RIGHT NOW I'M READING:A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel SparkI JUST FINISHED:The River Midnight by Lillian NattelI'M READING IN A SHELFARI GROUP:The Pickwick Papers by Charles DickensShelfari Changes I liked: Real-looking shelves, even though they look rather plastic; bulk editing; and dating books (I give mine flowers and chocolates, and take them for long walks on the beach).
Shelfari Changes I hated: Gigantic hideous advertising; community questions; recent activity; idiot comments taking over book info pages while intelligent reviews are shelf-bound and impossible to find; voice notes; Tell Us About Yourself (HA!).
I am a curmudgeonly Appalachian divorcee with six kids and an attitude problem, who has gone way past avid reading to avaricious reading. I'm gung-ho about most literary genres. I have a particular yen for Brit-lit, however, as you can see from my shelves.
As fun as it is to "pan" crappy books (see below), I am selective about my shelves. I could easily shelve 1000 books but I'm too motivationally challenged, and tagging is a pain in the aft end. 99% of the books I've read and shelved would get four or five stars if I bothered to star much. I do shelve some "I've read" books to which, if push came to shove, I would give only three stars, but shelved anyway, because they were such uproarious fun, but if I hate it, or if it bores me to tears or leaves me cold, I don't shelve it, and if this doesn't win the award for longest sentence in a profile separated only by commas, I'd like to know what does.
Here are a few books I've read that did NOT make the cut, and why:
The Life of Pi. Gag me with a sextant. I lost interest at the end of his list of what was on the boat, and never regained it.
Austenland. It took a real gift to make this sterling premise so stultifyingly dull.
What's the Matter With Kansas? Offhand, I'd say location, location, location. Political yawns galore.
A Country Doctor by Sylvia Orne Jewett. Cloyingly sweet. I wanted to pour it over flapjacks, eat it, and move on to something else--in fact, Merton's
Seven Storey Mountain, now a fave. Seven storeys require lots of sugar and carbs.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire.
Beyond weird, and entirely without any kind of moral bearings or anything resembling a point, unless the point was pointlessness. What was with that swamp creature thing, exactly? Some kind of polysexual Gollum. I'm still scratching my head over that one. And can we stop with the recycling of classic characters and plots over and over? Is nothing sacred?
Forrest Gump. The movie was awesome. The book reeks. Run, Forrest, run, off my shelf and into my DVD player.
On a positive note,
I'm certifiably insane about the Anglophiles Anonymous group! We have a role-playing subset of AA with British alter egos at "Manleigh Hall," and we're simply too too. Where have you lot been all my life? See you on the greensward, darlings, where we shall gambol and run amok, amok, amok.
“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”--Erasmus
"To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion to them is wearisome to the flesh." Ecclesiastes 12:12.
No wonder I'm so blasted weary.
TO MY STALKER EX'S PRESENT WIFE, TO WHOM HE'S GIVEN THE JOB OF CATALOGUING EVERY LAST THING I POST ON THE INTERNET AND LUGGING A GIANT INDEXED NOTEBOOK TO COURT--AND WHO, INEXPLICABLY, IS NOT JEALOUS--GET A FRIGGIN' LIFE, KATHY.
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