Looking ahead to 2015

It's not a very far ahead look seeing as how it's just over a week away, but still ...

You may or may not know that this blog is really just an exploded spin-off of the running list I've kept on my poor neglected "diet" blog of what I was reading/planning to read.

I do well with pre-planning such things. It makes me happy.

Now, over there it's just been a simple list of links with title, series, author, & date completed:

I want to keep the same sort of list here but I'm not sure if I want to make it like it has been .... or do a more visual list like this:

Or maybe a combination of the two ... ?!?!?

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UPDATED TO ADD OPTION #3:

and 4 ....

Just over a week to figure it out ....

Etiquette & Espionage - Initial Thoughts

I have a big bone to pick with the bus driver who drove the second leg of my trip in to work tonight : he didn't have the heat turned on so it was too cold to read. It wouldn't be such a huge offense some nights, but I'm reading Gail Carriger's Etiquette & Espionage and the main character, 14-year-old Sophronia is just beginning to understand that the "finishing school" she has been suddenly enrolled in isn't your normal type of finishing school.

• It flies. Like, in the air flies.
• She's delivered to the school on the back of a werewolf.
• There are mechanical maids like Rosie from The Jetsons -- but in the 1850's. (She has a mechanical butler at home so that part isn't so strange. I suppose.)
• Her flying school gets attacked by flying bandits (and, as a result, she ends up with a mechanical dog).
• One of her new teachers is a vampire.

I've never ventured into the whole "steam punk" thing until now aside from oohing and aahing over different cosplay pictures online, but so far I'm loving it!

Sophronia is a spitfire. It's probably why her family was so eager to send her to finishing school -- to break her of it. However, it also seems to be why the school was so eager to take her -- to cultivate it. I'm all for the cultivation of spitfire in girls.

I'm currently only a third of the way through -- Chapter 8 : "The Teaching Habits of Werewolves."  I'm already recommending it to friends and I'm extremely glad that it was recommended to me!

Now, I'm going to do a little bit of work (I know, right? Actually working while at work? Crazy.) THEN I'm going to get back to reading ....

Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel

It's a love story....ish.
It's a coming of age tale... a little.
It's a murder mystery... without the mystery (for the readers, anyway).
It's a Christmas story complete with Santa and carols.

It does not have a Chapter 13.

It does not have much of a Chapter 16.

 

BUT

It's got zombies.
It's got pot.
It's got angels. (Well, it has one.)
It's got psychotics.
It's got full frontal nudity.
It's got a sword fight.
It's got the kind of humor that makes your inner 11 year old boy laugh like Beevis. Or Butthead.
It's got a fruit bat who wears hot pink Ray Bans.

Basically, it has everything a Christopher Moore Christmas novel should have.
And it's awesome.

Now, Moore's sense of style isn't for everyone. There's snark and there's swearing and all of those things above that uppity people may not enjoy.

(But, seriously, who in their right mind could not enjoy a fruit bat wearing sunglasses?)

Technically, The Stupidest Angel is the third in the Pine Cove series of Moore's books, preceded by Practical Demonkeeping and Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. Island of the Sequined Love Nun also plays a part in TSA. As does Lamb. And a teensy little mention related to Fluke.

You won't be lost if you haven't read the others, but you'll probably get more out of it if you're already familiar with Moore's work. Even more if you already consider yourself a fan. It's as though Moore sat down and thought "I know what would be the greatest gift ever...." and spewed out The Stupidest Angel.

And, did I mention that the fruit bat talks?

I hate making decisions!

I'm thinking I may put an end to the annual "all Christmas all the time" bit once I'm done with my annual re-read of The Stupidest Angel. There are just way too many things I want to get to ... and the only ones that really fit the whole "Fa-la-la" theme are parts of series that I haven't read or caught up on and I just can't bring myself to jump around. I did that once not too long ago and it was beyond painful.

I may just go and do something crazy (for me) like marathon a series.

But which one?!?

I may just have someone pick a number.

I just typed up the list of DropBox folders that I know aren't "just for John" ...

Yep. It'll be a pick a number dealie.

.......

And #110 was the chosen number on Facebook so up next is
which is a 73 page prequel to The Graveyard Queen series ... which REALLY starts with (and the first number chosen in the comments HERE will be next in line!) and by "up next" I mean AFTER because I'm wishy washy like that.

Leslie Meier's Mistletoe Murder - A Spoiler-ish Partial Review

Every year I start reading nothing but Christmas-themed books as soon as Thanksgiving has come and gone. The next holly-jolly read is another cozy mystery - Leslie Meier's Mistletoe Murder. Rather than try to remember everything I want to touch on ... this time I'm just going to write little bits as I go.
This is the first book in the Lucy Stone series and I really didn't know much about it before starting aside from the cozy Christmas mystery thing.

Lucy Stone is a wife and mom-of-three living in Tinker Cove, Maine, and working at a customer service call center for an LL Bean-ish type store called Country Cousins. The book starts out with Lucy at work one night where she goes outside for a short break and discovers her super-wealthy boss in his car with a hose going from the tailpipe to the window. The boss is dead and the authorities say it's murder. Of course, her husband is all "oh just let the police handle it" ... but it's still only chapter two so we know that's not going to happen.

As if poor Lucy didn't have enough of her mind with all the baking and knitting and sewing she has to get done for the holidays!

Tinker Cove is one of those towns where everyone seems to know everyone else ... and everything about everyone else. I've lived in places like that. I didn't much like it.

HOLY CRAPANDAHALF!

Okay, authors of the world? Know this : some murders in a murder mystery are just NOT okay.

Included in this category are family pets -- cats especially.

Made it into Chapter Six and I'm done.

Maybe at some point in the future I'll revisit the story and find out who actually did in the boss ... but for now I'm going to go snuggle with my cat and carry on with something else to read.

Cats should not be strangled & left lying around in a freaking "cozy."

That's just so so SO not cozy.