Hallie > Recent Status Updates

I'm so scared. Not about the murder, obviously!

It's only been about a day in book-time, but I'm so, so ready for Rhee to grow up already.

Also, fat-slams. LET'S JUST NOT, OKAY?

Also #2; THICK AS THIEVES is here!!

But has anyone listened to samples of the audiobooks? Only got through CONSPIRACY on UK Audible, but I was very disappointed. Narrator sounds ridiculously old for Gen, and I got a bit of his Eddis from the sample of QUEEN which made me shudder.

Also Cara is the best. When we were organising categories and where they should go she suggested a shelf for books I had finished but needed to write up on Goodreads before (re)homing permanently. It could be the shelf that grows and grows.

You know what I HATE??? MOVING. This last one was more a crash landing than a move, but we've been back in the house for three months now and I think most of the major crises have been dealt with, so it's time to enjoy ...

BOOKSHELVES. More than two years with books in boxes reeeeeeally makes you appreciate books not being in boxes, and our shelves make me very happy.

Having just started to realise the difficulty of some tasks on the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, I spotted Better World Books' Reading Challenge, which of course I HAVE to do. Many of the challenges look easier (read a book by a woman - phew, should be able to knock that off in a year!) and there's a lot of overlap between the two, so maybe no GR Challenge and yes Read Harder and Better World ones this year.

Melissa and Beth kept me in touch with the community of friends who talk about books, and I've missed it too much to stay away any longer. So, any ability to say anything coherent about books may be gone, but I'll try to stick around anyway.

And I just finished CROSSTALK. Which might not be the 'perfect' book, but how lovely to sink into a big fat Connie Willis story again!

It's been a while. My mother died in April after a few weeks in hospital, and then [insert your favourite overused expression for things got REALLY messy]. Not the daughters, who were fantastic, but without them I might have lost the will to live. I didn't read, guys! (Okay, I listened to audiobooks, and it was only about 3 or 4 weeks, but I didn't go near a book or ereader, and that's never happened before.)

So, the holidays kind of broke me, as far as GR is concerned, but hope to be around again now. I read more books in 2015 than I have since I started keeping track, and added fewer to GR, so clearly, I need the challenge to stop being such a lazy brat! Challenge duly added.

I probably read too much fantasy and too little SF but I keep wondering why nobody is saying "DON'T EAT THE GOBLIN FRUIT". (It grows mysteriously and it glows.)

I'm enjoying this a lot, except Samhain is not not NOT pronounced Sam Hane. I thought once we'd got away from Oxford and the many "Samhain term" uses the frequency would die down, but now there's to be a Samhain Ball - oh joy.

http://tinyurl.com/qglz3vu (I hope this will work, because it doesn't seem to be up on Talks with Roger yet.) Lucy and Lockwood *fanfic* - nonoonoooo.

Hmmmm. I'll try to write this up tomorrow or the day after, but it may not be pretty.

(p.75) "Where is my honor in all this?" he'd asked her once. She didn't know what honor was to him. She thought that it wasn't the same as her father's: monumental, marble-cut. No, Arin's honor was alive. She sensed the way it moved. She couldn't see its face - maybe it had many faces - but she believed that Arin's honor was the kind that would hold its breath and bite its lip until it bled. (Could we just - NOT?)

I finished the 2nd of S.J. Bolton's Lacey Flint books on audio yesterday and have the WORST book-hangover feeling: still bruised and fragile & all I want is more, which will only make me feel worse. Okay, I'm not really making this book-hangover thing work, am I?

I wasn't expecting that, of course, but I definitely wasn't expecting *that*. Well played, Spoiler! Was almost glad to have a lot of cleaning to do today.

And the 2015 Book Battle is live now - at yamgbattle.wordpress.com - so I can now TAG the books about which secrets are still being kept!

"He was so good now that when he was performing, he seemed to tower over me, Gandalf-like..." Hmmm. No.

Well, we survived the move (and Christmas) and are warmly ensconced in our new house. All is well - except for the fact that we've only got two small bookcases to store all the books we planned to keep accessible for the duration of our stay here. :( (Also, saw a rat in the garden.)

New bookshelf made ("I HATE MOVING special" - mature, no?) & going to add as many of the books read in 2014 without review. For now.

We're going to be moving house (temporarily but totally), which is something I haven't done for over 17 years now. I can *definitely* make up for all those years of disorganisation, hoarding & messiness in a couple of weeks, right? RIGHT? (3 books on those very topics came to light in the first few days of book packing. Gotta <3 irony!)

So, Grimm picks a few sprigs of basil "for the brew", in the cottage where he and Blackthorn have been living for just a few months. In ANCIENT IRELAND. Yeah, yeah, back in the days when the Fae still hung out here, but doesn't make basil any more credible.

Basically, this book is tedious times three. (Three narrators.) The freakin' dog's not enough for you, Oran, really?

I got a phone call this morning, saying the book was in and waiting for me, AND email notification that it was available on Audible some hours later. DILEMMA. (Weather was foul and city centre bookshop was a lot farther than my desktop, so guess which option won?)

I hope everyone has heard about this already, but it's too important to miss. this is ACTUAL bullying of authors. And our own Rachel (Manija Brown) is one of those who suffered attacks.

I think next year I should do *two* challenges: one for books read and another for books I've actually got round to writing something about. I'd have finished the first long since, and depending how realistically I chose the numbers for the second, might be on track with that one. Or at least *pleasantly* challenged.

I was thinking I was doing quite okay with a book involving an entity that boils children alive - but THIS landed out of the blue for me and -- are you KIDDING ME?!? Author is evil, obviously.

There's been - stuff - going on, and I haven't been able to muster sufficient - other stuff - to play here. Will try to catch up with friends but it'll be spotty for a while. No whining! Updating instead!

Cara just sent me this - 20 tweets of brilliance: https://twitter.com/WorstMuse

Happy Canada Day, everyone!