Laurie R. King Virtual Book Club discussion

This is just a test. BTW, I am currently blitzing through Dana Stabenow's newest, Restless In The Grave, and liking it a lot!

I'm reading Dana Stabenow's new one too! It's kind of bizarre to have Kate in Liam's world.

I've also been re-reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books in ebook form (so much easier than lugging those giant 900 page tomes!). Rather slowly; a chapter here or there when I'm finishing up one book and don't quite know what I want to pick up. I'm currently about a quarter of the way through The Fiery Cross.

Oh, and I've been reading Bonk by Mary Roach in small chunks. My super limited attention span for non-fiction...even when it is as well written as her's.

Oh, I have That Misquoting Jesus title in my audible queue. Lemme know how you like it if you get to it soon.

I'm kind of stuck in the middle of that big Einstein bio by Walter Isaacson. I'm in the midst of a physics section and it's an audible book, so I have to *really* pay attention to it, and not multitask in order to understand it, so I'm waiting until I can give it some undivided time.

Just finished Hilary Davidson's new novel, The Next One To Fall, and am starting Dan Simmon's latest, Flashback.

Thou art a reading machine!

Currently reading all about Merlin in early Celtic Literature for my MA Thesis...

Cool!

Hmm. It think it's rolling around in my audible queue. Not sure when I'll get to it. Sounds kind of interesting. I think it was a $5 sale book, so I sometimes throw an extra one or two of those in the cart that I might normally bypass.

Hey, it works! :)

Vicki wrote: "Thou art a reading machine!"

Just checking out the quote option and I happen to agree with that statement too!

I'm kind of indecisive right now on what I want to read next. I keep picking books up and putting them down again. After finishing the latest Kate Shugak, I really wanted more Kate, so perhaps I'll reread some earlier books again.

Still rereading The Fiery Cross as kind of a stop-gap book.

Also, nice to see more people over here!

Just trying out the iPhone app. I'm reading Louise penny's latest at the moment. As always, it's a great read. I'm interested to see where she's taking Peter and Clara with this one.

Does anyone know if there is a Kindle app for Goodreads?

Steve wrote: "Does anyone know if there is a Kindle app for Goodreads?"

Not sure if it's what you're looking for but if you go to the 'edit profile' button on upper right hand corner there is an App tag and an option to 'configure your ereader'.

I'm not super familiar with what platform Kindle is using for apps, but they've got both an Android app and an iPhone app. I've got the Android app on my Nook Tablet and it's pretty good, especially for the groups (There are a few annoying quirks for person shelves, like how they handle moving books between your shelves and that you can't update "date read" and a couple of other specifics).

Go Sheri on the free book action--and snaps to Sabrina on nailing the quote function!

The most recent Louise Penny is excellent, but I keep finding myself wanting to thwap Peter upside the head. Kind of a lot.

I'm kind of stuck on Einstein right now. Probably not the best one for an audio pick, as I keep having to scrub back on the recording to re-listen to the physics bits. And I'm pretty disgusted with what a dill-hole he was to his first wife at this point in the book. I mean, crikey.

I really like the goodreads iphone app and use it often. I did find out that I can't administer the group from it, but that's asking a lot of a smartphone app. I don't think I can administer my fb groups from the iphone app either, come to think of it.

I'd be surprised if there weren't a decent kindle app. I'll see if I can find one on my e-ink kindle's built-in store.

And now I will try a link to my DD's fantabulous fashion blog.

No changes in font color or size. Not surprising, I expect.

Vicki wrote: "And now I will try a link to my DD's fantabulous fashion blog."
Great googly wooglies, she looks just like you!!

Just downloaded the iphone app. I'll see if I can play with it a bit tomorrow.

There's some resemblance, but I like to think of her as the the new, taller, thinner and otherwise vastly improved/evolved edition. Hehehe.

Ack--still need to try and find that app on my kindle touch. Which I like quite a bit, even though it's not as fancy/slick as a tablet. I lurves that battery life.

Been trying to get through more of my tbr list...goodreads makes it so hard when they offer me recommendations because then I feel compelled to check out their offers and end up adding at least one more book to my tbr list!! Mostly I'm reading movie books though I've been bit with the Russell bug as well and I'm re-reading various of them. Got dh interested in the Mary Russells so we're reading them out loud. Currently on MREG.

I could do with some Russell rereading. I may wait until it's closer to the next release, though.

Understandable. But getting to go through them with my dh is fun. I love to watch his reactions to what I already know is going to happen. He sometimes begs that we keep reading.

You got yourself a keeper there! :D

:) Absolutely. Thinking of the two of us reading them aloud makes me think of how my parents are kinda doing the same thing. I say kinda because they have my sister read the books aloud to them because they love the way she reads them, with accents and all. They're so spoiled by her that I don't think they've picked up LOCK and started it since she left for her year in England last September...and she won't be back till mid-July! So lamentable. :)

Wow--she really must be good. She should be a reader for Librivox--people would start looking for her work.

One of my friends has a "stricken" shelf. That way, she gets them off her to-read shelf but still keeps track of them on the "stricken" shelf if she ever wants to go back and reconsider.

I finally gave away about 2000 dead-tree books that had been balefully watching me from my shelves for years. Too much guilt--poor little books, sitting there unread. And too much pressure--what wonderful stories am I missing out on, simply because I don't have twenty sets of eyeballs to read with? So I finally sent huge numbers of them to the library sale. Not only did it relieve pressure, but it also felt like I'd built another room onto my house. Those books took up a lot of space in my little abode.

Having moved once every two to three years for the last ten, I've gotten pretty good at keeping my book collection manageable. I think my tbr pile is only about 30 books right now and I've put a moratorium on buying new books until I either read or get rid of what's in the pile (I'm in something like a one for one exchange right now). Ebooks are kind of ruining that plan, though, as they don't take up any additional shelf space!

Yep, ebooks and audiobooks are starting to populate my iphone like they're a bunch of jack rabbits. Kinda scary, actually. In order to throw away the dead tree books, I had to overcome a long-held family rule that We Dont Ever Ever Throw Books Away. Period. Even if it's an antiquated guide to adolescence from 1955 (yes, Lord have mercy, we had one, which was from my Dad's school days), it has some sort of historical value, so we keep it. And if we move, we move it with us, and find a new place for it. Period.

So it took a long time to make the decision to pitch the paper. But once I made it, I was all the way in. I still have about 500 books left, but I'm even starting to appraise some of those with a jaundiced eye.

I'm with you Erin. The amount of space you save with ebooks is wonderful and I end up reading more because of it. As much as I love the feel of a real book in my hand, I just don't have the room for more than a 100 books on my shelves. I've moved 9 times in the past 12 years and had to donate/sell a lot of books that I wanted to keep. It's sad! But at least I can have a virtual library now.

I've just gotten my DH on the ebook bandwagon. He resisted, but as he makes several 7-10 day trips a year and never manages to have enough reading material, he thought it might be a good idea, but would never go the next step. A good (very good) friend had a second generation Kindle and decided to upgrade to the Kindle Touch and offered us her old one. Mine was the original Kindle as it worked perfectly well and I saw no need to spend money just to upgrade, but with this offer I took the 2nd gen. and gave DH the original. He is enraptured now. He can load it with books before his trips and be assured of plenty of reading material, even when out of the country. He just needed the extra nudge of the thing being placed in his hand and told it is his to use.

Referring to spouses reading Kanon, I got mine to read it a couple of years ago, but he had not read "Beekeeping for Beginners" as it was an ebook. It was his first purchase on the Kindle. I was that proud! LOL

You got yourself a keeper, too! Say hi to him for me, btw. :)

I got the kindle touch for Christmas and am very happy with it. I still am more focused on audiobooks, but I do like reading on the e-ink screen, and the battery life is un-honking-believable. <3<3<3

Vicki wrote: "You got yourself a keeper, too! Say hi to him for me, btw. :)

I shall. B'Con is in Long Beach, CA in 2014 . I hope many of my internet friends might meet my DH at that time. The funny thing is he has met Laurie. We had lunch with her a couple of years ago as we were driving home from San Francisco and stopped off to say hi.

I'm looking forward to Long Beach--hope to see him there!

I just finished "I am half-sick of shadows" (quoted from "Lady of Shalott) by Alan Bradley and this one is so good from the character standpoint. I wouldn't call these books mysteries as such. Honestly, the character Flavia reminds me of Harry Potter, how he's always in the middle of things and somehow there's a mystery involved but the characters are so strong and you want to know about them so much that it's no longer a mystery but real people almost....
Jennifer

I <3 Flavia and many of the characters in the series. I do think Half-Sick of Shadows fell a notch or two in terms of overall quality (I seem to recall hearing he did it fairly quickly), but I'd still never have considered misseing an outing with Flavia.

I don't feel like we've gotten any closer to the unraveling the mystery surrounding Harriet's death (or disappearance?). Or why her sisters are so over-the-top horrid to her. That's a little frustrating, but I imagine all (or at least a substantial percentage of all) will eventually be revealed.

Okay--here is the proboards site. Not gorgeous--it's looking pretty 2004, but it's got some nice features, and the platform has been around for a while and gathered a small but loyal community around the platform. I'll post this also on the other threads here and on the "future of the VBC" thread

Vicki wrote: "Okay--here is the proboards site. Not gorgeous--it's looking pretty 2004, but it's got some nice features, and the platform has been around for a while and gathered a small but loyal community ar..."

I successfully activated my account there but I won't play with it until I can get on a PC (too small on my phone). We just arrived in Madison to visit Charlotte (Meaghan & Jesus as well)!

Aw--hug that beebee for me! I'm trying to see how to make you an admin on proboard--I'm sure it's there. I just need to find the right switch.

Vicki wrote: "I <3 Flavia and many of the characters in the series. I do think Half-Sick of Shadows fell a notch or two in terms of overall quality (I seem to recall hearing he did it fairly quickly), but I'd s..."

Exactly the two things you mentioned, Harriet's death and the way the older sisters run so hot and cold also intrigues me. And as for quality, I have been reading such shoddy mysteries lately (accidentally and then I have to finish them to see if they get any better, it's a curse) that I wasn't terribly disappointed by the plotting. I honestly stopped reading Flavia for the mystery aspect after Sweetness. His real strength is the mystery around the central characters and these off-shoot "mysteries" don't have to be rigorous to keep me reading. But yes, he did produce this one quickly (wanted it out in time for Christmas since it was about Christmas). Did you catch the LRK reference in the previous mystery?
Jennifer

farmwifetwo wrote: "http://www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=7801

I won!!!

Cool :)"

Congrats!!

Wooohooo! Congrats, Sheri!! :D

LRK reference in the last Flavia?? I must have missed it! And I'm with you on the characters--they're fantastic. And I love, love, love Buckshaw itself. it's a character too, really.

Vicki wrote: "Wooohooo! Congrats, Sheri!! :D

LRK reference in the last Flavia?? I must have missed it! And I'm with you on the characters--they're fantastic. And I love, love, love Buckshaw itself. it's a ch..."
In the Red Herring with Mustard book, there's a dinner near the end at which Flavia's dad tells an amusing story of an old lady he met who'd made the acquaintance of a beekeeper! I listened the first time and was sort of knocked down and then I listened again to make sure what I'd heard. Then I wrote to him and he acknowledged it! And said I was the first person to notice it! I can't believe that, but I guess I was the first person to write to him!
Jennifer

Crikey! How could I have missed that?? Now I need to go back and reread that one, for sure. That's pretty cool that you were the first one to nail it and write to him about it!

Sheri, I keep trying to get DD to read Sweetness, but she's more into supernatural YA and mythology-based YA right now, so maybe she'll eventually get around to it. On the other hand, one of her friends read a copy of Sweetness I gave to her and is a total Flavia-maniac now. :D

Vicki wrote: "Crikey! How could I have missed that?? Now I need to go back and reread that one, for sure. That's pretty cool that you were the first one to nail it and write to him about it!"

Vicki, I can't be the first to notice it! But I can say I am the first to contact him on his website. I will get a copy and let you know the page#. I have to admit it was a literary high for me! Listening to it, I almost didn't believe what I heard...
Jennifer

I missed it too, as I read and didn't listen to the book (I do hear more than my eyes take in) but went back to look for it when Jennifer first mentioned it on the VBC. It is toward the end of Chapter 28, just that mention that Father "told rather an amusing story about an old Lady's first encounter with a beekeeper." Great catch, Jennifer!

Thanks Alice for looking it up! I don't own it so it would have taken me a day or so to get hold of a copy. As I said, I listened to it twice to make sure I wasn't dreaming the thing up! I knew they did things like that but it was a thrill to actually find one!
Jennifer

I took it in through my eyeballs as well. And sometimes I tend to scan when I'm tired or racing through a really good scene. With audiobooks, you can't scan like that.

I've started back on Einstein after having been stalled for nearly a week. I decided to just listen to it without straining to understand all the physics they discuss, and that's taken a load off. I kept going back and listening to those parts over and over and trying to think it through, and that was hurting my bitty bwain (which tends to act like teflon to math and science--they slide right off the old cerebrum).

Jen wrote: I knew the..."


I know the feeling - I found a reference to the Kate Martinelli books in one of Val McDermid's Lindsay Gordon books - Lindsay and her partner Sophie leave their dog Mutton with friends in SF when they return to the UK. Then, in one of the Kate books, Roz and Maj have inherited a dog called Mouton from friends who returned to the UK. I was so excited when I asked Laurie about it on the old VBC and she replied that she and Val had had a discussion about how they couldn't even put a fictional dog into quarantine! Made my day :-)