It's Monday, and it almost snuck up on me again.

This past week, the baby in my It's Monday button has turned six years old. Six.  And now she's in kindergarden, reading to me and learning all kind of things.  AND she just asked to get her ears pierced, used some of her b-day money to get them pierced.  According to her dad, she swindled him.  haha.  She had $20 left of her Disneyland money (they went to Disneyland for her birthday).  So she asked if she could get her ears pierced.  Her parents said sure, especially when she wanted to use her money. According to dad, though, the whole thing costs a little over $50.  He's laughing as he's telling us, so I don't think he really minded too much.  ;)  She is their only child, seems to have been a miracle that she was even conceived, much less born (all kinds of trouble)  She's here and a spirited yet sweet young thing.  Full of piss and vinegar and sugar, all mixed together in one little package.  :)

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is the weekly bookish meme hosted by Ms Sheila of Book Journey - and it really did almost sneak up  on me again.  I missed quite a few weeks lately, and I'm trying not to miss again.  It used to be that the Monday meme kept be grounded, it's a good way to keep on track with reading, to remember to list my books (this blog and my Books Read page are the only way I can keep track of what I've read, bought, tried to read, etc.) so it's more important than it would seem to me.  Even though I spent the week watching my daughter's house when they went on their trip to L.A.,  I didn't get much reading done at all.  I fully expected to read a lot, since they don't have cable.  I even brought three books with me, and figured that she had a shelf full of books I could read if I finished what I brought.....HA!  They had NetFlix, and so I spent many hours watching episodes of the BBC version of Shameless (not as good as the Showtime's version) and the beginning episodes of Supernatural (omg!  Why did it take so long for me to even FIND this show?)  Supernatural is a fun  and spooky show;  and I've only gotten through a few episodes...

The one novel I finished reading this week was ...

The Trouble With Fate

by Leigh Evans

Hedi is half fae, half were, stuck in the human world, trying to blend in and stay out of notice of the weres while living and caring for her full fae, crazed Aunt Lou.  Aunt Lou has been invading her dreams and subconcious...or is there something else going on?  Aunt Lou is abducted, and Hedi needs to go find her..  Good story.  Good writing, good dialogue and I want to read the next novel - **BTW the blurb for sequel contains spoilers for the first novel, which I didn't know, then I read the blurb and thought...WTF? WHY?  give some warning for those of us who don't read the first book fast enough for it not to matter if you give an ending away in the blurb for the second novel...even if it's not considered a spoiler by the publisher, it's something that I would have liked to have been surprised about.  But NOOOOooooo, I ended up knowing a certain thing was going to happen before I read it because I became curious and looked up the second novel before I finished reading the first, without realizing they were going to go there.  Damn!  The Thing About Weres. (don't click if you haven't read the first novel,really)

Current Reading is a toss up.

Choices are...

The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman

Turbulence by Samit Basu

Roil by Trent Jamieson

                    

Is it just me, or does anyone else see the strong resemblance of the cover model to Kiera Knightly's character of Domino?

Or...I might just do a re-read, or one of my Terry Pratchett novels...or Nylon Angel...

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett - review

Unseen Academicals
Terry Pratchett
fantasy
Discworld novel
2009 h/c


******  6 out of 6 star


Cover - I love this cover - it's just a hint of what's going on.  Only I would have expected a rugby type of ball....or at least the shape.  However, I realize this game is symbol of ALL games everywhere, and therefore, it's totally possible that a basketball like ball is used in a combination football/rugby/soccer type game....hell, it could even be a head being kicked around by an ancient people in a precursor to the game of ..... well,  soccer/  :)

For some odd reason, totally not my usual way of doing things, I bought this book the moment it came out (okay, that's normal with a favorite) and then put off reading it for quite a while....which can be normal for me with a lot of books, but NEVER with a Terry Pratchett book.  In fact, I ended up reading the next book, Snuff, before I finally dug Unseen Academicals back out of the TBR pile.  Of course, once I began reading I was soon pulled into the story....


Reading a Terry Pratchett novel is quite an experience.  The man is clever, brilliant AND on top of that, can write a charming, interesting, humorous novel full of twists, turns, surprises, tidbits and social satire.  He does not shy away from difficult or uncomfortable subjects and yet can write with humor, so while you're laughing, you're still thinking about the injustices of the world.   Somehow, and rightly so, you're left know just how idiotic these injustices are yet even while the novel seethes with trouble makers, the poor, the desparate - by the end of the book you are enjoying the fact that while still imperfect - the characters have had small victories, huge victories, or temporary victories, and even if they don't necessarily get a fairytale happy ending - they get the right ending.


In this case, we're not only reading about sports and how it affects people, but all the other behavours and issues that a popular well attended sporting event can bring up - bigotry, politics, rights of the people, rioting, cheating, loyalties, competition, ....you know, all the craziness that can accompany sports and sporting events and even within sporting families. 


There's this game that's been going on since forever, it gets bigger and bigger, truly mythical proportions, even the spectators seem to be part of the game (like in American football, when they call the crowd the 12th man).  The game seems to be a cross between Rugby, Soccer and Football, and in this early, discworld version the game seems to move from place to place; not because of the day, but because of where the players are throwing the ball.  The game and "12th man" becoming so epic has drawn the attention of Lord Vetinari.  When he becomes interested in something - watch out.


There are some familiar faces in Unseen Academicals - The Unseen University, the wizards within; Ponder, Stibbons, Ridcully, The Librarian, etc.  However, Pratchett introduces new characters to readers: the head of the night kitchen, Glenda, who is a no nonsense type of woman, one everyone depends on and who seems to be middle ages, though she's much younger; Juliet, the beautiful worshipped maid, who is the same age as Glenda, yet seems years younger; Trev, who works for the Unseen University - a young handsome roguish man, big sports enthusiast, and unfortunately a supporter of the wrong team.  Unfortunate, because he's in love with Juliet and her family/neighborhood are for the other team.  There's a bit of a Romeo/Juliet thing going here - just the beginnings....  There is also this whiz of a candle maker - Mr.  Nutt.  In fact, he seems to be an expert on just about everything, and yet there is something slightly sinister and mysterious about him  People seem nervous around him...


There's such a wondrous mix of stories here.  I see a sort of West Side/East Side, Romeo and Juliet, Necessary Roughness, all kinds of stories going on here - and it's all weaved into one master story by this brilliant writer, Terry Pratchett.  As usual, Pratchett uses humor, satire, cleverness, multiple storylines and wonderful dialogue all together to bring his take on things - in this example, sports and love.  If you haven't yet tried a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, this is a good one - though he has over 30 novels set in this Discworld, they all stand alone in their own right.  And if you have read them, just haven't yet picked up this one, go get it, you won't be disappointed.

Sir Terry Pratchett has already released one new book, The Long Earth this year, and is releasing another book in September, 2012.  The Long Earth is a mix of Science Fiction and Fantasy - looks very interesting.   Out right now.   




Dodger, coming out in September, is Young Adult, and mixes in some history with fantasy elements - Sweeney Todd, Charles Dickens, promises to be an interesting novel.

Some of my favorite things....on t.v. (or books)

Craig Ferguson's Monologues - Every night, without fail, he refers to a row - the front row- as "lesbian row" and no matter who sits there, according to him, they are lesbians.  He's never rude about it, he always gives the impression that they're his favorite people.  I also like the way he's not afraid to make fun of himself throughout his show.  He has a wicked sense of humor.

Geoffrey Peterson, the robot.  From Craig Ferguson's show - his gay skeleton sidekick.  One of my favorite talkshow sidekicks.  He has a twitter account.  If I did twitter, I would totally follow him.  But I don't - do twitter.  Unfortunately, this account doesn't seem to be updated lately....or maybe I just don't know how to navigate twitter.

haha - the way that all of my favorite talk show hosts (David Letterman and Craig Ferguson) keep taking jabs at the whole Leno debacle.  How because of Leno, Letterman ended up at CBS (started out on NBC) and then how Leno pushed Conan O'Brien out of the prime late night show time.  I personally, don't think Leno is that great.  Those other three  - Conan O'Brien, David Letterman and Craig Ferguson are way funnier.

Discovering new music via car commercials- seriously, I've heard some interesting songs on car commercials....or Captain Jack's Rum commercial.  

• The White Stripes' Ball and Biscuit comes to mind.  
• Neon Trees - Everybody Talks
• Alex Clare - Too Close (I like the song, the video?not so much)
• the 2013 mustang car commercial - the link is to the commercial itself - take a look at the little girl in the pink ballerina outfit - and how it reflects her in a black outfit.  Love it.  The artist or band is The Features

Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.  I just finished Unseen Academicals - just as good as the others, though it took me a little longer than usual to get started on it.  Though he's famous for his Discworld Novels, he's also written books in a couple of other series.  I also have a very old SciFi book of his called Strata.  A very early novel, originally published in 1980 - it's a relatively short novel, compared to his other novels.

Michelle Obama's sense of humor.  I like that she's willing to do a top ten list for David Letterman.  She's also appeared on his show - I don't care if it was only because of elections coming up or not - I like to watch her, she's funny, smart and watching when they both appear on interviews is also fun.

and my alltime Favorite thing?

spending time with my grandchildren!  This pic is from the spring of 2011

Not the best picture - but this is one of the things they do together....and the background is   another thing they do together...i.e. mess up grandma's house with toys.  Toys from the front entryhall to the bedroom.  :)

Where's My Cow and other fun children's books

Like many people who've read to children...or have read children's books... I have a few favorites.  

One of my all-time favorites is a fairly recent book by Terry Pratchett called Where's My Cow?  It fit's in with Pratchett's other discworld book and is really two books in one.  It's the story of Commander Vimes, who is reading a story to his son....
You have to read it to appreciate it.  If you can't wait to get to a bookstore, here is a youtube version of a man reading to his family.  You can take or leave his micro-sermon at the end of the broadcast.
Interesting sidenote - this is not your average children's book.  There are references to some of the colorful street people and characters featured in Pratchett's adult novels of the disworld.  In fact, there's a thread on a forum about where to shelve this picture book - children's section? adult?  I just put it in the fiction area with the other Pratchett novels.

I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll is a book I've enjoyed in the last few months. This is a book both my granddaughter and grandson has requested almost nightly when they spend the weekend with us.  When we first started out reading it, I tried a few different monster voices - no way.  They couldn't handle the voices.  Of course they were four and three years old, and it's entirely possible at this age, that your grandmother might just turn into a monster and EAT YOU UP!  So I respected their insecurities and after reading this story to them a few times they began to reqeust a few different voices.  So now, there are at least four different voices I use for each of the monsters.  This adds to the whole experience.  Very fun reading with lots of possibilities, this features a rather strange little boy who likes to keep a scary monster under his bed so that he's not tempted to get up at night.  Weird, but whatever works.  Only one night his monster has gone fishing and leaves a note that he'll be gone for a week.  This leads to the boy interviewing a few different monsters who just don't measure up.  After all, it's not every monster who instills the right mix of fear and comfort for sleeping...

Another fun book for changing the fear of monsters into an acceptance of monsters as fiction or fun is No Such Thing by Jackie French Koller.  A little boy keeps hearing things under his bed and keeps calling his mom to check it out.  His mom keeps telling him there's no such thing as monsters.  At the same time, a little monster keeps hearing noises from the area above his place under a bed.  He keeps calling his mom, who keeps assuring him that there's no such thing as boys.  This is a strange little tale that celebrates differences at the same time as showing how much we're all a like.  The grandkids love this one, especially the end, where the two meet and decide to play a little trick on their moms...


Where's My Cow will always be my favorite (the kids don't quite appreciate that one as much as I do) while the two monster books are currently the most requested bedtime book on weekends.  Luckily, I also enjoy these two monster books.  So until the kids find a new book to obsess over (they tend to love to re-read books, sometimes over and over and over and over...etc, throughout the same day!), I Need My Monster and No Such Thing are getting well used, enough that I might have to buy new copies (I have paperback versions).

Waiting on Wednesday, Shakira and a possible book challenge

After a two years in a row of utter fail in reading challenges, I decided - in fact, PROMISED - not to join any more book reading challenges. But since then I came across this

and decided just one easygoing challenge wouldn't hurt. After all, it's low key; it's to encourage reading of books that have been on my TBR shelf/pile/mound/hill/MOUNTAIN; It's only one book a month - I can surely read one book a month, right?
{hosted by Dollycas via Goodreads}
sigh...Then I come across Beth's blog and find
THIS!

Yes. This person is hosting a Terry Pratchett related reading challenge...

Now, I'm not committing myself to it yet {oh hell, you know I'm going to end up at least trying this!}, but if you're a Discworld fan, then you know how tempting this is. Very. I love reading this guy, and he comes through with a book every year - usually around October.
If you're interested in this challenge, go over to OnceUponATime, {click on Terry Pratchett's pic above for the challenge link}
Most likely, I'll be joining - I love reading Terry Pratchett's work and it'll be nice to have an excuse to go back and re-read his work. I'm mostly up to date with his releases, so most of my challenge reads would have to be re-reads. The only thing I haven't read by him is Unseen Academicals in his discworld series. there's an unrelated to Discworld series novel coming out next called The Long Earth which sounds very intriguing - different from his normal work. But then Pratchett does write other things besides the Discworld - not as much, but some others. :) I'm willing to give the other work a try.




Which brings me to Waiting On Wednesday {frequently known as WOW}; I haven't posted one of these for a while {sometimes it's hard to keep up, folks...especially when I'm trying to expand my city in Cityville, find hidden pics in Hidden Chronicles and killing Zombies in Zombie Lane! That's a lot of hard work, very consuming *g* DAMN you FaceBook!}. Today, I feel the need to post an WOW.
Hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine, W0W is a great place to post books we're waiting to read, waiting even to see published.

Suzanne McLeod will have her fourth Spellcrackers.com novel out, which I'm looking forward to very much.

The Shifting Price of Prey is slated to be released in the UK June of 2012. If I have to order from The Book Depository, that's what I'm doing {I HATE waiting for the U.S. release, *g*} The continuing adventures of Genny and co. With McLeod's writing, narration, characters, and dialogue I know I'm going to enjoy The Shifting Price of Prey. Want to see some cool covers? click here for the German version of the Spellcrackers.com novels - love the covers.

As I mentioned earlier {or, higher up in this post} I'm looking forward to reading Terry Pratchett's upcoming The Long Earth. Started way back in the 1980's, apparently this manuscript was put aside when the Discworld books were demanding Pratchett's attention. Lately, Stephen Baxter has teamed up with Pratchett to finish up this novel; it'll be interesting to see how it turns out. Pratchett once before teamed up with another writer {Neil Gaiman on Good Omens} and that turned out pretty good. Sorry - can't find an excerpt of this yet.

Now what should we end with?

another LOLcat? or a music video?

Shakira - an appearance via David Letterman

Shakira takes Salsa dance to a whole 'nother level. Good way to stay in shape, yeah?

Where's My Cow? by Terry Pratchett - review

Where's My Cow?
Terry Pratchett
illustrated by Melvin Grant
children's books
******
cover- I love this cover. The almost lifelike rendition of the cow and the painting like quality of the background...then that little cartoon image in the two corners...brilliant. And the stamp - approved by the librarian of Unseen University. If you've read the discworld books, you'll get it, but you haven't...see there's this series of books. In some of the books there's this University, the Unseen University. It's quite magical, because it houses not only all the wizards and sorcerers in Ankh-Morpork (or almost all of them) keeping them from harming the innocent - and giving them a place to practice their arts, but it also holds all the magical books. Some of the books have to be chained down, or they'll escape. In charge of the library at Unseen University is an orangutang. He's very capable - he actually used to be a human, but he's pretty happy as an orangutang, in charge of the library. Those prehensile feet and hands, with the thumbs and all, turned out to be very handy - after all....So - he approves this book. ook!

Art work - If I rated artwork (which I don't think should be done, art is subjective, after all) I would rate it a 6 out of 6, or 10 of 10, or whatever. The artwork is beautiful. Whatever the subject was on the page, an animal, a transient, The Duchess, Vimes or young Sam, the art was amazing. Go to Melvin Grant's website and take a look at his gallery. Beautiful work, in a variety of subjects
I approve this book also. LOL, doesn't that sound vain? I do though. I've wanted this book for a long time, since it ties in so nicely with the other discworld novels...it's great because it's really three books in one. You'll have to read it to understand what I'm saying...

Commander Vimes, a frequent character of the discworld novels is one of the characters in this book. He's reading a book to his son....and the book he's reading...you get to read that while reading about Vimes reading to his son...see? There's another aspect to this, but at the moment I can't really explain it.

So Commander Vimes is reading this book and he is making all these animal sounds, because it's a book called Where's My Cow? So the book within this book has all these animals and animal sounds and someone is obviously looking for his cow....Vimes is reading this, and making the noises for his son - which his son loves - when he suddenly decides the book is a bit lame, in fact that it has nothing to do with real life. After all they live in a huge city, where all the animals are...cooked.

So he begins changing the book while reading, to something HE can relate to. Criminals. He starts naming the usual suspects that he has to deal with on a daily basis...and they all have some quirk, great names, and the pics - oh man, the pics are great. These aren't your normal tame children's book pics - so beware of this if you plan to read it to your kids or grandkids. They will have to have a good sense of the absurd and humor.

I Loved This Book.

I read it to both of my grandkids, and they know it's Granma's SPECIAL BOOK that they have to have ME bring down for them, so we can read it together. And like Vimes, I love making the animal sounds, and I even try to make the rather gross usual Suspects's sounds. like Hrrumph, etc. The kids laugh and laugh. I laugh and laugh. A good time is had by all. Grandma loves these type of childrens books.

Twisted, snarky, edgy, slightly off children's books.

Oh Yeah!

Snuff by Terry Pratchett - review

Snuff

Terry Pratchett

fantasy

******

cover- I always love the covers of Terry Pratchett books - and this one is full of imagery from the novel itself. The covers usually are, and I say this because we all know there are times when a cover has nothing whatsoever to do with the book it's covering. From the imagery to the colors, I like everything about this cover.

I've been a fan of Terry Pratchett for a bit over 20 years, or so - give or take. From the first time I happened across one of his novels, I was hooked. I think the first one I read was Equal Rites - about the young girl who ended up a sorcerer, unheard of on discworld. I think this is one of the few writers who can keep things interesting with over 30 novels in a series about an imaginary planet - a flat one at that, that rests on top of four elephants, who in turn stand on a giant turtle's back as the turtle "swims" through space. Pratchett used to put a bit in about the Discworld and how it looked/came into being in each book, but the last few haven't contained this info. If you haven't read any of his novels yet, take a look at one of the early ones, and pay attention to the description of the discworld, the rim, the way the waters fall off the edge of the planet and how the elephants stand on top of the turtle....it's great. I believe that one of the reasons that I haven't gotten tired of his series is because there are so many characters within. The books are not all about the very same characters. There's a series within the Discworld series about three witches - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magret for instance- Wyrd Sisters; there's the YA four book series about Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men, or Mac Nac Feegles (aka pictsies); There are quite a few books featuring the City Watch, including characters such as Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot and Lord Vetinari such as Night Watch and Guards!Guards!; among my favorites are the novels that feature Death and his granddaughter Susan- Reaper Man and Hogfather are two of them; Yet more novels featuring the Unseen University and a slew of sorcerers, including Rincewind. The Discworld series is an amazing collection of novels with an amazing amount of stories and characters - even better, any of the books reads very well as a standalone novel. Even the four volumes about the child to teen witch can be read in any order, though it's wonderful in order. You can pick any book in the series and have a great reading experience at any time.

Snuff is one of the latest featuring Commander Vimes and his wife, the Duchess. Commander Vimes is a hardboiled type of guy, one who grew up on the streets of a tough neighborhood and worked his way up the ranks of the City Watch. He's rather uncomfortably become a rich noble, because he accidentally fell in love with a duchess, and she with him. Though he has his own set of prejudices against the nobility and rich, he's now uncomfortably one of them, as well as still the commander of a police district. Always the workaholic type of personality, he's been forced to go on vacation - between his wife and the sinister ruler of the city they've convinced him to go on vacation to one of the estates he now owns....only there seems to be more than a simple vacation going on. There's also been some trouble with goblins...

The Discworld, as well as being full of interesting witches, warlocks and policemen is also the home to trolls, goblins, vampires, little blue men, dwarves, werewolves and any other supernatural being you can imagine. And they're all learning to live together in the great city of Ankh-Morpork. Only out in the country it's a bit different. The goblins are the lowest on the totem pole. They are the last species that people are comfortable about treating as second class, or even lower. They're considered dirty, thieves and worse. Only Commander/Duke Vimes is about to learn just how complex their world really is...

Seems a long time ago some goblins were rounded up and driven off. And now when Vimes is on vacation a young goblin woman has been murdered....there's some smuggling going on, a missing person, and someone is trying to frame Vimes as a murderer.

Most of Pratchett's novels have two or three storylines taking place at the same time, and they all come together to blend into a grand scheme of a plot. Pratchett is very good at switching back and forth between pov's, providing a fun suspenseful read complete with humor and social satire. However, for the first section of Snuff, all the action centered on Vimes and the country. During the second half though, part of the plot started to pick up back in the city of Ankh-Morpork with Nobby and Sargeant Colon (two of the oldest characters) bringing things together at the end. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Snuff. I think once I started reading it, it only took me two days to finish, and that was interlaced with work hours, sleep and dinner. I love to read while I eat, but when I have a hardback I won't eat while reading. Don't want to ruin the pages.

If you're a Terry Pratchett/Discworld fan, you're going to enjoy Snuff. If you're in the mood to read something new, and have never read Terry Pratchett you should give this a try. After reading Snuff, you'll want to give the other 30 or so books a try. They're that good. In fact, going through the website, looking for book excerpt links is making me nostalgic to re-read some of these novels; and these are books that I've already read quite a few times, just for fun. :)

By the way-for those Neil Gaiman fans, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman long ago wrote a book together titled Good Omens. I'm sure this is old news for many, but just in case....I loved it, and my copy is so worn, that I've been thinking about buying a new copy, and I rarely buy books I already own (on purpose, anyway)

Teaser Tuesday Tuesday Teaser (a word palindrome)

Know what a palindrome is? Usually you see it in a word form, like BoB or dad, Hannah, Anna. Same backwards as forwards. Here it's in phrase form (not a usual palindrome form). My favorite math activity is one that a 5th grade teacher gives each year's class. A list of numbers from one to 99, where you add (for example) for the number 21 add 12 to it - the answer is 33 which makes a number palindrome. Because it only took one addition, it's considered a one step. It's fun to watch the kids go through all the number, seeing the students who catch on quickly that the answer for the number 32 is going to be the same as for 23, the answer for 29 will be the same for 92, etc. The most challenging number was 89 (if I'm remembering right) It took over 23 steps to get to the palindrome and ended up being one of those huge numbers that have over 11 digits to it. Took four pages of additions (rather large writing, but still). I did the math myself once just to do it. Anyway - that was one of my randomosities. A bit of randomness that has nothing whatsoever to do with book blogging to round out your day. :)

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I love this meme, even though I occasionally miss it, like last week. It's fun reading little bits of novels that are out there. It's fun finding little bits to tease others with. :) The Teaser Tuesday meme calls for a two sentence tease, with no spoilers. However, I have a hard time keeping to only two sentences, so at times I post a bit more. Either way, it's a fun meme to participate in, and I doubt the meme police are going to show up and fine me, (hopefully not, anyway!)

Snuff by Terry Pratchett - his newest book release
Snuff is set in the Disc World, with Commander Vimes of the City Watch being the focus. Vimes is forced into a vacation - something that is anathema to ol' coppers like him. One of my other favorite writers has interviewed Terry Pratchett - interesting interview.
{by the way - click here for a peak at a song that Neil Gaiman helped out with on the Craig Fergusen show - Moby and others were singers....scroll down the post, you'll see it. Loved it, and he also had a pretty good interview with Craig}

from page 109 of Snuff;
'Vimes stood up. "I'm going for a walk, chief constable. You can follow me if you like"
"Sorry sir, but I've arrested you!"
"No, son, you haven't," said Vimes, heading toward the front door.
"But I definitely told you that you were arrested, sir!" It was almost a wail.
Vimes opened the front door and started down the steps with Feeney trotting along behind him....'


Black Blood (aka Dark Blood) by John Meaney
The second in the Tristopolis trilogy
from page 17;
'He had a strange sense of architecture in his mind, a form of internal perception he had never known.
Then again, I've never been dead before.'

The first book was Bone Song - one of the best books I've read in 2011...or, well - ever.

I was planning on more random bits, but still a bit under the weather, so it's sleepy time again. Too tired even to post an LOL cat, and I love them kitties and their crazy captions.

:)

Waiting On Wednesday and Book B-Day coming up

I haven't posted a Waiting On Wednesday meme for quite a while...and I've been waiting for books! as always. LOL

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine. Full guidelines available at Breaking the Spine. I'm listing three books that I've been waiting for, and all three are established writers, all favorite authors. One was just released this week (getting myself to the bookstore very soon!), one comes out in November and the other one comes out

Snuff by Terry Pratchett came out in hardback October 11th. One of my rare auto in hardback buys now, as soon as I can, I'm treating myself to a copy. It's hard for me to describe just why I like Terry Pratchett's writing so much. Some of the complaints I've heard from readers are parts of the reasons I love reading his novels (varying pov, jumping from character to character and back again - love this type of writing, keeps you on your toes! and it's really not that hard to keep up.) This is one of the few series, that has over 30 books that I've enjoyed and am enjoying every single novel. This guy could keep going and going and I'd be happy. But he won't, since he's ended up with Alzheimer's which will eventually end his writing career long before it should have.

Reckoning by Lili St.Crow is another bittersweet wait - it's the final novel in the Strange Angels' series. The fifth and final. One of my rare young adult reads, I've enjoyed them since the first novel and have found it refreshingly dark, even with the inevitible teen angst. It all fits, and I enjoy the main character's attitude and teen anger. Due out October 27th, 2011.

Finally - Magic On The Line is the 7th Allie Beckstrom novel and very close to the end of this series. Smart of Devon Monk - to end the series while it's still popular. Seems like a hard call, also. On one hand, why end a good series, and on the other when do you end it, how do you tell when it might be going down hill, what if it would stay popular, etc? November 1st is the release date for this soon to end series' next novel. Bittersweet on all novels. I can honestly say that things won't seem the same without the Discworld novels, and it'll be a joyful shame to be reading the final novels of the other two series that I enjoy so much. On the other hand, with Devon Monk and Lili St.Crow always going in new directions and thinking with their writerly brains, I'm pretty sure that we're going to be treated to more from them. And then there's always my other favorite British author ....
Suzanne McLeod - who has a U.S. book b-day coming up. In December, The Bitter Seed of Magic will come out in paperback over here in the States. It's also coming out in mmppb (mass market ppb size). It's been out in the UK in hardcover - time to celebrate the ppb version! If you've been waiting for the US ppb to come out.

If you've been a fan, and have signed up for McLeod's newsletter, then you'll see that there is a special contest for newsletter subscribers. If you're not as subscriber, then you should definitely check this newsletter out ('cause the contest is very generous). It's very easy to join - just click here to sign up for her newsletter and the rest will follow. Or click here to find out more about being a part of her Spellcrackers.com Clan

Along with having book b-days and contest, Ms Suzanne is being interviewed - more information is on her blog. Seems she's sharing some interview space with Ann Rice, which is pretty cool. Hopefully Suzanne's part will survive the inevitable edits that always seem to take place with interviews, but how exciting for her.

I've just spent a very long time waiting for blogger to upload a short video of my grandchildren. I give up. It's taking so long that you're now either to be disappointed or spared (whichever you choose to be) the unbearable cuteness of my two grandchildren battling with two soft bowling pins (used them as swords). It was pretty cool, because this was from last winter, just about the time when Liliana started realizing that her cousin is pretty fun to play with. She was doing slow motion moves, he was fighting her pretty softly and waiting like a gentleman when her back was to him (could have taken her down, but he chose to wait. He's a very thoughtful, considerate opponent.) This is probably a good thing for y'all because, (snickerk shickWerk hahahaha). also had plans of sharing videos of them playing the drums, dancing in the kitchen, and in geneal being very cute, as grandchildren often are. And THEN I was going to share videos of the pets - playing, chasing the grandkids, etc.....you just barely escaped...

MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ....(but then - of course, there's always YouTube!!! go ahead - you know you want to. click on it. good rock blues)