I’ve been a regular book moocher for a while now, and all I can say is,I absolutely love this site.
I’m writing this post to help out newbies on BookMooch(BM), as I was a newbie at one point of time and was helped out a lot.
After a shaky start, I’m now having a great time on BM. 

The Basics

BookMooch is a book swapping site where you can give away books you do not want and get books you do.
How you do this is pretty simple. The site allows members to create an inventory of books that they do not want, or would like to give away.
It also lets you create a wish list of the books you’d like to read.

BM has a simple point based system.
To start off, every book you add to your inventory gives you 1/10th of a point. (0.01)
So add 10 books you’d like to give away, and you’re ready to mooch your first book!

International mooches cost more in terms of points (2 instead of 1).

Every book you send out also gives you points, which come from the person requesting for the book.

Once the request comes in (someone has mooched a book from your inventory), It is good practice to respond back to the person, with details like when you are going to send out the book, if you’ve already sent it out, when they should expect it etc..

BM also rewards you for notifying the person you’ve mooched a book from that you have recieved your book with 1/10th of a point(0.01).

In addition, people on BM can reward you with points called smooches.

Tips and Tricks

• Send International
  I’ve found international mooching and sending out very satisfying. I would recommend everyone to try it.
  Not only do you get 3 points (2 from the requestor and 1 from the system), you also make amazing friends.
  Its a great way to get to know people from all walks of life. But do tell them where you live so they can expect the book to take time to arrive.
• Work out your postal kinks.
  Map out things like, when you can post books, how far the post office is from your home, how much postage costs and what are the postage options and delivery times.
  Once you’ve armed yourself with this information, you’ll never have an issue with mooching.
  I’ve also noticed that people are very well-behaved and polite on Bookmooch. Till date, I’ve had really good experiences with people
  willing to understand legitimate delays on my side for posting, etc. Many people are also willing to wait for the book to arrive, so you can try surface postage which works out to be a cheaper postage option.
• Pack well!!
  Never underestimate the power of good packing.Not only does it ensure that the book reaches the reciepient in a good condition.
  It also ensures, that people leave a good feedback for you on your profile. Yes, BM has a feedback system too. I think that’s only fair,
  as this helps judge whom to mooch from.
• Fill up your Bio page.
  Write up your Bio. Of course, no one wants to know about the bowel movements(sry..) of your pet cat, but do write relevant
  information about yourself. The fact that you have a cat, or any other pet, if you smoke, should be mentioned, because people may have allergies to them.
  Also it helps connect the viewer(potential moocher)to the person behind the account, so that you’re not just a username, you’re a real person!
• Make friends
  Take time out to say hello to the people you meet on BM. 99.9% of them are wonderful individuals. But respect the person’s privacy and never share out their address/email.
• Communicate
  People on BM are individuals just like you. Remember the’ve given you their hard-earned points. Value that, and tell them the real situation with their books.
  If its delayed, be upfront and tell them that politely. Most of them will understand, as they themselves would have gone through it at some point of time.
  If not, at the very least they’ll cancel the request. There’s nothing more frustrating than a person who accepts your mooch, and refuses to communicate.

Hope all this information helps. Happy BookMooching.

If I may be so bold as to paraphrase the mighty Salt-N-Pepa: ‘Lets’s talk about books, baby.’   At least I think that’s what they said.  Anyway, as always, my ‘to be read’ pile of books are kept in chronological order, and I alternately read the book I’ve had longest (marked B.H.L.), followed by a free choice (F.C.).  For a full description of my insane book selection rules, please click here.

Books Read

Sometimes you have to meet your fears head on and I’m definitely scared of 1000-page books.  That’s why I chose to read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (F.C.) by Susanna Clarke.  It’s an alternate history novel that’s set in a nineteenth century England where there has been no magic for a few hundred years until two magicians arise (the titular characters) who will bring the art back to its former glory.  It’s a fantasy novel, so I definitely mean ‘magic’ and not ‘illusion’.

It was going to have to be pretty special to keep my interest over such a length, but, fortunately, it was.  It’s written as if it were a novel of the period and it was a delight to read.  The fantastical elements were done so cleverly that they didn’t seem at all out of place.  It was more like reading a 19th century novel from a world in which magic exists than a 21st century novel from a world which it doesn’t.

If you’re going to write a book this long then you’re going to need to make it sufficiently complex and Clarke weaves a rich tapestry.  As the story progresses, the two main characters come in to conflict, but neither is clumsily drawn as the villain.  You’ll probably side with one over the other, but they both clearly have their strengths and both definitely have their weaknesses.  After originally filling me with dread, I really enjoyed it and look forward to the proposed sequel.

The next book of the month was Kidnapped (B.H.L.) by Robert Louis Stevenson.  It was quite a short novel and I imagined it would be a ripping yarn, so it seemed like the best way to refresh my palate.  Sadly, it was like eating a musty kipper (I don’t really know where I’m going with this).  Let’s just say that I gave up after 40 pages as I found it arduous and unfulfilling.  Someone should have taught him how to write in English.

Luckily, I chose a very slim book for my next choice, Batman: Digital Justice (F.C.) by Pepe Moreno.   This is a 1990 graphic novel which was one of the first comics to be produced entirely on computer.  I was fascinated at the time, as it seemed so futuristic, but I never got around to buying it.  It was on my wishlist because it was part of Grant Morrison’s recommended reading list for The Invisibles and I bought it because it was only about £2.50 for a nice hardback edition on Amazon Marketplace.  Anyway, as you would imagine, it has dated quite badly – there is a boast of a computer having a whole 2Gb of storage – but, despite it’s relative clunkiness, there is still something about it.  It’s set in a dystopian Gotham at the end of this century and, for all its flaws, it manages to create a vivid world, that somehow just about stands up.  I wouldn’t recommend that anybody rushes out and buys it, but it’s certainly an interesting curiousity.

I didn’t really have a clue about the next book, The Speckled People (B.H.L) by Hugo Hamilton, as I got it free with a newspaper a few years ago.  It turned out to be a memoir of growing up in 1950s\60s Ireland, with a German mother and a fiercely patriotic father (they weren’t allowed to speak English).  As you might imagine, it wasn’t the jolliest read imaginable.  Despite being well-written, I thought I was going to struggle for the first third of the book.  I did eventually become engrossed in their lives and it was very moving.

I decided to finish the month with a bang and read Fight Club (F.C.) by Chuck Palahniuk.  The film is a modern classic but I only added this to my wishlist when it kept cropping up on my Amazon recommendations.   It was an excellent read and was as taut and brutal as you’d imagine.  My only regret is that I didn’t read it before I saw the film.  I kept asking myself whether I would have guessed what the twist was if I didn’t already know.  Some passages seemed to be blatantly telling you, but if you you didn’t know, then the clues might be easy to miss.  Sadly, I’ll never know.

Books Acquired

Things Snowball by Rich Hall – British Heart Foundation shop – This wasn’t on my wishlist, but I’d seen Hall live only a few days before when I saw the book, so I had to have it.  My review of his gig is here.

Eric by Terry Pratchett – Amazon Marketplace.  I managed to track down Moving Pictures, last month, and so needed this one to complete a run of about 5 books.

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby – Bookmooch – So, you’re reading a 1000-page novel and you know, as a result, you’re likely to read less books this month than usual.  What’s your best course of action?  To randomly look through available books on Bookmooch and see if there’s any that you like?  Yeah, it wasn’t the brightest thing that I’ve ever done.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle – Bookmooch – See above.

Atonement by Ian McEwan – Bookmooch – See above

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry – British Heart Foundation shop – I really don’t understand poetry.  I don’t see that as a good thing as all those intellectual types seem to love it.  This is a book that attempts to teach you how to write poetry and so I thought it might give me a bit of an insight.

Books Given Away on Bookmooch

Billy by Pamela Stephenson – You’d imagine that a biography of Billy Connolly written by his wife would be pretty entertaining.  It wasn’t.  I was more than happy to give it away.

Result

Books Read 5 (yes, I’m counting Kidnapped) – Books Acquired 6, result – a loss.

So, it’s my first loss in the history of Reading Habits.  Annoyingly, it was completely self-inflicted

It’s already half way through November and I’m only just getting around to writing about October’s books – let’s hope I can spin a full post from my half-arsed notes.  As always, all my books are kept in chronological order, I then alternately read the book I’ve had longest (marked B.H.L.), followed by a free choice (F.C.).  For a full description of my insane book selection rules, please click here.

Books Read

I started the month by reading Street Magic (B.H.L.) by Paul Zenon.  I bought it a few years ago, probably from Borders, because I suddenly got it in to my head that it would be a good thing to be able to do a few magic tricks.  Please don’t ask me where this spurious thought came from as I don’t have a clue.  Anyway, I did read some of it at the time but it all seemed a bit like hard work, and, not being afraid to give up when something proves tricky, it found its way to my To Be Read pile.

As I started my second reading of the book I soon remembered my original sticking point: palming.   Not wanting to divulge too many magician’s secrets, this is the skill of concealing a coin in your hand.  And I just couldn’t do it.  I did practice, but, although I could have practised more,  I didn’t feel myself getting any better at it, and so I wondered if I was missing something fundamental.  Anyway, this time I decided just to read it through and see what happened.

There is actually a variety of impressive tricks within the book and it soon became apparent to me that it’s not enough to know the secrets of a magic trick; in order to pull it off you need equal measures of expertise and performance.  Far from spoiling my enjoyment of the art of illusion, reading this book actually increased my respect for its practitioners.

Next up came Archangel (F.C.) by Robert Harris.  This was a random purchase from the British Heart Foundation shop because I’d read, and enjoyed, Fatherland, Harris’ first novel.  This book has the distinction of being the first ever F.C. that has also been the B.H.L., for whatever that’s worth.  It’s an end-of-the-cold-war thriller that charts an academic’s quest to locate an old notebook of Stalin’s.  It’s one of those strange stories in which nothing really seems to happen and yet it is still somehow quite gripping.  It was a fun read but I don’t really have much more to say on it.

It’s another random British Heart Foundation buy next with The Man in the High Castle (B.H.L.) by Philp K. Dick, which I bought because I was interested to read a Philip K. Dick novel.  It was a great choice and I was hooked from the minute I started readig; it was the kind of book that makes you remember why you love reading so much.

It’s an alternate history novel set in an America following a Second World War which was won by Germany and Japan.  The Axis powers have carved the globe up between them, and this includes North America – the east coast belongs to Japan and the west to Germany.  This kind of premise could have carried out very heavy handedly, but Dick shows an incredibly subtle touch.  We see this unfamiliar world through the eyes of ordinary people and so the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis are only ever discussed third hand.  This makes them seem only more sinister.

In addition to this is a whole subtext about the nature of reality.  Many of the characters are reading a novel-within-a-novel called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which is in itself an alternative history in which the Allies won the war – which is a reality subtly but significantly different to our own.  There are moments in the story when one reality appears to blend in to another, but it is done in a way that you are unsure as to whether it happened or not.  What is true and what is false? There are no answers here but the questions are certainly interesting.

I first heard of The End of Faith (F.C.) by Sam Harris a few years ago, primarily because he is a pal of Richard Dawkins, and that is always a good recommendation.  It’s a devastating attack not only on religion but on the nature of faith itself.  To be fair, and pardon the pun, he is already preaching to the converted, so luckily there was even more food for thought.  For example, he poses the question as to whether torture be ethical, and asks if pacifism is immoral.  It’s a very well written, intelligent book, but towards the end he lost me a bit with his thoughts on spirituality as they, superficially at least, seem to conflict with his otherwise rational arguments.  It’s pretty brave of him to go down that road though.  A further, petty criticism is the amount of end notes – I didn’t know whether to skip them or not.

My final book of the month was the rather unusual choice of Buying and Running a Florist Shop (B.H.L.) by Alan Peck.  You’d be forgiven for thinking that it was a wacky women’s novel, but it is actually a manual on buying and running a florists shop.  In case you’re wondering, I didn’t buy the book and I won’t bore you with the details on how I came to own such a book.  Strangely, I actually found it to be an enjoyable read. It’s a slim, straightforward volume that gives an insight in to what it must be like to run a small business.  The main thing I took from it is that when you consider the low pay, long hours and undue pressure, being a florist is a thankless task.  I suggest you go out and buy a florist some flowers today.

Books Acquired

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark – Bookmooch – This had been on my ‘wish list’ for years.  I think I remember seeing a programme about it as part of the BBC’s Big Read, but I cannot remember anything about why this made me want to read it.

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett – Salvation Army shop – I decided a while ago to start reading the Discworld novels and then, fortuitously, someone at work gave me a load of them.  Sadly, there were omissions and so any books that are not contiguous in the serial are not on my official TBR pile.  This was one of the missing and so I was very glad to see it.  It was 50p.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – Salvation Army shop - It was slim, I’d heard of it and it was 50p.  Why wouldn’t I buy it?

Books Given Away on Bookmooch

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker – I bought this from the British Heart Foundation even though I knew that there was a good chance that I already had it.  It’s the kind of book that you don’t see all that often in a charity shop, so I bought it anyway.  Of course, I already had it at home sat in my TBR pile.  It’s a weird feeling to give away a book that I haven’t read yet.

Result

Books Read 5 – Books Acquired 3, result – A WIN!!!!!

I never thought I’d see the day that I’d record a win in Reading Habits, so it’s champagne all around (if you happen to be in my house as I type this).  Everything is looking rosy – except that we’re already half-way through the current month and I know it’s going to take a miracle for it not to be a big loss.  Fingers crossed.

Sitting in the living room last night, my sister fixed me with a stare over the textbook she was studying. Feeling her green eyes boring into the side of my face, I eventually glanced up from the novel I was reading.

“If someone wanted to buy you books for Christmas,” Katie asked, “. . . how would they possibly know where to start?”

The question came out of left field, sure, but that’s nothing new with my sister — a woman known for her inquisitive nature, rapid-fire thought processes and huge leaps in conversations. One minute we’re talking about Christmas shopping, and the next? Celebrity gossip. Or reenacting a scene from a movie. Or laughing about something crazy that happened in high school. I guess that’s just how sisters roll; I roll with it.

So the book question? Not taken aback. I got that knowing grin my face — the coy, heart-melting one that seems to coo, “Oh my, presents for me? Really? Well, if you insist.” (Katie has the same one, so don’t go feeling sympathetic that I unleashed that on her, the poor little lamb.)

I started thinking about how I keep track of the books I purchase — and the books I want. I know some folks compile actual wishlists on Amazon and, from what I understand, they can be pretty detailed. At some point or other, I’m sure I started my own; however, I’ve found the absolute best way for me to keep track of the novels I haven’t yet gotten in my hot little hands is through BookMooch. It does double duty: my wishlist on the site obviously tracks whether a book I want becomes available and lets me “mooch” it, but it also serves as a running list of everything I’ve heard about and definitely want to obtain.

Like the supremely helpful and considerate person I am, I told Katie I would send her the link. You know, to my massive wishlist — only 133 books. (Which pales in comparison to other folks’ lists, I’m sure.)

But all of this got me thinking: how do other people keep track of the novels they want to spend time with? Spreadsheets? Notebooks? Journals? Scraps of paper? Tattered napkins covered with scribbles and left at the bottom of purses or wallets? Because I like my BookMooch method, but I’m wondering if there’s something better out there. Or something that will better allow me to put my OCD toward list-making and other organizational tools to better use.

So I’m curious. Tell me if I should change my methods and, if I listen to you, you’ll get the satisfaction of knowing you changed the mind of one of the most hard-headed people on the planet. I could make you a button or something . . . and it might be kind of awesome.

And while I’m on the subject? I should mention how great it would be if we were all buying books for the holidays! Literacy = fun. Novels = exciting. And there’s a whole website dedicated to this movement!

Step away from the books…

I cannot resist the lure of a new book from one of my favorite authors.  My nasty little habit of buying new books in hardcover – oh, the horror, the extravagance! – is one of which I am not proud.  I do, however, have some strategies for negating its more onerous aspects.  I recommend them to all of you who share in my shame.

• At least wait until your book is on the bestseller list and buy it at a deeper discount from some bookstores.
• Get a bookstore discount card.  If you are an unrepentant “way too many books” buyer, you don’t even have to do the math.
• Frequent your local “non-chain” bookseller and put tax dollars back into your own community.
• If you are an Amazon Prime member, opt for the two day free shipping.
• Some of your favorites will go into your library.  But if a book is not ones your kids will want to inherit, read rapidly and flip even faster:

- Sell it to the local “half-price” book store while it’s still a hot item.

- Exchange it for another book at an online “book swap” site such as swaptree or BookMooch

- Trade with fellow readers you meet on sites for booklovers like Shelfari and GoodReads

- Join a Meetup of fellow booklovers for a more satisfying book-swapping experience.

- Donate the book to the library and take a tax deduction.

By putting your book back in circulation, you’ve not only saved yourself some money, you’ve reduced your carbon footprint.   Who said it’s not easy being green?

P.S.  Really want to clear the karmic slate?  Check out Bookcrossing.  It’s super cool!

You’d be amazed how many books amass when you’re a bookworm. Honestly, books seem to be magnetically attracted to me and they accumulate in my flat in vast numbers – and some of them I know I will never read.  (It’s like I have a book tree growing out of control in my flat!) When I get them, I fully intend to dive in between the pages, but sometimes, just sometimes, I’ll start a book and know pretty quickly that there’s no way I’m going to finish it – either I’m not enjoying it for some reason, or my tastes have changed since I got hold of it, or it’s a sequel which I got hold of at the same time as the first book in the series, but didn’t enjoy the first one and so I now have no interest in following it up.

As a result of all this, I have an entire bookcase of books that consist of those I have read but am not keeping and those I have not read and never will. Over 100 of them are listed for sale at GreenMetropolis.com, but there were quite a few others that were very large and/or and would cost a fortune to post out, making listing them at GreenMetropolis pointless as I’d actually be out-of-pocket (not that I list them there for profit, but it’s nice to at least be able to cover the postage costs without pricing them out of the second hand market!).

So, what would I do with the large, heavy books I had decided not to sell? Well, last week I donated four carrier bags of them to a charity shop – I walked down George Street with the bags in the base of the buggy and stopped in at several shops before I finally found one willing to take them. Rather than go through all that again, I decided to try something  little different.

I have had an account at BookCrossing.com for a few years now and have periodically registered books there that I had listed at swap sites (like BookMooch.com), but, like I’ve already said, these were hefty tomes and the postage rates would be exorbitant so I didn’t want to list them for Moochers (I’ll reserve that for small paperbacks). So, I’ve listed over thirty books at BookCrossing (as many as I had labels printed out) and will be taking them all to a local BookCrossing site over my next few trips into town.

So, if you are interested in picking up a book to read free of cost and are in the Aberdeen area, get down to The Belmont Picture House and nip downstairs to the cafe bar – that’s where I’ll be leaving them.

If you’re interested in seeing which books I will be leaving there, you can see them listed at my BookCrossing Profile.

And if you’re in the UK and would rather buy your books second hand, please do take a look at my GreenMetropolis Profile and see if there’s anything there that whets your appetite!

I hope some of you will follow suit and send your unwanted or unloved books out into the world where they have a chance at finding another loving home and being read and enjoyed by many others!

1. Matador Trips published my piece titled Big Nature in St. John’s, Newfoundland today. What tops a cup of black coffee tasting like mud mixed with fecal matter from your company’s coffee machine first thing in the morning? Seeing your name in print. Seriously. I love being Matadorian nearly as much as I love being a Newfoundlander.

2. I discovered my pubcrawl t-shirt sitting on my laptop when I made it to my cubicle after my crap coffee. It was laying there with all its good intentions and promises of a fun-filled Saturday of karaoke, copious amounts of alcohol, and a potluck where my only contribution is cookies, whereas the others promise things like scallops wrapped in bacon and jalapeno poppers and probably cavier.

3. My other coworker, upon hearing me bitch about the rain, brought me a yellow raincoat she didn’t want anymore. Then, one of my bosses handed me over some knee-high, incredibly sexy black boots with just the right amount of heel. They’re fucking magnificent, except my calves are too fat and the zipper won’t close properly. Whole new wardrobe!

4. I cashed my pay cheque and asked the teller why I couldn’t see how many Airmiles I earned from using my Mastercard, and then she discovered that I actually have two different Airmiles accounts. After some stealthy Internet hacking, I found out that I actually have almost triple the amount I thought I had, thus leading me one step closer to my Edmonton dreams.

5. I successfully mooched my first book from BookMooch, The Time Traveller’s Wife. Incidentally, this is my favorite book in the whole wide world!

6. Bubble boy is okay! My god if I could only explain the sheer intensity of mine and Cubemate’s focus on the live camera feed as that poor little boy supposedly floated around the atmosphere. IT WAS EPIC. And then I went to the gym and forgot about it.

7. The storm breaking into a warm, sunny morning was apparently good enough reason for my neighbour to address me for the first time ever, commenting on our good fortune. Then a young guy met me at the crosswalk with the same comment about the sunshine, adding that some unfortunate soul had been killed in a car crash in CBS. He then abruptly turned around and walked back in the direction he came from. I always attract the winners.

… i mina bokhyllor så hade jag inte behövt köpa nån ny Fahrenheit 451 när jag läste science fiction classics.

Jag bookmochar den ena, nyare. Där behöver jag bara ta bort de små gröna klisterlapparna. Den äldsta boken ser ut såhär inuti:

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Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, science fiction, dubletter, bookmooch

Musing Mondays is hosted by Just One More Page

NB: Maybe one of these days I will actually do a meme on its appropriate day; right now I seem to be averaging 2 days late. Mostly due to me not reading blogs every day.

Do you keep a book wishlist, either on paper, Amazon/etc, or via a book database site (Shelfari, GoodReads, LibraryThing)? If yes, do you share this list with others (especially coming up to Christmas)?

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Musing Mondays post, or share your opinion in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks.

I am obsessed with lists and organization, whether or not that has been obvious through previous entries, I am unsure. So, I have multiple, yes, multiple, wishlists for books. I have wishlists on PaperbackSwap and BookMooch in order to actually use those websites to swap out books that I no longer want for books that I do want. I have a large list on Amazon, which I have shared with friends and family (though I have the sneaking suspicion that nobody utilizes it). I use LibraryThing as a means to catalog books I’ve read, books I own, books I haven’t read, etc. and a wishlist. I use LivingSocial primarily to catalog every book I have read, regardless of ownership, though the the wishlist function is available. AND (I know everyone who reads this is wondering “how many lists are really necessary for this guy?!) I keep a slightly outdated list on Evernote, along with a separate list of books and authors to look out for at the library in the future on the off-chance that I hit a point where I have no books in my To Be Read pile. Oh, I also have an application on my computer called Librarian Pro in order to catalog the books I own, as well as track books I lend out to friends. I get no end in grief from my friends for being nerdy enough to have bought a librarian program, mais c’est la vie.

If anyone wants to friend me on any of the sites I mentioned, following are the links to my profiles:

PBS: http://tr.im/Agag

BM: http://tr.im/AgaN

LT: http://tr.im/Agd0

LS: http://tr.im/Agdf

It’s been an odd couple of weeks since my last post.  It hurts my brain just to think about it!

1.  Shaun and I went to my high school reunion.  In school, we used to say that no one would show up to our reunion because our class lacked school spirit.  Seriously, the student council didn’t give a rat’s ass and neither did anyone else.  It was 1999 and we were all facing going into college or into the work force with little to no money.

There were maybe 50 people at the reunion and I did see a friend who I’ve known since kindergarten.  We didn’t talk much in high school and I think I found out why.  She made a passing comment while we were catching up that stuck with me.  “Of course you’re doing well, you’ve always been perfect.”

I wonder how many people actually know that’s not true.  I screw up as much as anyone, I just don’t tend to dwell on it or get caught in the downward spiral of screwing up.  I’m not even an eternal optimist – I’m definitely not one of those smiley, cheerful people.  It’s food for thought.

2.  Sick kiddos.  Actually, only one was sick.  The other was faking it.  A had a fever and just laid down and stared at the TV.  Her school has had about 50 different viruses going through it, so we thought it was strep at first.  It wasn’t so it may have been a UTI (just a very small amount of bacteria was in her urine) or it could have just been one of those flu bugs.  She’s all better and back to her goofy, normal self.

3.  Ramping up for the “anniversary effect” of the PTSD.  A goes through the anniversary effect during October.  It seems like every time she had to move foster homes, it was right around Halloween.  That stuck with her.  Last year was TERRIBLE so hopefully this year we’ll be prepared for whatever comes.  I’m already stocking up on aromatherapy stuff and reinforcing the fact that she never has to go anywhere again.  She’s home.  She’s already started to panic a bit so we adjusted her morning medications and that seems to have helped.  We’ve also briefed the school and we’re keeping on them about her mental state – it took a while to get them to take us seriously but now it seems like everyone is on board.

With LJ, we’ve just seen more sexual acting out.  He retreats to this fantasy world inside his head and doesn’t seem to realize what he’s doing.  It’s not regression – it’s more like he’s living in a fairy tale.

He’s been talking a lot about “grandmas.”  His favorite kind of pie is the type grandmas make.  Grandmas make sweaters.  Grandmas take care of you and give you cookies.  Grandmas have white hair, wrinkles, and glasses.  Yesterday, I finally got fed up with it (in Goodwill of all places) and told him that he got his grandmas and they weren’t going to change.  Neither grandma has white hair, neither one knows how to make a scrap of clothing, and one of them couldn’t bake a pie if her life depended on it. In reality, there’s no such thing as a “perfect grandma.”

I grew up without grandparents being an active part of my life.  Neither set approved of my parents’ marriage and we most often just made it on our own.  He did spend a lot of time with his bio-grandparents before he came into state care, so I don’t want to ruin those memories but he’s taking them a little too far.  I don’t want him to get older and see them and realize how bad it was for  him.  They loved him – they just don’t have the skills to take care of themselves, much less a child!

We went through this a month or so after he moved in with regards to his bio father.  It got to the point that I had to sit down with him and ask if he wanted to know the truth of the matter or just continue to believe what he did of his dad.  He said he wanted the truth, so I told him.   I may have to enlist my dad to explain it to him.  My dad’s childhood is very similar to LJ’s and they have this great bond.  I think he’d take the truth better from Dad than from one of us.

4.  Sick mommies.  It’s been odd – very odd.  My grandma was sick for a bit, then my great-grandma passed away almost a week ago.  Then grandma went down to FL to bury g-gma next to g-gpa and she got back yesterday.  My sister has been sick and my mom was for a little bit but recovered very quickly.  Then a couple of days ago I started having a fever and today my throat feels like I swallowed some hot sauce.  I must have gotten that strep that was going around.  *sigh*  So, tomorrow I’ll go to the doctor and get more antibiotics.  I’ve only been off the antibiotics from the surgery for a week!

5.  Flooding.  Lots of it.  We live northeast of Atlanta and thankfully in the foothills of the Appalachians so our land is soggy and puddly, but we didn’t get any water inside the house.  Thank God!  Even 5 miles away houses were destroyed and the traffic accidents have been terrible.  We went to an antique store yesterday – it’s about 7 miles from our house – and on the way home saw two accidents happen. My heart goes out to everyone that lost their homes, cars, and in some cases, families.

6.  Big internet sales!  Since we’ve been home bound from the sick babies and the flood, I’ve been on the internet a TON.  We’ve sold a couple of pipes, sent some lace to Japan, mailed  out 6 books on bookmooch, and I’ve started uploading a ton of stuff to flickr.  I’m working on a pipe resource, so hopefully I’ll have that available soon.  I also want to get some pipe related merchandise up in the Etsy shop, but I’m missing my computer parts.  I’m spending time with a hard drive clock today.

7.  Got LOTS of fabric.  I love Goodwill.  Seriously.  I got a ton of fabric for an average of 30 cents a yard and I also got some bed sheets and pillowcases that I can use.  I found some gorgeous blue eyelet cotton that I was SUPER excited about.  Got some corduroy, some raincoat material, a ton of cotton, and some linen.  It’s going to be fun!

This has been a long, long post lacking in cohesiveness, so I’m going to end it here.  Hopefully I can pick this blogging habit back up so I don’t end up with 300 things going on at once.  Good times!

I took advantage of a two-for-one deal on Bookmooch and was able to get The Tuckers Trouble on Valley View, by Jo Mendel, and Troy Nesbit’s The Jinx of Payrock Canyon. I don’t actively collect either of these Whitman series, but I pick them up when I see them and these are both in great condition.

I was just looking through the first few pages of Trouble on Valley View to see what this volume was about, and before I knew it I was sucked in. There are five Tucker kids–Tina, Terry, Merry, Penny, and Tom–in addition to dog, cat, and parents, which makes for one zany household. The best comparison I can make is to the Moffats books by Eleanor Estes.

This is the fourth volume of the series, which began with the family’s move to suburban Yorkville, but by this point some of the charm has worn off. Tina is sulky, the twins are constantly bickering, Penny cries at the drop of a hat, Tom feels left out when his older siblings go to school, and Toby won’t stay out of the neighbors’ yards. It’s enough to make Mr. and Mrs. Tucker want to pack up their brood and head back for the city! Can the kids convince their parents to stay–and do they even want to?

There’s not really much suspense in the plot, but there’s not really meant to be. Instead the story follows their day-to day adventures such as the school orchestra, the cave they dig, and the camping club, zooming in on members of the family in certain chapters. I loved when the author would give Toby’s thoughts, especially concerning his “good friend” the neighbor. Even though the point is for the kids to focus on the positive side and work towards getting along, it doesn’t feel like an actual moral.  Basically it’s just good fun that’s actually believable. (I love the Bobbsey Twins, but there’s no way a real family ever has that many adventures.)

Whitman had a lot of series in the 1960 in order to compete with the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and all the ones I’ve read are hold up well–Troy Nesbit’s adventure stories, Donna Parker, Annette. This is my fifth Tucker book, and I believe there are four more for me to track down in addition to the Tell-A-Tale volumes for younger readers.

So I started mooching (bookmooch.com). You give away read books, collect points and with the points you are enabled to get books yourself – somehow the weight watcher version of bookcrossing. So far so easy.

Now I received the first request after I registered 10 books. I packed everything, stamped it, actually posted it and after coming home today I realised: one of the books was the WRONG one!

OMG this is so embarrassing!

I send the correct book now of course but  &%*°$%& *sigh*

Durante muito tempo comprei muito livro, até que o espaço acabou por completo, e chegou a hora daquela difícil decisão: o que fazer com eles? Doar? Vender? Mas para quem? Trocar? É, trocar parecia uma boa…

De tempos em tempos rolam feiras de troca. A ideia é bacana, mas achar um livro que preste, sem aquela sensação de “Fiz um mau negócio”, é uma árdua tarefa. Foi então que vi, meio por acaso, um livro de trocas pela internet – o que uso – e depois descobri que existem vários outros.

O que eu uso, e meu favorito é o Trocando Livros. Gosto da interface e do sistema. Funciona assim: você cadastra uma lista de livros que está disposto a trocar. Aí eles ficam em um banco de dados que pode ser visualizado por outros usuários. Quando alguém escolhe um dos seus livros, você recebe um aviso e tem até 7 dias para enviar via correio para a pessoa (eles até ensinam uns macetes para você pagar menos).

Aí você envia e coloca o código de rastreamento dos correios no site e ganha um crédito. Assim, pode escolher um livro de outro usuário e vai recebê-lo em casa sem gastar nada. Se por algum motivo ele não enviar em até 7 dias, você ganha seu crédito de volta e pode escolher outro.

É um jeito bacana de trocar os livros que estão encrencados na prateleira gastando pouco (mesmo os volumes maiores não passam de R$ 6, R$ 7 por carta registrada). Há também a opção de comprar créditos. Por R$ 14,90 você compra o direito de pedir um livro de outro usuário.

É realmente legal. Já troquei uns 10 livros neste esquema e só dois foram cancelados por quem enviaria. Os que chegaram aqui vieram todos em perfeito estado.

Mas o Trocando Livros não é o primeiro nem o único serviço deste tipo. Nos EUA os sites de trocas de livros são até bem comuns, mas vários não fazem conexões com outros países. O melhor deles é o Book Mooch, que aceita trocas no mundo inteiro. O sistema é parecido, você cadastra os livros que quer trocar, eles ficam no banco e dados, você escolhe outros e por aí vai. Com uma vantagem: ao cadastrar 10 livros você ganha um crédito para começar a brincadeira. Já fiz o cadastro, dei uma pesquisada, mas falta vergonha na cara de começar a usar de verdade.

Outro site brasileiro bacaninha é o LivraLivro, que funciona de um jeito diferente. Ele pega os livros que você quer trocar e os que está procurando, e cria um cruzamento, assim, o negócio é feito livro a livro, sem essa de créditos. Não sei se funciona.

E se você é realmente desapegado de seus livros, tem o bom e velho Bookcrossing, que ganha uma versão brasileira no LivroLivre. É assim: você imprime uma etiqueta ensinando as regras, cola dentro do seu livro e larga ele em algum lugar público. Quem pegar, lê, cadastra no site que encontrou e larga de novo, para outra pessoa ler. A ideia é adorável, mas não conheço ninguém que realmente achou um livro, ou que teve notícias dos livros que largou por aí.

Enfim, jeito tem. É claro que todo mundo tem aqueles livros que não dá, não empresta e de tempos em tempo volta a consultar. Mas para a grande maioria que fica na estante, só juntando pó, há um fim bem mais nobre.

]]> http://poursomegravyonme.co.uk/2009/08/26/reading-habits-an-introduction/ Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:00:19 +0000 sherby57 http://poursomegravyonme.co.uk/2009/08/26/reading-habits-an-introduction/

My 'To Read Pile' (more of a bookcase than a pile)

Having your own blog is a wonderful thing; you can waffle on about anything that you want to, and nobody can stop you.  By the same token, as a blog reader, you have every right not to read what I’m going to bore you about.  But give me a try and see what happens.

In the near future (ie next week), I’m planning a new feature in which I’ll give a run down of all the books that I’ve read (and acquired) in the previous month.  Unsurprisingly, it’s going to be called ‘Reading Habits’.  Before I do that though, I thought it might be an idea to give you an idea of my general reading habits, which will probably just end up proving how weird I am.

As you can see from the photo of my “to read pile”, I tend to acquire books much more quickly than I can read them.  This is partly because I’m a really slow reader, and that I don’t allocate as much time to reading as I’d like to.  The other reason is that I can’t stop buying books.  For the last few years my main source of books has been charity shops and Bookmooch.  Both these methods are great for getting books that you want for cheap, but it does mean that you have to get them as soon as you see them, as those particular titles may not make another appearance.  This does lead to something of an excess of books.

My main source for keeping track of what books I’d like to read is my Amazon Wishlist, which currently contains 115 items (although there are a few CDs and DVDs in that total).  I tend to add any books that I’m even vaguely interested in to it (and then to my Bookmooch Wishlist) and then have a regular pruning session to get rid of stuff that was added on too much of a whim.  I tend not to prune anything from my Bookmooch list, just to keep things interesting, and so that currently has a total of 167 books.

The Amazon Wishlist relates to another of my obsessions, Amazon Recommendations.  Way back in January, in my predictions for 2009, I made this forecast:

7. I’ll compulsively update my Amazon recommendations every dinner time while at work, not satisfied until I’ve checked up to at least 500 suggestions. Eventually it will recommend the perfect book. Hopefully.

Well the search for the perfect book continues.  I love searching through the recommendations, it’s somehow therapeutic, and even a little exciting when you get to recommendation number 567 and are able to click on ‘I own it’.  And yes, I know how sad that sounds.  Anyway, my constant scouring and updating of my recommendations also feeds back in to my wishlist.

So, I’ve explained how I’ve come to have so many books to read, which I’m not going to count the number of, but you can see is clearly over 100.  Now I have to explain how I go about reading them.  I’ve maintained a pretty big ‘to read pile’ for a number of years now, and I maintain a policy of at least attempting to read every book that I acquire, no matter how much it doesn’t appeal.  In the past, this lead to a lot of cherry picking, and thus some books were getting left forever.  What I needed was a system.

The system is simple, firstly every book stays in chronological order of acquisition.  This means that the book that I’ve had the longest is on the far left of the top shelf, and the newest book in the collection is on the far right of the bottom shelf (the books that aren’t actually stacked on shelves, I’ll come to later).  Every new book that I get goes to the bottom of the pile.  Now, I’m not going to tell you that I read them all in order, it would get WAY too boring.  What I actually do is read alternately the ‘oldest’ book followed by a free choice.  This means that all the books will definitely get their turn, but gives me enough flexibility to keep it interesting.  I realise that I must sound mental, but I’ll continue.

You’ll spot the aforementioned books that are sat in piles, rather than on the shelves, and these come in two categories.  The three piles on the bottom shelf are just basic overflow; books that won’t fit on the shelves but are still kept in order. These books eventually find a way on to the shelves as all the others shuffle along.  There is an additional rule that I can’t read any of these overflow books until they are properly situated on a shelf.  This stops me cherry picking the most recent additions, which I’ll obviously be most enthusiastic about reading.

The two piles on the middle shelf are books that I’ve acquired that are part of a series of novels, but I have gaps in the run.  These don’t join the ‘official’ pile until I have found the missing links in the chain (now I know that I’m starting to sound like a potential serial killer).  Currently I am waiting for books in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series, and loads of Christopher Brookmyre novels (which I don’t even think are technically a serial, but I still want to read in order – too many years of reading comics has drummed continuity in to my brain).

A final rule applies: when I get my ‘free choice’ I can only choose a book that I can actually see.  This is born out of the practicality of not wanting to move the piles of books rather than for more anal reasons.

So, those are my reading habits, and I know that I appear to be completely insane.  I assure you that sanity will prevail when I review for you the books I read in August, in the first official Reading Habits post.

My creative journey begins.

I researched into Etsy (an online shop for handmade goods) today; what kind of crafts are popular, what kind of price sells, how easy it is to set-up your own shop and maintain it etc. I feel encouraged by what I found and more confident that I can make my own shop successful. I feel really excited about the prospect of having my own business, be it very small, although I know I have lots to learn. However I relish the challenge!

Lots of ideas of what to make are running through my head just now; knitted toys, scarves, hats, cards, fudge, truffles, brooches but I think I need to keep calm and be realistic, start by making things I already know. I have also thought about where to resource my materials. I want to try to be as environmentally friendly as possible and so recycling is really important for me. Therefore I have been thinking about searching charity shops, car boot sales, local markets and freecycle (an online directory of items that people are giving away for free).  I also got started  looking for some more craft books to add to my collection by searching on Bookmooch and Ebay. Bookmooch is a brilliant site that lets you list books you are willing to give away for free and in exchange you earn points that you can use to order other people’s books. I have ordered two: “Christmas Bazaar-110 Easy Projects” by McCall’s and “Knit (Contemporary Craft)” by Janine Flew. I’m looking forward to them appearing through the letter box! I concentrated on knitting patterns patterns while on Ebay and in particular books by Jean Greenhowe. Watch this space to discover whether I win anything!

I’d really like this blog to be an opportunity for interaction; sharing ideas, advice, inspirations and thoughts, so please leave a comment or contact me by email. I would really appreciate any advice you have on blogging, marketing and popular crafts and also any feedback on the design of my blog.

I urge you all to visit one of my favourite web-sites, BookMooch:

http://www.bookmooch.com

When I say all, I actually mean all of you who read books, have a number of books you no longer want, have some books that you’d like to read, and don’t mind posting some books.  If you don’t meet those criteria then you probably won’t be interested in a book swapping web-site.

BookMooch works in a very simple way.  You join for free, and list any books that you no longer want (and recieve 0.1 points for each one you list).  Then you create a wishlist of books that you want.  Other users mooch books from the ones you have listed, and you get a point for each one (or 3 points if you send them to another country).   You can then use your acquired points to mooch books from others (1 point per book, or 2 points to get one from abroad).  It’s a great way to turn books you don’t want to those you do, for the price of postage.

I won’t pretend that you will get every book that you want right away – not unless you only want John Grisham and Stephen King novels.  You’re dependent on others giving away stuff you’re interested in, and there’s a good chance that a whole bunch of people will also be waiting for it.  I maintain my wishlist at about 150 books, just to give myself a better chance of being successful.  That said, I joined on 3rd January 2008 and have mooched 50 books, which I think is a pretty reasonable return.

Anyway, stop reading this now and go join up. You might have something I want to mooch.

I can’t believe we’re less than 3 weeks away from school starting.  May and June were crazy months and thank goodness we’ve been able to have a quiet July.  My goal in July was to bore the crap out of the kids so that they’d be excited to go back to school.  I don’t think it’s worked yet… they seem happy to sleep in until 9 am, hang out in pj’s, and watch PBS.

I found out yesterday that the charter school Alyssa will be going to did get their pre-K charter.  I called up and they had lost Ethan’s paperwork (not surprising since his name dramatically changed with the adoption) but they did go ahead and put him on the waiting list.  It would be the best possible thing for him to be able to go to pre-K there.  Otherwise, I’m going to homeschool him during pre-K.  He’s one of those kids that does not do well in a normal school environment.  He’s not quite ADHD like LJ is but if there are other kids around who are not focused, then he won’t settle.  His brain works a lot like mine – he absorbs info, files it away as irrelevant at the moment, gets bored, then creates trouble.  So, I’ll file his paperwork with them today so that hopefully he’ll get in soon.

For Alyssa to get admission, I had to register her under her old name during the last school year.  There are only a certain number of spots available and it’s further broken down by the child’s primary language.  It’s a dual-immersion English/Spanish school and they also teach Mandarin Chinese.  Hopefully it will challenge her enough to keep her out of trouble.  Pre-K for her was like a lesson in futility.  She already knew EVERYTHING they were teaching the other kids (she’s on a 1st grade level) and decided that meant everyone else was stupid and she was therefore in charge.  With some kids, they do that and get this air of bravado and adults think “he’s going through that arrogant stage.”  With her, she really does believe that we’re all here to serve her and suggesting otherwise  does not compute.  Of course, she is smart and beautiful which means people DO line up to give her things.  She had talked her teachers into giving her 3 lunches a day, THREE!, letting her roll around in the dirt during recess, taunting other children, and basically acting like we will not let her act at home.  It’s all ok with them because she’s cute and smart and gives you those big green puppy dog eyes.  All this does is reinforce the thought that she’s a superior being stuck in a smaller body.  Or something.

There’s a reason my kids act like civilized human beings.  I don’t fall for the BS and I have no fear of saying no.  I don’t use fear or intimidation to keep them in line, they just know the expectations and they know I’m not going to back off of them.  This does mean we talk a lot about the meaning of words like upset, disappointed, unhappy, discussion, responsibility, and who is in charge.  We can actually eat a meal in a sit-down restaurant with the kids.

LJ will be going to the school across the street from us.  He didn’t get accepted into the charter school, and that’s probably for the best.  He didn’t walk or talk until he was 5 and he’s still behind in language and social skills.  Because he was non-verbal, his test scores showed that he was mentally retarded and he was held back a grade and stuck in special ed.  There’s nothing wrong with that because he did need to learn the basics but he has made so many strides since then that you’d never guess he wasn’t always “normal.”  He was in a regular class last year and recieved speech therapy and social skills therapy several times a week.  This year, he’ll still receive services, but they’ll be integrated into the class so he doesn’t get singled out or pulled away from class.

I really hope he gets a young, active teacher this year.  Last year we had all sorts of trouble with his teacher.  He needs someone interactive – not someone who hovers and scowls.  Doing that puts him on defense and he retreats into his fantasy world.  Then everyone who wants to play ball during recess is stealing his stuff and every time someone bumps into him in line means they’re deliberately trying to knock him down and get him into trouble.  This causes meltdowns and tantrums.  Then he’s scared to go back to class because he knows that’s not a “good reaction” so he does stuff to get sent out of class.  Things like picking his nose until it bled so he could go to the nurse’s.  Making himself throw up.  Stomping on another kid’s foot.

When we figured out what was happening, we started playing games at home during homework.  When learning was a happy thing and he felt safe doing it he immediately started getting better.  He was making 30’s and 40’s before we started and after he was getting 90’s and 100’s.  Still, we couldn’t convince the teacher that he’s not a bad kid – he’s a scared kid.  She didn’t see anything wrong with her methods and would tell me “I have 20 kids in that classroom!”  20?  Really?  That’s all… huh.  That’s a TINY class.

Anyways, I have to register all three for school today since their names, birth certificates, and social security numbers have all changed. So I need to get them all ready to go while I fill out the paperwork here.  Thank God that it’s all online and all I have to do is print it out.

I also need to run to the post office.  We made a sale on Etsy!  Yay!  I also had a book mooched on BookMooch, so I need to send it out.  After all that, we’ll be back home and do lunch, then they get naptime and I get to list some more lace on Etsy.  If I get a chance, I need to go out in the garage and get a coat of primer on the keys.  Shaun’s going to do the metallic paint for me since he’s got a steadier hand and has more experience with oil-based enamels than I do. I also need to clean the bird cage, our bathroom, and my workstation.

The kids are up and the boys are already in trouble, so it sounds like time for breakfast!  Have a happy Tuesday, everyone!

Hello all! I am sooooo hungry, and it feels like I am always hungry, which is annoying. But the point of this post is because I finished The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig. I gave the book a 3 as an alright book to read, review following:

The Dead Fathers Club is a modern-day adaptation of Hamlet. Phillip Noble, the 11-year old narrator, has just lost his father to a car accident, and now sees him as a ghost. His father accuses Phillip’s Uncle Alan for murdering him and trying to now control Phillip and his mother. His father tells Phillip that the only way he can rest in peace is if Phillip gets revenge for his father. Thus begins Phillip’s journey to discover the truth about his uncle and attempt to get revenge for his father before his uncle kills him and/or his mother.

The book is written as if it was by an 11-year old with poor punctuation, repeated run-on sentences, and observations of an adult world through the eyes of one so young. While that style is not my favorite, Haig did a decent job. The book itself leaves you guessing until the end, and beyond, since there is little resolution. While written as though it was by an 11-year old, I would say the novel is more suited for 13-14 year olds given language and some sexuality that parents of children 10 and under may not approve of. My rating for the book stems from the book just not being my cup of tea in terms of style as well as the very open ending. Overall I’d recommend it as a bit of light summer reading.

Next on my list is Death du Jour by Lou Jane Temple. After this, I think I’m going to work on some of my vampire series since I can read them pretty quickly and try and reduce my gargantuous to be read pile. Unfortunately I also have a few years’ worth of magazines to read as well, granted it seems silly for any of the ones over a year old, but I have to try.

Otherwise, not much going on in my  life. No news on the job front. Occupying my time with watching NCIS and the new SyFy show Warehouse 13. Mildly cheesy, but Eddie McClintock is incredibly attractive, and does not even look close to his age of 42. Major crush, haha. Oh! I also finally listed books on my BookMooch account; 3 of my books have already been requested and I have requested 1 in turn myself. And today in the mail I received a catalog for Daedalus Books, a bargain-priced book company. Don’t know how I managed to get on the list, but I do like their prices. I am just going to look and find books to add to my wishlist, though, I really really really should not buy any more books until I have considerably reduced my To Be Read pile. And last bit of news is I finally got a Google Voice account

That’s all for now, <3

Title:  Fruits Basket Volume 1

Author:  Natsuki Takaya

Paperback:  216 pages

ISBN:  1591826039

Challenges:  Manga Challenge

From the back cover:

A family with an ancient curse…

And the girl who will change their lives forever…

Tohru Honda was an orphan with no place to go until the mysterious Sohma family offered her a place to call home.  Now her ordinary high school life is turned upside down as she’s introduced to the Sohma’s world of magical curses and family secrets.  Discover for yourself the Secret of the Zodiac, and find out why Fruits Basket has won the hearts of readers the world over!

First off, a caveat:  This is my first manga, and my first review of a manga book.  I’m not exactly sure how one writes a review for manga.  I could read a bunch of reviews then write it, but I’d probably end up regurgitating what I’ve read, then.  I don’t even know if the title is supposed to be italicized like novels, and can’t exactly use a quote from the book since it uses pictures to tell the story.  But, here goes….

I first heard about Fruits Basketfrom a friend who said his niece loved it.  I’d been circling the manga pool and dipping my toe in every time I went to the book store, but had not as yet jumped in.  I’d also been sampling anime with Maggie, and so I thought this series would be a great place to start.  This book was originally published in Hane to Yume magazine in 1999.  It was finally published in English in 2004 by TOKYOPOP (if you click the link, you can read the first chapter online).  It is also a 26-episode anime series, AND an online petitionpleading FUNimation to make a second season of the show (I’ve signed, btw )

So, right from the start, I know I’m going into a beloved series and am fairly safe in thinking I’ll like it, which, of course, I did.

The story is about how orphaned Tohru, who has never fit in anywhere, comes to stay with the Shigure, Yuki and Kyo Sohma, members of a family who suffer from a strange curse that transforms them into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.  It’s a book about transformations, both the humorous, and often inconvenient, physical transformations of the Sohmas themselves (and embarrassing, especially since transforming back to human form renders them naked).  It’s also about how Tohru’s kind and quiet spirit affects them, causing them to mature and let go of some of their anger and bitterness, and to grow in affection and acceptance of one another.

Maggie’s Review:

I really love-love-LOVE Fruits Basket!  Yuki and Kyo are cute and it’s so funny when they fight.  Yuki’s mysterious and it’s funny when Kyo gets mad (which is all the time) and gets cat ears, eyes, teeth and tail and hisses at Yuki.  I like the whole Zodiac thing.  It’s funny, especially when Shigure is acting like a pervert   Kagura is CRAZY!  She’s in love with Kyo, and she shows it by destroying him and beating him up and flipping him through the wall.  One thing I did NOT like about it is that it’s got a lot of cuss words in it.

Maggie is funny, she says she doesn’t like the cuss words, but she sure does laugh a lot at them.  BTW, the cuss words used are Damn, Dammit, and Bitch and Bastard are used once in the second book when Kyo and Uo are playing a card game (both have anger issues).  No F-bombs, or other strong words are used.  The books are labeled for teens, which I didn’t catch until after she’d watched the whole anime series, read book one and got halfway through book two. 

and now, a few moments of love’s reflection by Kagura Sohma

and, after writing this, I realized that, technically, Vampire Kisses:  Blood Relativeswas my first “manga,” though it’s not really manga because it reads like a normal American book, not right to left.  It’s the right-to-left reading of FB that’s made it so dificult for Mags to read on her own.  I’m sure a few books in and she’ll be okay.  Also, since she won’t let me put FB on BookMooch or PBS… she’s already made off with the book… I guess she’ll be re-reading it on her own, which should help her manga-reading abilities.

Well, off to Hardee’s for dinner and to finish up FB vol 2

I can’t remember what I did all day before there was blogging and Facebooking and the like. Have meaningful conversations with my loved ones? Rearrange the furniture constantly? Read?

Well, I still read on occasion, but in this web 2.2 world, it is much more fun to waste my time exchanging my books with strangers across the Internet. That’s why I like BookMooch. I list all my unwanted books on there, and friendly people I don’t even know politely ask me to mail the books they want. In return, I get points that I can exchange for books other people I don’t want. I haven’t had to buy a book in ages. (Well, except the really good books that I really want to read — for some reason, those are never listed.)

You have to be quick, though, because literally millions of other people are hanging around the site at all hours of the day and night, just waiting for new books to get posted. A popular book can be snatched up in seconds. To make the most of the service, I suggest you build up your wishlist to include every book you’ve ever even thought of reading, so you’ll have a chance of picking up something. But hey, it’s free!

You can check out my inventory here. It’s pretty light right now, because the best books have all been taken already, so you know that what’s left is probably really bad. But you’re welcome to it, if you want it.

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On my search for books, it’s quite interesting to see what people have literal tons of in hard to see places.  They’re meaning to get rid of it, but they spent so much time gathering it, blah blah blah, art projects that never got started.  People have caches of art supplies going bad and lace that is mildewing and yellowing.

As a side project, I’ll buy these things and store them properly, but now it’s getting a little ridiculous.  I have bookmooch for books that I can’t house, so I need something similar for the art supplies.  And here comes Etsy!

Much of my weekend will be typing the lace, estimating age, photographing it, and listing it online.  Everything will be free shipping and unless something really special shows up, I’m betting everything will be under $5.  So, if you want some lace, please bookmark the shop.  I’m looking to sell to people who will actually love it and use it!

Yesterday my publisher sent me the list of where copies of The Summer King are being sent for review. Scary stuff! We had quite a long email conversation a couple of months ago about where it would be worth sending to. It was a depressing conversation – the number of places that routinely run poetry collection reviews is shrinking, and the pool of reviewers has never exactly been huge anyway. (And that applies everywhere – to the best of my knowledge, New Poetries IV has only been reviewed once!) On a sombre note,  it now means that I have entered the countdown to the first time I see a copy of The Summer King in a secondhand bookshop somewhere … it’s already happened with listening to the rain (although the bookshop in question was Amazon.com marketplace, and the price being asked is substantially greater than its original rrp!).

To a related point. I’ve blogged before about my love-affair with BookMooch (for those who haven’t caught up, it’s an international book swapping site, and yes it’s as good as it sounds. The curious might like to listen to an interview with the guy who created it on the British book-lover site Litopia). As it happens, I was one of the very early members – read about it just after it was launched, signed up, and then promptly forgot about it in the throes of returning to New Zealand. Eight months later I remembered, logged back in and have been addicted ever since.

Knowing how damn near impossible it is for most writers to make a living from the sale of their books, it took me quite a while before using BookMooch stopped feeling like a form of treachery. But it hasn’t reduced my book buying – quite the opposite. I can try new authors on a whim, in the certain knowledge that somewhere out there is a person who will love this book, even if I don’t. It constantly amazes me how books that I would have thought were beyond redemption get mooched – we’re talking books with heavy pen and highlighter markings, even with pages missing. Books on obscure subjects that no-one has ever heard of. Hell, people have even been known to mooch The Da Vinci Code! †

One of the ways I’ve used BookMooch is to give away surplus copies of books – the ones that get a big dogeared and aren’t really saleable, or a couple of donated extra copies from an author’s stash. It feels a hell of a lot better than letting them gather dust in a corner somewhere. Or bunging them into a charity bin (and as much as I love secondhand bookshops, I get incredibly depressed by the rows of books in charity shops). Ok, you pay the postage costs for sending them away. But you get Mooch points in return, and it does all work out in the end. (And it’s a nice feeling, to think that someone in deepest darkest Quebec is reading your poems of the Australian outback, or that someone in the Philippines is reading haiku about New Zealand rugby …)

And Bookmooch is trialing another alternative to conventional book distribution: the “pay what you think it’s worth” model that was used recently by Radiohead. (Ok, maybe it didn’t work out quite so well for them. On the other hand, how much money did they get in free publicity? How about good will? Other bands have talked about doing the same thing, so it can’t have been an unmitigated financial disaster.) The BookMooch version – currently under the name “Mooch before you Buy” – has a couple of extra things in its favour, the biggest of which is the fact that BookMooch is a community of booklovers. We already understand the ethics of the situation, and understand that this sort of thing will only work if no-one loots and pillages. Be interesting to see how it goes. Given the economics of poetry publishing, maybe this is a possible future option for poetry too?

BookMooch logo images by Andrice Arp, used courtesy of BookMooch

† NOT from me. Never read it, never owned it, never plan to. I’m a poet. I have some standards.

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