can't do that we provide for free.  The resources available through the Business Library are vast and really useful for anyone wanting to set up a business or retrain.  How do I know all this? The bills for their magazines pass my desk.

I'm sure there will be a place into the future for libraries but what it will be, I have no idea. But if I hear one more person tell me we're outdated and useless...

Books Borrowed week ending 31/1/2016

This week's borrowed books and other items.

Outlander Series 1
Glory and the Rake - fiction
Half the Sky - non-fiction
The Dream Thieves - YA fiction
Person of Interest series 1
Bought for revenge - fiction

books bought this week

Night Quest by Susan Krinard - I have a weakness for Mills and Boon Nocturne, there's usually two per month but I only found 1 in O'Connell Street Easons, sigh.
Ten poems about Knitting - bought in Hodges Figgis (who need to update their site) using a Book Token
Knit Wear Love by Amy Herzog, I've been eyeing this one for a while.

Last week I picked up a few too.

Blood Red by Mercedes Lackey - I read the sequel recently. I'm fond of her and her writing.
Dragonwriter edited by Todd McCaffrey - Anne McCaffrey was one of the first SF authors I've ever read and I nabbed this, then I spotted that several of my favourite authors, like Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon and Lois McMaster Bujold have contributions and I was very happy, a happiness tinged with sadness that she's gone.
Pelzmantel by K.T. Laity - I follow her on Twitter and have met her, I reckon I should really read her.
The Revenant of Thraxton Hall by Vaughn Entwistle - sounds interesting, could be irritating.
The Harry Clarke Colouring Book - I have a weakness for colouring books and Harry Clarke and thankfully the pages are blank on one side, unfortunately the information is on the opposite page, making deconstruction if you wanted to frame one of them a bit awkward.

Books out week ending 17th January

Hitman agent 47 - DVD

Downton Abbey series 6 - DVD 

Best of Bowie - CD

Lord Lansbury's Christmas Wedding

The Captain's Christmas Bride

Lady Rowena's Ruin

A storm

Recently I read Tim Minchin's Storm and I largely agree with him. Yes grasping this life is important, and maybe it's all we get but I felt a need to explore a few things.

While I agree that most if not all psychics are cold readers making a buck, I also have see people conduct interesting dialogues with their subconscious through the medium of Tarot cards, and paid me, well I had to start charging, I was putting in effort, they were not paying attention, until I charged, a cup of coffee. Yes 40p (old money, it was the 90s) made the difference between attention and inattention, thanks capitalism. And yes, once someone started latching onto certain words or phrases I'd start using the theme more. Was I cold reading, yes. Did I have repeat customers? Yes. Would I lapse into a slightly different consciousness sometimes? Yes. Did I rely on it or encourage others to do so? No.

Later, pre-cancer diagnosis, I was under the weather and a friend offered me a reiki session. I took him up on it, there was a preliminary diagnosis that involved my liver and the friend said afterwards, I don't think that what's wrong with you is liver, I think it's more widespread than that, get those tests done, it's important. Yeah it was, I had hodgkins lymphoma. More dispersed indeed.

These two are, yes, anecdotes, but what's in common is the ethical attitude of the person involved. The labourer is worthy of their hire too.

Secondly, he lumps medicine into proven and unproven ignoring the third, complicated category, still under research, and sometimes that third category gets lumped into useless superstition, much like generally regarded as safe and hypoallergenic doesn't mean no one will have adverse effects to a drug or cosmetic. I had a skin condition that could be linked to my blood pressure medicine. Actually to the added padding or sawdust as my dad calls it.

Overall, storm is interesting but simplistic to a degree and he's probably preaching to the choir.

Books out week ending 10th january

Books borrowed from the library this week
Gizzi's Healthy appetite by Gizzi Erskine read good reviews of this online

Handmade Gifts - looked pretty, for reviewing some of it on my knitting site.

A bird in the Hand by Diana Henry - chicken recipes

Warrior of Fire by Michelle Willingham historical romance set in Ireland, usually a how badly do they get it check...

Iceman a DVD

His Christmas Countess by Louise Allen another historical romance

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin - I read Fifth Season over the Christmas and was very impressed

Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal having read the book previous to it, again over the Christmas.

The Immortal Hunter by Lynsay Sands - predictable vampire romance crack

The magpie and the wardrobe - Sam McKechnie sounds very interesting, looks pretty.

Silk Roads vs Mills and Boon

I do this pretty often, read two, or more books at the same time, often a very light book with a heavy read, one that is occupying a lot of my thoughts. This is the case with The Silk Road by Peter Frankopan and the semi-random Mills and Boon Modern Intrigue that is bedside at the moment.  The Silk Road is making me think and I'm reading it at work. After all it's a weighty hardback of 600+ pages, so I'm reading it at work. It also belongs technically to another authority I'd rather not damage it in transit. The cover is lush, but that half-sleeve thing is just asking to be torn in library use. The cover doesn't have the title on the front, just on the spine.

So yes, the topics from this are mostly occupying my brain while I let it spin in idle over the adventures of a rich woman and her missing sister with cultish leader bad guy plotting .. I have to find the name now, mystic something.. ah Mystic Isle by Joanna Wayne, a pretty predictable romance adventure cross that is the perfect tool to let me wind down at night.

Frankopan is interesting, the way he is re-orientating history, quite literally is making me think, though some of it is definitely in the realm of yes, yes I knew that, and? And then people remind me that what I think is common knowledge isn't, my brain has too much stuff lodged in it, stuff that makes me a bit different from most.

Tonight I will finish Mystic Isle, I'm nearly at the end, and I'll pick something else to read. Something else to let my brain wind down.

A-Z of female Fantasy/SF Writers

The only help I'm using is to double check spelling, these are all authors I've read. This is a game I play with myself occasionally and these are the first author who I think of with that letter.  It's actually harder than you might think

A Lynn Abbey
B Marion Zimmer Bradley
C C J Cherryh
D Diane Duane
E Ru Emerson
F Maggie Furey
G
H Barbara Hambly
I
J Diane Wynne Jones
K Katherine Kurtz
L Ruth Long
M Anne McCaffrey
N Andre Norton
O Pat O'Shea
P Tamora Pierce
Q
R J D Robb
S
T Judith Tarr
U
V Joan D Vigne
W Janny Wurts
X
Y
Z

8 letters so far unrepresenteted, hoping to reduce that before it publishes.

So what makes me an expert?

Well I can't claim to quality of reading, as a matter of fact I probably read a lot of books who will never win awards and get frankly bored with books that win awards.  I enjoy story.  I also enjoy characters who make me feel something for them.  However I've read a lot, at this date in time I've written 3,667 reviews on my librarything account since I joined some of which are short and some longer, most of them are books I read from the library.  I'm behind by a fair few that I own and some may need a re-read before reviewing (they lose at least a half-star if I don't find them all that memorable).

However, I've averaged between 1-2 books per day for many years, I've read pretty widely in Fantasy and romance, somewhat in Science Fiction and crime.  About 10 years ago I was desperately seeking Urban Fantasy novels because I had tapped out the genre at the time (and find it funny when I hear about newer writers who "invented" the genre).

Why do I call myself an expert?  Because I've heard people talk about their expertise and honestly they don't impress me, they haven't read widely enough and don't see the flaws in their favourite writers.  Yes, several people I have enjoyed hugely and I cheer when I see a new book but I also can find myself despairing of a book, as a matter of fact one of my stumbling blocks for a number of years is Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove, both authors I have enjoyed, where, frankly, the main character is annoying me, and not in a good way, every now and again I take it down from a shelf and I read another few pages and remind myself why I hate it.  I should let it go, but I hate to be defeated by books!

If you have any topic suggestions, feel free to add them in comments here.

Reading grooves

.. or could it be a rut?

Sometimes books are like a lie-in.  You know you should get up but bed is comfortable, you're just the right temperature and you can see no pressing need to get up.

I've been there, reading the same author over a period of time, and there comes a time when you run out of that authors books or the author changes.  I've seen people complain about this, they don't seem to see how people do change and how their lives make these changes.  I also notice that I have a tendency to read the same type of books over a period of time.

I've also seen people who re-read the same books over and over to get the same experience out of them, but really you can't.  Life changes you, or at least it should change you, your relationship with books changes over time.  There are times when some books become like old friends, where you are almost not reading them but experiencing the emotions you had when you first read them, but you change, you experience life and what you do and what is done to you changes your life experience and how you reflect what's in the book.  Sometimes when you re-read what you take from the book can be different, and sometimes it can resonate in a different way, sometimes not in the best way.

I spent a lot of my youth worrying about writing something original, not I'm starting to realise that by just writing it myself I'm going to write something original, because it's going to be by me, unless I cut and paste from someone else the worst would be having echoes of some of the authors I enjoy reading, and in some instances that wouldn't be the worst thing I could do.

Books Borrowed from the Library

Fiction/no of renewals

Mysterious Vision - various /10

6


5


0


Non-Fiction/no of renewals


15



14




13


11



9


Microwave Entertaining - M Emmerson/8

7

Art of Illumination - P D'Acona

6


3




Rathmines Stylebook - D Rice

Complete Family Guide to Natural Home Remedies/2
Traditional Knitting /2
Psychic Pathways - S Choquette/5
Challenge to Change - B Colclough/2
Knits for All Seasons - J Moss/2
At a Journal Workshop - I Progoff/2
Rituals for Everyday Living - L St Aubin /2
Yellow Cross - R Weiss/5

Inquisition - M Baigent /1
Zest for Life - D Breslin/1
Encyclopedia of Handspinning - M Ross/1
Everything in it's Place - E Liman/1

Crystals for Life - J Burgess/2
Lighten Up - P Cohen & J Verity/0
Awakening to Change - S Holbeche/0
Life is Huge - S Jeffers/0
Watch your weight - G Moore-Groarke/0
Water Magic - M Muryn/0
Take Time for your life - C Richardson/0
Curves - /2

5 Secrets of Health & Happiness - Angela Hicks/0


Tapes
Liza with a "Z" - Liza Minelli /7
Best of James Bond /5
Parallel Dreams - L McKennitt/0

Read in 2006

This has echoes of the Pied Piper but only to a lesser extent. The children who follow the piper are escaping the destruction of their settlement by bandits. Not really my favourite of hers it's still an interesting read and well worth the time. It's told from a first person point of view by the eldest of the children who doesn't sound all that young, but then again lives on a colony planet as a first wave of settlement so may have more responsibilities settled on his shoulders earlier and if it's written by him later, the more adult attitude may be excused as filtered by this.
Not one of her best but does display a lot of her typical themes, children taking responsibility, questing, etc.

I'm very glad I intercepted one of Justina Robson's books en route to another library becasue this too was a very good read.

In a near future England where clever children are sent to a school to learn faster, Anjuli O'Connell is an exception, among all the exceptionally bright she's different, she has perfect recall, a memory that logs everything (would have made an exceptional librarian!). Her school friends carry over to her working life, partially because she can decode what they're talking about into understandable English.

WHen on of her friends dies while apparently trying to upload himself into the network, her world starts crumbling around her. There are secrets within secrets and the AI's are getting to an independant age.

Not as good as the first book but still readable. The next crystal artifact has to be found and it's up to Chief Warrant Officer Vickey Mabrey, her partner in this job is Griff Hutchinson, who was involved in a campaign to have her dismissed when she was in training. Now she has the superior position. Will she use the situation to get revenge or will she act on her other feelings for him.

A not bad but pretty typical Vampire Romance. So not in the Horror genre, there was no real horror or sense of doom in it mostly because the main character, Nell Harris, has a great sense of humour about the entire thing and really doesn't take anything all that seriously.

When she's asked to look into a kidnapping because of her ability to work charms and defuse them, she finds herself in cahoots with a man who is considered one of the ultimate evil.

Owes a fair bit to the likes of Christine Feehan (who has a blurb on the front) but honestly I found it more readable than hers.

The author would have done well to talk to people recovering from strokes and long-term disability tho, cause apart from some comments by Nell about her disabilty I really didn't get a feeling that it got in the way.

Pretty standard fantasy fare with bards and true names and a root language. The setting of it in a pseudo earth past is a little too much really and the story would have worked as well without that conceit.
Maerad starts off as a slave and is rescued by the Bard Cadvan, one of the great bards of Lirigon. As they journey together they find that her gifts are mighty indeed and she has potential to change the course of the world.

On a quest to save the crystal mask of the Cherokees' Kai Alseoun works with Jake Carter. Jake loved Kai when they were young, but life has embittered Kai.

Interesing and readable. A little bit too much angst occasionally but overall worthwhile.

It's been done before. Group of women who are genetically engineered to be better than most, secret project with dead mothers, one escapes with her child and goes into hiding. Girl grows up, finds she's different, is found by others of her group.
It's not a bad example of this genre, quite readable, and at first the policeman is quite hostile to Faith and he behaves in a way that makes him very believable. I'm not sure the sudden conversion from dislike to love is as believable but is part of the Romance novel convention.
The killer is also interesting and quite well fleshed out. A little more fleshing out and this book would work as a pretty mainstream thriller. In fact it's better, in my eyes, than many of the thrillers going around.

The Story of Kelric and his trying to survive being sold as a slave/provider to Aristos and his failing health. On some levels it's an interesting read but on others it's a bit so-so. Not a book to introduce yourself to the series but an interesting look at the psychology of the Aristos and some of the other things going on in Catherine Asaro's world. There's a bit too much angst to make it good and some of the escapes were a bit silly. Some of the places seem to have existed purely for CA to describe them and have him escape from them, despite his continuing and failing health.