I just finished reading It Happened One Autumn. Technically it’s the second book in the Wallflowers series by Lisa Kleypas. However, the books within this series are only loosely related and can be read independent of each other.

Lillian Bowman’s father, a rich American soap manufacturer, has decreed that Lillian must find an English aristocrat to marry and raise the family’s social status. Unfortunately, society finds Lillian too independent and ill-bred. As a result, Lillian has spent the London season sitting on the sidelines with the other wallflowers. However, Lillian is determined to catch herself a husband, as long as it isn’t the insufferable and priggish Lord Westcliff.

Okay, I admit the book’s description sounds like every other historical romance. However, It Happened One Autumn is well written. It’s one of those books that make me wish I had a fireplace where I could curl up with a relaxing book and a glass of hot chocolate and ignore the rest of the world. Naturally I can ignore the world without a fireplace but a fireplace creates so much more atmosphere

Disclaimer: the two main characters do have graphic premarital sex (though thankfully not within the first couple of pages). The plot doesn’t revolve around sex but it does exist. Please don’t read this book expecting a traditional Jane Austen read-a-like.

Apparently one post isn’t enough for today. Maybe I’m trying to make up for lost time

Even though I was complaining in the last post that I couldn’t find any books to read, there are a lot of interesting websites devoted to books.

AllReaders.com
Yes, the interface is awful. However, their advanced search for books is interesting. To skip the pain of trying to find their advanced search (which they call “Detailed booksearch”), choose one of the genres listed:
Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Thriller/Action
Literature
Romance
Biography
History

whichbook.net
This site helps you find books based on “mood and style” or “plot, character and setting.”

Internet Book List
Very new to me. I just discovered this site today. Aims to provide “comprehensive and easily accesible database of books.” While it currently only has around 35,000 book entries, every book I’ve tried searching for has been found. Information can be found on authors, individual titles and series. In addition, users can browse by genre and subgenre. This site is a little unusal in that it clearly states the order a particular book comes in a series (why is this so rare?). After registering, users have the ability to rate books and write comments. If one decides to buy the book, instead of linking to the ubiquitous amazon.com, users can click to visit Powells (the best real life book store located in Portland, OR) or Abe Books.

Amazon.com
Why am I listing Amazon? Certainly not for the “Customers who bought this book also bought” feature. However, Amazon allows its users to create “Listmanias” and “Guides” for their favorite books. Search Amazon for a favorite book and then scroll down to the very bottom and try out one of the Listmanias or Guides. Some are awful but occasionally I’ve found a new book this way.

Novelist
Novelist is a Reader’s Advisory Database. It is probably available through your local public library (find their website and look for links to databases, reference, or reader’s advisory). You can search for books by title, author, series, and plot. In addition, Novelist sometimes has “Read-A-Like” lists for famous authors and users can browse book suggestions by genre. The main disadvantage of this service is sometimes I’ll find the perfect book and then discover my library doesn’t have it. However, most libraries have an intralibrary loan program where you can borrow from other libraries through them. Unfortunately, this takes time.

Enough links for now. I think I should go be useful

Nothing much has changed in my life since last writing. So in order to post some sort of content, no matter how boring, I’m going to discuss my current reading tastes.

I’m currently in a bit of a slump when it comes to reading material. It’s kind of ironic that I, the former Reference Librarian, am having trouble finding something to read. Don’t get me wrong, I still bring at least five books home a week. It’s just been too long since I found a book that really caught me. I don’t know if it’s just a phase I’m in or if there really aren’t enough books out there to catch my attention.

I think one problem is I generally only like books with a female protagonist. Jaeger’s and my “favorites” bookshelf clearly illustrate this. Of the books on the favorites bookshelf, 100 (exactly, oddly enough) are books that either I bought or would have bought without Jaeger’s intervention. 73% of these books have a female as the main character and a good share of the remaining precentage contain strong secondary female characters.

I’m a re-reader. I almost never buy a book unless I’ve read the book several times or the book belongs to a series I own. On my favorites shelf, 83% of the books could be classified as either Science Fiction or Fantasy.

Favorite Series:

• Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series (the ones he actually wrote)
• The Kushiel series by Jaqueline Carey
• The Mageworlds by Debra Boyle and James D. MacDonald
• The Belgariad by David Eddings
• The Heralds of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey
• Robin McKinley’s retold fairy tales
• The Liaden novels by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
• The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon
• The Heris Serrano and Esmay books by Elizabeth Moon
• The Emily of New Moon books by L. M. Montgomery
• The Stardoc Novels by S.L. Viehl
• The Honor Harrington novels by David Weber

What do most of these books have in common?

1. Mostly female protagonists
2. Mostly SF or Fantasy
3. Strong themes of adventure and quests
4. Often are Space Operas
5. Romantic elements (though sometimes only obliquely hinted)
6. Individual books (if part of a series) can usually be finished in a day or two (300-600 pages or so)
7. Decent character exporation

Hmmm . . . I’m not sure if this list helps me at all.

A couple of months ago Ted and I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica called “Valley of Darkness” (link contains spoilers). In it was featured a piano solo composed by Philip Glass titled Metamorphosis One. It caught Jaeger’s and my attention. The melody is fairly simple and it’s repetitious. It is probably because of these characteristics that I find it very soothing to listen to. Jaeger tracked down where the song came from and then I started looking for it online. I was excited when I discovered that there was sheet music available for this song. However, the only place I could find selling the book was Amazon. I went ahead and ordered both the sheet music and the accompanying CD. I was a little distressed when they said the sheet music wouldn’t be available till the end of October (it was either late August or early September when I ordered) but figured late music is better than no music.

A couple of days ago I recieved an email from Amazon informing me that so far they have been unable to track down a copy of the sheet music and so they would go ahead and send the CD (I’m cheap so chose to ship the two items together). Today I received the CD annd immediately started listening to it. It provides a very nice calming atmosphere perfect for relaxing after work.

Speaking of work, today while I was searching the catalog, I ran across a fascinating book called So You Want to Be President written by Judith St. George and illustrated by David Small. It’s a very amusing yet educational picture book that won the Caldecott Medal in 2001. I learned quite a bit about our past presidents such as:

Today started out fairly normal. I dragged myself out of bed, got ready for work and met Sue at the park n ride. We got to work and I headed toward my office. Right before I got to my office I ran into our associate director holding two kittens. She informed me that someone had dumped four kittens at our library. One black kitten, one grey, and two white. They had managed to catch three of the kittens. However, the fourth one was extremely wiley and managed to avoid capture. Well, the associate director couldn’t spend all day trying to catch the fourth cat so she decided to head to the humane society with the three she had already caught but encouraged us to keep trying to grab the 2nd white kitty.

It took us a while but eventually our ILL lady managed to catch the white one. She boxed it up and intended to put it in our associate director’s office. About the time we finally managed to catch the white cat, our associate director returned from the humane society and informed us that they really didn’t want to accept anymore cats (due to a distemper outbreak). However, they would make a special exception for us since we’re a library and the cats were strays. I’ve heard from a couple people that the humane society in that area isn’t very good because they are chronically overcrowded. So, a bad idea formed in my head.

I’ve had a couple of people suggest that Five might be happier if she had some companionship while Jaeger and I are at work. However, I’ve been hestitant to get a 2nd cat for a couple of reasons:
1) Jaeger’s allergic. What would the result of 2nd kitty be on his health?
2) What if Cat5 doesn’t want a cat companion?
3) Do we really want 2 cats?
4) Do we want to pay the humane society for another cat?
It occurred to me that this kitten could be used as a test case. I could take her (I don’t know the gender yet, “she” is being used in a generic sense) home for a couple of days, see how she does and if it doesn’t work out I could take her the humane society where she would end up anyway.

I emailed Jaeger (who is currently in Boston) to see what he thought. He seemed dubious about the idea but willing to give it a shot (at least while he’s gone ).

I brought her home and put her in the main level bathroom where she will remain in quarantine until tomorrow after I have the vet check her out. After that, we’ll see how well Five adjusts to having a second cat. Right now, I’m dubious. Five did not appear happy to discover there was another cat in the bathroom. She hissed at it a couple of times until I coaxed her away.

It’ll will be fascinating to see how this experience turns out.

One of the genres I explored last year was Chick lit. One of the books I started (and actually finished) was Confessions of a Shopaholic. I’m not exactly sure what emotions Chick Lit is suppose to engender but the female in this book is so utterly idiotic when it comes to finances/self-control that it left me feeling paniced. In the various chick lit books I’ve sampled, all the heroines are obsessed with clothing.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking up information about one of my current favorite authors, Sheila Viehl*, and discovered that she has a blog. Today I read this post. In it she discusses fashion and chick lit shoes. It’s hilarious.

* My favorites are the books she writes under the name S.L. Viehl.

Thursday Jaeger bought an expansion set to “Settlers of Catan” called “Cities and Knights of Catan”. Saturday night Jaeger, Neal and I tried it out. It took us a while to go through the new rules and once we started I was still a bit confused. However, overall I really liked the game. It required me to completely rethink the strategy I tend to use for “Settlers of Catan”.

“Cities and Knights of Catan” is much more complex than standard Catan. Among other things, Catan now has 3 dice that get rolled on every turn. If the event die rolls a black ship the “barbarian hordes” advance on the island. Once they reach the island various cities are sacked and the barbarians go straight back to their homeland. When we first started playing the game, I figured the hordes would only attack once or twice during the game. However, this was incorrect. The hordes attacked at least 6 times, probably more throughout the 2 1/2 hr game. To defend Catan against the invaders not only do you have to have a knight (preferably more than one), you also have to have the knight “activated.” I was continually forgetting to activate my knight in time. I’d start concentrating on a different part of the game and the barbarians would sneak up unnoticed until it was too late.

I don’t know why, but I think I prefer this expansion to “Seafarers of Catan”. Maybe I just haven’t played “Knights and Cities” enough to understand how horribly I can lose In any case, I’m looking forward to the Fest where hopefully others can be recruited to try out Cities and Knights.

Ever since we brought Five home from the humane society she has been obsessively licking herself. When I took her into the vet for the first time, he said she probably just was stressed about the change in the environment and I shouldn’t be too concerned unless it continues. Well, about 2 weeks ago I discovered that she was licking herself raw. I called the vet but our schedules didn’t coincide until today.

As I suspected, the vet said she probably has anxiety is sues. So, our cat is now on Amitriptyline. I find the idea of giving our cat medication somewhat odd. I don’t know why, it just seems like animals shouldn’t need medication.

Oh well, I hope this stuff works. Now I just have to figure out how to make her take it . . .

My website has finally been resurrected from the grave. This was mainly the result of canceling our cable and runnig out of interesting books to read. Never fear, I will soon be back to dishing out the horrible neglect my site has come to expect.

This site is now divided into 3 main sections: a blog (such an awful word), a wiki and a catalog. Yes, it’s an overly complicated scheme but as my old teachers will tell you, I excel at doing everything the hardest way possible.

Mutterings
Mutterings is the blog section. I probably won’t get around to updating it very frequently but it does have an RSS Feed.

Recipes
I’ve exported all my online recipes into a wiki. I’ve never really played with wikis before. My only real experience is in using Wikipedia and I’ve always been too scared to try editing anything. However, I think a wiki may turn out to be the ideal forum for my recipes. This allows my friends to easily add their own favorites. In addition, it allows mistakes to be easily rectified when my mother-in-law notices that I have managed to leave all the salt out of the Wheat Oil Pastry recipe (yes, this still needs to be corrected). So, if you have a great recipe, please feel free to add it.

Kiesa’s Library
Currently, there are only 7 books listed in the catalog. However, I plan to import my collection soon. I added the catalog so I have a handy list of all the books I own. Hopefully this will prevent me from wondering “Do I already have this book?” when I visit The Bookworm.

Book Lists and Links
Since I already have the wiki installed for my recipes, I will probably start adding to it. I plan to start adding book lists and links to websites. After that, I’ll see how the wiki evolves.