This isn't a bookblog, honest
I was browsing bookblogs today and I came across a few interesting bits of news.
The Inkwell Bookstore Blog linked to a Wall Street Journal article about investing in art books. Now, I have long bemoaned the ridiculous prices one must pay in order to guarantee high-quality images, but the books in this article put my college textbooks to shame. Not that we sell such books. Although, we did process a corporate order of a $3,000 book for a government agency which shall remained unnamed. The hell of it was, nobody realized its value until they came to pick it up. Them we all looked at the hands which had touched it in horror.
Super Librarian reports that the book which has garnered the most challenges reported to the American Library Association is And Tango Makes Three. I didn't know anything about this book, so I poked around. Apparently, it tells the true story of two male penguins in a NYC zoo who successfully raised a chick together, a female called Tango. The same-sex pair, Roy and Silo, lasted six years together before Silo left Roy for "a girlfriend from California called Scrappy." Supporters of gay pride need not fear however, as the Times Online reported that the zoo still claims six same-sex pairs of chinstrap penguins, among whom is Tango herself, happily paired with a female called Tazuni.
To drive the nail into a bookblog coffin, I am going to do a quiz, also stolen from Wendy, the Super Librarian. It's Sunday, and I'm bored dammit.
1) Total Number Of Books I Own: The number according to my LibraryThing catalog is 632, but I'm a trifle behind in updating it and it doesn't include any books I've posted on PBS but have yet to be claimed, so I'd ballpark it at around 645.
2) Last Book I Bought: The $4.99 reissue of A Stolen Heart by Candace Camp--the only one of the Exmoor trilogy I hadn't tracked down or read.
3) Last Book I Read: An Honorable Thief by Anne Gracie. I so adored everything about her Merridew sisters "Perfect" series (the first four on this list) that I tracked down one of her older Harlequin books and used one of my many PBS credits to acquire it.
4) Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me: Here it goes...
The Inkwell Bookstore Blog linked to a Wall Street Journal article about investing in art books. Now, I have long bemoaned the ridiculous prices one must pay in order to guarantee high-quality images, but the books in this article put my college textbooks to shame. Not that we sell such books. Although, we did process a corporate order of a $3,000 book for a government agency which shall remained unnamed. The hell of it was, nobody realized its value until they came to pick it up. Them we all looked at the hands which had touched it in horror.
Super Librarian reports that the book which has garnered the most challenges reported to the American Library Association is And Tango Makes Three. I didn't know anything about this book, so I poked around. Apparently, it tells the true story of two male penguins in a NYC zoo who successfully raised a chick together, a female called Tango. The same-sex pair, Roy and Silo, lasted six years together before Silo left Roy for "a girlfriend from California called Scrappy." Supporters of gay pride need not fear however, as the Times Online reported that the zoo still claims six same-sex pairs of chinstrap penguins, among whom is Tango herself, happily paired with a female called Tazuni.
To drive the nail into a bookblog coffin, I am going to do a quiz, also stolen from Wendy, the Super Librarian. It's Sunday, and I'm bored dammit.
1) Total Number Of Books I Own: The number according to my LibraryThing catalog is 632, but I'm a trifle behind in updating it and it doesn't include any books I've posted on PBS but have yet to be claimed, so I'd ballpark it at around 645.
2) Last Book I Bought: The $4.99 reissue of A Stolen Heart by Candace Camp--the only one of the Exmoor trilogy I hadn't tracked down or read.
3) Last Book I Read: An Honorable Thief by Anne Gracie. I so adored everything about her Merridew sisters "Perfect" series (the first four on this list) that I tracked down one of her older Harlequin books and used one of my many PBS credits to acquire it.
4) Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me: Here it goes...
- Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino: the first book I can remember reading by myself. Is still unclear whether it's also the first book I ever memorized.
- Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery: This is not so much this book as the whole series. I inherited my mother's tattered and well-loved volumes when I was 9ish and ate them up. For years I went around giving various areas of my neighborhood romantic names (although I could never bring myself to refer to Avery as my "bosom friend").
- Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis: Given to me by a pastor cousin, this was the first book that I can remember making me really think about life and faith and God. I read it before I read any Narnia, actually, and would not read the second book in the trilogy for 10 years. I still haven't read the third.
- One Pink Rose by Julie Garwood: The first proper romance novel I ever read, loaned to me by
earthangelgirl, bless her. It was a good starter romance, and as far as intimacy goes is rather obtuse. I was 13 when I reached the end and realized that by the word "climax" they were talking about sex. And I then felt terrible for about a week. During which I reread the thing about a dozen times. Thank you, Laur!
- An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott: Not the first Alcott book I read, but it was the first time I can really recall truly empathizing with a character. I adored Polly, though I envied her ability to patiently wait for Tom to grow up, and I truly shared the feeling of being just a little more reserved than was the fashion of seventh grade girls. Polly was a friend. I think that Tom was the first character in a book that I can remember drooling over.