Category Archives: news

Guest review on Jawas Read, Too! & WordPress feed hiccups

Posted on by
Reply

Over at the awesome speculative fiction book blog,  Jawas Read, Too! is the (relatively) new  Book Uno feature:

The Rules

Player 1 reads a book and picks a item (type of character, setting, genre, relationship, etc…) from that book which will be the theme (or criteria) for Player 2 to use in choosing the next book in the game. Player 2 chooses a book that matches the theme chosen by Player 1 and reviews it.  Players choose themes for each other, not specific books.

I was delighted to play. My challenge was to read a book in the speculative fiction genre with a  “female protagonist”.  I reviewed:

Please head on over, see what I thought about it (hint: ♥♥♥!!)  and leave some comment love!

wordpresss feedA Note about the WordPress feed:

If you noticed weirdness this weekend where the wordpress feed was posting really old posts (dated 2009) or anything like that, I’m sorry.

I’ve been losing my mind trying to make sure that all the book cover images that were hosted on vox, which is going down at the end of this month (aka Thursday), would be hosted on janicu.wordpress.com. Of course 3 years of posts is a lot.  There was no easy way to do this automatically (I found out after 3 weeks of trial and error and emails to support). In the end the “simplest” way was to import all of vox over here, and since this wordpress has mirrored my vox blog since April 2009, there was overlap. This past weekend I manually edited about a year and 5 months of posts to fix the overlap. Weird feed hiccups was the result.

That was also why I was rather slow in replying to comments. I was just slogging through editing approximately 240 posts. But it’s done now, and I’ve come out relatively sane.  *knock on wood*. 😉

Now I just have to update my review index. And figure out what to do about the vox images on the livejournal mirror. Ahhhh!!

Book Blogger Appreciation Week: First Treasure

Posted on by
10

Book Blogger Appreciation Week has started! If you are a book blogger, even if you didn’t nominate yourself for any awards, you can participate in giveaways and in the memes. The theme this year is A Treasure Chest of Infinite Books and Infinite Blogs, and every day there is a topic related to this theme.

Monday’s topic is First Treasure:

For those of you who participated in BBAW last year, what’s a great new book blog you’ve discovered since last year’s BBAW?
For those you new to BBAW, what was the first book blog you discovered?

While I’ve known about BBAW and mentioned it in this blog, I don’t think I really participated in it except to vote. So I guess I’m new to BBAW. The first blog I discovered.. um.. I recall stumbling upon someone’s website that was specifically about speculative fiction written by women. It was luna-cat.net. I lurved this website! I think that was back in the day (in 2002 or something) when I mostly relied on Amazon for reviews, and I wanted to find out about books in SF written by women. This website isn’t technically a blog though, but I did like the way she categorized the books: Strange Worlds,  Warrior Women & Assassins, Women of Magic & Power, to name a few. This website hasn’t been updated in a while, but it’s still there and I still look at it from time to time.

The first blog I stumbled onto was actually Romantic SF & Fantasy Novels. This was a blog/website where a group of readers in a discussion board read books and wrote quick reviews and either recommended or discommended them. One of the readers (Preeti) compiled the reviews and put it up on a website. Sadly this blog hasn’t been updated in a LONG time, although Preeti is on twitter now (I got a serious thrill when I found her there *stalker big fan aura*).  I still pay attention to Preeti’s recs via twitter. I was attracted to this blog because there were a lot of reviews of books by SF female authors, but I stayed because I really trusted their reviews and I really liked that there were recommends/discommends on one book from multiple people. Even now I sometimes check if an older book was reviewed over there (their review page has who recommends and who discommends all in one page! It’s extremely handy).

I think after that I meandered over to romance blogs (Dear Author was a big one), and then I was reading a few urban fantasy blogs, and then a bunch of YA ones started showing up on my radar. Now I have 243 subscriptions on my google reader (“Since April 20, 2007 you have read a total of 62,095 items”)  and then a bunch of blogs on livejournal I read via my friends page.  😀

Book Blogger Appreciation Week

Posted on by
8

Well BBAW is gearing up again! If you know know what it is, this is what it says in the about page on the Book Blogger Appreciation Week website:

Book Blogger Appreciation was started by Amy Riley of My Friend Amy in an effort to recognize the hard work and contribution of book bloggers to the promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading.

The first Book Blogger Appreciation was observed in the fall of 2008 and occurs every September. The week spotlights and celebrates the work of active book bloggers through guest posts, awards, giveaways, and community activities. Book Bloggers are encouraged to register their participation for inclusion in a database of book bloggers.

They changed the nomination process this year so that blogs can nominate themselves for awards. It feels rather presumptuous to enter myself for anything, but after mulling it over for a while, I think it would be fun.  It would be nice to find some new blogs and be found by others.

I’m registering and also nominating this blog for best SF blog. Since janicu’s book blog is mirrored in three different platforms (wordpress, livejournal and vox), I’m just linking to the wordpress posts for the SF category.

Doubleblind by Ann Aguirre (review)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (review)
The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia (review)
Pet Peeves – Monster Mashups
First Impressions of the B&N Nook

Audiobooks and the nook

Posted on by
11

I’ve been listening to the Suite Scarlett audiobook on my rides back and forth to work (review forthcoming).

On Audiobooks:

  • I like listening to audiobooks! This was my first one. I don’t know why I haven’t been listening to audiobooks before (Oh.. .maybe because my car only has a CD player and I have no idea where my Ipod is).
  • I can get into the story pretty well, but  think my concentration on the story isn’t as good when I get it aurally versus visually.  Maybe it’s because I don’t re-listen to a passage the way I reread passages. A problem when you’re driving and can’t rewind.
  • The other problem I have is that the narrator really makes or breaks a story. Their inflections and emphasis can change the interpretation, especially when a character is speaking. I would have imagined how certain characters spoke differently. It also felt odd to have a female narrator do male voices. Why don’t they just bring in a male narrator for those parts? Do they? Since I’ve only listened to the one, I don’t know if what’s normal and what’s not.

On Audiobooks & the Nook:

  • It’s very easy to put the audiobook into the nook. This audiobook is an MP3 CD and what I basically did was copy over the files from the CD onto the “my audiobooks” folder in the nook via my computer and the USB cable. I haven’t bought an audiobook from B&N yet so I don’t know how different that would be.
  • The sound is much better in the car when you have headphones on, but it’s illegal to do this while driving. I tried this when my husband was driving and found it pretty good,  as long as someone does not have the radio going at the same time.
  • The sound is pretty good – not tinny like my netbook speakers, and the volume is a decent level. The nook has a good volume when you are indoors, but if you are driving, it should be at the highest level or it will be drowned out by the sound of the road. Even then it’s hard to hear. I also have to have it pretty close to me (like on my lap) to hear it. My husband isn’t a fan of this if I’m driving, so now it’s in the bin between the 2 front seats with the speakers pointed towards me (in other words. the nook is upside down).
  • NEVER turn on the nook or do any adjusting while driving! I always do this parked and then when everything is playing at the volume I want from the point I want, I drive.
  • I would be happier if I had some mini speakers or something that used the headphone jack from the nook and was a louder volume that what I can get from it, just for the car. I’ve been eying these $20 mini passive speakers from Sony, but I’ve been told they probably won’t be louder than the ones on the nook, so I’m looking for some speakers that can plug into the car’s AC socket.
  • If I listen to the nook in the morning, then turn it on later in the day, it has saved my spot in the audiobook. I love this. However, if I am checking something else out in the nook or I wait long enough so the nook is truly powered off, it does NOT save my spot and I have to search for it. This would be a pain if I had a bad memory of what chapter I was on (so far I am pretty good about remembering what around what Chapter I was on).
  • If I listen to audiobooks on the nook, the nook plays them and sort of goes into a standby state. So I have to hit the power button to be able to use it’s touchscreen again and pause the audiobook. This seems to save battery and I’ve listened to the audiobook for 4-5 hour stretches without recharging the nook.

Other nook related news:

A couple of things I’m looking forward to…

Posted on by
1

Aisha.

Meet Delhi's Emma
Meet Delhi’s Emma


This is a Bollywood movie which is a modern day remake of Emma by Jane Austen. So it’s like an Indian Clueless (and if you follow this blog, you know that modern-day Jane Austen remakes = my weakness). The part of Emma, now Aisha Kapoor, is played by Sonam Kapoor, and Mr Knightley is now Arjun Barman, played by Abhay Deol. Aisha is an upper class Delhi girl who wears trendy, girly clothes and meddles in other people’s love lives. This is the synopsis from Wikipedia:

“Aisha is a girl with a simple dikat(problem) – everyone’s business is her business. Arjun is a boy with even a simpler set of beliefs – Aisha should mind her own business. Caught in the Delhi upper class world with its own set of social rules, Aisha navigates her world with a great sense of style and even greater optimism. Caught in her web are her best friend Pinky, the small town girl Shefali, the west Delhi boy Randhir and the hunk Dhruv. Aisha will make sure everyone dances to her tune. And all Arjun wants to do is disentangle that web and get Aisha out of an impending sticky mess. Who will succeed and who will succumb? Welcome to Aisha’s fabulous world where playing cupid is as easy as 123…if only that Arjun would stay out of her way!”

This movie comes out August 6th. I NEED to see this! It looks very girly and I’m ok with that. The only problem is that it’s not in English, but I will find a way.

——————————————————————————-

Masques and Wolfsbane.

I’m so happy that Masques is being reissued. I believe it’s Patricia Briggs’ first published novel (originally published in 1993), but it’s out of print and hard to find. People are selling it for over $140! Now, I like Briggs, but I won’t pay $140… Luckily, Briggs has become so popular that it makes sense to republish her backlist – Masques comes out this September 28th:

After an upbringing of proper behavior and oppressive expectations, Aralorn fled her noble birthright for a life of adventure as a mercenary spy. Her latest mission involves spying on the increasingly powerful sorcerer Geoffrey ae’Magi. But in a war against an enemy armed with the powers of illusion, how do you know who the true enemy is-or where he will strike next?

What’s even better is that I discovered through the lovely Angieville, that the sequel to Masques, Wolfsbane, is being published this year as well (November 2nd)! YESSS. I’m vibrating with glee right now.

MasquesWolfsbane

Helping Nashville Schools – please pass this information along

Posted on by
Reply

Rebecca Brothers of Reader with a Capital R announced at the Book Blogger Convention that she wanted to help Nashville schools after the flooding there. There is an organization called Pencil Foundation, which links “community resources of both volunteers and materials with Metro Nashville Public Schools.”

The Pencil Foundation:
The Pencil Foundation has a school supply program. Rebecca describes it thus:

“Community businesses donate their unneeded office supplies, old letterhead, gently used office machines, surplus products, and brand new school supplies to the foundation’s “store”. Teachers from Nashville Metro Public Schools are allowed to make an appointment to “shop” there twice per school year (all items are free to teachers).”

Sadly this store suffered water damage during the recent Nashville flooding and over 2000 books were destroyed.

How people can help:
The Pencil Foundation is asking for donations so that they can hold a book fair in October, where they let schoolteachers take 30 books for their kids. Last year they gave away 6000 books in a day. You can donate books, your time, or plastic storage bins and shelving. If you are interested in donating our time or storage, Rebecca explains it further on her blog here. Since I know most people will probably find it easiest to send books, this is what they’re looking for (This is also taken from Rebecca’s blog):

Children’s books: board books, pre-school books, flap books, activity (coloring, sticker) books, picture books, young readers, beginning readers, children’s and young adult chapter books, and high school materials. Their most pressing needs are for books struggling readers at the elementary and middle school level can enjoy. High interest non-fiction books are as welcome as fiction. Many students are reading below grade level or are English Language Learners. Books in Spanish would also be greatly welcome. New or used books are great. As Ulli said, “A book can have many lives and last many years.”

This is the mailing address to send these books:
LP PENCIL Box at McCann ALC
1300 56th Ave North
Nashville, TN 37209

I’ve also made some buttons for this so you can put them on you sidebar or website. They link to Rebecca’s blog post 🙂





First impressions of the B&N nook

Posted on by
9

My birthday was last week, and because I’ve been hinting heavily since December, my husband got me a nook. I also got this t-shirt.

So far I’m really happy with it.

Opening the nook packaging:
OK – this was the hardest part of setting up the nook. There’s a cardboard slipcover over a clear plastic box housing the nook and it was EXTREMELY difficult to get off. Two people were needed to take that slipcover off, and I was about to KILL my husband for putting it back on afterwards. Then once the slipcover was off there were 5 steps in actually getting the nook out of it’s plastic case. It looked very pretty and everything, but 5 steps? Kind of ridiculous.

I really do like the design though. Reminds me of Apple’s products with the white, glossy nook and it’s white, soft rubber-covered USB cord which can be attached to a computer or to a plug for an outlet. Very 2010. The packaging of all the accessories also reflects that.

Navigating the nook:
There are very little instructions that come with the nook. The nook itself has a “Nook tour” and “Nook User Guide” which is in the “My Library” section of the main menu (it’s under My Documents). This is probably so B&N can update it along with a software update, which I thought was a good idea but it assumes you can figure out where the “Nook tour” is.

So far these are the menu choices when you are at the main menu:
1) The daily – software updates plus subscriptions to barnes and noble feeds
2) My library – your ebooks. I only uploaded 5 ebooks so far. They’re all under “My Documents” since I copied them onto the nook via the USB, not by buying them through B&N. So I don’t see their covers on the touch screen or on the “view MY B&N library”
3) Shop – takes you to the B&N bookstore
4) Reading now – takes you to the last page of the last ebook you had open. Love this.
5) Games – now chess and sudoku (I’m so addicted to the sudoku, even though I suck at it and can only do the easy)
6) Wi-fi – use to set up your wi-fi and turn airplane mode on and off
7) Audio – mp3s & I’m guessing audiobooks (I will let you know how this one goes).
8 ) Web (beta) – lets you surf the web (more on that below)
9) Settings – add contacts, edit your profile, register your nook, select wallpapers/screensavers, clock settings, wi-fi


Software Updates:
Back in March (I think), I went to play with a display nook and talked to a Barnes and Noble employee about the device.  She had told me that certain features like reading books in the store and page refreshing would be better in the “newer version” that was coming out in end of April or early May. According to her, the displays were showing these updates but the nooks you bought at the time didn’t have these features yet. Turns out she didn’t mean that there was a new edition of the nook hardware, but a update in the software (if I had known that I may have bought it earlier and just waited). By the time I got my nook last week it had one update to install which I did right away, and so I was pretty pleased with what the nook could do.  Also – I’m rather impressed that the B&N employee was aware of this update back in March.

Book binge did a review on the updates here

Protecting the nook
After playing around with the ereader I really got kind of irritated about all the little fingerprints I could see on the touchscreen window, and I wasn’t happy with the smudges on it’s back from holding it up either. So after a DAY I was in B&N buying an Industriell cover. It was $30 and is one of the cheaper covers, but I like it because it’s just plain black and it’s designed so the nook just clips into it (very securely) via a clip on the top and bottom, and it leaves plenty of room for me to charge the nook or put ebooks into it without having to take the nook out of it’s cover. I wasn’t fond of the covers that meant slipping the nook in and out of it to get to it or the covers secured on by straps. I am too paranoid to have a cover only secured by straps.

I also bought protective film for the nook which was another $15 (the Nook Matte Screen Film kit). This was very easy to put on and I had no bubbles although I kept getting cat hairs in there *shakes fist at cat* which were easy to get out. The most annoying thing was placing it so it was straight since there’s about a millimeter of room between the film and the edges of the nook. The protective film for the touchscreen was much smaller and didn’t cover all of the bottom panel, only the touch sensitive window. I wish it did cover everything. For $15 freaking dollars for what is essentially two stickers, it should.

I really think most people would want at least the cover so I would say mentally add $30 to $150 dollars to the price of the nook depending on what cover you get (designer ones cost upto $125, the cheap ones are $30) and whether you also add the protective film. There are also covers made by online retailers like JavOedge and Boxwave.


Customizing the nook
Yes I was all into this. It’s very easy to do. When you hook up the nook to your computer via USB, the nook shows up as a new drive (for me it’s E), and you see folders to copy things into

  • Wallpapers – just copy your 600×760 image to the “my wallpapers” folder. This is my favorite (sci-fi theme!)
  • Screensavers – just copy your 600×800 images to the “my screensavers” folder. A collection of images can be in it’s own folder. I downloaded Alice in Wonderland and Domo!

Nice sources for wallpapers/screensavers: nooklook & flickr

Downloading ebooks to the nook from the computer
For moving from your computer to the nook it’s like the wallpapers/screensavers. It’s as easy as copying your stuff into the “my documents” folder. I was able to copy my .PDFs and .epub files fine. It did not like .BBeB. I stumbled when I tried to open my .PDFs that were Adobe Digital Edition. For some reason I kept getting an error when I tried to read the books that were ADE, which is the case when they are from Netgalley. Apparently I was supposed to get the nook authorized first. So I opened ADE on my computer and selected the Library dropdown, and there was nothing about authorizing my nook there. ADE was just not seeing my nook.

Fix – delete the .adobe-digital-editions folder on your nook. Eject the nook drive (right click on nook(E:) and Eject), plug the nook back in, then start ADE. After that it automatically detected my nook and authorized it.

Reading on the nook vs. my netbook
I find it so much easier to read on the nook over reading on a netbook. Staring at a lit screen vs staring at something like paper is very different when you have a migraine. I get migraines often. The only issue I had when I was headachey and trying to read my nook was that it’s frame is glossy and reflected the light of my sidetable lamp next to me, which bugged me a bit. Shifting so it wouldn’t reflect helped but then the nook’s display was more in shadow. If you aren’t prone to migraines or light sensitivity I guess this is just a big ol’ nit.

The netbook is light and portable but the nook is even more so. When I have the power set to Airline Mode, the wireless is turned off and the battery lasts for several days. I have to charge my netbook in a matter of around 2 hours.  I was also able to put it up when I was on my treadmill (which I can’t do with my netbook) and played sudoku while I walked (running and sudoku? Couldn’t get my fingers to press the touchscreen at the right place – it was driving me crazy). I’m sure reading would be easier while running if increased my fontsize – I don’t have to deal with the touchscreen after that, since the nook has page turn buttons on it’s sides.


Audio
Just for this I copied an MP3 to the “my music” folder on the nook. You can listen to music via the Audio menu, or you can be reading an ebook, and select the “open audio player” option. The sound is pretty nice, and there’s volume control and shuffle options. I actually think the sound is better than my netbook which has a tinny sound (annoying).

Lending Books
So far I have only put books that I got elsewhere (not from B&N) onto the nook, and it doesn’t look like I can lend any of them. The lending feature is simply not there when I look at each book. I believe if I bought a book from B&N I’ll see the lending feature show up. According to the B&N employee I talked to I can lend my ebooks to someone who doesn’t have a nook as long as they have an email address. There’s a “Contacts” option under the “Settings” menu that allows me to put in names of contacts and their email address. I assume this is for lending. Editing the contacts is easy too.

I love the idea of lending but I’m not happy to hear that you can only lend a book to someone for 2 weeks and after that you can’t lend that book (I don’t know if it’s ever or to that particular person) again. WTF! I hope this improves because it doesn’t make the lending option that great in my opinion.

Reading books in the store
This is something rather new and came with the latest update. When I bought my nook cover I brought my nook to B&N to try it out. The wireless recognizes the store and puts a tiny B&N icon on the top of my nook display. When I’m in the daily I see coupons for nook owners in there. There was a coupon for a free dessert from the B&N cafe that I jumped on, but there were others as well. For the next month there are free ebooks available for nook owners to download.

When I go to the “shop” menu, there’s an option under each book to read the book while I’m in the store (“read in store” option only shows up in B&N). I tried to take a look at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson but while I could read an excerpt, when I tried to look at the whole book, I got an error!!! So that looks like a feature that still needs ironing out. I didn’t feel like trying other books.


Wireless & surfing the web
Pretty straightforward to understand how to do, but still not quite there. Pages don’t fit fully on the screen, and it’s a pain scrolling up and down and sideways to see everything or to zoom out to see the whole thing. Also clicking on links is really difficult and page loading isn’t fast. So it’s not going to replace my laptop anytime, although I do like having the option.

Readathon Progress post

Posted on by
18

I’m also on twitter

7:50 – I’m up and I have my coffee. The cat was really happy to see me this morning. Still waiting for the coffee to kick in. Cat is intent on destruction to get noticed.  Too sleepy to care.

9:50 – (nearing end of hour 2) – finished Before The Storm by Marian Perera which I’d been reading on and off since Tuesday. I had probably 70-80 pages to read to the end when I started this morning. Not bad. Coffee is almost finished.  Pondering a late breakfast. Cat is bouncing off the walls.

11:00 (start of hour 4) I breaked for a bit – breakfast and spent some time commenting on other people’s blogs and twitter. Cat went into his basket! It’s suddenly so much quieter now! I have started into Diana Rowland’s Blood of the Demon which is another book I was in the middle of this week. I got about 30 pages read so now 118 pages into the book. Deciding if I want to get out of my PJs. Uh oh.. cat left basket.

For the Kick Off of Champions Mini-challenge: what I’m surrounded by is boring. I’m on the couch, with a pillow for my back. To my right is a coffee table with my netbook & my laptop, an empty coffee cup and empty bowl of what once held chorizo and eggs with salsa. And on the couch I have my book and a textbook and some notes for work.

12:00 (Start of hour 5) – Breaking again. Having a lunch snack and changed out of my jammies. Now I’m minty clean too. And the Cat is still sleeping in his basket. Surely resting for when he will be keeping me up later.

Read up to pg 150 of Blood of the Demon by Diana Rowland. Good so far. It’s a police procedural with a urban fantasy shell – the protagonist is a detective with the ability to summon demons. I’m not sure who the killer is yet which is good since I’m halfway through.

I forgot to say something about the last book I finished – Before The Storm by Marian Perera – I read it because the author was Sri Lankan and I grew up in Sri Lanka. Plus I liked her blog and the excerpt sounded really good. The book is about what amounts to a courtesan who gets gifted to her master’s enemy and she and this enemy don’t know why. It’s a fantasy with a slow moving romance and lots of battles and maneuvering between enemy factions. I also thought there was an interesting thread throughout the book concerning the extremes of vice and of piousness.

2:45pm – almost the start of hour 8? – I am now 180 pages into Blood of the Demon which is only 30 pages of progress since 3 hours ago.   I was taking breaks and not reading too much but then I also got asked to pick up my sister at her boyfriend’s house so that took 1.5 hours of my time, but hey, I went outside and it’s a lovely day plus I spent a bit of time with the lil sis.

4:00pm – starting hour 9 – Now 232 pages into Blood of the Demon so back to reading at a better pace. Have a bit of a headache – took a pill. Time for another snack! 🙂 Husband is staring at me right now. Weirdo.

5:00pm – start of hour 10 – 282 pages in Blood of the Demon. The protagonist, Kara Gillian did something rash and I’m a little agog at her. Meanwhile possible love interest has been acting kinda.. fishy. Like he’s a lot more than he says he is. Anyway.. interesting things are afoot.

6:00pm – 312 pgs into BotD. I just calculated my running total and it’s 294 pages give or take. I’m going to take yet another break now.

8:00pm – Still 312 pages into BotD. I just took a 2 hour break for dinner and hanging out with the Husband. We took a walk and ate somewhere.And the Cat has awakened and he’s bouncing around again (he’s been strangely ANGELIC this readathon).

Mid-Event Survey:
1. What are you reading right now? – Blood of the Demon by Diana Rowland
2. How many books have you read so far? Two
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia
4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? I just told people what I was up to and I made a munchie run yesterday so I’d have snack supplies. Also told my mom who always calls to do something on the weekends what I was doing.
5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Yes, my sister needed a ride so that took an hour. Plus my Cat often interrupts. Such is life. I take it as a reason for a break.
6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? I think I’m better prepared this second time, with food and pacing myself.
7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? It would be nice to have cheerleaders JUST for twitter.
8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? I think I’d go to sleep a bit earlier the night before. I didn’t take into account excitement keeping me up when I went to bed last night.
9. Are you getting tired yet? I’m a bit tired but not too bad.
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Going outside for a break and walking around does wonders.

Turns out that my two hour break fulfilled a mini-challenge – the Get Up and Move challenge so I’m posting a picture I took of the flowering tree outside (also of my cat’s BELLEH. Just because):


11:00pm (start of hr 16?) – Finished Blood of the Demon – the cat is on top of me right now so I can’t move to check number of pages. Started The Alchemy of  Stone. I didn’t have any expectations of this book – just that I heard it’s good.  Surprising. The main character is an automoton and it’s got a steam-punky aspect to the story, but I feel like it’s in this innocent kind of world. Or maybe that’s what my impression is because the focus is on the automoton who has this simplistic kind of world outlook? I can’t explain it. Anyway, the book has pretty writing. I’m only 30 or so pages in.

Had to tuck the Husband into bed (he’s got a cycling race early in the morning). Now it’s me and the cat who is SLEEPING ON THE JOB. What the hell kitty? Keep me awake!

12:00 (start of hour 17) – Secret weapon is finally UP! Yes, he was sleeping on my legs when he started CLAWING AT THEM. So now I’m fully awake thinking about neosporin and how we really should cut his nails ASAP.  I’m totally awake though. For 12 am.

Blood of the Demon was a total of 369 pages and now 65 pages into The Alchemy of Stone so the running total is now 416-ish. I think. I can’t do math at 12am.

1am (hour 18 begins) – I STILL LIVE!!! 100 pages into The Alchemy of Stone – well I’m really wondering if there was one trigger why the automoton (Mattie) really seems to hate her maker. There’s this weirdness about it. Like sort of hinting but not outright saying it.

Anyway. I want to take another break. Not sure what to do with myself though.

2am (hour 19 begins!) – I huuuggge wave of tiredness just washed over me after 1:30. I was taking a break anyway by having a snack and checking twitter and blogs. So this past hour = break. I read 6 pages. 😛 I’m also watching I Love You Man on mute because I don’t want to wake up the Husband.

Total pages read = uhhh.. 6+35+416 is what.  457.

3am (hour 20 begins? seriously?) – OK this is where I begin to question why I’m still up. Surely this is stubborn idiocy. What is going to happen to my sleep cycle next week?

Anyway. I just brewed some decaf for myself because I don’t want to be jittery but maybe I can fool my body into thinking it’s got some caffiene. And I read 8 whole pages this hour. The rest of the time? I have no idea what I was doing. Procrastinating from reading apparently.

3:40 – read 16 more pages. Mm, too tired to really enjoy the book so I am going to bed!