WHO would win? an oblivious mother of 3 in new jersey or a perennial lurker in australia? My friend and I have swapped libby details so she can borrow from brisbane library and I can borrow from the new york public library EXCEPT! she also gave her account details to her mother, who has been waging pvp battles against me specifically without even knowing it. let's take the case study of tokyo express:
I put it on hold: she cancelled the hold
I put it on hold again: she borrowed the book from UNDER my nose and sent it to HER kindle so I can't download it onto my computer
okay, I think, I'll just read it through the libby web client: she RETURNS the book. I don't know if she found it bad enough to quit quickly or so good that she read it in a flash
well time to put it on hold again: when the time comes to borrow it our shared card has hit its loan limit
I suspend the hold: and then it gets cancelled again
I admit defeat and hunt down a copy of tokyo express on the high seas
now you may be thinking Well why don't you just talk to your friend and tell her to tell her mother that there's an australian lurker on her library card? but consider that this saga, playing out in slow motion over the course of like eight weeks, was incredibly funny to me, and I frankly enjoyed discovering all the new ways I could be stymied in my quest to get ahold of this one book. godspeed to all new jersey mothers, that's what I say...
could you please answers questions 1-10, 16-23, 11, 12, and then also 13-15 for the book ask game ❣️
I see what you did there !!!
What's your favorite book? This question is IMPOSSIBLE to answer!! But ummm I will give three off the top of my head which are... Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier, The Valley of Decision by Marcia Davenport, Queen's Play by Dorothy Dunnett. AND Once Upon a Castle by Nora Roberts et al. AND Random Harvest by James Hilton. Okay now I think I'm done
What's your favorite book series? I think I do have to say CaPri just due to the… gestures… Several Years Of Fixation. But the Brother Cadfael series and Peter Wimsey series and Lymond series are all on the list too.
What's a book/series you love to recommend to people? I don’t have a standby rec really, it changes based on who I’m reccing to… I was pretty delighted when the friend I thought was chill enough to read CaPri did and loved it though!! Got a good grade in book recs that day 😤
What's a book/series you would never recommend to people? Another one that changes based on who I’m talking to… I did once rec an alien romance to my supervisor so I think there are no real limits here if I like you and/or find you laidback enough. He DID ask for something crazy and trashy but evidently didn’t know himself well enough because he couldn’t get past the alien anatomy names and quit... tragic.
How many books have your read this year? 27. I went on a big audiobook binge in Jan + Feb and then a romance novel binge in Feb.
What's the best book you've read this year? For My Lady’s Heart by Laura Kinsale. I love a pathetic man and a scheming icy lady!
Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction? Fictionnn
What are your favorite genres? Fantasy, romance, certain flavours of historical – mostly historical genre stuff. I don’t think of myself as a mystery reader but I must admit that I read a lot of mysteries – Agatha Christie, Brother Cadfael, Peter Wimsey. And I don’t know if this is a genre per se but I do enjoy reading general fiction from like the 20s-50s.
What's one book you think everyone should read? I don’t think everyone would enjoy it but I do wish for everyone to be forced to read Lymond and develop an incredible headache.
What was your favorite book/series when you were growing up? This probably changes with every few months of my growing up, I was a voracious reader… I liked the Squire’s Tales series by Gerald Morris, basically everything Tortall except the Alanna quartet (sorry; that one was just okay to me) by Tamora Pierce, Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann, Camelot’s Shadow by Sarah Zettel.
What's a book you hate passionately (provide reasons if you want)? I feel like I don't hate stuff very passionately!! Mostly I try to delete it from my mind... I will say I found The Falcon and the Flower by Virginia Henley to be dreadful on just about every level a book can be: mechanically clunky, crazy shallow character work, incredibly tasteless in its portrayal of the ummm 13yo nymphomaniac queen of England. And the romance was BAD. So probably that.
What is a trope you love? My 13yo id is coming out to say: when there’s a lady who has had a BAD TIME but people don’t KNOW this so they all think she SUCKS but also TEN PEOPLE ARE IN SCARED LOVE WITH HER. And then her love interest SEES HER TRUE SELF and she realises she CAN’T keep herself walled up forever. I think this is why For My Lady’s Heart was such a hit with me: it is exactly the kind of prickly mean secretly miserable female OC fic I used to eat up, except written beautifully. The Scholomance series also did this with El Higgins although more with the friends than the romantic interest, and that was also a great flavour of this trope.
What is a trope you hate? When everyone has incredible self awareness and communicates openly + coherently with each other about their traumas and mental illnesses. This turns me into the Joker.
Who is your favorite author? I do have sooo much respect for Dorothy Dunnett I’m afraid. The Lymond series is completely crazy in many ways but I think she’s an incredible writer and possibly the only person on Earth who could have pulled it off.
Do you have an author you will read anything they recommend and/or write? I fear I don’t… even with Pacat I haven’t read the Fence series, and I’ve only read like one thing she’s recommended (Lymond). I’ve read a lot of Jasper Fforde’s books but not everything.
What's a theme/motif you love to read? Kind of related to the trope I love answer, when someone has really high walls but then slowly you get to see behind them to their True and usually Tenderer self!! I also love to read about SPIES and PLOTS.
What's the weirdest book you've ever read? Weird in terms of “wacky and strange”, probably something by Jasper Fforde, the whole Thursday Next series/universe is delightfully absurd. Or maybe Hitchhiker’s Guide which I first read this year! Weird in terms of “what on Earth was the author trying to do”, maybe Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie, which SHOULD have been wonderful but was a total slog and featured the most confusing character death I’ve ever read which barely mattered at all.
What's the scariest book you've ever read? I’m a big old wimp and avoid outright horror in my media… But some of those mid-century books like Ride the Pink Horse or In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes or Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith are quite frightening in their amazingly convincing portrayal of The Worst Man You Know.
Do you prefer long or short books? Long!! Assuming it’s done well. There’s nothing so luxurious as losing yourself in a gorgeous brick.
Who's your favorite book character? My beefy 6ft SON Damianos of Akielos.
How many books did you read last year? 70! Although Goodreads counts DNFs, so I guess 68 books to completion. BOTH dnfs were James Bond books where James trotted off to a majority-Black locale and the audiobook narrators started doing the voices and I was like Oh Boy I Cannot Be Listening To This.
Have you met any authors? Not since middle school when an author came to my school to give a talk… He wrote something about a crow girl I think. I tend to want to keep the fourth wall up!
What's your favorite book that you own (as in coolest edition/signed/important to you)? I am lucky enough to have FOUR Penguinmerchant creations on my bookshelf and they ALL take this top spot. Perfect books!!
Thank you for reading, if you did get down here !! This was not a tag game BUT I am doing what I want on my own blog and tagging @penguinmerchant @princessniitza @folfar @vruthless to tell me YOUR book thoughts!!!! and if you, random reader, also want to chat about books, consider yourself tagged as well 😤
hi wrenaspun! I am in desperate need for some sweeping romance outside of fic - can you recommend some novels with romances that you like?
Hello anon!! Sorry for the belated response, I've been trawling my goodreads and my bookshelf and my memory -- I do love romance but I fear I'm not a very good source for recs because my reading can be pretty spotty... Nevertheless here is my best effort:
A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught - a very fun 80s romance novel which imo holds up and provides the HIGH DRAMA that I really want out of my romances
Any Old Diamonds by K J Charles - very fun period caper, hot sex, what more can we ask for?
Winter's Orbit & Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell - I think the first one has the better romance, but the second one is executing more complex ideas more competently.... if that makes sense. They're both good!
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier - nobody talks about frenchman's creek but I love this book!!!!!!! It's hot!!! the beautiful cornish countryside is a third main character!!! there's a moment with a ruby earring... AND there's a 1944 film adaptation in glorious technicolor starring Joan Fontaine. Read AND watch!
and honourable mention to Camelot's Shadow by Sarah Zettel, a book I loooooooved dearly when I was younger but which I haven't read for years so I'm not super confident about reccing it. But I loved slightly dirtbag Gawain and his girlfriend who was trying to get out of having been promised to an evil sorceror as a baby.... they were going through it.
& finally I know you said Novels but I'm doing a series reread right now so can't not mention them -- the Once Upon series (by Nora Roberts, Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman) were soooo foundational to my Romance genre preferences and I do think they hold up. Each book contains 4 novellas around a central theme and I think you can tell the authors were simply having fun and enjoying themselves! each story is ~100 pages, the romance is on steroids, nothing else matters, which is what I love to see. In the second book one of the novellas starts a sentence with "It smote his heart to gaze at her". Perfect stuff, if you like that kind of thing....
Started reading a book which I thought was going to be about steel mill unionisation, got totally knocked off my feet by this passage of a rich guy (steel mill owner's son) falling in love with his maid. My God!!!! Oh my GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!
HELLO! you're one of my fave lamen writers and fave fic writers EVER and I wanted to ask if you would recommend any books/authors? sending love and deep gratitude for the lamen AGENT au
AW what a lovely ask, thank you anon !!! My face looked like this reading it: 🥰I hope you like the (rest of the) fic!!! And this list of some books I like:
the Lymond series really got its hooks in me this year-- I'm only through book 4 but it's made me LAUGH, it's made me GASP, it made me WEEP UNCONTROLLABLY. Dunnett is an insanely good writer I think even if or perhaps because I am so slow getting through her stuff
Also really enjoying the Peter Wimsey series right now -- I'm up to book 6 and I just love the way Dorothy Sayers writes, her turns of phrase are outstanding, Peter is such a weird little guy, the details of the setting are just incredible... what's not to love
The Locked Tomb series -- enough said. I feel like heaps of people have read or at least heard of this one. I do think it's good and I was completely blown away by book 2. I love HARROW
Random Harvest by James Hilton, sorry. It's even available on archive.org! Read for free with no account! Or read a slightly nicer version for free with an account! If this niche book from 1941 has ten fans I'm one of them, one fan it's me, no fans I'm dead. It's not perfect but I really did find this amnesia story so touching and compelling and the final pages made me cry. Go in unspoiled if possible, read this first, and then watch the 1942 film!!!
The Stars Undying by Emery Robin -- another one whose final pages just knocked me flat. "Cleopatra in space" is a hook that's both compelling and also somehow doesn't capture the expansiveness and creativity of this novel at all. Mark Antony was, as promised on my back cover, the hottest butch girl in space. I'm waiting so so hopefully for the sequel
Jasper Fforde -- a friend once called his work 'English major fever dreams' which I think is accurate. Love his worldbuilding, love his insane worlds. I actually read his Nursery Crimes books first and secretly The Big Over Easy is still my fave, but Thursday Next is probably better known / regarded and they're also such good romps. There are always so many spinning plates and somehow it all gets pulled together
Honourable mention lightning round: The Phillip Marlowe series, twisty hardboiled pulpy fun from Raymond Chandler -- the Trickster duology by Tamora Pierce was, I have to admit it, extremely formative for me -- I'm also 8 books into the Highland Guard series by Monica McCarty and they're ridiculous but very fun if you like romancelandia stuff (and super buff guys; I think every hero thus far has been the biggest meatiest slab of muscle in all Scotland) -- Ion Curtain by Anya Ow, super fun space opera which also has me pining for a sequel -- Between Silk and Cyanide, the memoir of a codemaker during WWII who comes across as a vaguely smug but very funny personification of chaos -- Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier, gorgeous descriptions and I did really enjoy the romance; this one also got made into a film in 1944. With Joan Fontaine! In glorious Technicolor! In period gowns!!!
Thank you for the ask anon!! I hope this was interesting (?) or edifying (?) or satisfactory in some sense. Sending kisses!!
starting off the new year right: buddy-read the prisoner of zenda and we're planning to watch four movie adaptations (1922, 1937, 1952, 1979) -- what better way to watch than by making a bingo card of things we hope one or more of the movies will cover????
personally i am so hoping to fill out the bottom left square aka to see this bit adapted into one of the films:
I found myself muttering: “The keys, man, the keys?” as though he had been yet alive and could listen; and when I could not find them, I—God forgive me!—I believe I struck a dead man’s face.
God forgive me, i slapped a corpse! iconic behaviour frankly
