ailbhe: (Default)
"Legends And Lattes" by Travis Baldree

I really enjoyed this - it was recommended to me by Eldest Offspring and it reminded me of Joanne Harris' "Chocolat" a bit; found community building, bit of magic, lots of lovely descriptions of food. It was an actual paper book, so my eyes and wrists got tired, but it was good and amazingly I was able to read something entirely new by a new-to-me author.
ailbhe: (Default)
I'm partway through book 3 and I just want to note that Hippocampi is a terrible, terrible, terrible pun.
ailbhe: (Default)
From our Librarything
Title: So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix
Author: Bethany C. Morrow
Publication: St Martin's Press (2021), 304 pages

Started: 2025-06-26 – Finished: 2025-07-02

This is a fascinating idea and absolutely delightfully executed. Little Women, but with the March family as recently freed African-Americans. It changes EVERYTHING about the book, of course, but the threads are still there to link the two. Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy and their love interests against a background of a place and perspective in history I was completely unaware of before now.

I found the tone both true to the time and easy to access, and the romantic storylines, in particular, much more satisfying than in the original Little Women. I was especially delighted by Beth, though also, of course, especially heartbroken, though the story as a whole is very light on gory details of atrocities; the emotional details are all there.

Five stars and I'll read any sequels.
ailbhe: (Default)

I'm not expecting to read most of these in December but I like the idea of having a list.

The list )

ailbhe: (Default)

I haven't tried to track this much in the past but in October I mainly listened to audiobooks, especially while someone was in hospital. And a lot is re-listening to things I've been rereading for over 20 years. But some are new to me. And they're mostly serieses because then I have to change gear less often between universes. The list )

ailbhe: (Default)
Ooh I'm doing my second listen to these audiobooks (I never catch everything on the first listen, and I can't really read full length things any more) and I missed System Collapse entirely last time. I should have a go at finding the short stories and things that are between and among the books.

Murderbot

Oct. 26th, 2024 09:59 pm
ailbhe: (Default)
I've been listening to the audiobooks. My brain fog allows me to do this most of the time, and the reader has the most soothing voice in history. But I'm having serious difficulty remembering the order they go in so I keep finding myself listening to the wrong one and not realising for a chapter or two and then having to go back.

Brain fog is hard work.

Edit: Rob has added series numbers to the titles in the database. I'm now going to make him do that to ALL the audiobooks. Yay.
ailbhe: (Default)
[crossposted slightly]
I can't decide whether I want to howl in glee or despair. This is very like reading What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Whatsername, in that I keep going "YES! That thing! That there! That thing too! That! MY GOD I KNEW IT MUST BE LIKE THAT! Those statistics don't surprise me in the least - wow, that's worse than I thought - NO WONDER I WAS AFRAID OF THAT -" and on and on and on.

I am very grateful to [livejournal.com profile] radegund for recommending it to me and will reread it more slowly later on. Meanwhile, I recommedn it.
ailbhe: (Default)
I loved the Maggie books. And quite liked some of the Kevin and Sadie ones. But a nice moon always makes me think "a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht".

We had a gorgeous moon on Saturday night, and Emer and Linnea had a lot of fun looking at it. It was even right on our street, at the end, so we walked towards it until we had to stop to go into our house.

Linnea thinks there are astronauts living on the moon wondering what it would be like to live on Earth.

Emer says "No fink so."


Today went well. In all, we had four adults and five toddlers and one baby, today. Lucky I did a big baking earlier in the week because I haven't had time since. I hope to get some fresh done tomorrow.

I really must read up on how to bake bread with a soft upper crust.

And show Rob Chocolate Fix, the game Linnea played.
ailbhe: (books)
I've ordered two books from Amazon which I've never read before, on [livejournal.com profile] radegund's recommendation. I'm really excited.

Usually I'm only allowed to own books I've already read.
ailbhe: (Default)
Well, I just read six Malory Towers books in about ten minutes flat, and thoroughly enjoyed them155, and hated them intensely. They are rollicking good reads (I like a good rollick) but my word they are frightfully up themselves.

Still. They were jolly rollicking.
ailbhe: (Default)
104In spite of PMS I didn't actually injure anyone. This is a major achievement. I spent yesterday sizzling with rage and today incredibly, mindbogglingly tired. Also, I had to de-weekend the house; it pootles along ok Monday to Friday and by midmorning on Saturday is well on the way to squalor. I'm used to this, but it's hard work. However, 104the cleaning lady came and 105I've had a lot of junk food.

To improve our cashflow I need to move the account the child tax credit and child benefit gets paid into. So I need to find bits of paper and phone the guvmint.

106I've been reading The Audacity of Hope and mainly enjoying it, though I'm a bit surprised to see that Obama's not wholly opposed to the death penalty. He does at least say it's not an effective deterrent. Sadly, it's a book which takes more brain than anything else I'm reading so I'm working through it very slowly, but I'm kind of grateful it takes brain.

107The toilet did not get blocked at all today even though Linnea saw fit to play with loo roll again. The damn stuff unwinds so temptingly.

108I managed to stay technically awake until Rob got home, though I couldn't stay upright. Then I passed out for over an hour and woke feeling exhausted.
ailbhe: (books)
Father Figure is the touching, revealing story of how a perfectly innocent man comes home from work one day to find that his perfectly happy wife has walked out on him for no reason, taking the children with her, hiding them from him, using them as pawns in her power-games until she finally meets a nice man who keeps her in check and respects the innocent man's paternal rights. Oh, and the innocent man is almost but not quite accused of beating his children by the whoever it is that sorts out money - child maintenance people - and he's also a teacher, and practically everyone he works with is also a father being denied access to his children, one of whom kills himself after being wrongfully accused of giving his daughter pornography.

Oh, and the school closes down and they all lose their jobs and most of the students are being failed by social services and the head goes doolally and is failed by the mental health services so he goes abroad to get care somewhere else, Spain or somewhere. And someone ends up waiting for ages in hospital at some stage for a minor illness.

So that's families, education, and the NHS, all gone to the dogs.

Honestly, I keep having to put it down to laugh.
ailbhe: (nana)
Last night I managed over 60 consecutive minutes of sleep at one point. Between 7:15 and 8:20 am, actually, but it all counts. Rob took Linnea to the Farmer's Market without me, therefore, and I lay in bed nursing Emer and listening to Fi Glover and, er, Elvis McGonagle. It was very restful, honestly.

Then they came home and we had soup for lunch, involving a freak defrost-three-times-what-we-need accident, and then we headed out to the library. Where we stayed until 4 pm when they chucked us out. I have two books on gardening, one on bread machine use, one teen fiction, and one "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne thingy, whom I like.

On the way home from the library we stopped in to Sweet Masala for a masala dhosa and something Rob ate which he said was "definitely not vegan" but couldn't name beyond that. Then we went to the supermarket and bought portion-cartons of juice, ready-made cake, and a flamethrower.

I've wanted a flamethrower for the weeds on the front path and the patio for years. But they always seem very expensive, and it's insane for us to get expensive garden equipment; we're not interested enough in it to maintain anything.

However, I need to get interested; I must draw up some kind of plan for the allotment and start work on it. Rob will have to do the digging but I can probably do light weeding and so on. I should probably try to borrow a wheelbarrow so he can spread our compost on it. Ew.

The only downside today is that Emer was in the hugabub while Rob was frying onions (dinner is spag bol, any minute now) and she screamed blue murder. She has inherited my eyes, which I get in a direct line from my mother. Oh well; at least her mascara use will be strictly limited.

I must get a photo of my mother, myself and both my daughters.
ailbhe: (when baby runs)
I know other people were going to collect copies in person, and that's fine - but was anyone supposed to get one in the post who hasn't yet?
ailbhe: (when baby runs)
Well, that's a bit of a surprise. Every copy of when baby runs I have in the house is ordered by someone, now, and I only have two fair and one damaged copy of before baby walks left. I must say I'm surprised at how fast people got their spake in. I hope you're not all horribly disappointed; I'm not sure the print quality of this is as good as the last one, though my original sample was the same. It might be that bulk orders are done on cheaper paper or something.

Anyway, in future both books will cost six quid each from me (once the two BBW I have left are sold, anyway) or £4.28 plus at least £1 shipping from http://www.lulu.com/ailbhe. Since I'm about to have a baby, it won't be faster to order from me, either, so there's no benefit to doing it that way at all.

Another 39 books, and I can buy the second one an ISBN. This is fun :)

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