30 Day book meme...Day 01

I found this at Cate's Bookshelves and have decided that this is one way I can keep my blog updated without taking too much time away from my school work. The topics are right there for me and very specific...Cate found this meme at another blog, Christina Reads!

Feel free to join in :) And now, as they say, on with the sh--- er, meme.

Day 01 - A book series you wish had gone on longer OR a book series you wish would just freaking end already (or both!)

This is a hard one for me to answer, I fully admit, as I don't always finish a whole series. After all, I still haven't gotten any further than Drums of Autumn (though I do have the other books). Still, I hated to see Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh series - Here be Dragons, Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning - end. It was masterful and I would have loved to have seen her continue the story somehow, even though the central character dies. I remember waiting on tenterhooks for each book in the series to be released, diving into it with the eagerness of a boy let loose in a Matchbox Car factory. Here be Dragons remains one of my favourite books to this day. For those of you who haven't read these books, they follow the story of the last Welsh princes of Wales - Llewellyn Fawr through to his grandson, Llewellyn the Last. There's political intrigue, war, family disputes and romance - everything any afficiando of historical fiction craves. If you haven't read them, I highly recommend finding them at your local library or bookstore!

Teresa

And if you LOVE English history....

you'll also like this post from Amy over at Passages to the Past. It lists a number of the books on English history being released over the next few months *sigh*. Check out the books in her sidebar too. I probably should STOP visiting PtoP *g*, but OTOH, now I work in the library I guess I should be aware of recent releases, right? (she say, blinking innocently).

Happy Sunday!

Teresa

Currently Reading: The Love Academy by Belinda Jones

Attn: Historical Fiction Fans...

Over at Amy's Passages to the Past blog is holding a Book Giveaway contest for Susan Holloway Scott's latest novel (about Charles II and the Duchess of Portsmouth), The French Mistress.

There's still plenty of time to enter and Susan's books never disappoint, so be sure to surf on over for your chance to win :)

Teresa

Currently Reading: The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips

I'm still here, really....

and just can't believe how little time I've had to blog lately. So much has been going on and I've barely had time to breathe.

To recap:

1) I finished my first two Library and Information Technology courses just over a week ago (did well, so I'm happy). My next course (Digital Collections) starts on Monday - it's the only one I'm taking this term.

2) I'm still employed at the Sechelt Public Library and loving it :) It's so cool to be able to greet patrons by name, have a general idea of their reading interests and apply what I'm learning in school in a hands-on way.

3) On Easter weekend we went up to Whistler to see and ski with a cousin of mine I hadn't seen in 30+ years. She was there with her family and it was sooooo cool! We had a fantastic time and it turns out she and I have a lot in common - she's interested in family history, history and books (ok, so our whole family is into books). She even works as a tour guide at a heritage home in the area where she lives. How neat is that? The following week they came up here to the Coast to see our place and spend the night befor heading back to the UK.

4) Though my writing has taken a bit of a back seat, I'm still working on at least two of my mss. I make notes, especially while I'm on the elliptical and hope to get back to actual writing in May.

5) Our family is expecting another addition soon - nephew # 4! So I'm madly knitting a hat and hoping it's finished by the time he arrives. Started it only last week as I've been so busy with school work most evenings in the winter, I didn't spend any time knitting.

6) I had to make the tough decision NOT to attend RWA National in DC this summer. It's a matter of timing - in that, with school AND my job, I just really can't afford the week in time it would take to go. I'm rather disappointed as my critique partners will all be there and I'd hoped to share a room with them. But that's life.

7) We actually have some grass growing out on our septic field - so far it's pretty sparse, but it's a start. And we hoping to get some more gardening done this summer. Almost all my perennials made it through, though it appears the Evening Primrose was a victim of our harsher than normal winter (as in longer, colder and snowier). OTOH, the daffodils we transplanted (courtesy of my m-i-l) all flowered - yay!

8) Of interest to fellow hockey fans - Go Canucks!! We're driving around with our Canucks flag flapping in the breeze :) Round Two starts tomorrow.

I think that's about it.

I'll try to make the rounds of everyone's blogs as time allows. Right now I'm tethered to my desktop computer while waiting for a new power adaptor for the laptop to arrive from Dell. I've been spoiled by my laptop and the ability to surf from anywhere in the house, so have gotten out of the habit of spending loads of time in my office, though I still use it to do school work.

Hope you're all keeping well :)

Teresa

Currently Reading: Divas Don't Knit by Gil McNeil
Link of the Day: Library Link of the Day

The Big Read

I got this from fellow Canuck Cindy. Here's her intro - it was written so concisely, I figured I wouldn't mess with it:

Seems The Big Read, sponsored by the BBC, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list. How do you fare?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (This was a tough one for me as I've read a fair amount of it, yet really not enough to bold it)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (like Cindy, I haven't actually read them ALL, but enough of them - I did a Shakespeare course at university and read at least 26 plays that year + others in high school)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (I'm pretty sure I've read this one)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My score was a 27. And it's an interesting list. Both for what is on it and what isn't. I mean, why that particular Blyton title? One of the few I haven't read. Similarly I've read Hard Times by Dickens, yet it's not on there. And NO Canadian literature appears - grrrrr. I'd have included things like:

1. Josephine B series - Sandra Gulland
2. A Brief History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
3. The Odyssey - Homer
4. The Aeneid - Virgil
5. Beowulf
6. Dr. Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
7. River Thieves - Michael Crummey
8. Paradise Lost - Milton
9. Little House series - Laura Ingalls Wilder
10. Lives of Girls and Women - Alice Munro
11. A Jest of God- Margaret Lawrence
12. The Stone Angel - Margaret Lawrence
13. Bonheur d'occasion - Gabriel Roi
14. l'Etranger - Camus
15. Candide - Voltaire
16. The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
17. The Old Wives Tale - Arnold Bennett
18. l'École des femmes - Molière
19. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells
20. Watermelon - Marian Keyes
21. Sailing to Sarantium- Guy Gavriel Kay
    
22. Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies - I admit, I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my TBR list along withVirginia Woolff's A Room of One's Own.

Care to do the same with my list as well?

Teresa

Reading Meme...

PLEASE NOTE - this post is a mess as I used the draft.blogger option (in which you can schedule posts) and something has gone wrong with their line break coding, which seems pretty much impossible to fix. I'm still trying, so please bear with me.

I found this at Sam's blog and thought it looked fun - perfect for a Saturday post:

Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?
Not at all - I just remember reading all the time as a kid. What are some books you read as a child?
Anything by Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Secret Seven, St. Clares, Mallory Towers etc), the Chalet School books by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, LIW's Little House books, LMM's Anne series and others (Emily etc), Caddie Woodlawn, The Witch of Blackbird Pond and oh, so much more.

What is your favourite genre?
Historical fiction of any flavour and stripe - mainstream, romance, mystery, suspense. If it's historical, I'll generally give it a try! But I also enjoy Women's Fiction of most shapes and forms, especially anything by Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly and Catherine Alliot

Do you have a favourite novel?
It all depends on when you ask me. Anything by Elizabeth Chadwick, Sharon Kay Penman or Sandra Gulland comes to mind, but then again, I'm also a HUGE fan of Susan Howatch's masterful The Wheel of Fortune.

Where do you usually read?
In the living room, my little library, the deck - often with a cat on my lap! (though not out on the deck - too many predators out there for them to be safe if they decide to go exploring).

When do you usually read?
In the evening. If I try to read any other time of day, I get sucked in and don't accomplish much else :) Except when I'm on vacation, then the book comes out at lunch and rarely leaves me hand.

Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?
Yep - not unusual for me at all. My husband doesn't understand that.

Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?
It depends on what it is. If it's non-fiction for research, then yeah, I've very slow and deliberate and skip around in the text. But if it's for pleasure, I just read like I normally would.

Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?
At one point I bought a lot of books, but now I borrow a ton from the library. It's so easy and the ILL librarian at the Sechelt Library is fantastic - she can get me pretty much anything!

Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them?
Not any more. I used to, though. Now I give away the ones that aren't absolute keepers.

If you have children, what are some of the favourite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child?
No children, but I'm hoping to share my favourite books with my nephews and nieces. My older niece has already read Heidi and the Little House books - hopefully I'll share more with her in the coming years.

What are you reading now?
Right now, nothing. Wait, no, that's a lie - I am rereading SH's The Wheel of Fortune, but had put it aside when some other books came into the library for me. But they're all done now, so I'm back to that. Unless something else catches my fancy - possibly March by Geraldine Brooks or Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay - they're in the living room.

Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list?
More like a TBR bookshelf (or two)

What's next?
Robyn Harding's The Journal of Mortifying Moments - when it arrives at the library, which should be soon.

What books would you like to reread?
Some of my Elizabeth Chadwick collection, Susan Howatch's Penmarric and Cashelmara - oh, so many others.

Who are your favourite authors?
Elizabeth Chadwick, Tracy Chevalier, Susan Howatch, Jo Beverley, Mary Jo Putney, Sandra Gulland, Marian Keyes, Catherine Alliot,Sharon Kay Penman, Barbara Erskine, Cathy Kelly, Anya Seton, Edith Pargeter/Ellis Peters, Kathryn Smith - oh so many others I can't even call to mind right now.

Anyone else want to play along?

Teresa
Currently Reading: The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch

Dinner with a view...

On Sunday evening we went to the Lighthouse Pub at Porpoise Bay for a fundraiser to support a local dragon boat team. It was a perfect evening - warm and sunny. By the time we arrived, there was only one table left out on the patio.

Here is the view we had:

One of the cool things about eating at the Lighthouse is that you also get to watch the float planes take off and land.

Here's one of the planes taking off:

Just about an hour later, we saw two land one after the other:

Sean took all the above photos, as he was sitting closest to the railing :) All in all, a fun evening. It actually felt like summer!


Teresa

Currently Reading: Elegance by Kathleen Tessarao
Link of the Day: Author Tracy Grant's blog

This, that and the other thing...

It's been a busy week here on the Coast. I've spent much of my time catching up on things I let slide last week while I was sick. It felt good to actually be doing something again!

We've also discovered that we live at deer central. Now we'd love to think our property itself is the reason, but it's more likely it's because we have the only house without a dog! All our neighbours have at least one big dog, so it's pretty clear the deer feel safest using our garden as their thoroughfare.

I was alerted to a visitor yesterday evening by Chloe growling at the bedroom window - pretty impressive, as I was sitting in the living room with the radio on. She may be a cat, but she's extremely territorial!

After checking to see what nature of visitor (it could have been the bear - we saw evidence the other day that it too had been by as recently as Tuesday morning), I grabbed my camera and managed to get a couple of photos and even some video.

In writing news, I discovered today that I really do need to remember to go to coffee shops more often to work. I stayed in Sechelt between my Nia class this morning and my library shift in the afternoon. With the price of gas these days, I didn't want to go home between the two, so I took the laptop with me and went to The Daily Roast (after finding Starbucks full). I had a yummy coffee and muffin and spent a fruitful hour doing some editing. It was fantastic - there was great music playing and the constant hum of voices and the coffee machine provided just the right amount of noise to lose myself in. I'm too paranoid to use Wireless Hotspots and without the internet I was able to focus on my work.

I've also been glomming books by Vancouver author Robyn Harding - three in the last week! They're page turners and tons of fun. One is even set in Vancouver, which is totally cool. They're very similar in tone to Marian Keyes, Catherine Alliot and Cathy Kelly, but with a Canadian twist. Even the books set in the US give away her nationality - at one point she mentions women might fantasize about sleeping with Joe Thornton of the Colorado Avalanche. I'm not sure many American writers would use a hockey analogy *g*. It's that kind of detail that really sucks me in. Most Canadian teenaged girls have at least one crush on a hockey player. So if you see any of her books - Unravelled, The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom, The Journal of Mortifying Moments or Chronicles of a Mid-life Crisis, pick them up! You can read more about them at Robyn's website.


Last, but not least, here's the book trailer for Elizabeth Chadwick's next book. If you haven't read her books, they're fantastic!



Hope everyone is having a good week :)

Teresa

Currently Reading:The Wedding Day by Catherine Alliot

Books and reading...

Melissa's post got me thinking about books and reading. Like her, I've been reading for as long as I can remember. I get this from both sides of the family, especially my mum's side:

That's my Nana as a young girl. SHE was a reader and my mum and my aunts are as well - don't know so much about my uncles. Interesting that it runs in families - is it nature or nurture? Would I have been a reader if my mum hadn't been? I've no way of knowing. But it's a bond that holds us all together. I remember writing to Nana about books I'd read and was touched when my mum chose a couple from her collection for me when she died.

My babcia read a lot as well,


as did my paternal aunt.

Similarly, my sister is also an avid reader, and her kids are too, especially my older nephew who read Harry Potter himself when he was seven and is happy to curl up with a book pretty much any time.

Like Melissa, I'll buy books and leave them alone for years before actually reading them. It's comforting knowing they're there, waiting for just the right time :)

Fortunately I married someone who appreciates books and reading as much as I do! He understands my need to acquire new "friends", though does insist from time to time that I send some out for adoption so there's room for the new ones *g*. In fact, when I go to the big book sale in aid of the Sechelt library next weekend, I'll have to remember not to bring home the friends I sent out for adoption *vbg*.

That's why I love volunteering at the library - I meet people who are book lovers like me. And find all kinds of interesting things to read in the stacks there - the collection is quite varied. And I love seeing all the children in there.

I catalogue my books using Book Collector (I know I've mentioned this before) and hope at some point to be able to get the CueCat Barcode scanner or maybe even the very fancy laser scanner, to help speed up the process. I enter books as I buy them now, but am still way behind on inputting much of my collection.

Are books a big part of your life?

Teresa

Currently Reading: I'm trying to decide what to read next
Link of the Day: My collection at Library Thing

All moved in, well kinda...

We still have lots of stuff in the cabin - who knew we owned so much? And there's still a storage room with furniture in it as well. That's waiting until Sean finishes the basement.

But, as of last Friday, we're now living in the house :) The cats are settling in well.

Below are some photos.

The hardwood installer finished on Thursday afternoon - here are the results (before we moved the furniture in):

Here's what my library looked like the day we moved in:

I started putting books out on shelves over the weekend:

Cleo had some thoughts on the whole move:

Here she is on the staircase:

And here's Chloe helping with books:

Cleo has found every little nook and cranny, including what little space there is under the bookcase in my writing nook:

Not to be outdone, Chloe also explored every spot she could, and almost couldn't, fit into:

Yesterday my in-laws very kindly brought over our couch and love seat during a break in the rain, so we were able to set up the living room once Sean was home from work:

The cats were overjoyed to see the furniture:

Here's Chloe looking out the library window this afternoon while I worked on unpacking and shelving the last of the books (well, sort of - not quite enough room right now!):

Sean has a lot of books too, so I've been sorting those into boxes for his office - below you can see the kind of progress I've made so far:

Cleo decided she'd had enough and went to sleep on my lap when I sat down to check my email, using my keyboard as a pillow:

while Chloe checked out the view from the other window:

Our front and deck doors will be installed on Thursday - yay!!! More photos then :)

Teresa

Currently Reading: Book for review
Also Reading: The School at the Chalet - one of my favourite childhood comfort reads
Link of the day: Book trailer for Elizabeth Chadwick's new release A Place Beyond Courage

Quick update...

No writing to report this week - Sean and I have been spending a lot of time together. We spent Wednesday in Vancouver, where we bought our two ceiling fans, some light fixtures and the range hood. On Friday we ordered our appliances - yay!

Here are a couple of pics from the house. You can see more detailed ones at the house blog:

Over the next two weeks I have to go into storage and start packing up the books I unpacked last November - lots of work, but better to get it done before the day we actually we start moving things out!

Teresa

Currently Reading: Citadel of the Heart by Anita Burgh
Link of the Day:

Ye Olde Historical Novel Meme...

I found this at my friend Sarah's blog. I know I did a similar one recently, but this has some neat twists, so I'm going to do it anyway.

Straight Historical, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy, Historical Romance, or Time Travel?
Straight historical and historical romance are pretty much tied for first - it just depends on my mood. Then time travel. I've read very little historical fantasy (The Mists of Avalon comes to mind, but that's about it).

Historical Figures as Main Characters or Purely Fictional Characters in Historical Settings as Main Characters?
For my HF, I love having historical figures as main characters. In HR, it's not so important - they're often better as secondary characters then. In TT, I prefer fictional characters, otherwise too much history can get changed.

Hardback, Trade Paperback, or Mass Market Paperback? I'll have to second Sarah on this one - "Trade paperback, hardback second, mass market third. I like the feel of trade paperbacks, plus they're cheaper than hardbacks, and not as heavy to cart around."

Philippa Gregory or Margaret George?
Well, as I've not read Gregory, I'll have to go with George, though I've only read Henry VIII and Mary, QoS&theIsles.

Amazon or Brick and Mortar?
Definitely brick and mortar. I LOATHE Amazon and the way it undercuts indies. I'll wait weeks for an S/O from my local indie before I'll order from Amazon.

Bernard Cornwell or Sharon Penman?SKP is one of my fave all time authors - Here Be Dragons still makes me cry. That said, I've not read Cornwell yet - he's on my very large TBR pile. Still, I don't see him ever dislodging SKP.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?Um, we don't have either in Canada, so I'll have to just say Not Applicable here.

First Historical Novel You Ever Remember Reading? Gone with the Wind for an adult book. YA, it would probably be Caddie Woodlawn or The Witch of Blackbird Pond, unless you count the Little House on the Prairie series. Or Anne of Green Gables.

Alphabetize by Author, Alphabetize by Title, or Random?
I shelve by time period, then author with the most number of books.

Keep, Throw Away, or Sell?
I keep as many as I can, though every year I do give some away. Well, last year I gave away more than ever, but that was because I knew we couldn't bring them all out West with us. As it was, I filled 39 boxes!

Jean Plaidy or Norah Lofts?
Tough call, I really like them both, though if push came to shove, I'd say Plaidy as she introduced me to the world of the Plantagenets.

Read with Dust Jacket or Remove It?
If it doesn't fit properly or gets annoying, I remove it. If possible, I leave them on to protect the covers.

Stop Reading When Tired or at Chapter Breaks?
I usually try to make it to the end of a chapter, but every once in a while I give in when I'm tired.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?
Depends on my mood.

Buy or Borrow?
80/20. With new-to-me authors I will borrow first, then buy.

Posie Graeme-Evans or Pamela Kaufman?
Haven't read the former. Didn't mind Kaufman's first two. Haven't read her recent ones.

Buying Choice: Book Reviews, Recommendations, or Browsing?
A combination of all three.

Dorothy Dunnett or Anya Seton?
I'll parrot Sarah again here - "Seton, as I've read nearly all of hers. Dunnett seems to be an acquired taste I've yet to acquire." and add, I do HAVE The Lymond series (thanks to Katy) and one day will try once again to read it. Am hoping next time out might be the charm, as so many writers I know and respect LOVE these books.s

Tidy Ending or Cliffhanger?
All depends - is it obviously part of a series? Then yeah, a cliffhanger is great. Tidy endings are good most of the time, though.

Sticking Close to Known Historical Fact, or Using Historical Fact as Wallpaper?
I prefer more historically accurate novels, though if done well, wallpaper books are enjoyable too.

Morning Reading, Afternoon Reading or Nighttime Reading?
Late afternoon and evening. Wish I could figure out how to read and knit at the same time (without messing up my knitting) - THAT would be ideal :-)

Series or Standalone?
I don't really have a preferance here - a good story is a good story. Some I like seeing told over a series (like Sandra Gulland's Josephine trilogy) and others I like to see all in one book (pretty much anything by Elizabeth Chadwick following her initial series of connected books The Wild Hunt, The Running Vixen and The Leopard Unleashed).

Favorite Book of Which Nobody Else Has Heard?
The Measure of the World by Denis Guedj (Arthur Goldhammer, translator)

Tomorrow night I'll post again and tell you about what I accomplished at the library on Friday vis a vis my wip.

Thanks all for your concern for Sean - he's feeling somewhat better, but still waiting for the situation to be resolved. Not fun.

Teresa

Currently Reading: Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Also Currently Reading: Dark Angels by Karleen Koen
Link of the Day: BBC - History