My Heartbreak, Today.

The unread books I had to return to the library. Booooo!!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Take My Money - Books

So, this Top Ten Tuesday should be pretty easy… The topic is Ten Books You'd Buy Right This Second If Someone Handed You A Fully Loaded Gift Card. I mean, how full is fully loaded, amIRight? The hard part is narrowing it down to 10.

I actually buy far too many books. I don’t usually go to the book store with the intention of buying any particular book. I’m just a sucker for a Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale and Barnes and Nobles. However, desipte the fact that I love to purchase books, I mostly read books from the library. Once I own a book, the likelihood of my reading it goes way down. Hence my #ClearAShelf challenge for this month (JOIN IT!).

I buy books purposefully for two reasons: I’ve already read it and I want a copy for myself or I’m trying to support an author or event. (I know that once again I am sort of cheating here because these are actually series, not single books… but it’s my blog and I’ll cheat if I want to!)

Books I’ve Read but Would Want My Own Special Precious Copies Of:

1. The Illustrated Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling) Obviously.

2. The Raven Boys series (Maggie Stiefvater)

3. The Inkheart Trilogy (Cornelia Funke)

4. The Strangers in Paradise Harcover collection (Terry Moore)

5. The Locke and Key Hardcover collection (Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez)

6. The Unwind Series (Neal Shusterman)

7. The complete collection of The Wizard of Oz books (F.L.Baum)

Possible books I might buy because I anticipate liking them very much, and/or love their covers.

New to Me Books:

8. Cinder (Marissa Meyer)

9. The Paper Magician (Charlie Holmberg)

10. Love in the Time of Global Warming (Francesca Lia Block)

  

 Oh. I'd also like a complete set of the Roald Dahl books... Now that I think about it, I might start collecting those right now.

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Libraries Book Tag and #ILoveLibraries2016 Reading Challenge

Howdy, I found this book tag on Arctic Books blog and figured it fits along with my #ILoveLibraries2016 reading challenge hosted by Bea's Book Nook. I love when things go together! Consider this your open invitation to feel tagged, if you are in the taggable mood.

 

1. How often do you visit your local library?
I go the one library or another about twice a week. I work "from home" sometimes and I prefer the libary's desk top to my laptop situation at home. I usually peruse, at minimum, the new books shelves. Plus, I almost always have a book to return... if you count the times I return books through the book drop, without going in: I actually go about 4 times a week.

2. Are you the type of person who checks out more books than you know you can read or are you someone who only checks out the exact amount of books you intend on reading before they are due?
Heh. Well. I rarely return a book unread. But that's because you can renew a loan up to three times if no one is waiting for it, which gives me just over 60 days to read it. I usually have about 10 books checked out at any one time. That number has gotten as high as 30, but I TRY to avoid that level of ridiculousness. I also use the inter-library loan system A LOT and put timers on the requests to try and not get all the books at once, but...

Book Review: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (#NaBloPoMo)

I've basically decided to give up on the synopses on the backs of books. It's really a 50/50 shot they they are going to tell you anything meaningful besides the names of the characters and MAYBE the setting. But, I digress... before I even get started. Hoozah!

This book was a lovely little ditty about a man, Nathaniel who works as a telegraphist in London in 1884. There's all kinds of stuff going on the world at that time. Irish bombs, women's suffrage, and Japan's civil war. Thaniel (yes, he's called Thaniel because his father was Nat) gets thrust into the role of detective/ hapless spy and meets a man who most certainly changes his outlook on things. He also meets his future wife. I assure you, that's not a spoiler to be up in stitches about.

I love historical fiction that's a bit speculative. [In fact, Speculative Historical Fiction is a better genre sticker for this book's spine than simple "Fantasy."] I've only recently discovered this proclivity of mine so sorry if I seem a little enthusiastic about it. I should probably started writing these Things down, so I'm not constantly surprised by The Things. 

Anyway. This one is well written with a dash of mystery. There's advanced clockwork technology, a female physicist, and a clueless man all wrapped up in a story that pulls you forward wondering what is going to blow up next. Tamely. They're English. There's also a beautiful hint of ambiguity the reader is left with making this a good pick for a discussion group. There's also the touches of cultural relevance of the day that keep it realistic: the women aren't thought of as competent enough for property ownership; the Japanese are all called Chinamen and the women think they're all dirty; the perceived role of nationalism and the danger of it's extremes. These aren't heavy handed or used in an preachy or distracting way, but allow you to better immerse yourself in the story and the time period, so you're not going "Wait... wouldn't she have needed a chaperone?"  

I believe this was on a list of must reads, or good reads, or something, which is what led me to pick it up. If it's not, it should be.  I got a little bogged down with the names and the details and it needed a chapter or two to pick up a bit of pace. And the resolution of one of the story lines was meh. It's a solid 4.5 out of 5 starts. This was well worth the 70 cents in library fines I accrued because I wanted to finish it. If the author ever writes another fiction novel, I'm definitely in!

Challenge: due in 8 days (#Inbox June 23,2015)

Of course, the books can be rechecked out, if needed, so there's not really a rush. But I'm taking some time off this week for an in-law visit. They're not going to be that entertaining...