Books I Own & Love

Got tagged for this meme by BevL over at Cubie’s Confections.

1. Total number of books I own

I own surprisingly few books for as much as I read.  I usually sell a book of fiction on amazon.com once I’ve read it, except for the ARC’s, which I dutifully keep for the next reviewer on the list. 

I have about 30 reference books on various topics, from an Unabridged Dictionary, an atlas or two (I LOVE maps), some books on Spanish and Italian language (I so want to speak Italian), a few “How To” books (making decorative boxes, origami, needlework, and car repair), some on history (U.S. Civil War, Elizabethan politics and some others I can’t remember the topics), and a handful of books on high-tech product development process analysis and improvement (my day job - I know - yawn city).

I have about 10 books of plays, poetry, and philosophy.  Sophocles, because Oedipus is such an interesting character study.  Shakespeare, because the tortured characters in Hamlet and King Lear are so relevant today.  Rousseau, because I think he was as much a misanthrope as I sometimes think I am, and, again, so relevant today.  John Donne, because I can’t think of a man who is better able to pack so much into so little - he was just a giant.  Walt Whitman, because his work is beautiful and I wonder what he would have done with his life today.  Pablo Neruda, because he makes me pant.  There are others, but those are all that come to mind right now.

I have about 20 books of fiction (romance and otherwise) that I just can’t bear to part with.  J.R. Ward’s BDB books, Sylvia Day’s recent books (Ask For It and Passion for the Game), plus my old, well worn copies of J.R.R. Tolkein’s books (given to me by a woman who would babysit me and the first serious fiction I ever read) .  I think I have a box in the attic of old Louis L’Amour books - I got on a Louis reading kick one summer and blew thru his whole list.

Now for something really odd - I have removed the dust jackets from about 30 hardcover books and have used them around my house as decorative elements.  I stack them up 2-3 tall and use them to raise a lamp on a sideboard, or a blue-and-white ware urn on an occasional table, etc.  They’re handy and look pretty.  Completely useless books about some oddball topic, but they look cool.  I buy old hardcover books at flea markets for this.

2. Last Book I bought

Highlander Untamed by Monica McCarty, I think, but who knows when I’m going to get a chance to read it.  There’s another one that I bought at the same time, but I can’t remember which it is and it has since been subsumed into my TBR pile.

3. Last Book I read

Driven by Eve Kenin.  See my review here.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me

1. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein.  As I mentioned above, when I was a kid this was my first foray into serious fiction.  I remember reading this under the covers with a flashlight.  I read this book over and over again.  I remember feeling “different” when I finished it, I was so transported by the world of Middle Earth and its inhabitants. 

2. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda.  Twenty years ago, this little book opened my eyes to the world of poetry.  I never took poetry seriously until then.  I realized afterwards I had been missing out on a complex, rich art form that could feed my soul like nothing else.  When I read a beautiful poem, or a complex one, something profound happens to my true self.  It’s difficult to explain and sounds like new-age psycho-babble whenever I try.

3. Toxic People: 10 Ways of Dealing With People Who Make Your Life Miserable by Lillian Glass.  The reason I read this is probably self-evident.  I have bought friends and family this book, as well.  It’s really, really good at dissecting toxic behaviour and gives excellent advice for how to respond to it (or not).  It got me through a really tough professional patch (the boss from HELL) without losing my mind.  Did it work?  Well, I’m still around and that boss is long gone, so you tell me (insert slightly self-satisfied look).

4. Coming Apart: Why Relationships End & How to Live Thru the Ending of Yours by Daphne Rose Kingma.  This is another book that I read, and re-read, made notes in, bought copies and sent them to friends who needed the advice I couldn’t give.  It’s a terrific book if you’re on the verge of ending a relationship or have recently ended one.  It explains the process and helped me figure out it wasn’t all my fault but still allowed me to take responsibility and not feel worthless.

5. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrations by Clement Hurd.  Without a doubt, my most life-changing event was the birth of my daughter.  I waited a long time to have my little curtain climber - I was almost 36 when she came into this world.  Before her, I was all career-minded, living in the Washington, DC fastlane, partying with high-powered friends, traveling all over the world, and climbing the corporate ladder.  After my redhead’s birth, though, EVERYTHING changed.  I became a chauffeur, nurse, maid, chef, dresser (hair and otherwise), bather, and, most important of all, bedtime reader.  

I bought this book while I was pregnant (and blissfully ignorant), thinking, “oh what cute illustrations.”  I didn’t know how important it would become to me and my zygote.  However, when she was a baby, Goodnight Moon was the only thing that would get her to sleep.  I read it so many times, I can STILL recite it from memory and it’s been three years since she’s wanted me to read it to her.  I cherish this book as the marker of when my life went from being selfish to being a mom.  A pretty big deal to me.

Golly - Looking back at this list, maybe I do own a lot of books.  I haven’t even talked about what is in my TBR pile (now two large plastic tubs).

5. Tag 5 people

Argh.  I hate to do this for the same reason I don’t forward chain mail.  But I will, because this was actually fun to do - I haven’t thought of some of this in a long while - and this is the kind of thing I want to know about people.  Feel free to respond in Comments or on your own blog.  If this is a meme you’ve already received, or you just can’t be bothered, feel free to ignore the request.  You won’t hurt my feelings.

Karen Scott

Katiebabs

Devon

Meljean

PamP

C’mon ladies - tell us whatcha got.

Would it be Vishous to tell…

…what I just got in the mail?

I really didn’t expect to get one this soon. And, since I haven’t heard back yet from my contact at Penguin (it sort of helps if I would, you know, send the email… oops) it is possible this will be the only copy I get early. So! Want am I gonna do? Besides hide from Gwen who is just borrowing my ARC (this is a final MM copy)… I am gonna use it for the prize for the only open contest (on this blog, no clue if you can win it elsewhere) to win Lover Unbound.

I need to check with JR Ward to see how early I can award it. I will update the contest post with the closing date for the contest as well as when the winner will be announced. And I will even send it first class. Oh and note we have a US holiday weekend going on, so I have no clue how quick JR will get back with me.

Please remember this is a final copy from the Penguin, it IS NOT signed. And the book is huge, the spine is a lil beat up from the mail but really to have it in your hot lil hands early… do you care?

I will announce at least one more contest for Lover Unbound signed copy - date again will depend on if I am ordering from Amazon or if it is sent early. We will have a contest on J.R. Ward’s Guest Author Day on September 26, 2007 - no clue as of yet what her prize will be. So if you don’t win, you will have another chance to get it a copy.

Good Luck!!!!!!

Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas **March 2008**

I so thought I had posted this. It is the cover for Lisa Kleypas’s next Hardcover contemp, Blue-Eyed DevilI am thinking I mixed it up with all the times I saw it in Dallas. Lisa Kleypas had a big posterish copy of it and it would be an understatement to say she liked it ;).

You can find the summary for Blue-Eyed Devil here.

Tags: Blue-Eyed Devil, Lisa Kleypas, March 2008

Could it be… Seton’s peddling pRon?

aka gwen go

here

tis funny

Spammy

Just a note….

We tend to get about 50200 to 500+ spam comments a day. I try to keep up with it because one in maybe 60 are real comments. But when it gets to be pages I tend to delete it because they are llllllooooooonnnnnnngggggggggg.

If you have made a comment and it never showed ten to one that is what happened to it. It takes a hella lot for me to delete a comment unless it is spamilous.

Feel free to repost or to send me an email and let me know your comments aren’t showing. I know my email isn’t up anywhere and I am working on fixing that… sorry… blog in progress and all that… but you can email me at redwyne @ redwyne . com (no spaces).

Of course why we are talking about it. What is the purpose of spam? I mean really. Is someone out there clicking on this shit and buying things? I find it hard to believe that is true. Is it just the rush of seeing if you can get your crap out there? WHAT? I just don’t get it.

fuckwits (tm karens)

keep in mind… I have it on good authority… spammers burn in hell… and not the good part…

And while we are on the subject (again as I first posted this in April 07) does anyone have a nifty wordpress plug in to suggest that might help kill spammers and put them out of my misery? Fine… just killing the spam or at least making it show as spam and not post would be fine.

If you see a funky comment (a few numbers and letters mixed with links in the comment that have nothing to do with the post, random NICE site!, Thanks! or my personal fave Sorry with a shit load of links) in a thread do not clicky clicky on anything in the comment. More often than not it will just be shitty spammy links but as I have moderated a message board with a super freak with too much time on his hands they can hide all sorts of freaky shit (viruses to kill your computer, grab your passwords and more much more) in that stuff. I always thought most people knew don’t open icky spam but as my boss likes to open it and laugh (don’t ask) I just thought I would remind people. And really you should change your passwords every few months, the first time he attacked our board he was able to grab a 100s of peoples passwords. He was able to attack the board again and again because people WOULD NOT change their fucking passwords.

nasty nasty crap I tell ya… so see shiloh, spammers really do go to hell

The Outside of Enough

le sigh… someone may need to come take three books away from me so I stop rereading them.

Have you bought If His Kiss Is Wicked by Jo Goodman yet? Cuz you need too…

Emma pushed herself up on her elbows. “You invited me to join you when you went to a gaming hell. I don’t suppose you can appreciate how dear I hold that memory. Not only the adventure, Restell, but the invitation. To be asked to share that small enterprise with you, it was outside all my expectations, yet you proposed it casually, as if there were nothing the least improper or singular about it. You acted as if I were your equal.” Her voice became huskey whisper, “As if I were your friend.”

Emma sat up the rest of the way. Her face was close to his.

“It seemed irrelevant that I was your wife or even that I was a woman. You made it irrelevant to me.” Emma cupped his face, smiling sympathetically as Restell’s eyes darted to the compress at her side. “Have you need of it?”

“It depends,” he said. “On whether you think being a woman - and my wife - is irrelevant now.”

Love that! It so shows their relationship. I don’t really know where you would put Restell in the alpha beta lists. He is so very in control. Always clever, understanding and caring. But he is not on to allow himself to be walked on…. period.

He is so in my top 10 favorite heroes.

She was looking remarkably pretty, for one thing, and Restell knew his Achilles’ heel was a pretty woman, not a beautiful one. Although he could not precisely define the difference, he knew very well that one existed. Often a woman who was pretty at the outset became beautiful in his eyes, but the reverse had never happened. Pretty denoted a liveliness of affect that he had never found in strictly beautiful women. He appreciated the turn of the head that was prompted by curiosity, not vanity. The smile might be a shade too wide and was almost always a bit crooked in its presentation, but Restell was inevitably beguiled by its inherent honesty.

Sorry I will stop.

oh just one more!

Restell was compelled to point out, “We didn’t steal anything.”

“But we could have. Sneaksmen, I have heard them called. Really, it was quite exciting. You are very good to indulge me, Restell.”

“I would rather you were satisfied with a string of pearls or a diamond choker.”

“Then you should have proposed to Marisol.”

Hee! Sorry I just lurve her. I am just a sad sad fangrrl aren’t I?

So what are you going to be reading this holiday weekend? Other than If His Kiss is Wicked and Driven - of course.

I am still deciding and it is my most favoritestestest person in the world birthday on Monday. So that means I am not gonna get out of spending time with my family. What? I adore my mom and sister but I am working on becoming agoraphobiac. And really do you have any clue how many books I have to read. Oy not even counting the books to read for next year so I start on the guest author day schedule for 2008. I know, you feel really bad for me.

So hit me with your best shot! What cha reading? What have you just finished you lurved muchly? What is up next?

BOOK ALERT: Explosive by Charlotte Mede **December 2007**

Explosive by Charlotte Mede

     London, 1818. A beautiful, brilliant woman and a cynical, aristocratic spy are forced into a desperate mission to decipher a secret code that could change the face of Europe forever…

Explosive

     Gray Dalton, the Marquess of Blackburn, wakes in a dark London cell staring down a gun barrel. Devon Caravelle, alleged mistress of a deadly French aristocrat, has been sent to ensure Blackburn’s cooperation in a secret plot to unlock the mysteries buried within Beethoven’s Third Symphony, the Eroica. It’s terribly convenient and just as Blackburn planned. And taking the lady hostage is - if not terribly gentlemanly - not very difficult. Resisting her dangerous allure, on the other hand, is. Suddenly, the man famed for his cold-blooded control, wants a woman fiercely, wildly, forever…

     Devon Caravelle has loved two things in her life: music and her father. She would do anything to discover his murderer and clear his name, even if it means forcing the contemptuous, debauched Marquess to her aid. But when he turns the tables and takes her prisoner, she is not prepared for his skillful seduction or her white-hot response…

     It was supposed to be a seduction each side intended to win easily. Instead, the first spark unleashes an untamed passion in a game where all rules are forfeit and every move brings them closer to an unspeakable danger…

hmmm I am so thinking that Charlotte Mede is suppose to be another name for someone…. a Canadian author? I already tried EC Sheedy she won’t claim ownership. EXPLOSIVE explodes in 2008 then two more books to follow in 2009 and 2010.

And if you don’t stop and read the back copy would you have ANY idea this was a historical? Yeah, I wouldn’t either. Sooooo don’t get that contemp cover on historical thing… still… hey if nothing else I am consistent

Tags: 2007, Book Alert, Charlotte Mede, December 2007, Explosive

Review: Driven by Eve Kenin

Gwen’s review of Driven by Eve Kenin
Futuristic romance published 28 Aug 07 by Shomi/Lovespell

Holy icicles, Batman! This futuristic/sci-fi/urban-like romance was a total treat to read! The heroine is a kickass, vulnerable but competent woman named Raina. The hero is an emotionally buttoned-down, kickass but controlled hunk named Wizard. And in this book, they kick ass and take names together, all while falling in love and, naturally, saving a large portion of the world.

Read more

Tags: 2008, August 2007, Driven, Eve Kenin, Futuristic, Grade A, Gwen, Review, romance, Sci-Fi, Shomi

Review: Warlord by Angela Knight **Sept 4, 2007**

Warlord by Angela Knight

I am thinking Berkley and Angela Knight saw a really good thing with Mercenaries which repackaged some older Angela Knight ebooks (but they were expanded I think) and one new novella because Warlord is something of the same thing.

Sort of… well kind of…

What we have here is a her first book with Berkley, Jane’s Warlord, the novella Warfem (I think first printed in Kickass) and two never before printed stories aka older ebooks. But not even old ebooks they were free stories she did on her yahoo group.

All four stories take place in her ‘Warlord” world, although Jane’s Warlord is the only one to take place on Earth. This is sci-fi/fantasy, something I dislike more often than not, but find in Angela Knight’s hands I enjoy it.

Jane’s Warlord is very Starman + The Terminator told as only Angela Knight could. A time jumping serial killer is on the loose and Baran (along with his wolf sidekick) have come from the future to keep Jane Colby from becoming one of his victims. The story is a fast paced, sexy scifi/action read that never takes itself too seriously.

Warfem is pretty much a scifi/secret baby book. And oddly enough I didn’t like it much. I am not sure why… I think it was the idea that they had been apart 20 years. I hate that!

The Warlord and the Fem is another tale of genetically engineered warriors finding true lurve. (using the same hero name, Baird, as in Warfem since Knight loved it and never though she would see this one in print) I liked it. Baird wants her and tells her oh yes she would be his. To make that happen… he courts her.

Baby You’ve Changed amuses the hell out of me. It is maybe 10? 15? pages (closer to ten if I remember correctly) Once upon a time when they were young and stupid Fem Tamin seduced Gage Deauxville and threw him away. He was just a human after all. Now it is time for payback… or you know anal sex… whichever comes first.

This will sooooooo not work for some people.. because the new stuff is very classic Angela Knight. They are short, fun, hot and have some kink tossed in. The turn off your brain and go for a ride with me type of stories. Of course I like both of them so there you go.

If you have read Jane’s Warlord and enjoyed it, there is a really great chance you are going like the other three. Is it worth buying this tradesize book if you have it? If you are a fan - of course. If not Warfem, The Warlord and the Fem and Baby You’ve Changed make up about 100 pages and that could be pushing it. If you have never tried Jane’s Warlord this is a great chance to get it. Or if you are looking for some science fiction/romance this could be for you.

Grade: B-

Throwing Stones at Reviewers

I promise not yet another blog topic on book reviews, reviewers, mean grrls or whatever. That’s for tomorrow. I kid! Maybe… But this soooooo made me giggle.

Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is demanding a paper say their very very sowry for being mean to the band and their fans!

Reuters:

“Never before have I risen to the bait of a bad review,” the veteran rock star said in a statement released on Wednesday.

“But this time … I have to stand up for our incredible Gothenburg audience and for our fans all over Sweden … to say that you owe them, and us, an apology.”

Guess he hasn’t heard about laughing all the way to the bank? Maybe Falk should email him. To be fair though I did like the Stones concert when I saw them on their first retirement tour in 1994.

I am not sure what I liked best. I think the last line

“The statement, a copy of which was provided to Reuters by the promoter, concluded: “Write the truth. It was a good show.”

Or maybe the part about the 56,000 people who bought a ticket REALLY LIKED IT DAMN IT! Cuz I am sure they spent all night calling and asking them all. Damn one would think he could buy a better problem.

Slow news day me think… but still ::giggle:: That reviewer must be sooooooooooo ashamed. I am sure he/she is writing up a new review right now. So is that as nifty as having Anne Rice go postal on your ass?

hmmm what would be the book equal to keith richards? Everyone coming to mind is like… dead and that seems wrong even for me. What? I am just trying to come up with new levels for KarenS to reach for

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