Kell

I'm currently on the last book of the Food Truck Mysteries series by Chloe Kendrick. They're very cozy ad easy to solve, but I've enjoyed them.

I've read a couple of those, Chalie, but there are some good ones on there for me to consider - thank you for the suggestions! I'm also going to add Canadian provinces to extend the list further...

I can't understand why such a big thing is being made about there being a gay companion. Why does her sexual preference matter? It's not the first time anyway - Cptn Jack Harkness is rather omnisexual (he's just not fussy) and the Doctor introduced him to Alonso (from the Voyage of the Damned episode with the Titanic) as a potential hook-up, as well as Ianto in Torchwood having a bit of a thing with Cptn Jack, and I seem to recall a lizard-looking woman in one episode having a wife too, so it's not as if it's an unusual occurrence, and no big deal was made about any of those characters or plot lines, so why draw extra attention to it this time?

I spotted this online somewhere and thought it a neat idea - reading a book set in each of the American States. The list I found had several I'd already read, some I'd never heard of, and an awful lot that didn't interest me in the slightest, so I think I'll do a little research and make my own list - one for each state. Of course, if anyone wants to join in, please feel free, and if you felt like recommending any books, please post telling me the title, author, and the main state in which it's set, and I'll take a look to see if it tickles my fancy. I think I may well do this, and then continue with a book set in each of the South American countries. This will be a long term challenge, and perhaps one I may not even finish - who knows? But let's see how I go, eh? I'll be adding potential books to the list as and when I get a chance to research them. USA: AL: Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee / Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg AK: The Call of the Wild by Jack London / The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey / Gentle Ben by Walt Morey AZ: AR: True Grit by Charles Portis CA: Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown / The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick / Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde / The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain CO: CT: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain / The Ice Storm by Rick Moody DE: Beloved by Toni Morrison / Fight Club by Chuck Palahnuiuk DC: The War of the Roses by Warren Adler FL: Duma Key by Stephen King / To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemmingway / Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay GA: Deliverance by James Dickey HI: From Here to Eternity by James Jones ID: IL: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury IN: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington IA: The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller / The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson / A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley KS: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote KY: Beloved by Toni Morrison / The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis LA: ME: 11/22/63 by Stephen King / The Cider House Rules by John Irving / 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King MD: MA: MI: MN: MS: MO: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn MT: The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans NE: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty NV: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson NH: NJ: Election by Tom Perrotta NM: NY: NC: A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander #5) by Diana Gabaldon * ND: OH: OK: True Grit by Charles Portis OR: PA: Christine by Stephen King RI: The Widows of Eastwick (Eastwick #2) by John Updike * SC: SD: TN: TX: Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy UT: VT: Pollyanna by Elanor H Porter VA: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson WA: WV: WI: WY: Shane by Jack Shaefer * I've already read the rest of the series up until this point... CANADA: Ontario: The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford Quebec: Deja Dead (Temperence Brennan #1) by Kathy Reichs Nova Scotia: Before Green Gables (Green Gables #0) by Rudge Wilson New Brunswick: Manitoba: British Columbia: Prince Edward Island: Anne of Green Gables (Green Gables #1) by Lucy Maud Montgomery Saskatchewan: Last of the Plainsmen by Zane Grey Alberta: Newfoundland & Labrador: The Chrysalids by John Wyndham / The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx CENTRAL AMERICA: Belize: Our Man in Belize: A Memoir by Richard Timothy Conroy Costa Rica: El Salvador: The Weight of All Things by Sandra Benitez / The Fifth Son by Nicholas A Patriccia Guatemala: Betrayed by J. M. Windle / The Evil That Men Do by R. Lance Hill Honduras: The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux Nicaragua: A Thousand Deaths Plus One by Sergio Ramirez (trans. by Leland H. Chambers) Panama: The Tailor of Panama by John le Carre SOUTH AMERICA: Argentina: The Lighthouse at the End of the World by Jules Verne Bolivia: The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Brazil: Brazil by John Updike Chile: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Colombia: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Ecuador: Guyana: The Middle Passage by V. S. Naipaul Paraguay: Peru: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa Suriname: Uruguay: Venezuela: The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara

I actually stopped watching it before the end of Matt Smith's first season, as I found him weird (his face looks like it's melted!) and Amy Pond was just plain annoying. I went back to it when Capaldi took over, and he did grow on me a little, but overall I have found him very disappointing and pretty much unlikable as The Doctor. I also found Clara absolutely awful - couldn't get on with her at all, but to be honest, from what little I've seen of the new assistant that's coming up, I'm not impressed (nor do I like Matt Lucas - i actually feel a little bit sick when I see him - he turns my stomach!). I for one, can hardly wait for the next regeneration, and hopefully we'll gt all new assistants along with the new Doctor. All that said, we've been rewatching them all, from the start of the 8th Doctor with our boys. Eccleston is still my favourite (how much do I wish he'd done more than one season?!), and I enjoyed Tennant even more this time round, especially his rapport with Rose and Donna (never liked Martha Jones!). So far we've only watched the first episode with Smith, and although we enjoyed it well enough (better than I remembered enjoying it last time), Josh isn't impressed with Smith, and says "I don't like his face! I want the proper Doctor with the spiky hair back - he was cool. Bow ties are NOT cool!" We'll continue watching, as I really want to see the whole River Song story played out ( I loved that character), but I feel it's all downhill from here for me.

Your post count is showing at over 5800, so it must have been rectified. Could have just been a glitch during the changeover.

If there's going to be bonus content, I prefer it to be in the front of the book, before the actual book starts. If it's at the end and I didn't realise it I always get narked when I think I have more story left than there actually is. I HATE it when they put preview chapters of other novels in the back for that very reason. I do enjoy author interviews and various other bonus content though.

I use washi tape along the page edges to differentiate between different things. EG my monthly spreads all have the same jazzy edge, my movie log has black and white, the reading log has a light brown stripe, and my TV log has blue stripes. My sleep log has multicoloured stars, and my "shark week" log is red washi with white stars. I was playing around last night while watching a movie and added a lunar calendar for the year (with a howling wolf), and also a cover pic celebrating the Chinese year of the rooster in the front, right opposite the index pages.

Round avatars for the win!!!

Hubby and I have decided to start watching Poirot right from the start, so I did a one-page tracker spread to keep note of where we're up to...

A few more to make you giggle. Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. And then the murders started... - Animal Farm by George Orwell. Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the riverbank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book', thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?' And then the murders started... - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. And then the murders started... - The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. Dr. Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse. And then the murders started... - Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres. Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. And then the murders started... - Emma by Jane Austen. When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun. And then the murders started... - Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death. And then the murders started... - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

This has to be the most perfect pairing ever!!!

The opening lines of every novel set the scene and the tone of the entire story. Change the second line, and you change that story... The premise is simple: You post the opening sentence from any novel, then replace the second sentence (whatever it was) with "And then the murders began." Don't forget to mention the novel and author, in case anyone else wants to try reading it! I'll kick things off with a few: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier: Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. And then the murders started... Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. And then the murders started... The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. And then the murders started... 1984 by George Orwell: It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. And then the murders started... A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. And then the murders started... Give it a try!

What really gets me are the following: The word "gotten" - the word is got, not gotten. "He had got it on holiday" rather than "he had gotten it on holiday". "Of" instead of "have", as in "he shouldn't have done that" - it only tends to be in self-published novels, but I have occasionally seen poorly edited professionally published novels that have the clanger "he shouldn't of done that" and it really grates on me every single time! "OK" in historical novels. I absolutely detest seeing "OK" instead of "alright" in an historical setting. It is enough for me to lose all respect for the author and so not enjoy the book any more and have to leave it unfinished. I also hate that in period drama on TV/film - it drives me nuts, and I have been known to scream at the screen when it happens!

I would much rather they just took their favourite book to school to tell their friends about it and get others interested that way. That would be much more book-focused than dressing up as superheroes and Disney princesses. Giving each child a few minutes to tell the rest of the kids in the class about their favourite book is a surefire way to get them interested, whereas dressing up is just yet another day to stress out parents about getting a costume ready.

World Book Night is 23rd April (Shakespeare's birthday), but this is the first year since they started doing it that they've not chosen "givers" to hand out books - they've changed what they're doing (which is a shame because I LOVED being a giver!). World Book Day seems to have just turned into another moneymaking "holiday" for retailers of kids' costumes, and I'm always sad to see that most kids just dress up as superheroes. Now, I know superheroes are from comic books, but when they started doing the whole dress up as your favourite book character thing in schools, it was supposed to focus on "proper" books - don't get me wrong, I am a fan of comics - totally nerdy, in fact (I LOVE graphic novels!) - but I wish it would go back to being proper book characters instead of a bunch of Disney princesses (I know most of those came from fairy stories and those ones are fair play, but Elsa and Anna are NOT from a book - they're from a film which then had books made to cash in on the popularity - you get where I'm going with this, I'm sure!). That said, my eldest went in dressed as Po Dameron from the most recent Star Wars film (there are loads of Star Wars book, I know, but I have no idea if Po is in any of them, as I've never read them!). He was originally going to go as Ron Weaseley, but I couldn't find my hair chalks on the morning of World Book Day, so we had a quick change of plans. My youngest went as one of Tiger Lily's tribe from Peter Pan. This was Josh's first year of dressing up for WBD, but Xan has done it for a few years now, In the past he's gone as: Harry Potter Quint (from The Edge Chronicles) Charlie Bucket

I've started watching Glee right from the beginning. I used to catch the occasional episode here and there while I was going through night feedings with Josh, but it always seemed to be the same dozen or so episodes playing over and over. Watched the first six episodes now and absolutely loving it. I'm a total Gleek!

18 as of end of February.

I am indeed. every day that I don't eat those things, I get to colour in a square. It feels very satisfying to do that and see it all becoming colourful.

Very basic, no decoration at all, but I'm all set up for Lent now. I'm not religious at all, but it's an excuse with a set time limit to cut out some stuff in an effort to get a few pounds off by Easter. I'm aware it's a few days short, but I figured 45 days is a substantial time as it is, and I really am a chocoholic - I just completely failed to do chocolate-free February lol!

I've not read the book. but I watched the film recently, and was sorely disappointed - I found it decidedly average and incredibly predictable, which has put me off reading the book. Usually, I like watching the film first, then discovering all the extra stuff that was left out by reading it afterwards, but I cannot say I am even remotely tempted to bother with it now. I'm sure the book will, as is usually the case, be better than the film, but the film was such a disappointment, I can't help but feel the book won't be up to much either. It's a bit like when The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was first published. I was given the book as a gift, and tried to read it, but found it so dull and plodding, I couldn't finish it. I also worked out major plot points long before the half way mark, which made me even more bored. I enjoyed the films (both foreign language and English language versions - with a preference for the English language remake, as they actually managed to inject at least a little excitement into it), but only really watched them to confirm that, yes, I HAD worked out whodunnit stupidly early on.

I have. I got it for Xmas. I did enjoy it, but not as much as I hoped or thought I would based on my past experience with PG's historical fiction novels. I found Margaret a highly annoying narrator - I mostly wanted to give her a good slap and tel her to grow up and stop being so self-centred. She is so consumed with her own petty jealousies, that she can't just get on with her own life at all, for fear that she might be slighted in some way. She's not a particularly nice character, but then, I didn't think either Mary or Katherine particularly likeable in this novel, possibly because we view them through Margaret's eyes, and so their portrayal is tainted by her view of them.

I have a self-imposed ban on buying any new books for the whole year. I can borrow books from friends, family, and the library, or I can read books on my own shelves, and I can accept books as gifts, or download free books to my Kindle, but I can't buy any books for myself at all. It's helping me to whittle down my Mount TBR, but I still have so many from which to choose, I sometimes find it hard to settle on what to pick up next! I've just been downstairs and couldn't make up my mind, so I've brought two more upstairs to start...