Dewey has put up a fantastic new book meme that I just have to participate in, because it provides plenty of food for thought: the negativity meme.

1. When you dislike a book, do you say so in your blog? Why or why not?

Yes. I see my reviews as existing to help people pick which books they might want or not want to explore in their precious spare time. The best way to honestly help people is to list everything I think they might want or need to know about a book in order to make that decision. That includes not just things I like or don’t like, but why, and things I think others might like or dislike even if I don’t agree.

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First, before I forget, today’s review is of Peggy Knickerbocker’s delightful Olive Oil from Tree to Table.

Second, it’s time for the weekly Booking through Thursday meme, which I’ve actually missed for the last few weeks. Today’s meme is:

How about a chance to play editor-in-chief? Fill in the blanks:

__________ would have been a much better book if ______________________.

Now, I do a lot of book reviewing, so there are dozens of places I could go with this. But since I reviewed a cookbook today, I’ll let that dictate my choice—particularly because that’ll give me the opportunity to turn this into a rather funny story.

“The Fearless Chef would have been a much better book if the recipes had been kitchen-tested.”

To quote from that review:

I have a great love of Bananas Foster, so we decided to make the Jamaican Rum-Baked Bananas, which are described as “a tropical answer to Bananas Foster.” They include a bit of curry, and instead of flaming the alcohol you simply bake the dish in the oven, which sounded easier.

When we mixed things together I found myself triple-checking (literally) the amount of alcohol to go in; 1 cup of dark rum sounded like an awful lot. In fact, I even just checked it again because I still find it hard to believe the recipe called for that much. But hey, we were testing the cookbook, so I figured we should use the recipe as written.

We put everything together and into the oven. We basted it halfway through as stated. Then, at the end, I watched out for the cats and my husband opened up the oven to see if dessert was done.

I heard a whooshing sound and the slam of the oven door. Then I smelled burnt hair. I whipped around, and when my husband turned to face me all I could say was, “umm, you should look in a mirror.” His eyebrows had been trimmed, his eyelashes (despite his glasses) were a rather interesting ragged length, and the front row of his hair above his forehead was shriveled and now brown instead of black. A gout of flame had apparently shot straight out of the oven when he opened it up.

Nothing like that has ever happened to us before.

Now, on to the topic I was planning for today. Recently I ended up in Penguin’s database of reviewers. Because of this, I suddenly find myself reviewing a lot more erotic romances and variations on the same than I ever expected.

The other day, someone I know said to me, with a tone of horror, “don’t tell me you’re reviewing romances!” as though this was a terrible thing. It reminded me that once upon a time, that’s how I would have viewed it. Yes, I bought into the stereotype (which, mind you, existed for some time with good reason) that romances were ‘bodice-rippers’—ridiculous stories in which helpless, naive women waited for the strong, domineering man to come along and rescue them. And maybe once upon a time that was largely true, but it isn’t any more.

Out of curiosity I decided to read Alison Kent’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance a couple of years ago. And in reading that book I came to realize that romances have changed a lot, and I decided to give them a try. Since then, I’ve come to a conclusion.

Romances have changed. And really, that shouldn’t be a surprise. The women of recent generations don’t tend to have patience for stupid, helpless heroines, and these women are writing more and more of the erotic romances out there. This means that the people writing these books tend to want the same things we as readers do: strong heroines who are capable of standing on their own two feet, and can match wits with the best of the heroes. Just like books of any other genre, romances can be written well or poorly depending on the skill and talent of the individual writer. Dismissing the genre out of hand is simply silly.

So I’m no longer vaguely embarrassed by the idea of reading & reviewing these books. Instead I’m enjoying opening my eyes to a whole new genre and discovering some wonderful writers, many of whom write in other genres I enjoy as well.

Agave nectar is officially one of my favorite discoveries ever. I first read about it in Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking. It’s a sweetener in syrup form made from a cactus (the same one that gives us tequila), and it has an extremely low glycemic index—meaning it takes a comparatively long time to get converted into blood sugar. Those with blood sugar problems such as diabetes know this is an extremely useful thing in a sweetener.

I hate artificial sweeteners. They leave a bitter, chemical aftertaste in my mouth that I can’t stand. So, I decided to try agave. There’s some history of type II diabetes in my family and I’m prone to mild blood sugar problems, so it seemed like a good idea. Now I’m completely stuck on it. One of my favorite ‘I’m trying to be healthy’ snacks is a tall drink of plain kefir (a cultured milk drink, basically liquid yogurt) with a tablespoon or two of agave stirred into it. I also used it last night when a coffee ice cream soda drink called for a bit of sweetening; it dissolves in cold liquid much more readily than sugar.

The only problem is, the little 8 oz bottles I can get at the Whole Foods Market cost more than $5 each. Ugh. Not something I want to start using wholesale as a substitute for corn syrup in recipes. Then it occurred to me to go look at Amazon. They sell everything now, right? Right. Any moment now UPS is going to show up with a couple cases of bottles that run much cheaper than the stuff I can get at the store. YAY!

Also today, it seems I got tagged for a meme, so why not. Here we go:

• Write your own six word memoir
• Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
• Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
• Tag five more blogs with links
• And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

It doesn’t make sense as a sentence, but that suits me.

I’ve seen this meme just about everywhere, so instead of tagging specific people, I’m going to do an open tag. If you haven’t played yet and want to, just leave a link to your post in the comments!

Today’s review is of The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to More Not So Useless Facts.

This morning I was stunned to realize that Errant Dreams Reviews now contains 600 reviews. Six HUNDRED reviews. SIX hundred REVIEWS!

SIX HUNDRED REVIEWS!!!

*ahem* Sorry about that. Got carried away.

It took about 10 years, because I wasn’t always as focused on reviewing as I have been for the last year or so, but there you have it. Now that’s a milestone!

Edited to add: After all of that, you’d think I’d remember to post the link to today’s 600th review! Sheesh! Here it is: Susanna Carr’s upcoming Red-Hot and Royal!

Last week I wrote an entry in my Epiphanies blog (it’s a place for posting writers’ exercises and such for people to play with) that explored my grandfather’s history just a tiny bit. He’s one of those people who has a naturally story-inspiring life, and I happen to have very vivid memories of visiting him and my grandmother as a child.

I don’t tend to think of technology in connection with my family. Which is odd, because my mother has been a programmer, and became a programmer at a time when that wasn’t a common field for women to go into. My grandfather was a chemist. I guess it’s just that when I think of that side of the family mostly what I think of is visiting my grandparents at their old rural house in the seventies and eighties, strolling through the apple orchard and swimming in the pond. My grandfather was born in 1900 and died in 1994; he wasn’t exactly around for the height of the internet age. So it was with some amazement that I heard from relatives we’d fallen out of touch with after my grandfather’s funeral, thanks to their having found that post that I made. Emails and addresses were exchanged all over the place, all because of a spur-of-the-moment blog post.

That feels kind of surreal, but very cool.

This morning’s review is of Val McDermid’s The Grave Tattoo. Also, I’ve posted a new T-shirt design at Caffeinated Chicanery and another at Gamers’ Heaven. The monthly newsletters with their subscribers-only sales go out tonight barring a hiccup in Cafepress’s software, so if you aren’t subscribed already, this is a good time to do so (there’s a form at the bottom-left of the front page of the storefronts). Since I’ve been reading & reviewing so many mysteries lately it seemed appropriate to do a mystery addict shirt:

Mystery Addict
Where’s the body?

I also couldn’t help adding to our alignment series. Don’t worry, we have plenty of stored-up design ideas to present to you this year:

chaotic brilliant!

I got tagged for this one by Book Nut (aka Melissa) as well as Dolce Bellezza. So, what the heck.

a) What issues/topic interests you most in non-fiction? Cookbooks and writers’/creativity books are my favorite non-fiction books. However, I’ll pick up a non-fiction book on any topic I want to learn more about and then some, and I never know what that’ll be. I’ve reviewed books on subjects as diverse as poop, truffles (the mushrooms, not the chocolates), and composting. (Okay, the weird part is that in retrospect, those books aren’t so unrelated as they first appeared.)

b) Would you like to review books concerning those? I already do, quite frequently.

c) Would you like to be paid or do it as interest or hobby? I post my reviews on my own site rather than submitting them to magazines because I don’t want to be bound by artificial limitations on word counts or the need to be nice in order to make a magazine’s advertisers happy. I’d rather be able to write exactly whatever I think is useful or necessary in order to appropriately review a book. That said, I’m happy to use things like Amazon affiliate links and AdSense ads to make at least a little money at it. After all, I put a fair amount of time and thought into my reviews—they’re more than a hobby.

d) Would you recommend those to your friends and how? I often recommend books that I enjoy. If I don’t plan to need a book again I’ll also sometimes pass it on to a friend whom I think could use it.

e) If you have already done something like this, link it to your post. Heh, you can find all my non-fiction and fiction reviews at Errant Dreams Reviews. There are hundreds of ‘em—literally.

I’ve already linked back to Melissa and Dolce Bellezza above, and rather than tagging people this time around, just consider yourself tagged if you think it would be fun to do this meme. By the way, speaking of non-fiction, here are links to my two latest reviews: Margaret Mason’s No One Cares What You Had for Lunch and Jackie Mills’s The Big Book of Diabetic Desserts.

Oh, and while you’re here, check out this hysterical printing rant I found at book/daddy. Beware the volume, and be aware that the language is NSFW.

I’m almost a month late, but I did get tagged by Dewey on the ‘you make my day’ meme. To quote Dewey, because she said it best:

So let me start off by saying that every single person who reads my blog makes my day just by doing me the honor of reading my babbling about books. But I have to pick 10 specific people and say why they make my day.

The hard part, of course, is picking only 10!

Dionne Galace: Bam’s blog is one of the first places where I discovered that romance and erotica could be fun and delicious instead of silly. And that the silly stuff can be fun too—see also Bam’s cover snark. Then she posted in ten parts Bettie Sharpe’s awesome story Ember, and I embarrassed myself by becoming a raving fan girl.

Sharp Words: That brings me to Bettie Sharpe herself, who has written some absolutely awesome stuff. She’s an incredibly fresh and original voice in erotic romance, and she’s just plain fun as a person.

Treasure Tables: This meme has largely been making its way around the book-blogging sphere, but I have to mention a roleplaying-oriented site, Treasure Tables. They have great discussions regarding gaming topics of all kinds, and have on none-too-rare occasions linked to our roleplaying resources page or articles from it, which is pretty cool. They’re on hiatus—possibly permanently—but they have such huge archives of material that this hardly makes them non-useful.

The Ramblings of a Bildo: I don’t read as much of Bildo’s stuff as I’d like, largely because I’ve not been able to keep up with all the blogs I’d like of late, but he’s a fun writer. His comic is nifty, his art is silly and fun, his writing shows great talent, and I love to read his take on video games. He’s also a genuinely nice and thoughtful guy.

Bookgasm: Bookgasm posts reviews of books that perhaps closest match my own tastes in fiction. This is dangerous, of course, because it means that every time I visit I end up adding to my ever-growing wish list! They write very thoughtful reviews that tell me what I need to know in order to determine whether I’m likely to enjoy a book.

Books and Cooks: Tara shares two of my obsessions—books and cooking–and she’s a really sweet lady to boot!

Musings of a Bookish Kitty: Literary Feline and I have entirely too much in common, and I always look forward to her blog posts and her comments on my posts!

Nonfiction Readers Anonymous: I love Nonanon’s sense of humor and playful approach to books. I always enjoy visiting and chatting on her blog!

Thraveon: Besides being a close friend, Jervis is an awesome writer, among his many other talents. I love dropping by his blog to see what he’s up to (although sadly work has kept him too busy of late to keep up with his posting) when we’re not visiting him and his wonderful family to play D&D, cook, and do other fun things. We’ve also met a ton of other wonderful friends through him.

Burning Building: I have to toss this one in here as my latest fun find. Isaac writes some of the oddest posts and stories, and they’re really neat and imagination-expanding.

As Dewey noted, picking 10 is kind of an artificial limitation on what could be a far more expansive listing of very cool people. So if you aren’t listed here, that’s hardly a slight.

In theory getting noted on this list means you’ve been tagged or something, but I’ve always seen such things as optional, only to be done if the person tagged thinks it would be fun, so decide for yourself.

Today’s review is of Erin McCarthy’s upcoming novel Fallen.

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.

Regular posting will return soon. I came down with a flu or cold (whatever comes with fever, congestion, aches, etc.) later in the day yesterday after going in for my second HIDA scan (to see if they can take my gallbladder out yet). I feel like I have perhaps two functional brain cells right now, and that’s an optimistic assessment. Mostly I’m spending the day sitting between the cats and staring at the computer screen with a blank look on my face. I’m pretty sure I’m not drooling, though, which is good.