Today’s Booking Through Thursday:

Here’s something for Valentine’s Day.

Have you ever fallen out of love with a favorite author? Was the last book you read by the author so bad, you broke up with them and haven’t read their work since? Could they ever lure you back?

I’m wracking my brains here, but no, I can’t think of one. All of my favorite authors have so far kept the faith with me. I look forward to checking out others’ answers to this question and seeing how often it’s happened for them.

I’ve posted several book reviews since my last post; all of them, for the first time in a while, are fiction—no cookbooks, no non-fiction. Weird, huh? Here they are:

• Memory in Death, J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts
• The Painted Messiah, Craig Smith
• The Flawless Skin of Ugly People, Doug Crandell

I also have the awesomest husband: I got a box of books for Valentine’s Day! It includes some Val McDermid mysteries (I’ve wanted to read her stuff ever since watching the British TV version of ‘Wire in the Blood,’ based on her novels), one of which I’ve already started in on. I just couldn’t wait!

From this week’s Booking Through Thursday:

Okay, even I can’t read ALL the time, so I’m guessing that you folks might voluntarily shut the covers from time to time as well… What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?

I have a tough time drawing a line between ‘leisure’ and ‘work’ time, since both are twined together. Thus, this is more a list of the kinds of things I do in general, between work & play:

• Play online games (EVE online and Warcraft being the two I play most), either with friends or solo
• Watch interesting TV programs or movies, usually on DVD, and not very frequently
• Read books of all kinds, obviously, both fiction and non-fiction
• Read fascinating articles on-line, and sometimes blog about them in one place or another
• Write—I used to freelance for RPG companies, but now I mostly write on-line. I used to write fiction, but now I primarily write reviews and other sorts of non-fiction.
• Design T-shirts and related items at Cafepress—this started out as a lark and turned into a semi-job
• Garden—I vastly prefer edible gardening to ornamental gardening, and I love getting into things like composting as a part of gardening
• Cooking—I could bake, roast, and chop all week and never get tired of it!
• Sampling good foods—okay, so this one isn’t so good for the waistline, but I never get tired of trying new and interesting foods
• Play tabletop roleplaying games with friends, anywhere from once a month to once a week
• Play with the cats

I think I’ve covered most of it!

Speaking of foods and cooking, today’s review is of a Betty Crocker cookbook devoted to Whole Grains.

From this week’s Booking through Thursday:

Sometimes I find eccentric characters quirky and fun, other times I find them too unbelievable and annoying. What are some of the more outrageous characters you’ve read, and how do you feel about them?

For a brief moment I thought I’d skip this week’s BTT due to my notoriously bad memory for details; I was sure I wouldn’t be able to think of an answer. Then I realized it’s such a good question, and I had such a good answer for it, that even I could come up with something.

The two main characters in Bill James’s detective novels, Harpur and Iles, are… unbelievably quirky. And yet, I mean that in the best possible way. I’ve encountered them in two books so far: Wolves of Memory and Girls. They’re completely wacky, and yet so well-written that you just can’t rip your eyes away.

From one of my reviews:

Colin Harpur and Des Iles are two of the strangest detectives you’re likely to come across in your literary wanderings. They have a bizarre interdependent codependent relationship, and each of them has his insane quirks. Iles is a schizophrenic dandy who often scares people more than the criminals do. Harpur is a solid, methodical man who thinks very highly of Iles, despite having slept with his wife Sarah, a fact of which Iles is prone to reminding him—loudly—at the most inappropriate moments.

And the other characters in these books aren’t all that much more ‘normal’ than those two! They’re deliciously fun to read about, particularly since James has a knack for hysterical dialogue and interior monologues that can keep your attention for hours.

And speaking of reviews, today’s is of the EatingWell Healthy in a Hurry Cookbook. Yum!

So far the diabetic desserts cookbook is faring well in our testing, but the Shaker cookbook isn’t. The high-scoring cookbook streak had to end sometime, I guess!

Today’s Booking Through Thursday:

What’s your favorite book that nobody else has heard of? You know, not Little Women or Huckleberry Finn, not the latest best-seller . . . whether they’ve read them or not, everybody “knows” those books. I’m talking about the best book that, when you tell people that you love it, they go, “Huh? Never heard of it?”

I can do you one better—one of my whole favorite authors, not just a single book. Many of the people I talk with about books have heard of most of my favorite authors, at least in passing: Anne Bishop, Garth Nix, Tobias Buckell. However, almost no one has heard of Thomas Ligotti. He has a very loyal cult following among a very small number of people because he writes extremely unusual, bizarre fiction. It’s absolutely captivating. I highly recommend his Noctuary, with Songs of a Dead Dreamer coming in a close second:

When all the landscape is dying, descending fragrantly to earth, we alone rise up. After light and warmth have passed from the world, when everyone stands melancholy at the graveside of nature, we alone return to keep them company. This is our season to be reborn.

I could also list Bettie Sharpe among my little-known faves, but that’s only because she’s just barely started publishing.

Edited to add: I went and found Ligotti’s website for folks interested in exploring his work.

And, a handful of links:

• Mercury in sushi—I mourn.
• Free Fall by Isaac Marion—weird and beautiful fiction.
• Loud Neighbors—another weird and fascinating Isaac Marion story.
• Best source for specialty cooking stuff EVER: King Arthur Flour Company.
• The most bizarre item we’ve ever sold through Cafepress, and I’ll tell you right now that we’ve sold more than one: Level 70 Hottie Thong. Yes, you read that right—thong.

I almost forgot about today’s Booking Through Thursday!

How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you’re sure you won’t like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?

I make up my own mind about the books I want to read, but I use information from reviews to aid me in doing so. I.e., I’m not going to avoid a book because someone else didn’t like it, or read it because someone else did, but I’ll look at the reasons why they liked or didn’t like it and use that to help me figure out whether I’m likely to enjoy it or not.

This is the same philosophy I use when writing reviews. I firmly believe my reviews should be just as useful to folks who don’t share my tastes and views as they are to those who do. I think someone should be able to look at my gushing review of a book I loved and get enough information out of it to know they probably wouldn’t like it, and vice versa. I’m sure I don’t always succeed at this, but I try anyways.

Speaking of which, today’s review is of Elizabeth Falkner’s Demolition Desserts!

Today’s Booking Through Thursday is all about anticipation:

What new books are you looking forward to most in 2008? Something new being published this year? Something you got as a gift for the holidays? Anything in particular that you’re planning to read in 2008 that you’re looking forward to? A classic, or maybe a best-seller from 2007 that you’re waiting to appear in paperback?

Oddly, the two books I’m looking forward to the most are the ones I get to use this week. My husband and I are going to a Twelfth Night feast this weekend at a friend’s, and we were asked if we’d be willing to make bread for 25 people. Willing? We’re psyched! As it so happens—and this is a total concidence—I just got review copies of two very appropriate cookbooks. One is A Baker’s Odyssey, a book of traditional bread recipes from around the world. The other is Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. So we get to make a bunch of really great breads that we’ve never made before, share them with wonderful people, and test out two review cookbooks! It doesn’t get much better than that.

Speaking of cookbooks, I have two new book reviews up: Wild Game Cookery and Make-a-Mix. More to come—particularly those bread books!

I’m a bit late with this week’s BTT, but better late than never, eh?

What with yesterday being Halloween, and all . . . do you read horror? Stories of things that go bump in the night and keep you from sleeping?

I thought about asking you about whether you were participating in NaNoWriMo, but I asked that last year. Although . . . if you want to answer that one, too, please feel free to go ahead and do both, or either, your choice!

I love good horror, and started out writing horror 10-15 years ago (I had several stories published that people found genuinely chilling, which pleased me greatly). I prefer horror that’s more at the psychological end of things rather than randomly splatter-gory, although I don’t mind gore as long as it serves the story. In other words, gore doesn’t bother me, I just don’t see the point in it unless it serves an atmosphere that’s horrific as well. Gore by itself isn’t enough.

As for NaNoWriMo, I doubt I’ll ever do it. I’ve been tempted, but there are three things that stop me: a lack of free time that I want to dedicate strictly to that; the fact that I’ve largely switched to non-fiction and it’s national NOVEL-writing month; and the fact that I’d have to write at a rate for the event that might bring my tendonitis crashing back. That wouldn’t be worth it.

By the way, head on over to Estella’s Revenge today—they have a feature on Dewey’s recent readathon!

Also, check out free rice! Play a vocabulary-expanding game while donating rice to feed hungry people! Then come back and tell us how high a score you managed to get. So far I tend to vacillate from 43-46.

Whew! Yesterday I wasn’t even home, so I couldn’t do all the follow-up stuff everyone’s been doing. I stayed up too late last night playing D&D, so I’m quite tired, but I definitely want to do the post-readathon survey and all that jazz.

Oh, I should mention while I’m at it that I just wrote my review of the third book I finished during the ‘thon: Field Guide to North American Truffles.

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?

The first; I had no idea what to put in my post, so it was kind of blah.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

Bill James’s Girls definitely kept me glued to my seat!

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

Erm… I can’t think of any right now…

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

The whole huge network of readers & cheerleaders, and the feeling of being part of this big group of people doing this thing.

5. How many books did you read?

Three

6. What were the names of the books you read?

Warren Dotz, Light of India
Bill James, Girls
Field Guide to North American Truffles

7. Which book did you enjoy most?

The Bill James book (Girls)

8. Which did you enjoy least?

I don’t think there really was a least. They were all neat in their own ways.

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?

N/A

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

I’d love to read in the readathon again. It’s such a wonderful opportunity to take a day off, read like crazy, and share notes on some of the nifty books in my TBR stack.

In addition to the survey, the folks at Estella’s Revenge also have a request:

I thought perhaps a good idea would be to get people who have participated in the challenge to share their experiences with us. I was wondering if you might consider putting a post on the challenge blog asking for people to contribute short statements, perhaps in the from of a diary entry if they want to write exclusively about how the day went. Or they could write about their challenge participation including things like what they read, whether the books were good, if they had a challenge plan, what special arrangements they had to make to free up the day, how much they enjoyed the day, why they chose to participate etc.

So, here’s my take on it:

I decided to participate in Dewey’s Read-a-thon because I’m way behind on my review book reading and it just sounded like a ton of fun. Usually I’m too busy to participate in all the blog-based reading challenges, but I thought that one day was something I could commit to. I knew I couldn’t do the full 24 hours, both because I’m a wimp and because I had to be up bright and early the next day, but I did my best to manage 12 hours and came close. Since my goal was to plow through as many books as possible during that time I concentrated on reading and only took part in one mini-challenge, although I definitely had fun with that one.

I finished three books, all of which turned out to be a lot of fun, and one in particular (Bill James’s Girls) has introduced me to a new favorite author whose work I’m going to have to hunt down! Some of my books were a bit odd, perhaps—one on Indian matchbox art, and a guide to truffling in North America, for example, but then one of my publisher contacts has discovered that I enjoy a challenge and will give a shot at reviewing almost anything if it intrigues me. Besides, I love to learn new things!

Pretty much the only special arrangements I had to make to free up the day were to do grocery shopping on Friday evening and put off laundry until Monday (today). Otherwise, it turned out to be a great day for it as we had nothing else planned. My only mild regret was that the weather was unusually good, so it might have made a wonderful day for a hike.

The readathon was a blast, and I definitely hope that Dewey does it again next year! I certainly plan to participate if she does.

Book Nerd

Hour Ten of Dewey’s readathon:

Pages read: 65
Total pages read so far: 426
Time spent reading: 40 minutes
Total time reading so far: 6 hours 5 minutes
Book read: Trappe, Evans, and Trappe: Field Guide to North American Truffles
Total number of books so far: 2.5+
Number of reviews posted: 2

Hour ten mini-challenge: I’m actually going to write this “letter to the author” using the book I just barely finished, since that one is still stuck in my head. Dewey’s instructions are:

stop reading and write a letter to the author of the book you’re currently reading, and post it in your blog

Simple enough, right? Well, sure, except that I’ve always been terrible with letters. Maybe that’s why I decided to take this one on, because I’m a masochist at heart. Anyway, here goes:

Dear Mr. James,

While it seems that you have quite a few mysteries already published in the Harpur & Iles series (so many it makes my head spin, in fact), Girls is the first I’ve read. I hate sounding like a fangirl, so I’ll just say that… oh, scrap it all. This is a fantastic book. The dialogue is twisty and mind-bending in wonderful ways. I never suspected I could enjoy a chapter-long internal monologue during a scene in which almost nothing happens, but I did. Laughed out loud, even. Several times. For what seems such a simple and, in places, light-hearted book, it has such a great deal to it. (”Richly-layered” is the phrase I used.)

Rest assured I’ll be seeking out more of your work, particularly in the Harpur & Iles series. Now, to go recover from sounding like such a batty fangirl….

Best,
Heather

As for the field guide I’m reading, let’s just say for now that I find it entertaining to read a book where everything gets a ‘desirability rating’ from inedible to insipid, palatable to tasty, unknown to delicious. I also find it pretty cool that you can tell that the various folks who photographed the truffles they found had to use whatever was on hand to give you an idea of size: rulers, coins, their hands, and even pocket knives.

Anyway, I think I’ll do one last update when I finish this book (probably sometime in the next hour), and then I’ll call it quits so I can get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow. This has been great fun, though, and I hope Dewey does it again next year!

FINAL UPDATE EDIT:

Okay, since it actually took me very little time to finish the book (25 minutes?) I’ll put my final update here.

Pages read: 50
Total pages read so far: 475 (approx)
Time spent reading: 25 minutes
Total time reading so far: 6 hours 30 minutes (approx)
Latest book read: Trappe, Evans, and Trappe: Field Guide to North American Truffles
Total books read today: 3
Number of reviews posted: 2

The truffle field guide is very cool, and I plan to review it Monday.

I want to thank Dewey for organizing this readathon. I had a ton of fun, made a good dent in my TBR pile, and look forward to perusing everyone else’s log of the events come Monday when I get some good computer time again. I particularly want to give a cheer to everyone still reading! Go! You can make it! Whooooooo!

Hour Nine of Dewey’s readathon:

Pages read: 19
Total pages read so far: 381
Time spent reading: 15 minutes
Total time so far: 5 hours 25 minutes
Book read: Trappe, Evans, and Trappe: Field Guide to North American Truffles
Total number of books so far: 2+
Total number of reviews so far: 2

New book review up, of Bill James’ Girls.

I suppose once again I can partially count my meal as being toward something book-related, since we made a recipe out of that same review cookbook, The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook. This time it was a white bean and tuna “spread” (except we used it as sandwich filling); it was quite good. In entertaining news, one or more kitchen herbs are apparently, shall we say, exciting, to one of our cats (the same one we can’t give catnip to because it over-excites him). I suspect the thyme. He’s very cute, though; he sniffed my husband’s fingers after my husband snipped herbs, and then went batty attacking my chair at the dinner table.

Bread is sliced and bagged for taking to our friends’ tomorrow, and we’re savoring an after-dinner cup of Moroccan mint green tea with our respective all-day projects. Since I’m having so much fun with the actual reading and I won’t be home tomorrow, I’ll probably do some poking around on everyone’s blogs Monday to see what all the other readers were up to.

In the meantime, just for something completely different from my last two books, I’m starting in on the Field Guide to North American Truffles!