The fake-cuts lead to the reviews and details :)

I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago by Hape Kerkeling
Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
Angle of Impact by Bonnie MacDougal
Already Dead by Charlie Huston
Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry
Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett
Nemesis by Agatha Christie
The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Atlantis by David Gibbins
The Red House Mystery by A.A.Milne - Spoiler-Alert!


Cross-posted like crazy, i.e. to 50bookchallenge & bookshare.

This gem of a comment popped up as a reply to pillbox's thread:

Atlas, Oh Atlas!  Wherefore art my book? 

InTransit, In Transit!  Atlas Replies,
All-knowing Atlas, who never would lie,

Today it's a laydown, where is the book?
It's got to be here, check every nook!

I've looked on the shelf, in section and table,
I've looked where I can, wherever I'm able!

It's simply not here!  Atlas says it's In Transit,
That means that it's coming, skip al the bullshit!

But, wait, what's this now?  It's there on the pallet?
How can that be?  Atlas says it's in Transit.

We move out our stock, from truck to the floor,
not one minute over, TTF 24!

Alas, IPT, that one poor dumb bastard,
can't shelve 3 big pallets, can't work any faster!

Can't alpha and shelve, and do RPL,
FU Ann Arbor, go straight to Hell!

"I'm sorry to say, sir, we don't have your book, 
but let's go to .com, and have a nice look!

Oh look, there it is, and cheaper by far, 
use your coupon and save, we'll ship it quite far!

Oh, you wanted to read it?  Today? You really mean it?  
Try Target or Wal-Mart, I think that's where I've seen it."

To those once-proud IPT-ers, who no longer get hours,
I would shelve all of it for you, if I had Superpowers!

With love from my heart, it's just not your fault, 
unfortunately now, there is no gestalt.

I'm curious of the state of your store from one to ten:

1 being the worst (and ten being the very very best)

What is the morale of your store?

Can you pay your bills with your paycheck?

Do you feel your work environment is hostile??


But really what is the feeling of your store?

I read too much "classical literature".
I would like to know which contemporary books are "profoundly moving", and brought you to tears at the beauty of sadness/fragile dignity - that sort of thing.

I would prefer smaller books, but all are welcome.

Wally Lamb?

In the Woods (2007)
Written by: Tana French
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 429 (Trade Paperback)

The premise: ganked from BN.com, because I'm seriously lazy. ;) As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

My Rating

Worth the Cash: Actually, it almost feels like a "Keeper Shelf." I really, really enjoyed this book. Especially the characters, and I enjoyed it so much that I was tempted to get the sequel written in Cassie's POV before I ever finished reading In the Woods. I held myself back because I knew some people were really unhappy with the way In the Woods ended and I didn't want to end up as one of those people but with the sequel on my hands. That said, I could've bought the sequel and been perfectly happy. This book haunted me, folks. Its ending and resolution is such that after I finished the book, I dreamed about it, my brain making a desperate effort to understand everything and to give me a kind of extended ending. That's kind of cool and kind of creepy, but I was very satisfied with the ending, even though it doesn't wrap the book up in a nice, pretty bow. The ending isn't for readers looking for escapism, or readers who want to see order and justice in every pocket of the world. It's not to say it isn't there on some level, but this book should disturb you on a certain level, for what it says about humanity and its unsolved mysteries. It's a good book with excellent characterization, and I really felt for these guys and wished to hell certain things hadn't happened in the book that were perfectly inevitable. Oh, how it broke my heart. But oh, how satisfying this was. I look forward to French's next book featuring Cassie, which is called The Likeness.

Review style: spoilers, so beware. While reading this I had no desire to flip to the end to spoil myself, and I'm glad for it. So if you have any interest in this book, don't click the link below. It's a MYSTERY for goodness's sakes: why spoil the mystery for yourself?

If you've read it and want to discuss it, feel free to read the full review at my LJ. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)

REVIEW: Tana French's IN THE WOODS

Happy Reading!

ALSO: my 2009 Top Ten list has been posted, along with a giveaway. If you're interested, just click here. That's the link to the giveaway, which contains the link to the top ten list. ;)

ALSO:

Book club selections @ calico_reaction. Hop on over! We'd love to have you!

January: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
February: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

#2: The Chocolate Snowman Murders by Joanna Carl:

I hit the snowman with twenty pounds of chocolate.

Synopsis: She totally did. Then she had to run screaming through the snow like Jason XI: Jason Freezes His Tail Off.

( Life in Warner's Pier isn't much like a box of chocolates at all. )

Hey booklovers! First review ever on this community! woo! It's also my first book read for 2010! yay!



Book: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters
Year: 2009
Pages: 344
Grade: C

Thoughts: I initially grabbed this book as a way to "ease" myself into Jane Austen, as I wasn't sure I would enjoy her work and thought it would be fun to try the "silly" version of the novel. I've been meaning to read some more classics, so Austen was an obvious author to go to (that and I loved the movie adaptation with Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson;etc, so... sue me, haha).

That being said, I found the addition of all the nautical themed jargon to be really irritating and overdone. I wish I had just read the original version instead of going for the collaborative effort. I don't think Winters quite captures (as far as I can tell) the original personalities and traits that Austen had intended for her characters and ends up pushing them into weird situations for the intention of the Sea Monsters sub-plot. Winters' additions to the novel were fairly obvious and mostly distracting within the context of the original story and dialogue.

Overall, the writing was done well enough so I had read a good portion of it before becoming thoroughly annoyed with the Winters' additions. Unfortunately the last half of the book was an extreme effort for me, and I forced myself to get through it. I don't usually force myself to read books (I'll just drop it and move on after a few pages!), but I was just hoping to glean the original work as best as I could from all of Winters' bits. Again, wish I'd just grabbed Austen's original, because I think I would have rather liked it. I won't be picking up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies any time in the near future! :(

I wonder what Borders will report in terms of Holiday season sales?

With credit to Publisher's Weekly here's the B&N numbers.

By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 1/7/2010 7:22:00 AM

Sales for Barnes & Noble’s stores fell 5% over the nine-week holiday period ended January 2, to $1.1 billion, with comparable-store sales decreasing 5.4%. B&N had forecast that sales for the full third quarter, which runs until the end of January, would decline by 1% to 3%, and the company acknowledged that sales for the holiday period were below expectations. CFO Joe Lombardi said customer traffic was down throughout the holiday season, hurt by bad weather in many parts of the country on the weekend before Christmas. Business was strongest the week leading up to the holiday. Sales do not include the college store division.

A bright spot for B&N was the performance of Barnes&Noble.com which had a sales increase of 17% in the period, with revenue reaching $134 million. Barnes&Noble.com sales include sales of the Nook, which the company began recognizing after the product started shipping after Thanksgiving. Lombardi said the company is continuing to fill backorders for the e-reader and still hopes to have Nooks in stores in the next few months.

With holiday comp-store sales coming in lower than expected, B&N reduced its third-quarter earnings guidance to be in a range of $1.20 to $1.40 per share. The company’s previous third quarter earnings guidance was in a range of $1.30 to $1.50 per share.

For those of you who have not read Beautiful Creatures yet, please do not be turned off my the comparisons to Twilight or other "typical" YA supernatural novels floating around out there. This novel deserves the acclaim and fervent fan following it has received in the few short weeks since its publication. Please give it a chance.

Thanks so much, ya'll!

(mods: please feel free to delete if posts such as this are not allowed)

Author: Michael Moorcock
Series: Hawkmoon's incarnation as the Eternal Champion
Genre: Epic Sci-fantasy and Alternate History
Year: 2003
Pages: 646
Rating: B

It breaks my heart to give any work of Michael Moorcock less than an A grade as he is my favourite author.  However I feel that out of all the Eternal Champion books I have read, and at this point I'm only lacking the Cornelius Cycle, that Dorian Hawkmoon is the weakest and least like-able incarnation.  As a whole the book works well, it is worth purchasing and most certainly worth reading.
I also had an epiphanic realization a couple days ago as I was digesting the over-arching theme of the Runestaff cycle.  If the gods had been kind and allowed me to actually have a fourth year at University I would have devoted it to studying the Eternal Champion period.

( cut for spoilers and bitchiness )

I've posted a blog over on my page with my take on the whole issue of shipping the MMs back to the warehouse because the Huffington Post was mean to us, if anyone's interested.

http://book-wench.livejournal.com/17586.html

The Blurb On The Back:

Magic ... Mystery ... Monsters

This is exactly what awaits Jack, Annie and Davey when they are transported back in time to the gothic city of Prague, to search for their missing parents. Trying to avoid capture by the secret police, they find themselves running through dark and dangerous cobbled streets where they meet some very shady characters. But where are their parents? And who has stolen the key to the time machine?

Alchemists, mythical creatures and a man with a hook for a hand hold the answers they’re looking for. Will the daring group be in time to save their parents from the eerie Karlstein Castle? And even if they do, how will they return to the present day without the key?

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

A potentially interesting story is rendered dull by a listless narrative and too many contrivances.

Cross-posted to cool_teen_reads.

It's been a momentous 12 months here at LiveJournal. We crossed a capital T at Ten years young. And, like most precocious pubescents, we celebrated turning double digits by publishing our first book! Needless to say, we've experienced some major changes, both inside and out. Before we recap, we'd like to thank you for bearing with us as we've struggled through ungainly growth spurts, identity pangs, and, yes, the occasional blemish. We hope you'll continue to stand by us: We're gaining wisdom with maturity.

Stuff you liked

• Back in February, we placed a call for entries for our ten-year anniversary anthology in lj_turns10. In December (less than a year later!), we officially announced the publication of Live Journal: The First Decade. Featuring an inspired collection of writing, photographs, and artwork from the pages of LiveJournal history, the book has been selected by Blurb.com as a top staff pick! We are proud to have played host to so much talent over the years, and we thank our contributors for sharing their extraordinary work.
• We all love quirky surprises, but not when it comes to managing our account settings. This year we streamlined settings into one central account management area. No more pouring through FAQs to figure out how to control privacy settings, modify notifications, adjust mobile settings, or update contact information!
• Being users ourselves, we realize our own mothers couldn't find us on LiveJournal based on our usernames and userpics alone (*heaves heavy sigh of relief*). But since there are times when we actually want to be found, we created a search tool--Find Your Friends--to help locate people by email address (it's in the Friends drop-down menu).
• Spam counter-attack: The war against vicious malware and spambots reigns eternal, but we've been making serious inroads to ensure your online security. We've established new protocols, such as requiring email address validations. We've grown more savvy about ferreting out suspicious behavior. We've added features, like whitelisting, to help you protect your communities. Our valiant (i.e., overworked) spam avengers (a/k/a the LiveJournal ops team) are standing on red alert so you can sleep safely at night.
• After an intensive beta, we launched My Guests at the end of the year, which lets you see who's been hanging around your journal. A number of you have even discovered secret admirers (not all of whom are creepy)!
• Last, but by no means least, we want to thank our volunteers for providing invaluable support and feedback. Their Herculean efforts enable us to answer your questions more efficiently, identify spammers, reduce abuse, and deliver better features (through tireless testing). On behalf of the staff and the larger LiveJournal community, we are truly grateful for their diligence, intelligence, loyalty, and passion.

You got your fix

• We recently debugged a number of the oustanding issues with the rich text editor so your entries look great regardless of whether you know html. You can read more about text editors here.
• In response to user demand, we brought back international voice posting. For more info on voice posting, read here.
• At long last, we revived TxtLJ with Verizon. For more info on TxtLJ, check out the FAQ.

Paid features you enjoyed

• In December, we introduced My Stats, which provides detailed data on who's been viewing your entries as well as statistics on commenting, RSS requests, friending history, and more. Despite a few early glitches, the response has been extremely favorable.
• This year, we launched and improved Notes (i.e., the feature formerly known as Alias), which lets you add private comments on friends and commenters (it's in the Profile drop-down menu). This way you won't be caught red-faced when you strain to remember details about that wonderful LiveJournal friend who sent you a birthday vGift. For more info, read the FAQ.
• When we first announced View friends pages by date, we thought it would be a quiet, minor enhancement. The rave reaction floored us, which made us all very happy. We gave it a fine tuning in February of 2009, so it's even better!
• How embarrassing! It appears pingbacks have gone back to the shop for service. We’ll keep you posted. We didn't know just much you liked pingbacks until it went in for service. It's back and, judging by your irritation when it wasn't available, this is good news. FYI, pingbacks send instant notifications (via screened comments) whenever someone links to one of your entries on LiveJournal. For more info, read this entry in paidmembers or check out the FAQ.

Mixed reviews

• The search is still on. Some of you have reported getting more comprehensive results for keyword searches using the new Yandex search engine and like the ability to search within content categories (like entries or comments). Others have not been satisfied with the relevancy of search results. Please be patient. We're still tweaking this product.
• This past December, we wanted to try out a new holiday promotion. Given the crap economy, we decided to offer our Paid/Permanent users a stack of $10 coupons to send to Basic/Plus users for paid account upgrades. We hoped you would like it. And some of you did, but many were disappointed that we didn't offer Give More as well. We want to thank you so much for letting us know. Your input will help us plan better in the future. Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users can continue to send out coupons through January 15th. Coupons can be redeemed through January 31, 2010.
• We were pretty excited about Your Journal Your Money, which allows Paid/Permanent users to earn extra cash by displaying Google ads to Basic/Plus and logged out users. A number of you tried it. Some of you really like it. Others, not so much. (Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users who do not participate in this program will not view ads on journals. Participants will see ads on their own journal, but won't see them on other journals unless they specifically opt in.) For additional details, visit here.
• We relaunched m.livejournal.com, our mobile app. While it offers a nicer UI and enhanced functionality, some of you think we can do better on load times. Like most of us, it's a work in progress. You can customize your mobile settings here. For more info, please read the FAQ.

Missing Inaction

• We shudder to bring up the neon purple elephant squatting on our heads, but, yes, we didn't give you those a la carte userpics. We've been making radical improvements to our backend in order to support them. But no excuses. We know you want them. We cringe every time you mention them. We're sorry we dropped the ball on this, and we promise to do our best to get them to you in 2010.

Stumbling points

• Back in early August, we experienced outages related to a series of DDoS attacks. We are proud to report that we were down a total of one hour over the course of a few days. We thank our heroic ops guys for getting us up sooner and more consistently than any of our less fortunate social networking friends. We apologize for leaving you temporarily stranded.
• A couple of months back, we offered a free, unrestricted vGift, which induced a snowflake cookie avalanche. This resulted in backed up/delayed notifications, which, in turn, led us to reboot systems, rendering scrapbooks unavailable. It took a while to shovel free. Apologies for the inconvenience. We learned a valuable lesson that should keep us calamity-free in the future (fingers crossed while knocking on wood).
• That darn Best Buy ad. First off, we're sorry about the audio auto-play (we got it turned off as quickly as possible). While it's true that we'll continue to show this type of ad to accounts that normally see them (never to Paid/Permanent accounts), we'll make sure the sound defaults to off moving forward. We promise to do our very best to keep ads to a minimum on LiveJournal, while keeping a roof over Frank's head.

Full steam ahead!

As we plunge headfirst into the next decade, we want to take a moment to look back and thank all of our employees, both past and present, who have worked so hard to create our unique and magical universe. We couldn't have made it this far without you: Your contributions brighten our path everyday. We also want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you. Whether you've been around for ten days or ten years, your humor, intelligence, talent, and creativity are what makes this the most vibrant global community on the Internet (the best place on the Web, in our humble opinion). Here's hoping that 2010 will be the greatest year yet! We thank you for joining us as we embark upon another glorious decade of LiveJournal history!

I want to keep track and review all the books I read in 2010, so here are the couple I read yesterday.



I love the Perry Bible Fellowship, so I picked this up at the library, hoping maybe there were a couple I hadn't read before. Unfortunately, the only "extra" strips included hadn't been on the site because people didn't get the punchline, and I am included in that group. Also, re-reading the comics I found that without the surprise of the last panel that comes with the first read, the jokes just seemed weird to me, not to mention bleak. I still understand what I liked the first time, but I don't think I'll be buying the hard copy of this comic... and yet I still want to read the other of his books. Ah well.

3/5

( Walking Dead Vol 1 under the cut. )

Stones from the River
Ursula Hegi
Historical fiction
525 pages

Returning to Burgdorf, the small German community she memorably depicted in Floating in My Mother's Palm, Hegi captures the events and atmosphere in the country prior, during and after WW II. Again she has produced a powerful novel whose chilling candor and resonant moral vision serve a dramatic story. With a sure hand, Hegi evokes the patterns of small-town life, individualized here in dozens of ordinary people who display the German passion for order, obedience and conformity, enforced for centuries by rigid class differences and the strictures of the Catholic church. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, the Zwerg (dwarf) who becomes the town's librarian; (she and most of the other characters figured in the earlier book). A perennial outsider because of her deformity, Trudi exploits her gift for eliciting peoples' secrets--and often maliciously reveals them in suspenseful gossip. But when Hitler ascends to power, she protects those who have been kind to her, including two Jewish families who, despite the efforts of Trudi, her father and a few others, are fated to perish in the Holocaust. Trudi is a complex character, as damaged by her mother's madness and early death as she is by the later circumstances of her life, and she is sometimes cruel, vindictive and vengeful. It is fascinating to watch her mature, as she experiences love and loss and finds wisdom, eventually learning to live with the vast amnesia that grips formerly ardent Nazis after the war. One hopes that Hegi will continue to depict the residents of Burgdorf--Germany in microcosm--thus deepening our understanding of a time and place.

I am so glad that we picked this one for our first book club read of the new year! The only reason that I did not give this book five stars is because it seemed to drag and lag on at the beginning and end of the book. There were times that I found Trudi to be annoying, honestly. However, I do not know how it is to grow up in that time period and to be like her, so I cannot say if her reactions to people/things is wrong, but I don't think she had a heathly outlook on things all of the time. If you are into pre-WWII and holocaust survival stories, then I highly recommend this book. I am now reading another book by Hegi, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in which Trudi plays a minor role.

Stones from the River
Ursula Hegi
Historical fiction
525 pages

Returning to Burgdorf, the small German community she memorably depicted in Floating in My Mother's Palm, Hegi captures the events and atmosphere in the country prior, during and after WW II. Again she has produced a powerful novel whose chilling candor and resonant moral vision serve a dramatic story. With a sure hand, Hegi evokes the patterns of small-town life, individualized here in dozens of ordinary people who display the German passion for order, obedience and conformity, enforced for centuries by rigid class differences and the strictures of the Catholic church. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, the Zwerg (dwarf) who becomes the town's librarian; (she and most of the other characters figured in the earlier book). A perennial outsider because of her deformity, Trudi exploits her gift for eliciting peoples' secrets--and often maliciously reveals them in suspenseful gossip. But when Hitler ascends to power, she protects those who have been kind to her, including two Jewish families who, despite the efforts of Trudi, her father and a few others, are fated to perish in the Holocaust. Trudi is a complex character, as damaged by her mother's madness and early death as she is by the later circumstances of her life, and she is sometimes cruel, vindictive and vengeful. It is fascinating to watch her mature, as she experiences love and loss and finds wisdom, eventually learning to live with the vast amnesia that grips formerly ardent Nazis after the war. One hopes that Hegi will continue to depict the residents of Burgdorf--Germany in microcosm--thus deepening our understanding of a time and place.

I am so glad that we picked this one for our first book club read of the new year! The only reason that I did not give this book five stars is because it seemed to drag and lag on at the beginning and end of the book. There were times that I found Trudi to be annoying, honestly. However, I do not know how it is to grow up in that time period and to be like her, so I cannot say if her reactions to people/things is wrong, but I don't think she had a heathly outlook on things all of the time. If you are into pre-WWII and holocaust survival stories, then I highly recommend this book. I am now reading another book by Hegi, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in which Trudi plays a minor role.

A VISIT TO THE LIBRARY
by Joan Frye Williams (http://www.georgeandjoan.com)
with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore

‘Twas the day before Christmas, all still in the stacks.
Senior staff had already gone home to relax.
The materials nestled all snug on their shelves,
Though we’ve trimmed pages’ hours and can’t afford elves.
( Read more... )

Thanks to all of you who responded yesterday. I have one more favor and then, I promise--tons of discussion about my latest reads.

I read all of your comments and revamped. And I think I have it. Your feedback will once again be very appreciated--be as honest as you can (not that you wouldn't but it makes me feel better to say it). I'm only going to post the paragraph, not the whole letter:

After thirty years onstage, singer Thom Mitchell is burned out; twice divorced, his albums no longer make the top ten on the charts and he’s gone from acceptance speeches at the Grammys to being a trivia question on Jeopardy. Then he meets Joanna Hayes. She pushes his buttons and rocks his world--and he still can't get enough of her. But Thom has a hole in his memory; vague nightmares that are coming back to haunt him. And just as his new romance gives him hope, a local reporter learns about an accident that left one man dead and too many unanswered questions--and puts Thom right in the middle of it all. The front page news sets events in motion that could destroy more than what’s left of his career. There’s someone who wants the past to stay buried and leave no witnesses—and that includes Thom!


Thanks, everyone!

~jesse~

There's a rumor on the finance blogs that Steve Davis was let go today. Anyone know the details?

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_B/threadview?m=tm&bn=2211&tid=25577&mid=25577&tof=2&frt=2

The Big Red Book of the Jew's Brother... the big blue book of Hebrew poetry.

Doing course reserves, again. A book requested is called "poems". Ask the teacher if he has anything more specific than that as there is nothing under the author's name called "poems". He doesn't remember, but it's big and blue.

I don't consider this review to have and spoilers for previous Kitty books, but some people are more sensitive than I am. As a result, it goes under the cut. There are no spoilers for Kitty's House of Horrors.

( Read more... )

Rating: four and a half stars
Length: 292 pages
Source: Mr Paperback
Challenge: this book is not part of any challenges
Similar Books: Stolen by Kelley Armstrong, and of course Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game.
Other books I've read by this author: Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Kitty goes to Washington, Kitty takes a Holiday, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand (my review), Kitty Raises Hell (my review)

xposted to bookish  and temporaryworlds 

Next up I'll be reading Steven Brust's The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars

Hey, everyone. I just got finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera and it was great. The only thing about it that made it frustrating was that there were times where I couldn't help but have to put it down and process everything I just read and then come back. I think that's typical of GGM, however. He always makes me want to go off and comtemplate. Anyway, I'm kind of an impatient reader and for my next book I want to read something a little more fast-paced but not losing the elements that make it a really good story. I've found that some fast-paced novels seem to leave out a few things, you know? I'm especially into unforgettable characters, unique plots, and the whole lot, so I don't want something that skips over much of that. Basically, I'm looking for a real page-turner, something to keep my attention.  I'm honestly not that picky about the genre, I read just about anything.

If anyone can decipher what I'm looking for, I'd be so glad to hear any recommendations. I'm up for anything (as long as it's exciting!)

DM email from late March early April 09, right after the RM regime was beginning to build steam.
http://community.livejournal.com/iworkatborders/413155.html

Hello Leaders,
I am going to beat the dead horse, because I feel the need of explain it again.

Today is a gift. Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery.
We need to do, what we need to do today. We can not let something important for tomorrow.

This e-mail will not motivate you, will not make you feel better and it definitely will tell you exactly what I need from you and will help you decide if you are willing to do what I need you to do or it will tell you several times that it’s time to leave with dignity. I like all of you at a personal level and I even enjoy your company, but I get paid to do a job and I am planning to do it perfectly even if that means working 7 days a week, 24 hours and travelling all the time. But my goal is to start Q2 with the right results, have a GREAT Q3 and the best Q4 in our career.

These are my expectations and standards, but before. I recommend you to print this e-mail and read it carefully because is a long e-mail that will face you with many things that you may not like. Also I will be mentioning GM, because GM is the most important and highest position in the stores, but if you are not a GM. This e-mail is intended for you department and area of responsibility too, either if you are buyer, warehouse mgr or LP.

My expectations and standards are:
1. You need to have flawless execution. I said flawless execution.
2. You need to execute flawlessly and then some, but some will never come before flawless execution.
3. You are the leader of your store. You are. You are. And I expect you to know everything that happens in your store, when you are physically there or and when you are not. And I am talking about everything. Including what item did not arrive. What item was substitute in any table? Everything means everything. Cash office, inventory, café, supplies, food, sales, profit, section maintenance, everything means everything. That is my expectation.
4. I need you to walk your store completely every single day and maybe several times a day. This includes the Café and maybe I should say. Specially the Café! Either if you have an SBC or Borders café. You have to walk your Café every single day.
5. We need to stop blaming other people, corporate or ex-leaders. We are responsible for the status of our stores and we are the ones to blame. No one else. You are. Only you and no one else…
6. I will not accept excuses like: Anne approves it. Bill approves it. Kelly approves it. Or anything likes that. Now is me. Now is Julio and I am seeing the final result of those approval and I am sure that if any of the leaders that approved anything will see what they approved, I am sure that they will unapproved it. From now on is what I say or the highway.
5. You need to walk your store answering these questions every single day and maybe several times in a day:
* Every single table, Floor stack, End cap, and Fixture. Everything needs to be where it is intentionally. Intentionally because YOU analyzed the business and that is the PERFECT place for that. The perfect place.
* You need to ask yourself: If tomorrow will be my very first day opening this store. Grand Opening day. Will I have this (table, endcap, product, item, donut, pencil, table, screen, or whatever) where it is right now? And if the answer is no. Then change it. No exception. No matter how much sense it makes. If the answer is no. If tomorrow will be my grand opening day I will not have this here. Don’t leave it there. Period. Don’t leave it there. Change it immediately.
* You need to ask yourself: what is the message that this table (or whatever it is) is telling my customer? If the answer is not crystal clear. Change it. Change it immediately.
* GM’s need to be able to answer any question without the need of having to call anyone else. That is my expectations. You either own the building or know everything or you’re not. And if you are not. Leave.
(Reply to this)


*you own the store. You! Not me. Not Bill. Not Ron. Not corporate. So please, please, please. Never ever tell me that you are waiting for corporate. Never. You have to start owning the store. And if you know what this means, It means that you should not be where you are. I am not saying that you will not execute and follow directions, I am not saying that, I am not saying that you will take decisions different of the directions that we have in place from corporate. But again. If you don’t understand what I mean, this is a clear message that you need to leave. If you don’t understand that You own the building but you need to execute flawlessly. You are in the wrong position.
* I don’t want to sugar coat everything and I don’t want to hurt feelings or be rude. But the reality is that for some of you and you know who you are. Is time to leave. This is not the Borders that you want. This is not the Borders that you enjoy. It’s really time to leave. Please. Leave. If you are not enjoying what you are doing. It may be time for you to leave. Because this is the career that we choose and we either do it perfectly and flawlessly or don’t do it.
* I can not. I can’t ever repeat the same things again and again. If I tell you to do something about something. My expectations are that you will do it as soon as possible. Preferably before I leave the store or at least before my next visit. If I have to repeat myself, I will do it in a PDR.
* I ask you this. If I was interviewing you because you were unemployed and can not pay your debts, but have the GM experience and I ask you to do this job under the very worst circumstances. Very little payroll. Section movements, High Standards, high expectations, flawless execution, high csi, high borders rewards, low shrink in the store and café, to be the #1 in make items, to be #1 in everything but giving you nothing. Just depending in your GM experience, talents and skills to meet these expectations. Will you take the job? Will you tell me. Julio. You have the right person in front of you! Will you say that? If you will say those words. Please stay, but if you are not willing to do what I need you to do or do not have the experience to do it. Please leave.
* If I was going to ask you. Do you have the talent, experience, knowledge and skills to do all these and spend 10, 12, 14, 16 hours daily to meet those expectations? Will you take the job? Will you? Will you? Please be honest with you. Will you?
* today I had a very nice conversation with a GM and she was telling me that she does not understand how Alex at store 231 make it with the little payroll that he has, the little mgmt structure that he has and she could not believe how beautiful and great was his store on Wednesday and my response was. Because he has to. I have the stores in Puerto Rico with similar volumes as the stores in FL using 200 and 300 hours more than FL and they are always complaining and complaining that they need more payroll. I also remember when the stores used to have 1200 and 1400 hours and the issue was exactly the same. That is why I know that payroll does not fix the problem. Mgmt skills do. An Excellent GM and Leader will have a beautiful store because he or she know that the store represent him or her. An excellent GM does not need a boss. An excellent GM does not needs external motivation.
* I am going to ask you to do things that you will think that I am crazy. That I am out of my mind. But not. On the contrary. It was crazy not to do it before. It is crazy if I don’t tell you that.
* You need to understand that we are in a time that is make it or break it. We either do what we have to do or the economy and the time will make Borders disappear.
* I am not the flavor of the month, Bill is not the flavor of the month, Ron is not the flavor of the month. I am here to stay and change the business, so are Bill and Ron. And you either are with me or need to leave.

* If you are planning to complain to me. Don’t do it. If you are planning on telling me how difficult is the job. Don’t do it. Just leave. I know how hard it is and I also know that if it was easy, Anyone will do it. It was made to be difficult and hard, it was made to do it by leaders with skills and talents. Example: Imagine yourself running a marathon. Imagine that you have to run 26 miles tomorrow. Can you run it? Can you do it? If you train for a year, Can you do it? Maybe not. Because to run a marathon is not just about running, is about enduring, is about training, is about dedication, is about hard work, is about discipline, is about continue running when all your body is telling you that is tired, that can not do it anymore, that it hurts but you continue running anyway until you finish. It’s about having the hearth and personal goal to do it, because you have the talent and skills to do it. It’s not about running, is about a lot more.
* let me tell you something else. I can talk and talk and talk, but if you haven’t understand the message so far. I can talk and talk all day long and you will never understand. I am going to finish saying this: You know who you are. You know if you can make it or not. You know it. Don’t lie to you. Don’t lie to you.

Leave and avoid the part of me letting you go. If you are planning to stay, you only can stay if you do everything I have written so far and then more. A lot more!!! Or please leave.

See you either this week or next week. This message is for all of you. Not just for some of you. But if you feel like you can do everything. Discard this e-mail and go to make money and raise the expectations.

Note: as I said. This e-mail is not intended to be rude, but I need you to face reality and have clear expectations of what I will be asking and expecting from now on and I will not be accepting excuses. But if you feel offended, I am going to ask you: Why? Why do you? Please. Let’s have the conversation and I can tell you why, but that will hurt, because I will be honest with you.
Thanks
____________________________________________________________________________

then there is also this GM letter of resignation from the same time

Caution. It might burn your eyes out;)
(Anonymous)
2009-04-01 09:46 pm (local) (link)
This is my letter of resignation from my position as General Manager of Borders Store effective immediately. Working at Borders for the past twelve years has always been a choice for me, not a necessity. I have an advanced degree in behavior analysis and a professional community that has always wanted me back. I stayed at Borders because I absolutely loved the challenge of it. There was never a moment to be caught up, never a moment where you could rest on your laurels, never a moment when you could stop trying to grow the store.
However, I find myself in a position where I must leave. And it is not because the challenge is too great or the work is too difficult. I am leaving because both of you have created such a negative, hostile, and intimidating work environment, that I would have to have the mentality of a battered woman to stay. And I choose to no longer subject myself to the hostility that hits my e-mail regularly as exemplified by Julio’s e-mail below, dated 3/20/09 (these are my expectations…). That e-mail clearly demonstrates the lack of professionalism and hostility that makes this job untenable.
Bill, you seem to think of yourself as a great leader and you tell stories about your former managers and how many bathrobes they were able to sell. (And by the way, I wonder how many they are selling now.) But great leaders inspire, and they inform, and they allow two way communication, and even a little dissension – as well as crack the whip - because that is the only way to create teams and solve problems. Your do it or else style, and incessant quoting, may be management - albeit poor management - but it is not leadership.
And Julio, you have some of the strongest GM’s a district could have. And yet you belittle them and barrage them daily with e-mails full of vitriol and you act surprised when they perform well. You are a bully. And you should be ashamed.
Furthermore, you must realize that as long as you manage by the numbers and not the assessment of true talent, you are painting targets on your own backs. Because who needs high paid management when any clerk can look at a zone report? Who needs high paid management when any clerk can cross check a planogram? With your dearth of ideas or solutions, you have to rubber stamp any legitimate concern as an excuse. And that’s the ultimate defense position of person without answers.
The absurdity of it all is that you both know that the perfect execution of FOS tables, to the excruciating detail of book 32 being in slot 32, is going to hinder sales, not increase them. And you know that the focus on the sale of two titles, often to the exclusion of any others, is going to hinder sales, not increase them. This company is struggling, and yet like good little soldiers, you insist on executing initiatives that are counterproductive to its survival. You are like the ministers in the Emperor’s New Clothes. The Emperor is naked, but for fear of appearing incompetent, you fawn all over his imaginary new wardrobe.
I fully realize that this e-mail is burning bridges, but I have to tell you that you both created a bridge I would never want to walk across again in my life. There are thousands of dedicated, wonderful employees in your midst. I hope you can find some measured way to achieve your goals and still value them and treat them with basic decency and respect.
Carol

Borders Books, in general, has become a rotten place to work! But it isn't simply the Corporate schlubs dreaming up & implementing asinine schemes who've brought it to such a low ebb. The static whiners who can't function under adversity, and who act out their displeasure of the Corporate schlubs in childish ways are the ones doing the greatest damage.

I'll try not to generalize, because I know that much of my opinion certainly does not apply to you, reader.

My store is riddled with complainers who adamantly refuse to adapt to change. They shut down, mope, even vandalize the backroom, lunchroom, and employee bathroom. They're mad, boo hoo, because yaddayaddayadda... FIND ANOTHER JOB! Or make a positive difference in the one you have now.

My store is in disgusting condition. "Well, mr. smartypants Pillbox07, the cleaning crew hours have been obliterated." No kidding. Do you KNOW how long it takes to change all 4 garbage cans along the register banks between 9am and 9:07am, when there are hardly 10 customers in the store? Have you any guess as to the length of time it takes for an info shifted person to walk the floor with a small bag picking up litter from the previous day's traffic during that same early morning epoch? Somebody can't wipe the windows when no one's around? The staff at my store finds that the cleaning crew is slashed and they mope, and shut down, and WALK OVER A SCRAP OF PAPER on the sales floor rather than picking it up as they go.

Stores don't look shoddy because of cut hours, they do so because of static complainers who can't handle adversity. Our breakroom is gross, not because of Corporate idiocy or golden parachutes, it's because Sally Sulks can't clean up after herself. And you don't want to hear the bathroom anecdotes.

People act like moving on is such an admirable thing... YAY! I QUIT!... Well, the bitchiest man I ever did know left the company, and I for one cheered loudly: "Hooray for US! It sucked working with that guy!"

I understand frustration, and I DON'T think the Corporate Yahoos we have are the best in the biz. But Good Lord! Take pride in yourself so as to have a positive impact, and help your colleagues and STORE by doing the little, considerate, OBVIOUS things, or get the fuck out. It's that simple. Stop whining, and just GO.

I work at Borders. I don't like a fair share of the current policies, but at the very least, if the assholes I work with (Note: not everyone I work with are assholes, just the assholes are the assholes)... if the assholes I work with at my store would stop bitching and just adapt to the changes then we'd all be able to actually have good days at work, instead of having to navigate childish bullshit shift to shift, day to day.

Ventedly Yours,
PB

Westerns are not something that I really read, but my brother has made a request for one. He wants something fast paced and modern. There was a cartoon called Trigun that was a sort of science fiction futuristic story. He liked that alot and if you can think of anything set in the future that somehow still qualifies as a western I would greatly appreciate it. Anything you can think of would be helpful!

 I've tried Interview with a vampire by Anne Rice and found that it wasn't to my taste.

Anyone have any other books in mind?

I don't care if it's gory.

This is going to be a curious review for me. I want to begin by saying: I have not finished reading this book. There are good reasons for this.

The first is: I’m not too big on history. I need a lot of context for my historical facts otherwise, try as hard as I might I forget everything I hear or read. That’s not say I don’t like history--I like it quite a bit--I just need to get it in small doses. The second is: Thomas Asbridge’s The First Crusade: A New History is not particularly dry or boring, it’s actually really fascinating and easier for me to read than a textbook (of the historical variety); it puts things in context. Historical figures are put into roles as characters, given motives and backstories, there are maps, illustrations, and full color photo panels of medieval artwork and modern day buildings that were once pivotal during the Crusades. It’s not quite an historical fiction novel, but I’m invested in the text anyway.

If this were a historical fiction novel I can promise you I’d be finished by now. Since it isn’t, I think I’ll continue reading it as I have been: in small doses when I get the chance and not all in one go. I really want to understand the facts and research Asbridge has worked so hard to put together. Plowing through this would be unfair to the history and do an injustice to why I wanted to read it in the first place: to learn.

( Read the rest! )

I didn't ask the mod beforehand. I'm sorry for this.

Today a new community was created: 2ndhand_books . This is a community for secondhand bookshops all over the world, put simply: if you know about an awesome secondhand bookshop, tell the rest of us about it! 

The idea came to life when I searched LJ communities for a community like this, and found none. It is really helpful to have a place to ask or look up shops when you want to travel to a new place and check out some secondhand shops - not all are easily found and I know for sure if I wander around I'll miss half of them. So here it is, 2ndhand_books , the community for spreading the love of secondhand bookshops! I hope you want to join us and contribute. :)

with lots of love and book enthusiasm
your loving mods at 2ndhand_books ;
nerak_rose  and katanabutch 

Hello, I've never read a book written by Terry Pratchett, but I've heard enough about him to be interested. Do you have any good recs? I don't have the time to start on a long series(but if it's REALLY worth it rec anyway! ;D), so does he have some good standalone books?

Thank you very much for any help! :)

Just posted Review: Evidence of Angels by Suza Scalora

I'm in the process of rewriting my query letter for my latest novel--after having someone tell me that the original was a bit boring and needed some oomph. I was hoping that I could get some readers to look at this and tell me what you think--does it pique your interest? is there something in there that pops and makes you think, "oh, that sounds interesting (or different or what have you)." If you were an agent or publisher, would you want to read the sample chapters or more of the manuscript?

Please be as honest as you can. This is really important for me. And thank you so much in advance for your time.



Dear (agent name) :

Shakespeare once wrote that the "course of true love never did run smooth." Singer Thom Mitchell would be the first to say that the course of true love was probably a black diamond trail.

After thirty years onstage, Mitchell is burned out, his albums no longer sell, and he’s facing life as a trivia question on Jeopardy. Then he meets Joanna Hayes and it’s hate at first sight. Jo is independent, quick witted, and everything he is not looking for in a woman. She finds this pop star quirky and complicated, and getting to know him raises more questions than answers. But when she asks the questions, he just smiles, shrugs, and changes the subject. Because Thom doesn’t fully remember what happened on a night, twenty years ago; and the two people that do remember are keeping a secret that changed his life and hurt others around him.

But secrets can’t stay hidden forever and the truth could ruin Thom. All Jo can do is hold his hand and support him; which puts her in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thom and Jo find themselves running from a trusted friend who’s bent on burying the truth—and the witnesses—on the ultimate black diamond trail, Wilde Mountain.

I would like to submit my 143,275 word romance/suspense novel, Wilde Mountain Time for representation. I am enclosing as a sample of the novel. If you are interested, I can send the completed, polished manuscript to you at your earliest convenience.

My latest novel, A Wager of Blood, was published through LBF Books, an imprint of Lachesis Publishing. I was a contributing writer for Writers Post Journal and Venus Envy magazines. I have worked as an acquisition editor for LBF Books as well as a copy editor for Seven Seas Entertainment, Eternity Press, Moongypsy Press, and Johnston Journals, publisher of Writers Post Journal and Venus Envy magazines. I am currently the Literary Examiner for an online news agency, Examiner.com, the Lexington affiliate. I am a member of ASCAP, the Erotic Authors Association, and the International Order of Horror Professionals.

I can be reached by cell at 859-XXX-XXXX, by phone at 859-XXX-XXXX, and by email at theauthor@insightbb.com. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
(my name)


~jesse~

The link below is to a thread on The Consumerist. It was posted anonymously on another thread and I thought it deserved its own. The comments are great. We get to hear consumer reactions to the private inner hell that only Borders employees like us get to live through every day. Enjoy!

http://consumerist.com/2010/01/borders-zone-crushes-employee-morale-to-sell-copies-of-piano-teacher.html

THAT IS NOT AN "F". AN "F" IS NOT LOWER THAN AN "e"!

Yes, I have started the spring reserves.

Can you tell?

Dear Pamphlet-Collecting Mofos of Earlier Eras --

      I know it's much easier to shelve one nicely hard-bound volume than a series of flimsy eight-leaf screeds, and that such screeds are seldom published in uniform sizes, but can you please, please, PLEASE remind your binder not to cut off the imprint information at the foot of the title leaf when s/he trims it down.

      Thank you.

Sincerely,
nebroadwe
(the rare books cataloger awash in a sea of anonymized religious propaganda)

Dear Protestant Reformers and Catholic Counter-Reformers,

      STOP. WRITING. Or I swear I will borrow a TARDIS, round you all up, and lock you in a basement beneath Augsburg so that you can martyr each other. I'm not kidding. Last man standing determines the course of Western Christendom, and nobody has to falsify an imprint to escape persecution ever again.

Sincerely,
nebroadwe
(the rare books cataloger who probably shouldn't be permitted to time travel)

How is your store faring with the Big Bomb RPL? Are you being held to hitting 75% by the end of this week? Is that reasonable? Will you make it? We got extra hours and had one overnight, but we probably won't hit 75%. And staff are worried what will happen to them if they don't meet this large goal. It hit me that what's being demanded is 3 week's worth of work in one week. One overnight didnt get us very far since our store is a mess and we cant navigate in our backroom.

How are the rest of you doing with this?

Hello, booklovers. I have a feeling that mine is not an altogether right way of stepping here, but I do need some help from people who might be willing to provide it.
The thing is I have written a book. Yes, yes, I’m laughing myself. Nonetheless, please, do save your sense of humour for when you start reading it. Being a self-publishing writer, however – atrociously sad world, this one! – I am currently looking for several volunteers to proofread what my insolence considers as a work a merit. Don’t let the word “proofreading” scare you though. I don’t mean ‘editing’ it professionally, just seeing that the wording is in conformity with standard British English. I’ve got to tell you up front that, although my English is fluent enough, it is not my mother tongue. Hence this appeal for help. Otherwise, I would not bother anyone with it.
I hope my appeal does not hurt anybody’s feelings. If it does, I do sincerely apologise.
For the same reason of being a self-publishing comrade, the only remuneration I am able to offer will be a free copy of the book along with your name in its Special Thanks list. Not very much, I know. I would LOVE to pay for proofing services, but self-publishing means you put your money into having your work published, but you very seldom make profits. I haven’t been one of those lucky guys.
If you’re curious, intrigued and tickled by any other feeling, you are more than welcome to visit the homepage of the future book, ‘The Red Britain Chronicles, or 4891: Comrade Cat, the Macho Axe Effect and the Human Gramophone’ at
http://sites.google.com/site/theredbritainchronicles/
where you can read sample chapters hereof and decide if you’d be tempted by my unappealing offer, or not really. I would even go as far as advising you to get acquainted with the sample chapters in the first place so that, one day soon, you do not find yourselves wondering how you could have accepted to proof a book which is poor or not exactly to your taste.
British English as your mother tongue would be sort of a plus in my case. (apologies if I sound in any way condescending or arrogant - I did not mean to sound this way at all!!!!!!!) Thank you for your patience and attention! And an excellent day to everyone!
Alexander
ps. May I ask you to respond to this post by sending me a private message (or ideally reply to my email - theredbritainchronicles@gmail.com ), instead of posting comments? I haven’t figured out yet how I can follow posts on this site. Thank you!

If you have read it, is it good or bad?

A show with some original content! Hopefully t’will become a reacurring occurance should we somehow become not lazy. Included within is an attempt at a sketch and a stab at a rap song. Maybe you will like it more than our talking! Maybe you will like it less! Maybe you will like it all equally (not at all)! The only way to find out is to listen here.

And below:
"[Idle Hour's] wrong when it's right. It's black and it's white. We fight, we break up. We kiss, we make up." - Katy Perry

O I forbid you, maidens a',
That wear gowd on your hair
To come or gae by Carterhaugh
For young Tam Lin is there.

Janet has just begun her first term at Blackstock College. After becoming acquainted with her roommates, she quickly finds herself falling in love with both the great literature she studies, and the charismatic Nick Tooley. Janet enjoys her time at college but can't help but feel that some things are a little strange. Her dorm room is haunted by a ghost that throws textbooks out of the window every Halloween, and there's something strange about the classics department, especially department head, Professor Medeous.

Tam Lin, a retelling of the Scottish ballad of the same name, is a book that has been recommended to me since high school. I didn't pick it up until now due to the range of opinions I've heard. Many people label Tam Lin as their favorite book, but there are plenty of people that couldn't finish it. After finally reading it myself, I can understand why some people may not like it. After all, it's a very irregular fantasy. If you're looking for a fast paced adventure filled with magic, this may not be for you. The pacing is rather slow, and the fantasy elements don't really kick in until the last fifty pages of the book. The majority of the novel is spent focusing on college life in the 1970s, and the inevitable relationship dramas that occur in a dorm setting. As a result, it's not a book for everyone.

That said, I found it to be quite enjoyable. For the most part, I didn't mind the slower pacing due to all of the neat foreshadowing sprinkled among the story. I connected with the college storyline quite well. Upon being introduced to Janet, who arrives at school with dozens of fantasy books and has to deal with the being suddenly attractive to boys, I immediately made a connection with my own freshman college experience. I could relate to her quite well, despite the fact that she was rather moody (granted, I probably wasn't much better at 18). At the same time, some of the elements did seem a little off to me. I enjoyed picking up on all of the Shakespeare references, but I don't know too many 18 to 21-year-olds that can quote dozens of quotes from Shakespeare, Keats, Milton, Homer, and other writers from memory. Although it made sense for two of the characters, I had a hard time buying into it for the rest of the cast.

Tam Lin is a book that really sucked me in. I found I spent a lot of time thinking about the story, when I wasn't reading it, and I even dreamed about the characters a little. The book was not perfect, but it's still something I enjoyed. For those looking for a slower paced fantasy novel that's very light on the fantasy, it would be a good book to look into.

Rating: four stars
Length: 468 pages
Source: Lewiston Public Library
Challenges: This book is part of the 2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge
Similar Books: Tam Lin is part of Terri Windling's Fairy Tale Series, which also includes Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C Wrede (my review). Another solid retelling of Tam Lin would be Fire and Hemlock by Diane Wynne Jones.

Looking for more books about faeires? Check out my new column five on the fifth, over at temporaryworlds for my recommendations and to share your own!

Next up is Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn!

xposted to bookish  and temporaryworlds 

Title: Sisters
By Danelle Steel
Pages: 352
Rating: C
Summary: Four sisters, a Manhattan brownstone, and a tumultuous year of loss and courage are at the heart of Danielle Steel’s new novel about a remarkable family, a stunning tragedy—and what happens when four very different young women come together under one very lively roof

My Thoughts: ( Read more... )

Well, not much of a mofo. Perhaps more of a headscratcher. Because....what else can one do but ponder the internal logic of somebody who comes into the library without their membership card, or any other form identification, and still expects to borrow books?

This lady's justification was that she'd just returned the previous lot of books she'd borrowed - wasn't that enough to prove who she was? Uhhhh.....no. Believe me, madam, I am in no way trying to impugn your good character. But - lets face it - those books could be anybody's. You could be returning them for your mother. Your neighbour. Hell. They could be your best friend's hairdresser's aunty's dog walker's books for all we know.

Cue big whine about how she doesn't have her card with her because she left her purse in her car. We offer to hold onto the books for her while she goes and gets it. Cue even bigger whine about how hot it is outside, and surely we don't expect her to walk all the way to her car and then all the way back again. She never actually divulged how far away it was parked but by the sounds it? Somewhere in Outer Mongolia.

So, eventually, she realised we weren't going to budge, and flounced out. Didn't come back. Perhaps I should feel guilty about inflicting such a shocking injustice but....eh. I'm sure I'll get over it.

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris is the second book in her best-selling series The Southern Vampire Mysteries. This novel focusses on two serperate mysteries -a murder in Bon Temps and the dissapearance of a vampire in Dallas. ( Read more... )

Okay, where do I begin?

I know this is not the famous graphic novel. They misleadingly market this novelization of the film to appear to be a novel based off the graphic novel. It is not. It's a novel based off the film script. Well, okay. I figured I could like it for what it was...

In regard to the film, when the making of footage shows the director of film (which was based off a graphic novel with the intention of getting young people interested in reading the classics again) goes out of his way tell you 'The characters in this movie are from these huge, archaic books I never read so I found a writer that at least read some of them.' That's the first warning sign that a film is in trouble.


( M for Mediocre at best )

This isn't actually brought on by the recent movie--I read through all the Sherlock stories last year, and since then I've been trying to track down other Sherlock stories.

I love Laurie King's Mary Russel series, and I've also read L.B. Greenwood's Case of Sabina Hall and Thistle of Scotland books, the Enola Holmes YA series, and am about to read Caleb Carr's The Italian Secretary and Michael Hodel's Enter the Lion: A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes.

Are there many more books I can find, or am I exhausting my resources? I'm looking for anything--as you can see, I don't mind if it's not just focused on Holmes. It could be a new character (as in Mary Russell or Enola Holmes) or any other character from Holmes canon, I'm looking for anything Holmes-related. <sub>Or fanfiction, if you've got something good to rec.

//Wow, so many recs! Thanks so much, I'm thrilled to be able to add more to my reading list! If anyone has more suggestions, please don't hesitate to tell me!</sub>

I think I understand why I don’t like the Darth Bane books and why I didn’t like The Force Unleashed as much as I could have. Both have Sith as protagonists. Sith have massive egos. I don’t particularly like massive egos. I’m also tired of reading about the “best” pilot/apprentice/whatever who did everything phenomenally well in their careers, did it early, and are infinitely better than their peers, past and present. What happened to slightly above average, average, or even really below average protagonists?

I’ll tell you why these massively huge, uncontrollable egos bother me. A character can boast all they want or simmer under the surface with barely contained self-love and admiration, preen themselves flailing a weapon around and showing off to their underlings or other, less worthy souls, but they still wind up getting killed in the lamest, most easy way ever. Are Sith really supposed to be this two dimensional? I don’t think I’ve ever read an in-depth study of any Sith, other than Anakin; the star of the Prequel Trilogy had his psyche picked apart so we could have the movies in the first place. Jacen Solo’s recent dive into the Dark Side was enough to provoke my desires for him to finally do something as a character. I was impressed with his transformation, but ultimately was left feeling like Sith are boring for a reason: they’re single-minded ego-maniacs with anger management issues. There’s only so much repetition of the same archetype I can take before my brain says, “no more."

( Read the  rest! )

Just posted Review: The Cold Kiss of Death by Suzanne McLeod

Rating: 3/5 stars
Pages: 352 pages

Summary:  Bianca wants to escape. She's been uprooted from her small hometown and enrolled at Evernight Academy, an eerie Gothic boarding school where the students are somehow too perfect: smart, sleek, and almost predatory. Bianca knows she doesn't fit in.

Then she meets Lucas. He's not the "Evernight type" either, and he likes it that way. Lucas ignores the rules, stands up to the snobs, and warns Bianca to be careful—even when it comes to caring about him. But the connection between Bianca and Lucas can't be denied. Bianca will risk anything to be with Lucas, but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart . . . and to make Bianca question everything she's ever believed.

Thoughts: Let me start off by saying there was a point, just about half way through the book, when I was ready to write a five star review.  ( read the rest of my review here )