Kylie

Yay for Captain Bluebear! At least Sonnets from the Portuguese is a quick read, although I guess it will take a while if we're going to analyse them all!

Stop doing that to me! (I shouldn't encourage you, but it did make me a bit.)

Aww.

Shops around here generally have a young adult/children section, with books separated according to age range, but not genre. It can definitely be confusing working out how a bookshop has arranged its books. I tend to make sure I look at everything (or at least check all of the genre labels on the shelves) to make sure I haven't missed anything.

Haha! I have no idea what Alaric is either. It's hard keeping up, but I still enjoy it! I think Jenna is the only one who hasn't come back...I think because she had a 'human' death. She must be annoyed that she's the only one who never gets to come back!

I can think of a few authors who don't stick to one particular subject, and I think this makes them really interesting and worth following. I guess I admire them because their interests are so wide-ranging and they seem to be able to make any topic interesting. Bill Bryson has done a lot of writing about travel, of course, but he's also delved into language (Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Mother Tongue and Made in America), history (At Home, One Summer), science (A Short History of Nearly Everything) and biography (Shakespeare). Erik Larson has written about the Chicago World's Fair and a serial killer (The Devil in the White City), the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany (In the Garden of Beasts), deadly hurricanes (Isaac's Storm) and the sinking of the Lusitania (Dead Wake), among others. Simon Winchester has long interested me too. I haven't read any of his books yet, but I have many of them on my TBR pile, including Atlantic, Krakatoa, The Map That Changed the World, The Men Who United the States and The Surgeon of Crowthorne (about madness and the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary). Lastly, Australia's Peter FitzSimons writes about a wide range of subjects relating to Australia, including history (Batavia, Eureka), war (Kokoda, Tobruk, Gallipoli) and biography (Ned Kelly, Mawson, Charles Kingsford Smith). What other authors can you recommend who write about a broad and interesting range of topics?

I wonder if Claire can arrange to get a commission or 'finder's fee' for bringing this lovely paper to our attention.

I love that Rural Urban lists it as wrapping paper but mentions that it's often bought by people who just want it as a poster.

Interesting, thanks! Chalie, not to mention how many times all of the characters have died and then come back to life one way or another.

I now have around 2,500 according to my cataloguing software, but I still haven't catalogued a few hundred or so, so it would be around 3,000, I think.

Yes, it would be lovely to be able to afford craftsmen to build your library for you! All I can afford is the cheap IKEA bookcases. I'm happy with them, and they do exactly what I want them to do, but it's nice to dream about something grander.

I used to be able to read with noise, but I prefer silence these days. The only music I can tolerate is instrumental music with no singing. I guess I can read with a bit of background noise, but I tend to read more slowly and need to re-read things because I keep getting distracted.

I watched about 5 episodes in a row, so I'm all caught up now! The last one was S06E15. I watched the first couple of episodes of The Originals, but then I got sidetracked with other stuff (and obviously I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with TVD ). I'll have to start from the beginning again one day and binge-watch both seasons. Is it as good as TVD?

Glad to hear. You didn't seem so sure about it (plot-wise) in another update, so I'm glad it turned around for you! I'm nearly 3/4 of the way through it. Too busy with work to get much reading done.

Check out Elizabeth Gilbert's amazing 'skybrary'!

I'm catching up on The Vampire Diaries.

Thanks, Claire.

And just think, releasing only a few medium-sized books would make enough room for about a dozen black Penguins!

I definitely will Interestingly, the one in Sydney is also being crowd-funded.

'Pynchon also inserted enough sexually graphic imagery to make Ulysses look like the Pope's favourite book.' I've always been undecided whether I should try reading Pynchon, and your review hasn't helped me any! I only have The Crying of Lot 49 on my TBR pile. I used to have one of his longer books, but I got rid of it without even attempting it because I was too scared. TCoL49 is so short that surely I'll be able to manage it...right?

Oh, Poppy, you're hilarious! First the stock and then the mustard. Alan must never have a dull moment with you around. Remember that Pie in the Sky shop we went to when you were here? I can't remember if the bikies were there that day, but they are usually there with their bikes all lined up in a row. I'm always tempted (jokingly) to push one over to cause a domino effect so they all get knocked over. I'd have to have a getaway car ready to race me away. I wouldn't want to stick around to face the bikies! Now on to more important things, missy. What's with Rebecca 'bubbling under'?! I'm just kidding. I don't want to pressure you at all. I have a couple of books to finish off, but I'm hoping to read Rebecca in March. Do you think we should pass on reading it together? It might be ages before we can 'sync' our reading. And there are plenty of other books we have in common that we could read and discuss together (Sonnets from the Portuguese for a start!) AND I just noticed that The Phantom Tollbooth is nowhere to be seen on that list! What do you have to say for yourself?

Ooh, you lucky thing! I love that you included a picture of the wrapped chocolate, and by the time I got to the end of the very same post, you and Alan had already eaten one block. I do hope all of those books won't end up on my wish list as well. I already have another one winging its way to me thanks to you (The Winter Queen). I've read and loved If On a Winter's Night.... So much so that it's on my list of must reads. I love that wrapping paper as well! Claire, would you mind divulging where you bought it? Hopefully I can find it over here somewhere.

Wow, you don't often give books such a low rating. It must have been pretty bad! That's interesting info about the page numbers. I can't say I'm really surprised by any of them, except perhaps I would have thought there'd be fewer pages in the literature category (but the 2000+ page omnibuses might have affected that). I'm perhaps a little surprised that there isn't much difference between fantasy and sci-fi, although now that I think about it, there are some pretty hefty sci-fi books out there!

A Facebook friend of mine was recently in South Korea for a while and he found a cat cafe nearby so he posted loads of photos from there. It was awesome!

Aw, I hope you're feeling better soon. I tend to sleep on the lounge when I can't be bothered going to my bed upstairs.