Kate Story and I were in a writing class together lo these many years ago (like, more than 10 years). I just heard (from our teacher via my mother) that she has published the book she was working on at the time, Blasted.

It was terrific in the early drafts, so I'm really looking forward to reading the final version! I've emailed to congratulate her too -- no idea if she'll remember me, but hey.

1. Guess who dug in someone's bag and stole and ate an entire plastic baggie full of ham at the dog park today? Go on, guess. You'll never guess. (Yes, he ate the baggie too. I'm expecting to see it again at some point.) Gotta work on that "drop" command. Now, mind you, the owner of the bag let him stand on her and snuffle around in the bag for a good 15 seconds -- she said "It was shoved right down in there! I didn't think he'd get it!" Um, yeah. This is why I don't let dogs near my bag. ;)

2. Via Uncertain Principles, my new favourite scientific article of all time (there's a PDF link).

Fortunately, a live presentation of the results was also captured on video.

3. This is an extremely dangerous website for me. *cough*

4. It is chucking down rain here, and our basement is a bit damp.

OH MY GOD THERE'S ANOTHER MARGARET OF ASHBURY NOVEL AND I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT!

Ahem.

I'm very excited. I'd almost lost hope of ever reading anything more by Judith Merkle Riley.

Pretty edition, too. I would order it right now, except I just ordered the special edition of the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox and I feel it would be greedy. And the library catalogue is down. Soon, though. Soon.

Now, if only Rosemary Kirstein would get on with the next volume in the Steerswoman story...

I had one of those mornings where I hate everything in my closet. Another sure sign that we need spring. I feel like I've been wearing the same five outfits since September. Bah.

(I am wearing green, sort of -- olive pants -- but this is entirely inadvertent, nothing to do with St. Patrick's Day.)

Good weekend which felt busy even though I didn't really get much done. Friday I had my makeup done at Clinique as a result of buying lipstick there last month (Clinique just sucks you in!). She put on foundation and blush, which I never ever wear, but the eye makeup was nice. Then went to a party in honour of sparkling_ice and her husband, who were back in town briefly; Blue came too, but had to stay on the leash because of the quantities of unattended food on low tables. He was not crazy about this.

Saturday I puttered and cleaned my kitchen and bought groceries, and Jen and I went for lunch at Gabby's. Day of small children: Joanne came over with the small Liam in the morning and Sarah came over with new!baby Meaghan in the evening, although technically we did not see new!baby as she was snoozing in her carry-seat with the lid down. Although Blue investigated thoroughly. We played Guillotine (unfortunately none of us were really cutthroat enough, but S won) and ate way too many ginger snaps. I also brushed Blue, until he said that was enough, and trimmed his eyebrows (so he can see out) and beard. Need to take him to be clipped properly -- he looks twice the size he did when I got him. Although at least with the eyebrows trimmed Jen is no longer telling him he looks like Bob Dylan.

Sunday Louise and Martin came over for brunch, which I achieved without stress, which impressed me. Frittata (the book called it tortilla, which seemed crazy), salad, blueberry muffins, orange juice, coffee for them as wanted it (me), Empress Tea (my parents brought it back with them) for Louise. Then I went to choir, and then I went and helped John discover the wonders of Corel photo editing software (all new to me too, but knowledge of Photoshop was helpful) for straightening out tall buildings. Was fed pork tenderloin for my trouble. Yum.

Books read this week:
The Night Watch, Sean Stewart (reread). I swear I like this sort-of-series more every time I read it. Came to mind after I read a post over on the Smart Bitches about urban fantasy, which I plan to write about at more length shortly. Something I hadn't appreciated before on a technical level is how well he handles the multiple points of view. I counted at least -- hang on, Emily, Claire, David, Nick, Wire, Raining, Li Mei, Water Spider, Jen, Floating Ant -- that's 10. In the hands of lots of authors that could get very bewildering very fast, but he makes it work.
The Last Colony, John Scalzi. Not deep, but as with all his stuff, much fun.
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille, Steven Brust -- for some reason, despite meaning to for some 15 years, I'd never actually read this. I liked it, I think. Still pondering.

That doesn't seem like much, somehow. Thank you all, by the way, for your book suggestions!

As you all know, I read a lot. I get ideas from recommendations from friends and various blogs and things that sound interesting when mentioned in passing. This serves me quite well, but I'm aware that I have a large selection bias. As well, I list what I read, but I don't generally say much else, and I think this is both lazy and not terribly helpful to other readers. (Or even me, because eventually I'll forget what I thought of many of these.)

So, a request (challenge?) for you:

1. Suggest something I should read. It can be something you think I'd like, something you like, something you doubt I'd like at all. If I can get hold of it -- for preference, it'll be something the Toronto Public Library system has -- I'll read it, and write a review. It probably won't be a long review. But I'll do it.

2. My reading list for the past several months can be obtained by clicking my "books" tag. Pick a book (or books) from there that you'd like to know more about, and I'll write a review. Again, it probably won't be long.

Feel free to do one or both. And thanks in advance!

It was nineweaving who mentioned Miss Pettigrew in terms that suggested I would like her. (And I did.)

That was making me a little crazy.

Blue has been eating things that disagree with him, and puking. (A shard of bone this morning, from goodness knows where, and then he picked up a frozen mess of Something at the beach and ate half of it before another dog owner caught him and I could pry the rest of it out of his gullet.) I was concerned enough to take him to the vet on the way back from our walk this morning, and indeed he started puking again on the way over. Vet prescribed 2 days of meds and special food, in case, but wasn't too concerned. I'm staying home to give the meds (if I can get this cotton wool out of the vial, that is) and keep an eye on him. Silly dog. We're going to work on the "Out!" (as in "Spit it...") command as soon as he feels better.

My computer doesn't think it's Daylight Saving yet. Actually, I'm not sure I do either.

On the plus side, nice quiet time to work. And I can play music without bothering officemates. And it's gorgeous and sunny.

Not the world's most productive weekend, but pleasant.

Books read in last couple of weeks:

Earthquake Weather, Tim Powers (reread -- bought it for $1 from the library's discard pile)

Bad Kitty, Michelle Jaffe. I haven't laughed so much in a while.

Consolation, Michael Redhill. Toronto's One Book this year. Was indeed fun to see others reading it at the same time, and I love the glimpses into Toronto's possible past.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Winifred Watson. Discussed here.

Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay. Last year's Giller winner. For a while I was afraid it was going to be unbearably depressing, and there is indeed a great deal of sadness and loss in this book. But it's excellent and evocative and not remotely grim.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. Reread. One day I hope I will again be able to read this book without mentally comparing the 2005 movie version with it in my head and telling the movie "See? SEE? You are wrong! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!" Nearly there, but not quite.

Huh. Is that all? Read parts of:

The Dark Stuff, Nick Kent. Excellent music writing (as far as I can tell -- I don't read a great deal any more), remarkable for its near-total absence of women. I realize it's the nature of the game, but it got irksome after a while.

Very Good, Jeeves!, P.G. Wodehouse.

Didn't manage to get any farther with:

From the Fifteenth District, Mavis Gallant. Canada Reads is over anyway. Maybe another time.

I cannot for the life of me remember who on my friends list made me aware of this movie, and thus of the book. If it was you: Thank you!* Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (1938), by Winifred Watson, is a thoroughly delightful book about the healing power of female friendship, good clothes, makeup, and having fun, not to mention the marvellous liberating power of cocktails, make-believe, and rising to the occasion. One morning Miss Pettigrew, friendless 40ish spinster and failed governess at her wits' end, arrives on the doorstep of Delysia LaFosse, actress and nightclub singer with far too many men in her life. Hijinks ensue. Over the day that follows Miss Pettigrew becomes both Cinderella and fairy godmother, and a good time and a happy ending are had by all (well, all who deserve a happy ending, anyway).

Jen and I saw the movie Friday night, and I am sad to report that it is significantly less awesome than the source material. Writers David Magee and Simon Beaufoy have taken pretty much all the elements that made the book great, discarded them, and replaced them with female back-stabbing and ominous pre-war overtones. Amy Adams is delightful (although her Miss LaFosse lacks the native shrewdness of the original) and Frances McDormand does yeoman work with a script that mostly requires her to stand around looking half-starved and miserable. Lee Pace and Ciaran Hinds are both adorable as their respective love interests, but dear God, was it really necessary to turn Shirley Henderson's Miss Dubarry into such a scheming nightmare? And to do so much violence to the plot? I mean, yes, there wasn't much to the plot, but it was perfectly serviceable the way it was.

At least the movie looks pretty. Too bad it's had most of the fun leached out of it. Read the book instead.

*Turns out it was nineweaving.

I have a long list of things to do, most of which I don't feel like doing. But one of them is "Update LJ" (no, really). So here I am.

Via spacing, interesting article on the future of suburbs.

In the first half of last year, residential burglaries rose by 35 percent and robberies by 58 percent in suburban Lee County, Florida, where one in four houses stands empty. Charlotte’s crime rates have stayed flat overall in recent years—but from 2003 to 2006, in the 10 suburbs of the city that have experienced the highest foreclosure rates, crime rose 33 percent. Civic organizations in some suburbs have begun to mow the lawns around empty houses to keep up the appearance of stability. Police departments are mapping foreclosures in an effort to identify emerging criminal hot spots.

The decline of places like Windy Ridge and Franklin Reserve is usually attributed to the subprime-mortgage crisis, with its wave of foreclosures. And the crisis has indeed catalyzed or intensified social problems in many communities. But the story of vacant suburban homes and declining suburban neighborhoods did not begin with the crisis, and will not end with it. A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.

I'm in a bit of a slump at the moment myself, although not of epic proportions. I spent Tuesday home sick and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and Februaryish and lacking motivation. Also, time has been behaving really weirdly; I keep being surprised by how much or how little time has passed since event X. But I'm chipping away at work, I bought lipstick and got a Clinique bonus (hey, whatever works), today is sunny and gorgeous, my dog seems to feel all is right with his world now that Jen and Tilde are home, and the family birthday is tonight. So life could be much worse.

It's been ages since I did a book update, so here's one, although it may be missing some items.

( Cut to spare those who really don't care what I've been reading since the start of January )

Sheesh. I should be an Amazon affiliate.

Incidentally, the library's new hold/account interface is up and running. I have to say I hope they continue tinkering with it because, while the options to change the pickup location and put items on hold for a specific length of time are cool, it's missing some functionality that I really appreciated in the old version, specifically:
- items ready to pick up showed in a different section of the Holds page
- holds could be sorted by title or expiry date
- renewals showed up instantly (in the new version you have to log out and log in again, although it's possible this was due to startup bugginess)

It would also be good if its privacy certificate checked out properly. Just sayin', TPL.

What was interesting while they were switching over and the hold system was down was how empty the hold shelves in the branches got after just a couple of days. Really an impressive reminder of how many books cycle through there!

( More lists of media consumed, just for completeness )

It's been a while since I posted my reading. I got through this holiday season with only about $3.50 in library fines, which is much better than usual for me. I also returned a fair number of books unread or partly read, but such is life.

Read:
[so long ago I apparently didn't remember] I also read Spider Dance by Carole Nelson Douglas, another of the Irene Adler mysteries. I'm very fond of them. Plot outlandish but I didn't really mind.
Nightbirds on Nantucket, Joan Aiken.
King Leary, Paul Quarrington. (Turns out I had read it, after all, but so long ago I didn't remember much about it.)
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, Connie Willis.
Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik. (Christmas present. Yay!)
The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein.
Big Boned, Meg Cabot (Jen bought as a Boxing Day present for the house).
Deep Secret, Diana Wynne Jones.
Finity's End, CJ Cherryh (reread).
The Big Over Easy, Jasper Fforde (birthday present recently unearthed; I liked it a great deal, much more than The Eyre Affair).
The Fourth Bear, Jasper Fforde (the sequel, also birthday present; I liked it less, as it was veering more into self-aware look-I'm-so-clever we-are-all-characters-in-this-book territory than I liked, but will look out for the third anyway).

Returned partly read:
If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics
A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray (I found it slowed down rather in the middle, which let me dwell on what seemed like the very, very modern outlook and speech patterns of the narrator, which proceeded to bother me; anyone out there read it? Should I try again? I probably would have finished it if it hadn't had to go back).

Returned unread because somebody else wanted them, but will try again:
Atonement, Ian McEwen
Ragamuffin, Tobias Buckell
Shelter, Susan Palwick

Jen and I also watched the first season of Rebus, Miracle on 34th Street (as recommended by Connie Willis), and Sliding Doors. We tried to watch Clue, but failed as it is truly dreadful (another reason I was so pleasantly surprised by The Big Over Easy).

Last night on the Longest Commute in History (for me, anyway -- left the office at 5:30, got home at 7 after an hour on the streetcar which is unusually bad even for the 501) I had nothing to read. Woe! So I read over some guy's shoulder instead. It was something called Protect and Defend, by one Vince Flynn, who if you believe his Google results is a bestselling author, and the few passages I read were so bad that I was tempted to snatch it from the guy's fingers and hurl it out the window. If I could have reached the window, which is not at all certain, because the streetcar was so packed that people were regularly having to yell "Get off the steps!" so the driver could shut the doors and we could go somewhere. Anyway. I digress. (Model numbers of weaponry in the midst of action sequences: usually a bad sign, IMO, although to be fair it seems to work for lots of people.)

An actual sentence from the book:

Before Rabb could ask what he meant, a group of Kurds burst through the door and started shooting at their leader just then.

It was a long, hard trip home, I tell you. I was very glad when I got a seat, because then I could write Christmas cards.

Blue continues adorable. His breeder told me he loves to look out the window, and she wasn't kidding: one of his new favourite spots is the back of the couch. Picture a 35-pound fluffy dog perched on the back of a couch, staring out the window. It's hilarious and cute. Must take photos.

1. I have to start getting to work earlier. Once the sun goes down (like, now) I no longer feel like working.

2. My high school's Festival of Carols was last night. The Old Girls' two songs went over well (thunderous applause!) but mostly it was all about the kids -- 675 odd, in about 25 different groups, from about Grade 2 up to Grade 12. The little kids were ADORABLE. I'm really glad I went.

3. Books read last week:

Gideon the Cutpurse, Linda Buckley-Archer. Enjoyed very much. Am convinced of two things: ( minor spoilers )
Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett (seasonal reread)
The Steerswoman's Road, Rosemary Kirstein. papersky mentioned her a while back, and later I noticed I had put her name on a list of authors to investigate and then forgotten all about her. This book (actually, two books in one) is SO GOOD. Apparently I still can't be coherent about why -- hopefully this will come. Briefly, steerswomen are an order of sort of wandering scholars and cartographers. There's a rule: if you ask a steerswoman a question, she has to answer it, if she knows the answer. And if she asks you one, you have to answer; if you don't, or if you lie, no steerswoman will ever answer your questions again, ever, about anything. The book is about truth and intellectual curiosity and logic and consequences and it is WONDERFUL. The worldbuilding, and the way things are revealed to the reader, are terrific. When I finished I had a moment of panic because I was under the impression that the third one wasn't out yet and I wasn't sure I could survive without finding out what happens next, but luckily the third and fourth are both out, so that's good.

4. And that's why I didn't tidy my apartment this weekend. Although I did go shopping for clothes with my mum, which was good because she doesn't. We found her a pair of black pants and a pair of jeans and a sweater and a shirt and a red cardigan that looks amazing. Yay us.

Till the Fat Lady Sings, Alisa Kwitney (it was OK, but caused me to commit haiku: how did it go again? Something like:
Bulimia, suicide,
feminist theory,
and know-it-all narration)
Pay the Piper, Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
Hogfather, Terry Pratchett (reread, still wonderful)
Logan in Overtime, Paul Quarrington (reread -- it was, as I'd remembered, a lot of fun, and there were lots of things I'd forgotten starting with Logan's knees and moving on from there)
also a couple of things I'm sending to life_on_queen except now I've sent them and can't remember; incidentally? Shipping airmail to Ireland is not cheap.

Returned without reading: Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (not in the mood, although I've been enjoying the posts on Bookshelves of Doom)

I have actually read three two of this year's Canada Reads finalists already: Brown Girl In the Ring, King Leary, and Not Wanted on the Voyage. This never happens.

All three Both are good. (Admittedly, I read the last two in high school, but I remember enjoying them it.) Clearly I need to take a stab at the other two three, then I will be equipped to follow the arguments in a fully informed state!

(Er. Oops. My mistake. I haven't read King Leary. Everyone else has read King Leary, so it was a natural mistake. The Paul Quarrington book I've read is Logan in Overtime. Which I enjoyed. Never mind, the original thrust of the post stands.)

Went to see Blithe Spirit at Soulpepper last night with my parents and their visitor. Enjoyed it very much (I've never seen it before). I thought the actress playing Elvira was maybe a little older than the character was written, but she was so good it didn't really matter. Gorgeous set, all black and white and grey and the ghost in red.

We were a bit concerned we wouldn't be able to see it thanks to the blackout. Very strange indeed driving around downtown with no lights. I called the theatre at around 6:30 and their message said "if we have power by 7:30, the show will go on as scheduled". So we went for dinner in the Beaches. No message when we called at 7:30 because so many stupid people had evidently ignored the "please do not leave a message" part that we were now getting "the mailbox is full", so I called Jen and asked her to please check the news and see if the power was back on. And it was.

This weekend I:
- did some Christmas shopping
- went to the Swedish Christmas Fair, where only a few people addressed me in Swedish
- sang in my chamber choir concert -- the other alto came down with laryngitis and one of the sopranos was in Puerto Vallarta, so our conductor pinch-sang
- unblocked my toilet, which was challenging, because my toilet is weird; however, snaking through the vacuum tube did the job
- sort of watched the Grey Cup (I'm glad Saskatchewan won, based on the sheer number of supporters I was seeing in the streets last week)
- continued to try to tidy

Books read this week:

Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, by Kirsten Miller - I enjoyed very much, especially the how-to bits (tell when someone's lying, tail someone, disguise yourself, spot a fake diamond, see the real New York, be prepared for emergencies...) at the end of most chapters. For some reason I found it rather slow going -- not sure why. But really, who wouldn't love a book about six 12-year-old girls (chemistry whiz, master of disguise, forger/lockpicker, mechanical genius, urban archaeologist, and their fearless leader) fighting crime?
Seven Days to a Brand-New Me, by Ellen Conford
Kitty Takes a Holiday, by Carrie Vaughn (incidentally I have decided I like Kitty Norville much, much more than Rachel Morgan, and going back to Book 4 in that series probably isn't going to help -- shame, I enjoyed the first few, but there you go)
Misc. romances, including The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt (really fun, and the fairy tale in the epigraphs is a Cupid and Psyche variant, for which I am always a sucker)

For all you fellow bitches: Andi Zeisler of Bitch Magazine talks about That Word. (Via Salon Broadsheet.)

Pretty good weekend -- surprisingly productive, now I look back on it. I did laundry and changed my sheets and helped order siding and went to a party and to choir practice and played Kill Dr. Lucky and bought groceries and cooked chicken stock and chicken chili and sewed more ornaments. And I had another stab at clearing extraneous Stuff, this time out of the third floor. Much of it is now strewn around the second floor, which is not ideal, but at least it's getting more concentrated.

Something rather appalling happened to a friend of mine, though -- she got home from work Friday to discover that her boyfriend, who'd been living with her for about a year, had decamped with all his stuff. No note, no message. They'd had a nice birthday dinner for her the night before. Who does that? It's making me seriously question my judgement, because I thought he was a really nice, standup kind of guy -- as did she, obviously. I'm having trouble knowing what to think.

Books read this week:

Girl at Sea, Maureen Johnson
Magic's Child, Justine Larbalestier
A Stranger at Green Knowe, Lucy M. Boston (life_on_queen! Gorilla alert!)
Working for the Devil, Lilith Saintcrow (I had some issues -- such as, if she told me one more time that Secondary Character E was large, blond and shaggy, I was going to have to scream -- but not bad for a first novel)
Voices, Ursula K. Le Guin
Pants on Fire, Meg Cabot

[Edited November 20 to add links and the following] After finishing the last -- which, btw, I really enjoyed, so this is not a slam -- I realized that another reason I have come to adore Cecil Castellucci as much as I do is that she doesn't write romances. There is a limited range of happy endings for women in fiction, and I'm all in favour of those who expand them at every opportunity. Not, you understand, that I'm against romances -- I love 'em -- but it's nice to come across a happy ending once in a while that doesn't involve True Love.

Pretty good weekend.

Jen is studying for her CFA designation, a process that will take three years assuming she passes every exam the first time (not everyone does). This currently involves a foot-high stack of textbooks (they came with a set of postcards to send to your friends and family to explain why you haven't been around lately) which contain a lot of math. e has made an appearance. So has ln (helpful for calculating the value of exponents). So have a bunch of fractions. I'm intrigued by the extent to which mathematical operations that are now purely instinctive to me are not to Jen -- it's probably because I've done so very many more of them in my day.

Ornament project continues.

We have back steps! And the structure is partly waterproofed, although not all the way yet. Still. It's progress. I did a bit of clearing up, which amounted to taking all the extraneous crap that had accumulated in my entrance hall and hauling it upstairs. It is currently cluttering up the second floor hallway. Oh, and I brought my desk down to the basement, a mere month or so after taking it to bits. Next I will start putting my drifts of random crap into piles, and then I will either put the piles into boxes or throw them out.

Ushed for my mum's choir's Remembrance Day concert on Saturday -- it was lovely, although we had a minor casualty (old gent fell and barked his shin and cut the bridge of his nose, but not seriously).

Books read this week:

Dzur, Steven Brust. I need to go back and reread Issola, also probably all the other Vlad Taltos novels. Also eat some Hungarian food. OMG. Do not read this book on an empty stomach, because every chapter starts with part of an incredible multi-course meal at Valabar's.
Two of a Kind, Rosemary Edghill.
Death at the Bar, Ngaio Marsh.
Gifts, Ursula K. Le Guin.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon. I get the Michael-Chabon-love now. I was lent The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay when I was in hospital but failed to get into it -- I was distracted. This one, I adored. Alaskan Jewish alternate-present noir? It doesn't get better than that.
Beige, Cecil Castellucci. Which I finished and then promptly read a second time. It was that good.

It is dark outside. I hope it isn't raining when I leave work, because despite being warned I forgot my umbrella.

Friday: after-work work celebration, followed by meeting monkeycommando and S and F at Lick's. I was extremely full of after-work snacks so didn't actually eat, but it was fun. Then home and watched much TV.

Saturday: seminar on trim carpentry at Lee Valley. Jen was fending off a cold so I went by myself. WAY COOL. I can now build door and window casings, install baseboard, make mitre and cope joints with confidence and (in theory at least) straighten a wall. Oh, and measure. All taking into account that Nothing Is Square.

Then had a birthday celebration at the Rivoli, wherein we played some truly terrible pool -- I'm convinced there was something wrong with the table. pretentiousgit, monkeycommando, lostvoice, themusesbitch, and others who are not on LJ were present and a fine time was had by all.

Sunday: mmmm sweet sleep. Chamber choir practice (our conductor is a lovely Newf and occasionally says things like "When you move to a new section, the arse keeps falling out of her"). Then I went and bought underwear at the Bay and pondered metaphysical questions like, why don't manufacturers make matching panties for their bras? I don't care so much if it's black or white, but I do for colours. Luckily Wonderbra bucked the trend so I got a lovely chocolate-brown set. (Triumph bras, for some reason, didn't fit me at all. I held one up to a bra that fit perfectly well and the band and cup were identical except that the Triumph cup was cut a little lower -- mystery.)

(Yes, raithen and pretentiousgit, one of these days I will go to a specialty bra store and get properly fitted. Although in fact I don't believe I'm actually wearing the wrong size.)

And then I came home and watched Tristram Shandy, which I enjoyed very much although it does help to have read (most of) the book (wonder where it's got to?). And I didn't realize until this morning that you never actually do get to see the same movie they're all reacting to at the end! Brilliant.

Books read this week:
The Boy's Tale, Margaret Frazer
Does She or Doesn't She?, Alisa Kwitney -- my least favourite of hers so far, I wouldn't recommend starting with it; ( spoilers )
Lady Fortescue Steps Out, Marion Chesney. I liked the premise (a group of Regency poor relations club together and open a hotel), but I never really connected with any of the characters; I think in this case it was the 3rd omniscient POV that was rather distancing. Plus too much explaining what each character is thinking and feeling about what's going on. Is she MC Beaton? Because I've noticed a similar problem in the Hamish MacBeth novels. (Checks: Yes. However, she's clearly had a long and successful career, so what do I know?) There was also a bit of a tendency to let the research take over, which was annoying. (As a random example: The heroine is waking up and it's really noisy because of all the bells from all these different churches and street vendors. Do I need to know who owns every single bell? Or that there were petitions to Parliament to cut down on the noise? No I do not. It was noisy because of all the bells. I got it.)

Abandoning halfway through:
For a Few Demons More, Kim Harrison. Desperately in need of faster pacing -- it could easily be tightened by about 50 pages from what I've read so far -- and I'm starting to find Rachel really irritating, like Stephanie Plum with no sense of self-preservation and a whole lot more vanity.

There may be more, but that's what leaps to mind.

Happy 30th birthday to the Toronto Reference Library!

Back when I was in high school, before the Web took half the challenge out of research, the Reference Library was the place I went to work on school projects. You could (and still can) find just about anything there. I didn't realize at the time that it was younger than I am; obviously the decor suggested it, but the place just gave such a sense of rightness, of Always Having Been There.

I still end up there at least twice a year -- sometimes, it's the only place in Toronto to find what you need to know.

So Happy Birthday, TRL, and thank you. Long may you reign.

Spent most of the weekend volunteering at Planet in Focus -- Friday and Saturday evenings at the Royal, and Sunday afternoon at Innis. I discovered that the Royal's box office is effectively a cone of silence, albeit one the wind whistles through in disconcerting fashion; it's almost impossible to communicate anything remotely complex to a patron even if she presses her ear up to the little hole.

Managed to watch two movies during all this. Il Giardino was charming and made me want to instantly eat tomatoes and roast red peppers I'd grown in my own garden. Maybe next year. The panel discussion afterward had maybe one too many panelists, although I did learn the intriguing fact that one group has estimated Toronto could theoretically grow, at a minimum, half its yearly food requirement within its own borders. That was cool. And Sounds of Sand was just bloody heartbreaking.

In back deck progress, Jen and John have built steps down to the basement (reportedly -- I haven't inspected yet). Tilde spent Sunday morning a quivering mass of nerves because they were doing things OUTSIDE. With POWER TOOLS. She greeted me with tremendous relief and spent half an hour trying to cut off my air supply with her cheek. I may have mentioned that Tilde is just a fraction neurotic at times.

I'm quite looking forward to restoring my sleep schedule from the wreckage the World Series has made of it.

Books read this week:
The Seeing Stone, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (book 2 of the Spiderwick Chronicles)
Turkish Delight, Rosemary Edghill (fun although not stellar, a bit like The Grand Sophy if Sophy Stanton-Lacy had been brought up in the harem of the Grand Turk)
Sex as a Second Language, Alisa Kwitney (seriously fun and very hot; I'm now working through her back catalogue)
...God, is that all? I just took a stack of books back to the library but of course a lot of them were from last week. And I've got a few pages into about four others. Chugging along.