Peacefield

Cereal with strawberries and now that I'm at work, coffee and a banana.

I haven't read any of hers yet, Chesil, but I'm hoping to one of these days! On my Laura Ingalls Wilder pile, I finished By the Shores of Silver Lake and have started The Long Winter. I think I have 3 left along with a non-fiction work about Laura to finish before my road trip in exactly one month from tomorrow! I think I can do it . I also have recently started The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe and am very into it! I finished Shadow of Night on my vacation at the lake and need to write a review of it soon.

Thanks Ben! It's tiny, but I'll take it!

I'm sorry to hear about your dog, Noll . Good luck on the x-ray and I hope her hip doesn't end up being fractured Congrats on your anniversary, Kell, and good luck with all of your busy-ness, Whitegold! Can I ask, where abouts are you in Canada? Today was my last day at work until next Friday the 10th. We had our company picnic and I won a day of vacation which I'm sure will come in handy later in the year. I'm off to the cabin tomorrow and will be doing lots of relaxing on the dock. I hope everyone has a lovely weekend/week ahead of them!

Go Team USA! <insert American flag here>

Did anyone catch women's swimming yesterday, specifically the 400m Individual Medley? I'm not an expert in this type of race nor am I aware just how fast a 16 year old can swim, but did anyone else think it was weird that Shiwen just shot ahead at the end and broke records of some of the men's races earlier? I would've thought that to be impossible! Seems a little fishy to me, but what do I know... I haven't been able to catch a lot of the games so far, but I try to tune in at night when I get home from work. I'm not in the same time zone and don't have cable so I'm at the mercy of what NBC decides to air in primetime. It's exciting so far, though! Go USA!

I'm sorry to hear about your grandad, Karen.D . I have 1 1/2 days left of work until vacation so I'm scrambling to get things wrapped up. We have our company picnic in the afternoon tomorrow and after that I will be free for a week! I'm off to our lake cabin up north and am very much looking forward to lots of relaxing with a book and also being with my fam. We do have wi-fi up there so if I can't seem to keep myself away you might see me post here or there

Synopsis via Waterstone's: Spring 1868, and the population of Boston is being terrorized by technological attacks: first a magnetic storm causes ships in the harbor to collide in flames, then in another bizarre catastrophe every piece of glass in the financial district spontaneously melts - clocks, windows, eyeglasses. Nothing in nature can do this: these are man-made disasters. Someone has unleashed the destructive potential of science on an innocent population. The city's fate relies on four young students of the recently founded Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Marcus Mansfield, a Civil War veteran determined to repay MIT's founder for taking a chance on him, brash Bob Richards, meticulous Edwin Hoyt and the eccentric but brilliant Ellen Swallow, the first woman at MIT, who experiments secretly in a basement laboratory. Together, they are "The Technologists." In a climate of rising hysteria, these four courageous individuals must unite against the forces of darkness to uncover the mastermind before he can stage his greatest outrage. I’ll just say first off that Matthew Pearl’s work never disappoints me, and his 4th and most recent novel, The Technologists, is no exception. He, as always, sets the time period of post-Civil War Boston perfectly, so much so that the reader can see themselves walking down the street right alongside every character. I loved reading about the birth of this new school, MIT, and the population’s fear of the unfamiliar, which made its president and students want to prove even more that the school and its practices were just as valid as the already established Harvard. The Technologists was obviously very meticulously researched and although I found myself a little confused at times (science/chemistry was never my strong suit), the writing was never pretentious or deliberately obscure. I was drawn to Marcus’ character and loved the way Pearl portrayed him as a Civil War vet with a poor background wanting to better himself and help Boston overcome these horrible crimes. I also loved the rest of the ‘Technologists’ crew and was pleasantly surprised at the ending of the novel. Highly recommended!

I re-read the last 100 pages or so of ADOW to refresh my memory on the story and now am about 150 pages into Shadow of Night. I LOVE it! I'm so excited over the historical aspect and the characters that Harkness has introduced that I just hate to put it down. I can't wait to see what the rest of it has in store and I'm really pleased that others here liked it too!

Congrats and good luck, Timstar! This is a long week for me, but my vacation is in sight! I'm working both jobs today and tomorrow; also working the second job on Saturday night. I'm off for a week though starting next Thursday and will be chilling like a madwoman . As usual, it's hot and humid here. I heard from my sister who has spent the last 3 weeks in England and she told me they've had a total of 2 sunny days and that's it! She sent some photos of one of the nicer days they spent in Falmouth. Hope everyone has a good rest of their week!

Congrats on everything, Timstar, and wtg Noll! You are definitely a person of importance and it's great that the meeting went so well for you . Sorry to hear about your day, Jules I hope your weekend goes better than expected. My long work week is over, so I'm home now relaxing and enjoying an adult beverage! I'm making myself spend no money and stay in for the most part this weekend. My trip to LA is in less than 2 months and I need to save up more money! Not to mention my mini roadtrip which starts the day after I get back from out west. Needless to say I plan on getting in lots of reading time this weekend. I hope everyone has a lovely weekend .

I love recommendations as well. It's opened a whole new set of doors for me on books I thought I'd never read! Nowadays really I think I'm open to anything. I can't think of anything I actively ignore except for those cheesy romances like Harlequin (like your Mills & Boone). Sometimes I think I have little spare time so why waste it on some genre/author I've never read before, but then I realize, why limit myself? The books will be there for me to get to eventually .

I finished The Technologists by Matthew Pearl late last night. I'll post my thoughts on it sometime this weekend on my book thread. I also started re-reading the last half of A Discovery of Witches in order to refresh my memory before I start on the newest book in the trilogy that I received last week, Shadow of Night. I'm very excited to see what's happened!

That's me! Although I think you might be one of the last to know, LOL I will make a point to look for and watch Love Actually, Frankie . I haven't seen Sherlock either but I'm interested! Frankie, can I ask why you didn't like True Blood?

Hi. My name is Marcia and I've never seen Notting Hill, Love Actually or Black Adder. Oh, and weird is GOOD!

Making the rounds of political talk radio whilst here at work today .

Car Crash by Telekinesis

Take On Me ~ A-ha

I buy the majority of my books from Half Price Books, which is a used book seller. I do this because I limit myself on my budget so I can save more money to have later when I retire. I have no idea what HPB tax policy is. The rest of the books I purchase though come from Amazon, exactly for the reasons that Delaila stated above - it's convenient, lots of variety and the products are good quality. I'm not a good person to ask about taxes since my opinion would take up way too many posts, but I don't believe that our tax system pays for as much of the essentials that people in the UK depend on. I suppose what Amazon is doing is sort of like a company housed in New York but selling their products out of South Dakota, so they can pay fewer local taxes. There's still the federal taxes, but otherwise each state here has their own tax policy. I guess I'm saying that I have no problem with this, since I like it when businesses prosper. It in turn creates more jobs, more businesses, more money flowing through the system, etc.

Great photos, Muggle! We have black bears up north at the cabin and from what I hear from my mom, they visit a few times a summer and wander around on the deck like it's no biggie. They take the bird feeders in every night luckily, otherwise the bears and raccoons would gorge themselves! More 90s weather today here but tonight storms are in the forecast so hope that brings some relief, ugh.

I've bought all my laptop batteries from Amazon as well. I have a Dell and the stuff at their site is way too pricey. It's hot and humid up here too, Pontalba - stop sending your weather up here! It's 99f right now, yuck! Hopefully it'll storm soon.

'Heavy Metal' by White Rabbits

I read quite a good chunk of The Technologists over the weekend but I'm no where close to finishing. There just aren't enough hours in a weekend which is a crying shame!

I came across The Philadelphia Experiment on Netflix over the weekend and since my cheesy 80's sci-fi quota hasn't been filled for the month, I decided to watch it. I especially loved seeing a giant aircraft carrier and a whole town get sucked into a hole/time-warp thingie while a 1940's Navy sailor gets sent to the year 1984. Good times!

I agree, Kylie, I don't believe Rand was condoning that at all. I also didn't see her female characters as marginalized underlings, either.