First Post of the Year!
Jan. 3rd, 2011 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alanajoli...and we're back. (As Google Chat would say after being randomly disconnected from the Internet.)
I fully intended to write while I was on holiday last week, but the week was just too busy. It was wonderful to celebrate Christmas with family, both in Connecticut and in Michigan. Overall, things were very good -- I had one minor whoops when I realized that some of the material I needed for "The Town with Five Main Streets" was still in Connecticut and out of my reach, but it ended up working out. When we got home, the whole family went out on a photo-hunting expedition for images to accompany the upcoming articles and had a fantastic time.
Twostripe and I also got to go out together twice over the weekend, which hasn't happened in ages. We saw Harry Potter 7: part one and Spamalot, which was playing at the Schubert. (I'd never been to the Schubert, and I'd never seen Spamalot: both parts of the experience were fantastic, and the actress playing the Lady of the Lake, Caroline Bowman, was amazing. The rest of the cast was also great.)
But one thing that tends to happen when traveling and spending time with family and going to events is that I miss reading time. (I used to be able to read while traveling -- Bug makes that a definite challenge, despite being an *excellent* traveler. She just, understandably, needs attention!) We did finish our read-aloud, Off Armageddon Reef, on the flight home, and I both loved and hated that I called some of the plot points at the end. (I was dreading one character's death, because the character offered the fatal, internal "once this is all over, I'll confess X" decision, and characters sadly never survive that. But Weber made it work regardless, and I loved the book.) So today, along with trying to organize my upcoming assignments (which are, sadly, fewer than I normally have in January), I spent time just reading, which was really helpful in getting centered. I never realize just how much my brain depends on reading-breaks until I go without being able to catch more than a few minutes here and there for awhile. Spending a few hours (during Bug's naps) has been really helpful.
I'm reading an excellent first book in a trilogy: The Poison Throne by Celine Kiernan. I will fully acknowledge that the cover grabbed me on this one, and while the first chapter didn't draw me right in, the book did capture me before my give-up mark (I think I gave it fifty pages, based on the blurb on the cover from Roddy Doyle, who is a fantastic Irish writer). I'm very much enjoying it.
I also actually read a book mostly on my computer today (I finished it on my nook). Background: Simon and Schuster is doing an amazing and wonderful promotional e-reading project called Galley Grab. As a regular reader of Publishers Weekly's online newsletters, I saw the advertisement to be able to grab a few YA galleys and was surprised and delighted to be put on the list to receive the opportunity to read all of their e-released galleys. Of course, I don't have time for that, but it looks like I'll be reading at least a few! The e-books, which you get through Adobe Digital Editions, have DRM that allows you to read them only up until their real release date. So I was going through looking at the books that were about to expire, then looking to see if the books I'd downloaded were actually my thing (several of them weren't), and I got to Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann, a YA horror novel. The cover did nothing for me, amplifying the horror aspects, which tend not to be my thing (despite all the dark fantasy I read -- yes, I know it's incongruous), and I thought, all right, I'll just read the synopsis, which other ARCs had provided, and I'll delete it. I discovered no synopsis, so I thought, all right, I'll just read the first page. It's told in present tense, which is another strike for me -- I prefer novels told in the past tense. But soon, I discovered I wasn't on the first page any more. I was three chapters in. Pages were just flying by as I got into the story. The main character, Kendall, has OCD, and reading from her perspective as she ends up confronting a haunted desk (obvious to the readers fairly early on, but not to the characters) works brilliantly. The characters feel convincing, and the horror aspect works (though it wasn't too scary for me -- I am less bothered by paranormal villains than, say, serial killers).
At any rate, when Cryer's Cross comes out next month, check it out. It's a very quick read (as evidenced by my starting it this afternoon and finishing it this evening) and, clearly, draws in even readers who don't expect to like it very much.
I fully intended to write while I was on holiday last week, but the week was just too busy. It was wonderful to celebrate Christmas with family, both in Connecticut and in Michigan. Overall, things were very good -- I had one minor whoops when I realized that some of the material I needed for "The Town with Five Main Streets" was still in Connecticut and out of my reach, but it ended up working out. When we got home, the whole family went out on a photo-hunting expedition for images to accompany the upcoming articles and had a fantastic time.
Twostripe and I also got to go out together twice over the weekend, which hasn't happened in ages. We saw Harry Potter 7: part one and Spamalot, which was playing at the Schubert. (I'd never been to the Schubert, and I'd never seen Spamalot: both parts of the experience were fantastic, and the actress playing the Lady of the Lake, Caroline Bowman, was amazing. The rest of the cast was also great.)
But one thing that tends to happen when traveling and spending time with family and going to events is that I miss reading time. (I used to be able to read while traveling -- Bug makes that a definite challenge, despite being an *excellent* traveler. She just, understandably, needs attention!) We did finish our read-aloud, Off Armageddon Reef, on the flight home, and I both loved and hated that I called some of the plot points at the end. (I was dreading one character's death, because the character offered the fatal, internal "once this is all over, I'll confess X" decision, and characters sadly never survive that. But Weber made it work regardless, and I loved the book.) So today, along with trying to organize my upcoming assignments (which are, sadly, fewer than I normally have in January), I spent time just reading, which was really helpful in getting centered. I never realize just how much my brain depends on reading-breaks until I go without being able to catch more than a few minutes here and there for awhile. Spending a few hours (during Bug's naps) has been really helpful.
I'm reading an excellent first book in a trilogy: The Poison Throne by Celine Kiernan. I will fully acknowledge that the cover grabbed me on this one, and while the first chapter didn't draw me right in, the book did capture me before my give-up mark (I think I gave it fifty pages, based on the blurb on the cover from Roddy Doyle, who is a fantastic Irish writer). I'm very much enjoying it.
I also actually read a book mostly on my computer today (I finished it on my nook). Background: Simon and Schuster is doing an amazing and wonderful promotional e-reading project called Galley Grab. As a regular reader of Publishers Weekly's online newsletters, I saw the advertisement to be able to grab a few YA galleys and was surprised and delighted to be put on the list to receive the opportunity to read all of their e-released galleys. Of course, I don't have time for that, but it looks like I'll be reading at least a few! The e-books, which you get through Adobe Digital Editions, have DRM that allows you to read them only up until their real release date. So I was going through looking at the books that were about to expire, then looking to see if the books I'd downloaded were actually my thing (several of them weren't), and I got to Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann, a YA horror novel. The cover did nothing for me, amplifying the horror aspects, which tend not to be my thing (despite all the dark fantasy I read -- yes, I know it's incongruous), and I thought, all right, I'll just read the synopsis, which other ARCs had provided, and I'll delete it. I discovered no synopsis, so I thought, all right, I'll just read the first page. It's told in present tense, which is another strike for me -- I prefer novels told in the past tense. But soon, I discovered I wasn't on the first page any more. I was three chapters in. Pages were just flying by as I got into the story. The main character, Kendall, has OCD, and reading from her perspective as she ends up confronting a haunted desk (obvious to the readers fairly early on, but not to the characters) works brilliantly. The characters feel convincing, and the horror aspect works (though it wasn't too scary for me -- I am less bothered by paranormal villains than, say, serial killers).
At any rate, when Cryer's Cross comes out next month, check it out. It's a very quick read (as evidenced by my starting it this afternoon and finishing it this evening) and, clearly, draws in even readers who don't expect to like it very much.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-04 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 03:40 am (UTC)