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Dec. 30th, 2013 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I'm back from vacation - have two days to re-acclimate myself to New York City, before I go back to work. This basically entails, unpacking, cleaning, grocery shopping, errand running. Since one of these two day's is New Years - most of the errand running will have to be tomorrow. Also it's going to be bitterly cold, so...there's that.
For some bizarre reason earthlink is rejecting email notifications from lj. I've no clue why.
And can't figure out how to fix it. Am highly annoyed by it at any rate. It has happened before, but that time it merely involved jumping into email settings. Now, not quite that simple.
Finally got it fixed. Damn thing wouldn't let me post until it was validated.
2. January Talking Meme is up and running. If you always wanted me to discuss a specific topic (it really can be just about anything) - well now is your chance to get me to do it. Pick one of the available dates...and throw a topic at me. (This takes the whole on-demand blogging to a whole new level, doesn't it? But still, a rather clever meme.)
3. Book Bites.
Finished the rather controversial Whitney, My Love - which is amongst the most poorly plotted books that I've read. There's two major events/conflicts that occur in the novel that just do not quite work. It's also a rather long book without all that much going on in it to justify the length. I can see why everyone forgot it. Not exactly memorable, outside of the fact that the men in the book are jerks. My difficulty is, of course, I can't stop being an English Lit major - even when I'm reading trashy novels. Heck, half the fun of reading these things is ripping them apart in my head. Thinking, oh, that works, but that...really doesn't and why did the author do that?
Currently re-reading Laurie McBain's Moonstruck Madness - which I'd last read when I was 15 or thereabouts. It's not that well-written either, but far better plotted. A shorter book with a lot more going on. Also - on the plus side? It's a boddice ripper with no rapes.
And not that much sex either. The story is a about woman who becomes a highwayman to provide for her family during the Georgian Period. They've fled Scotland, where the English basically slaughtered their clan. Half-English, they take up residence on their father's abandoned estate. Their father is off in Europe with his third wife.
What's interesting about Laurie McBain - is she only wrote 7 novels, yet is credited with changing the romance genre in the 1970s along with Kathleen Woodliss, except McBain didn't have any rapes in her novels, while Woodliss did. Prior to McBain and Woodliss, romance novels were basically along the lines of Georgette Heyer - no sex, just a series of misunderstandings, and very little plot. Basically "The Marriage Plot". After McBain and Woodliss - they were more suspenseful, and much longer. Plus lots more sex.
McBain started writing at the urging of her father, who helped her get published. She stopped writing right after he died, even though she was wildly successful.
Next up? I don't know. Flirting with The Husband's Secret - a best-selling contemporary novel by an Australian Writer that has made a lot of year-end best lists.
For Xmas, my brother gave me IQ84 by Haruki Murakami...who writes surrealistic science fiction novels. He likes to give me tomes. Huge books that I can't lug around with me on the subway and trains. But must read at home. Also flirting with Inside the Food Network, The Kill Artist by Daniel Silvia (which a college friend rec'd), Mists of Avalon and Divergent - although not sure if I can read another teen dystopia romance.
I need to read the two books rec'd by sisinlaw - The Paelo Manifesto and The Evolution of the Human Body...but am procrastinating.
For some bizarre reason earthlink is rejecting email notifications from lj. I've no clue why.
And can't figure out how to fix it. Am highly annoyed by it at any rate. It has happened before, but that time it merely involved jumping into email settings. Now, not quite that simple.
Finally got it fixed. Damn thing wouldn't let me post until it was validated.
2. January Talking Meme is up and running. If you always wanted me to discuss a specific topic (it really can be just about anything) - well now is your chance to get me to do it. Pick one of the available dates...and throw a topic at me. (This takes the whole on-demand blogging to a whole new level, doesn't it? But still, a rather clever meme.)
3. Book Bites.
Finished the rather controversial Whitney, My Love - which is amongst the most poorly plotted books that I've read. There's two major events/conflicts that occur in the novel that just do not quite work. It's also a rather long book without all that much going on in it to justify the length. I can see why everyone forgot it. Not exactly memorable, outside of the fact that the men in the book are jerks. My difficulty is, of course, I can't stop being an English Lit major - even when I'm reading trashy novels. Heck, half the fun of reading these things is ripping them apart in my head. Thinking, oh, that works, but that...really doesn't and why did the author do that?
Currently re-reading Laurie McBain's Moonstruck Madness - which I'd last read when I was 15 or thereabouts. It's not that well-written either, but far better plotted. A shorter book with a lot more going on. Also - on the plus side? It's a boddice ripper with no rapes.
And not that much sex either. The story is a about woman who becomes a highwayman to provide for her family during the Georgian Period. They've fled Scotland, where the English basically slaughtered their clan. Half-English, they take up residence on their father's abandoned estate. Their father is off in Europe with his third wife.
What's interesting about Laurie McBain - is she only wrote 7 novels, yet is credited with changing the romance genre in the 1970s along with Kathleen Woodliss, except McBain didn't have any rapes in her novels, while Woodliss did. Prior to McBain and Woodliss, romance novels were basically along the lines of Georgette Heyer - no sex, just a series of misunderstandings, and very little plot. Basically "The Marriage Plot". After McBain and Woodliss - they were more suspenseful, and much longer. Plus lots more sex.
McBain started writing at the urging of her father, who helped her get published. She stopped writing right after he died, even though she was wildly successful.
Next up? I don't know. Flirting with The Husband's Secret - a best-selling contemporary novel by an Australian Writer that has made a lot of year-end best lists.
For Xmas, my brother gave me IQ84 by Haruki Murakami...who writes surrealistic science fiction novels. He likes to give me tomes. Huge books that I can't lug around with me on the subway and trains. But must read at home. Also flirting with Inside the Food Network, The Kill Artist by Daniel Silvia (which a college friend rec'd), Mists of Avalon and Divergent - although not sure if I can read another teen dystopia romance.
I need to read the two books rec'd by sisinlaw - The Paelo Manifesto and The Evolution of the Human Body...but am procrastinating.