Snowbell's Reads

Mailbox Monday

2009-11-09T08:00:00.000Z

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:

An Unkindness of Ravens - Ruth Rendell
An Inspector Wexford mystery. He thought he was merely doing a neighbourly good deed when he agreed to talk to Joy Williams about her missing husband, and certainly didn't expect to be investigating a most unusual homicide.

One Pill Makes You Smaller - Lisa Dierbeck
Eleven-year-old Alice Duncan - the protagonist of Lisa Dierbeck's electrifying novel of 1970s' counterculture - finds herself in a predicament. Abandoned by her carefree, jet-set mother and emotionally tortured artist father, Alice falls under the erratic supervision of her sixteen-year-old aunt Esme. Yet, when Alice goes to North Carolina to attend the Balthus Institute, an unorthodox art school for gifted children, circumstances go from bad to worse. Possessing 'a kid's head grafted on a woman's body', young Alice faces the disturbing realities of reckless excess and an accelerated adolescence. Inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, this electrifying tale vividly portrays the more sinister reaches of 1970s American counter-culture and is an audacious, fiercely original account of a young girl's crossing into adulthood.

Having a wonderful crime - Craig Rice
While visiting New York city, Helene and Jack Justus befriend a disconsolate drunk who is trying to steal the lilies from their hotel's flower display and find they once again stepped deeply into something often found in gardens. Of course Helene sends an SOS to John J. Malone.

Fish Sunday Thinking - Alex Gilmore
You are in a job you do not enjoy. You are surrounded by colleagues you do not respect. You feel you can do better. Your life feels directionless. You feel trapped. You drink to take your mind off it all. You dread Mondays. You hate your alarm clock with a passion. You worship Friday afternoons. You cherish the weekend. You loathe the inevitability of ironing, always ironing. You assess where you are going on every Sunday. You know you're not the big fish. You wonder if you ever want to be. You are stuck on repeat. You are in an endless cycle of working, drinking and making coffee. You want a way out. You want to escape this way of thinking. You want to enjoy life, all the time. You want fulfillment. You want freedom. You want to read this book. In a large London law firm, trainee solicitor Denton Voyle contemplates why he is pursuing a career in law. Every Sunday afternoon, with nothing better to look forward to than the ironing, he questions his miserable, listless, alcohol fueled existence and wonders if the pursuit of being the big fish could ever really satisfy him. He soon finds he is not alone and sets out to escape his fish Sunday thinking.

The Delia Collection - Soup - Delia Smith
Part of a collection of recipes from Delia Smith, this volume presents 50 of Delia's best soup recipes. Seasoned fans of Delia will be delighted with the originality of the recipes whilst newcomers will appreciate her friendly and approachable style of writing.

Teaser Tuesday

2009-11-03T08:25:00.000Z

She ended the call leaving me with no choice. Why does she have to be so fucking nice? The same reason she has always been so nice. She just is. This is why under normal circumstances consuming alfafa beans and wine with Sasha, then lying on a sofa, chatting and farting, would be a great day to spend a Saturday

Mailbox Monday

2009-11-02T08:00:00.002Z

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:

Wednesday's Child - Peter Robinson
When two social workers, investigating reports of child abuse, appear at Brenda Scupham's door, her fear of authority leads her to comply meekly with their requests. Even when they say that they must take her seven-year old daughter Gemma away for tests....

It is only when they fail to return Gemma the following day that Brenda realizes something has gone terribly wrong.

At the same time, Banks is investigating a particularly unpleasant murder at the site of an abandoned mine. Gradually, the leads in the two cases converge, guiding Banks to one of the most truly terrifying criminals he will ever meet....

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One fine day in the middle of the night - Christopher Brookmyre
Gavin is creating a unique 'holiday experience', every facility any tourist who hates abroad will ever want, will all be available on a converted North Sea oil rig. To test the facilities he's hosting a reunion for his old school (none of his ex-classmates can remember him, but what the heck, it's free). He is so busy showing off that he doesn't notice that another group have invited themselves along -- a collection of terrorist mercenaries who are occasionally of more danger to themselves than to the public. And they in turn are unaware that Inspector Mac Gregor has got wind of their activities. Within twenty-four hours Gavin's dream has blown to the four winds, along with a lot of other things. Fast, rabidly funny, and seriously over the top.

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Gardening at Night - Diane Awerbuck
Gardening at Night follows the unfolding of a young girl's life through a childhood filled with silences, through adolescence and young womanhood. It is about how much people are the total of their longings, how high drama can also be low comedy. It probes how much of the old century a girl should take with her into the new one, and examines the merging of families in the Eighties and their emerging into the florescence of the Nineties and beyond. It is especially the story of a girl's escape from a ghost town. The South African mining town of Kimberley was created over a hundred years ago when men with buckets scraped out the insides of the earth like a thousand black dentists. Now, it is a place where the only tales are those of leaving.

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Entertain - Ed Baines
Enjoy Brit celebrity chef, Ed Baines, restaurant-class recipes in the comfort of your own home. This book will give you plenty of inspiration as mouthwatering dishes are made straightforward and simple, a must-have for any kitchen.

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Drop Shot - Harlan Coben
The young woman was shot dead in cold blood, dropped outside the stadium, in front of a stand selling Moet for $7.50 a glass. Once her tennis career had skyrocketed. Now, at the height of the US Open, the headlines were being made by another young player from the wrong side of the tracks. When Myron Bolitar investigates the killing he uncovers a connection between the two players and a six-year-old murder at an exclusive club. Suddenly Myron is in over his head. And with a dirty US senator, a jealous mother and the mob all drawn into the case, he finds himself playing the most dangerous game of all...

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The Blood Detective - Dan Waddell
As dawn breaks over London, the body of a young man is discovered in a windswept Notting Hill churchyard. The killer has left Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster and his team a grisly, cryptic clue...However, it's not until the clue is handed to Nigel Barnes, a specialist in compiling family trees, that the full message becomes spine-chillingly clear. For, it leads Barnes back more than one hundred years - to the victim of a demented Victorian serial killer...When a second body is discovered Foster needs Barnes's skills more than ever. Because the murderer's clues appear to run along the tangled bloodlines that lie between 1879 and now. And if Barnes is right about his blood-history, the killing spree has only just begun...From the author of the bestselling "Who Do You Think You Are?" comes a haunting crime novel of blood-stained family histories and gruesome secrets...

Teaser Tuesday

2009-10-27T08:00:00.000Z

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teasers are from Marika Cobbold's 'Shooting butterflies' (page 127)

Grace paused by his chair, her index finger on her chin. 'Now let's see; what could we have been doing? Flown a kite? Played Cluedo; hide and seek perhaps? All those, of course, but mostly I've been having what is known amongst us women a a conversation'

Mailbox Monday

2009-10-26T08:00:00.001Z

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:

Untorn Tickets - Paul Burke
Notting Hill - 1978. Dave Kelly and Andy Zymanczyk are two teenage boys trying to escape their secure, loving but oppressive Catholic backgrounds. Andy's life is even more stifling as the only child of very strict Polish parents. For the first time in his life, he is allowed to take a part-time job, and begins work at the beautiful Odeon cinema in Westbourne Grove, under the irresponsible but charismatic influence of the manager Tony Harris. The two friends begin a voyage of discovery: they learn about films, they learn about music, they learn about life and are exposed to a level of freedom and temptation that neither has ever known before. But in an era of great upheaval, their beloved cinema and their strict Catholic grammar school are both put under threat and they realise that their lives will never be the same again.

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The Rottweiler - Ruth Rendell
The first girl had a bite mark on her neck but they traced the DNA to her boyfriend. But the tabloids got hold of the story and called the killer 'The Rottweiler' and the name stuck. The latest murder takes place very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. Someone saw a shadowy figure running away past the station, but the only other clues are that the murderer usually strangles his victims and removes something personal - like a cigarette lighter or a necklace...Since her husband died, too soon in their relationship, Inez has supplemented her income by taking in tenants. The murderous activities of the sinister 'Rottweiler' will exert a profound influence on the lives of this heterogeneous little community, especially when the suspicion emerges that one of them may be a homicidal maniac.

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The portable virgin - Anne Enright
A collection of pained, precise and disquieting stories that restore to us the strangeness of the lives we follow beneath the surface of the lives we lead.

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The matchmaker from Perigord - Julia Stuart
A perpetual breeze blows through Amour-sur-Belle, a village so ugly that even the English refuse to live there. Guillaume Ladoucette, the barber is forced to give up his business as the advancing age of his customers means many have gone bald. He decides to set himself up as a matchmaker instead, for, despite its name, love is the one thing that Amour-sur-Belle lacks. Some shun Denise Vigier because her grandmother was found guilty of horizontal collaboration during the war. The bar owner refuses to serve Madame Fournier, the mushroom poisoner. And Madame Ladoucette and Madame Moreau have been trading insults for so long they have become almost a form of greeting. 'Not everyone falls instantly head over heels,' the matchmaker counsels. 'Love is like a good cassoulet, it needs time and determination.' But how can a matchmaker make love simmer - when he has not yet solved the problem of his own troubled heart?

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The Godmother - Carrie Adams
Tessa King is successful and unattached. She's got a lovely apartment and nice clothes, and nothing ties her down - that's the way she likes it.
Tessa also has four godchildren. A fifteen-year-old pot-smoking rebel who hates his parents. A seven-year-old whose father walked out on her mother when she was still in hospital. And two screaming baby twins who are unattractive, double the trouble, and ruining their parents' relationship. That's why Tessa's not particularly maternal.
Sometimes it's great to have nothing tying you down. And then sometimes, you start to realise something's missing ...

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Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook - Alan Rosen & Beth Allen
Located in downtown Brooklyn, Times Square and Grand Central Station in New York, Junior's Restaurant, which bakes quite possibly the best cheesecakes in the universe, is a legend in its own right and has been wooing New Yorkers since it first opened its doors in 1950. And now, finally, they are willing to offer up their recipes for Junior's New York-style cheesecakes (all cream cheese, no sour cream, thank you, on a sponge cake crust), from the cheesecake that started it all (Junior's Original New York Cheesecake), to flavour twists like Banana Fudge, Rocky Road and Pumpkin Mousse, to little cheesecakes meant just for one (Little Fellas), to Junior's newest creation, Skyscraper Cheesecakes (think alternating layers of cheesecake and layer cake) in flavours like Boston Cream Pie, Lemon Coconut, and Carrot Cake. It's a cheesecake lover's delight!

Cover Attraction

2009-10-21T08:30:00.000+01:00

Each Wednesday, Marcia from The Printed Page, hosts Cover Attraction.

She writes:

"I’m a very visual person and love beautiful cover art. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the book but at least I might stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by."

Me, I like nice covers and if I see a cover I like, I'll make sure to check it out (same happens when I see a title I like but that's for another meme).

It just looks so funky! A blue face with glasses??? you can't beat that!

Synopsis
After backpacking her way around India, 21-year-old Sarah Macdonald decided that she hated this land of chaos and contradiction with a passion, and when an airport beggar read her palm and insisted she would come back one day - and for love - she vowed never to return. But twelve years later the prophecy comes true when her partner, ABC's South Asia correspondent, is posted to New Delhi, the most polluted city on earth. Having given up a blossoming radio career in Sydney to follow her new boyfriend to India, it seems like the ultimate sacrifice and it almost kills Sarah - literally. After being cursed by a sadhu smeared in human ashes, she nearly dies from double pneumonia. It's enough to send a rapidly balding atheist on a wild roller-coaster ride through India's many religions in search of the meaning of life and death. From the 'brain enema' of a meditation retreat in Dharamsala to the biggest Hindu festival on earth on the steps of the Ganges in Varanasi, and with the help of the Dalai Lama, a goddess of healing hugs and a couple of Bollywood stars - among many, many others - Sarah discovers a hell of a lot more.

Teaser Tuesday

2009-10-20T08:30:00.000+01:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teasers are from Adriana Trigiani's 'Rococo' (page 77)

'The portable tables are covered in red, with multicolored tulips for centerpieces. Toot took my twelve years of school pictures, glued them to a wire, and stuck them in the vases amid the flowers. she covered the floor with green Astroturf, except for the wooden dance floor, where the riding lawn mower usually sits'

Mailbox Monday

2009-10-19T08:30:00.002+01:00

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:

Rachel Allen - Bake

Your best friend in the kitchen and bestselling author, Rachel Allen, is back with a collection of delicious and easy cakes and bakes, tarts and pies, quiches and casseroles from her brand new TV series. What could be better than the smell of freshly baked bread or the joy of eating warm cookies straight from the oven? Do you pine for the pleasures of gingerbread houses and holiday delights or the warming goodness of home baked casseroles? These are just some of the treats that await in Bake, which ties in with Rachel's brand new TV series. She shares both the sweet and the savoury sides of baking, whether quick snacks, wholesome breads and pies, exotic cakes and tarts or easy baked meals for friends and family.
Fully illustrated with beautiful food photography including step-by-steps to take the mystery out of traditional baking and pastry making. Rachel also offers troubleshooting techniques for common problems and wheat or gluten-free recipes so nobody is left out of the fun! Rachel's friendly and expert tuition make this easy-to-use book the best friend to every home baker.

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Sara Paretsky - Fire Sale

Death, conspiracy and burning buildings – coming home wasn’t meant to be like this.A dangerous, depressed place reeking of bad memories, South Chicago is a neighbourhood private investigator V.I. Warshawski left a long time ago. But now she’s back, drawn to the streets of her childhood once again to do a favour for a friend.

It was never going to be easy – and when the mother of a local girl asks her to look into claims of sabotage at the factory where she works, V.I. quickly finds herself caught up in something far more sinister.

They say home is where the heart is, but now, as she lies by the roadside with a piece of hot, twisted metal embedded in her shoulder, looking up at the factory’s smouldering remains, Warshawski is beginning to wonder whether a trip down memory lane was such a good idea after all…

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Ruth Rendell - Not in the flesh

Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savory. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, and the post-mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. Wexford knows it will be a difficult job to identify the corpse. Although it covers a relatively short period of time, the police computer stores a long list of missing persons. People disappear at an alarming rate - hundreds each day. When another body is found nearby, the detection skills of Wexford, Burden and the other investigating officers of the Kingsmarkham Police Force are tested to the utmost to discover whether the deaths are connected and to track down whoever is responsible.

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Peter Robinson - Strange Affair

When Alan Banks receives a disturbing message from his brother, Roy, he abandons the peaceful Yorkshire Dales for the bright lights of London, to seek him out. But Roy seems to have vanished into thin air. Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabbot is called to a quiet stretch of road just outside Eastvale, where a young woman has been found dead in her car. In the victim's pocket, scribbled on a slip of paper, police discover Banks' name and address. Living in Roy's empty South Kensington house, Banks finds himself digging into the life of the brother he never really knew, nor even liked. And as he begins to uncover a few troubling surprises, the two cases become sinisterly entwined.

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Ma Jian - The Noodle Maker

Every week, a writer of political propaganda and a professional blood donor meet for dinner. They are unlikely friends - one of them tortured by his 'art', the other fat and wealthy from the earthy business of providing spare blood for the citizens of China. Over the course of one especially gastronomic evening, the writer starts to complain about his latest Party commission: the story of an ordinary soldier who sacrifices his life to the revolutionary cause. This is not the novel he wants to write, he tells his friend. Inside his head lives an unwritten book about the people he knows or sees everyday on the streets - people who lives are far more representative of the world in which he lives.

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Anita Brookner - Visitors

Dorothea May's tranquility is shattered by Kitty Levinson's announcement of her granddaughter's forthcoming marriage. As the wedding approaches, the scene is set for a highly charged conflict of generations, in which the claims of the young are in stark and selfish contrast to the disabling propriety of the old. VISITORS is a vivid exploration of familial responsibilities and the expectations that perpetually threaten to overwhelm them.

Cover Attraction

2009-10-14T08:30:00.000+01:00

Each Wednesday, Marcia from The Printed Page, hosts Cover Attraction.

She writes:

"I’m a very visual person and love beautiful cover art. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the book but at least I might stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by."

Me, I like nice covers and if I see a cover I like, I'll make sure to check it out (same happens when I see a title I like but that's for another meme).

This week's cover attraction is Kate Atkinson's 'Emotionally Weird'

The dog did it (I spent some time with a dog that looked exactly like that)! That and colors!

Synopsis
On a peat and heather island off the west coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother Nora take refuge in the large mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear, like who her father was - variously Jimmy, Jack, or Ernie. Effie tells of her life at college in Dundee, the land of cakes and William Wallace, where she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom the Klingons are as real as the French and the Germans (more real than the Luxemburgers). But strange things are happening. Why is Effie being followed? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog

Teaser Tuesday

2009-10-13T08:30:00.001+01:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teasers are from Lionel Shriver's 'Double Fault' (page 82)

'They all three turned to Willy with expressions that mingled admiration with resentment. So Eric had brought home another good-looking girl. Big surprise.

"Enough!" Eric despaired. "It was a piece of shit tournament and I told you that, Dad"

Mailbox Monday

2009-10-12T08:30:00.006+01:00

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Here's what came through my door this week:

Christopher Brookmyre - A big boy did it and ran away

Back when they were students, just like everybody else, Ray Ash and Simon Darcourt had dreams about what they'd do when they grew up. In both their cases, it was to be rock stars. Fifteen years later, their mid-thirties are bearing down fast, and just like everybody else, they're having to accept the less glamorous hands reality has dealt them. Nervous new father Ray takes refuge from his responsibilities by living a virtual existence in online games. People say he needs to grow up, but everybody has to find their own way of coping. For some it's affairs, for others it's the bottle, and for Simon it's serial murder, mass slaughter and professional assassination.

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Miranda Innes - Cinnamon City

Step into the dreamlike city of Marrakech. Where passionate music, magic potions and the drama of Africa are cooled by the intuitive genius of Arabic culture. Miranda Innes and her partner were lured into buying a beautiful long-neglected riad in the heart of this pink-walled city. Only after they'd begun their restoration work did they find that nothing in this place of smoke and mirrors was quite what it seemed. In CinnamonCity, Miranda Innes takes you beyond the tourist track, behind the bolted doors and deep inside the romance that is Marrakech. With lyrical and evocative descriptions of the swirling colours, flavours and aromas, this glorious book will open your eyes to this most exotic of North African cities.

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Margaret Forster - Over

This is a novel about what happens after a tragedy in a family. Not the tragedy itself but its aftermath, what's left when the tide recedes and it's over. A daughter has died, suddenly, shockingly, and the different ways in which her mother and father respond to the tragedy, how this plays out within the family and affects the other siblings, is at the heart of things.

The sad story is narrated by Louise, mother and primary school teacher, trying to hold herself together and get on with life, trying to understand not 'what happened', but what has happened to them all in the wake of the accident, and why.

At first the reader knows only that something bad has happened to one of the family, but not what or to whom. Gradually we learn some of the details - a storm blew up, a yacht hit rocks and capsized, but the body was never found. Louise's husband cannot come to terms with the lack of knowledge and certainty, and wants someone to blame. He becomes obsessive in his quest for a reason, and travels everywhere, neglecting work and family in pursuit of the 'truth'. His wife just wants to come to terms with it, can't think of blame, moves out into a tiny flat of her own and goes back to work at the infant school where she used to teach.

Their other children handle the tragedy better than their parents. What they can't deal with is the way their parents are tearing each other and the family apart.

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Peter Robinson - The summer that never was

A skeleton has been unearthed. Soon the body is identified, and the horrific discovery hits the headlines ...Fourteen-year-old Graham Marshall went missing during his paper round in 1965. The police found no trace of him. His disappearance left his family shattered, and his best friend, Alan Banks, full of guilt ...That friend has now become Chief Inspector Alan Banks, and he is determined to bring justice for Graham. But he soon realises that in this case, the boundary between victim and perpetrator, between law-guardian and law-breaker, is becoming more and more blurred

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Ruth Rendell - The veiled one

A Reg Wexford mystery. In a desolate subterranean car park, Detective Chief Inspector Wexford has been too preoccupied to notice anything out of the ordinary - just a teenage girl in a red car, driving rather too fast. Only later does he learn of the car park victim, murdered with a length of wire.

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Ruth Rendell - Wolf to the slaughter

Anita Margolis has vanished. Dark and exquisite, Anita's character is as mysterious as her disappearance. But with no body and no apparent crime, seemingly there's nothing to be investigated. Until Wexford receives an anonymous note claiming 'a girl called Ann' was killed the very night Anita disappeared. With only one questionable lead to follow, Wexford and Inspector Burden are compelled to make inquiries. They soon discover Anita is wealthy, flighty, and thoroughly immoral. Burden has a very clear idea of what has happened to her. But Wexford has his own suspicions...

Thursday Thunks

2009-10-08T01:00:00.002+01:00

Thursday thunk is another fun meme, you can read more about it here. If you want to jump in then head on over here to find this weeks questions.

1. Bud- What type of meme question is the hardest?
The ones you don't understand...

2. Smart Cent’s Mom - If you could be any person living or dead, who would you be?
I'd like to be Wonder Woman - she has a cool outfit

3. Thom- You accidentally bump into someone at a store and you apologize. The person you bumped into says no problem and you notice food stuck in their teeth. What do you do?
I'll keep my mouth shut and start giggling as soon as I'm out of earshot

4. Captured Memories- "Do you ever shed a tear when you poop?"
Nope, never happened

5. Mejis- If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it’s still a tree, right?
Of course it is (though it could also be a flower...)

6. Tosin- What is something you have said to someone that you wish you could take back?
I wish I never said I'm a procrastinator during my job interview

7. Annie’s home- not feeling very creative here so I will ask if you were in the Big Brother house how would you play the game?
I think I'd do my best to be kicked out as soon as possible - can you imagine having cameras everywhere and having to SHARE YOUR BATHROOM with a bunch of people???

8. Meandering Matt- Mac (which is still a PC (personal computer) in my opinion) or PC
I'm a Mac girl at heart but I own a PC

9. Living Dead Nurse- Do you think Jay Leno’s show should be cancelled?
I live in the UK... So I wouldn't really care

10.Dixie Chick- I LOVE VICTORIA SECRET PANTIES AND THEY ARE THE ONLY KIND I WEAR. JUST BOUGHT 5 NEW PAIR THE OTHER DAY. 2 BLACK, 2 RED AND 1 PURPLE. THEY ARE ALL FRESHLY WASHED AND READY TO WEAR. MY QUESTION IS…..WHAT SIZE BRA DO I WEAR
I don't know but i hope they match your panties

11. And finally one by Kimber (just so you don’t think I am too lazy)- There is a rattlesnake living behind the warehouse my husband’s company just moved into, tarantulas in our side yard, scorpions all around at night and coyotes howling and running down the street in front of our house. So what color sheets will you want on your bed when you come to visit me?
Fluorescent green with integrated cold-blooded animals alarm

Cover attraction

2009-10-07T08:30:00.004+01:00

My Wondrous Word Wednesday and my A-Z Wednesday are on my main blog (don't ask why)

Each Wednesday, Marcia from The Printed Page, hosts Cover Attraction.

She writes:

"I’m a very visual person and love beautiful cover art. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll read the book but at least I might stop and take a peek instead of walking right on by."

Me, I like nice covers and if I see a cover I like, I'll make sure to check it out (same happens when I see a title I like but that's for another meme).

This week's cover attraction is Joanne Harris' 'The Lollipop shoes' (in the US apparently it's called ' The girl with no shadow)

I love the color combo of the blue and red (and to be honest I'm dying for a new red coat)

Synopsis:
Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters, Rosette and Annie, live peacefully, if not happily, above their little chocolate shop. Nothing unusual marks them out; no red sachets hang by the door. The wind has stopped - at least for a while. Then into their lives blows Zozie de l'Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes, and everything begins to change...But this new friendship is not what it seems. Ruthless, devious and seductive, Zozie de l'Alba has plans of her own - plans that will shake their world to pieces. And with everything she loves at stake, Yanne must face a difficult choice; to flee, as she has done so many times before, or to confront her most dangerous enemy...Herself.

Teaser Tuesday

2009-10-06T08:30:00.001+01:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week's teasers are from Jonathan Kellerman's 'Bones' (page 196)

'She exhaled. "That's a strong word. I don't want to make accusations, but Travis has a way of making everything seem... not sneaky, i guess the best word would be... covert? Like a spy?" She frowned not satisfied with the choice of vocabulary.

Mailbox Monday

2009-10-05T08:30:00.001+01:00

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

Here's what came through my door this week:

Alexander McCall Smith - Tea Time for the traditionally built

It is a troublesome fact on which even Mma Ramotswe and her assistant Mma Makutsi agree: there are things that men know and ladies do not, and vice versa.

It is unfortunate, for example, when Mma Ramotswe's newest client is the big-shot owner of the ailing Kalahari Swoopers, that one thing lady detectives know very little about is football. And when the glamorous Violet Sephotho sets her sights on Mma Makutsi's unsuspecting fiance, it becomes exasperatingly clear that some men do not know how to recognise a ruthless Jezebel even when she is bouncing up and down on the best bed in the Double Comfort Furniture Shop.
In her attempt to foster understanding between the sexes and find the traitor on Mr Football's team, Mma Ramotswe ventures into new territory, drinks tea in unfamiliar kitchens and learns to trust in the observational powers of small boys.

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Marika Cobbold - Shooting Butterflies

By the time Grace is eighteen, she has been orphaned, moved countries and lost touch with her only brother. Talented, awkward and a little fierce, she can't help thinking that she's managed to lose anything she's ever loved. So she decides to revisit her past in America, and she's brought her camera - she's going to catch these memories and pin them down to keep. What she isn't expecting that summer in New Hampshire is to meet the love of her life. Some years later, now divorced and flourishing as a controversial photographer, Grace lives alone - she likes the fact that everything will be exactly where she left it. Until Grace finds that she is, quite literally, being haunted by the past

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Peter Robinson - Aftermath

The number 35, the Hill is an ordinary house in an ordinary street. But it is about to become infamous. When two police constables are sent to the house following a report of a domestic disturbance, they stumble upon a truly horrific scene. A scene which leaves one of them dead and the other fighting for her life and career. The identity of a serial killer, the Chameleon, has finally been revealed. But his capture is only the beginning of a shocking investigation that will test Inspector Alan Banks to the absolute limit.

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Linda Fairstein - Entombed

After a lull of four years, the 'silk stocking rapist' is back at work on the Upper East side, but this time Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman have perfect DNA evidence to work with. They also have a much older case to work on - a skeleton has been found entombed in the wall of a house Edgar Allan Poe once lived in, but it turns out to be a relatively modern murder - from 1978. On the day the discovery of this body is leaked to the press, Alex gets a call that the silk stocking rapist has struck again, this time fatally. Or has he? The m.o. isn't precisely the same as the others, and it transpires that the victim worked in Poe's old house in 1978. Are the cases linked or is someone trying to silence possible witness to a thirty-five-year-old murder?

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Alexander McCall Smith - The Careful Use of Compliments

For philosophically minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And with the arrival of baby Charlie, not to mention a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, fourteen years her junior, Isabel enters deeper and rougher waters.

Late motherhood is not the only challenge facing Isabel. Even as she negotiates a truce with her furious niece Cat, and struggles for authority over her son with her formidable housekeeper Grace, Isabel finds herself drawn into the story of a painter's mysterious death off the island of Jura. Perhaps most seriously of all, Isabel's professional existence and that of her beloved Review come under attack from the machiavellian and suspiciously handsome Professor Dove.

Organizing my books

2009-07-18T14:12:00.000+01:00

I spent the morning re-arranging my bookshelves. I'm quite messy by nature but my books are the one thing that is always more or less organized.... I don't know about you but I'm very fussy about the way I sort my books and I don't like mixing book 'types'. I used to have only three book types -detective books, regular fiction and classics. Since I moved to England I've had to add another type - chick lit!

My work table

As mentioned in my previous post, I buy most of my books in charity shops and therefore don't always have the luxury of buying exactly what I want, so I buy what is available - and there seems to be quite a lot of chick-lit around. I don't knock them off, some of them are quite good and they are perfect for reading on the tube (i.e. not gripping enough for me to forget getting off the train - it's been known to happen with Haruki Murakami).

But back to my shelves... When I had only one big bookcase, I had 2 shelves for the fiction and classics, 1 shelf and the bottom one (hidden) was for the chick-lit and the unread books. About a year ago I've had to buy another bookcase because I was running out of space (and no I will not donate the books I've already read! I love my books). I settled on an IKEA Expedit as it was narrow enough but also quite deep (it can accommodate 3 rows of books!!). I used it for the overflow of detective books and regular fiction books.

My 'murder' bookcase

Yesterday, I decided to to move all my detective books to one bookshelf (I think I now have more detective books than fiction!!! Eeeek)and while I was at it also organize it by detective (not alphabetically though - that would be to anal, even for me). Turned out I had no less than 3 doubles which makes me wonder - did you ever buy the same book twice? Do you have a list of the books you have?

It's 3 for 2 at the Oxfam bookshop

2009-07-12T11:53:00.000+01:00

I love reading! And my big phobia - along with being stuck in a small toilet - is being stuck somewhere without a book. There is ALWAYS one in my bag, 2 if I think I run the risk of finishing one of them. In fact I buy handbags in function of their size - if they can't fit a book forget about it (I've had to buy new handbags in London as UK paperbacks are bigger than their US counterparts).

I'm a bit obsessive about my books - I will only lend them to good friends and will start hyperventilating if I don't get them back within a couple of weeks. I've only recently learned to donate books I didn't like.

As I read relatively quickly, I've managed to amass about a 1,000 books in 3 languages (and yes I've read them all, some of them more than once) in the 4 years that I've been in London. Obviously I can't rely solely on book stores such as WH Smith or Borders to feed my addiction as I would be broke in no time. Instead, I have to get my 'fix' in second-hand bookshops.

Despite my slightly obsessive personality, I rather like second-hand books. I even prefer them to new books, as it almost feels like they had a life before they came to rest on my shelf. I often find tickets, post-it notes, postcards and inscription in the book and I have a fun time trying to imagine what the previous owner was like.

When I first came to London (with 10 books only) I went to second-hand bookshops along Charing Cross road. Though they were cheaper than new books, shopping there still did some damage to my wallet, in addition they were quite far away from where I lived.

About a month later I discovered the charity shops. They didn't necessarily have the widest selection - indeed some of them had only a couple of shelves - but there were no less 4 charity shops in my neighborhood so every weekend I would do the 'rounds' and pick enough books for the week.

Then I discovered the Holy Grail - the Oxfam bookshop - a charity shop with books only, shelves and shelves of books!

I usually go there every weekend to get my weekly book fix. When I got there yesterday I discovered that it was 3 for 2 at the crime section (I love 'murder' books and have quite a huge collection) so I went wild! It appeared that someone was getting rid of their entire Inspector Banks series and Inspector Wycliff series so I got the lot, not forgetting a Jo Nesbo or two. I left there with not less than 18 books (I have a theory that if I ever stop shopping there they'll have to close down). Bliss! I think I'm set for a couple of weeks now!

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