OMG, the last time I did this was the beginning of March. Surely I can remember a whole month ago? Surely? Ok, here we go!
I got caught up on Laura Crum's kindle releases. Well, today she released Hayburner, and I'm clearly slacking because I haven't read it yet. ;) But I'm almost caught up on her books! I'm still really enjoying them - she writes such good, realistic characters. Nothing in them makes me really grit my teeth - the men and women are multidimensonal and they interact with each other believably. And her place descriptions are amazing! Having read Slickrock I desperately want to learn to pack. She really captures the beautiful, remote, terrifying, captivating reality of the mountains. (I could do without all the calamities that befell Gail!) And maybe this sounds weird, but central California doesn't sound like such a strange place to me. I've been to the Bay Area, so I know what the climate feels like, and I can really imagine what Santa Cruz / Watsonville / Salinas are like. It's not such a scary unknown.
Interspersed with the Gail McCarthy books, my Kindle died. It was heartbreaking. I was without an ebook reader for like five whole days, yall. Luckily I had a paperback on hand - I bought it on a trip to Borderlands with my friend AWS last summer, but, urgh, it's made of dead trees and I have gone digital. Still, I was glad to have Soulless by Gail Carriger, dead trees and all, nearby in my time of need. It's steampunk-y, and I have never been all that fond of steampunk. Something about the gadgetry + the Victorian setting + the hipster love of the genre has always turned me off. But I really liked Soulless, and the rest of the books in the series. They don't take themselves too seriously, without (quite) descending into farce. The characters are good, the pacing is good. The first book is the weakest, and I never quite got over my annoyance with the twee names of the background characters, but they're solid.
Then, much to my delight, the new Holly Black book, Black Heart, came out. It's the third in a trilogy - White Cat, the first book, was utterly captivating. Red Glove, the second, was kinda meh, but that's not unusual for the second in a trilogy. (I mean, other than Ents/Gandalf the White, does anything happen in The Two Towers? Every time I reread LOTR, I completely skip all of Frodo's boring-ass journey into the land of blah blah gollum shadow. Second books are a necessary evil.) But anyway, Black Heart made up for the second book. They're YA, but very dark and gritty, and the main character is so confused and so likeable.
Continuing my streak of new-book good luck, I realized that A Perfect Blood by Kim Harrison was out. Yes, I know. It's totally urban fantasy, and nobody wants to admit to liking urban fantasy. That's ok. I have no shame and I'll admit to it and you can sneak off and read the whole Hollows series without telling your snobby friends. Kim Harrison's books are really good urban fantasy - you have to like the genre to begin with, but if you do, you'll love them. Dead Witch Walking is book 1, and APB is book 10 - there will be 13 books in the series, so it's headed toward a finish.
Fresh off the heels of my success with Gail Carriger, I tried to read some shit called The Affinity Bridge by George Mann. I might go back to it... but I'm 16% of the way in, not captivated by the plot, and annoyed at the two-dimensionality of the characters. Like Soulless, it's steampunk, but it's boring steampunk.
Likewise, I made it 15% of the way into some utter shit called Hounded by Kevin Hearne. I guess it's urban fantasy, but it's shitty urban fantasy. The main character is 2000 years old yet thinks and acts exactly like a grown mortal adult, and there's all this background filling in that detracts from what little progression the plot makes in the first 15% of the book, and bahhhhh life is too short for this nonsense.
Then Aarene said I should read Divergent by Veronica Roth, and I am somewhat ashamed to admit to yall that I read it in one sitting. It's YA / dystopian future. There are plot holes you could drive a dump truck through. None of the characters quite come to life like Cassel Sharpe or Rachel Morgan did, but I could not stop reading it. I can't really tell you why it was such a good read, but it was.
I need to read The Hunger Games, because I have a sneaking suspicion that Divergent is, mmm, in the same vein. Anyway, consider Divergent to be a YA "airport thriller." It's captivating yet not very deep.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
I read books!
Remember back in January when I was like "I'm gonna blog the books I read"? Yeah. Well. Let's pretend I posted these as I read them, ok?
I read all of the Temeraire books. I'd actually read the first three when we lived in Ohio (side note: Columbus has the best library system I've ever seen) but I'd forgotten them sufficiently to make it worthwhile to reread them. And I thought I remembered them being really quite good in a sea of horrible books. (I read like half the Laurel K. Hamilton books either right before or right after Temeraire.)
Temeraire is the Napoleonic War, with dragons. You're going to read that sentence and hate the idea or love it. I think they're amazingly good from Book 1 - I was captivated from the second chapter. Book 7 is about to come out, YAY! Rated buy.
Then I read Laura Crum's first novel, Cutter. It's reprinted on Kindle for .99, and she just got the second one out last week or so. She was all "oh you should read it but don't expect too much it was my very first book" - but she's wrong. It's quite good! Mysteries aren't my thing (unless it's also SF/F), but I really enjoyed Cutter. The pacing was a little slow - you could tell it was intended to be Book One of A Series, and she was introducing a lot of recurring characters - but the writing was crisp and it flowed really well. And such a charming look back in time, to the misty past of 1994 - the protagonist Gail carries a beeper! A beeper! how cute is that!
Endurance friends: Gail boards her horse with an e-rider, who will ring very true to you. She does, in fact, say shit like "Oh not a long ride, just 20 miles today." (I talked to my Dad tonight, and he asked if I had my big race tomorrow, and without even batting an eye I said "Oh no, it's just 20 miles tomorrow.")
The writing was solid, the mystery wasn't immediately obvious, the characters were strong - AND THE HORSES WERE REAL HORSES. I always get excited when there's a horse in a book, but almost always it's either a Magical Fairy-Tail Horse who reads your mind (figuratively or literally) or a prop, something that the character can leap upon and gallop for 20 miles. Before I got a horse, I knew that neither of those was accurate, and now I just grit my teeth about most horse appearances. But Laura, duh, has had horses her whole life, and her horses are just real horses. They do real horse stuff!
Definitely recommended. Book 2 just came out for Kindle (and remember, you can read them on the computer with the Kindle app, even if you don't have a physical Kindle) and it's next on the list. Rated buy (unless you really can't read them online, then you're stuck borrowing them, cause they're out of print.)
I think after that I read Transition by Iain M. Banks.
Anyway, Transition was also good. Not Culture. Banks does Quantum Leap with many leapers. There's a bit of torture porn - one of the Bad Guys is a torturer, and it's a little too gruesome for me, but it's easy enough to skim his chapters. Quite enjoyable. Rated a strong borrow.
I think after that I read The Night Circus. My mom recommended it to me - it's, mmmmm, magical realism? Based loosely upon The Tempest. (Which I really should read one day - The Tempest is a really popular mythological framework, and I've read a bunch of books with Prospero/Miranda characters, but I've just never read the original.) I know a lot of yall aren't SF/F fans - this is a book anyone who likes fiction would like. It's just fun. I wasn't so captivated that I'd buy it - giving it a borrow.
Now I'm working on Entwined and Ruby Red. Aarene promises that Entwined is pretty good, and I normally love fairy-tale retellings, but it's a little too ~princessy~ for me, so I'm alternating with Ruby Red. RR is a time-travel novel - I read the blurb about it on the Unshelved Book Club. I get a lot of "I should look for that" book ideas from Unshelved - good comic, great resource. Anyway, I put in an order for it back in October when I read that, and its time has come!
I shall update with more books no later than May.
I read all of the Temeraire books. I'd actually read the first three when we lived in Ohio (side note: Columbus has the best library system I've ever seen) but I'd forgotten them sufficiently to make it worthwhile to reread them. And I thought I remembered them being really quite good in a sea of horrible books. (I read like half the Laurel K. Hamilton books either right before or right after Temeraire.)
Temeraire is the Napoleonic War, with dragons. You're going to read that sentence and hate the idea or love it. I think they're amazingly good from Book 1 - I was captivated from the second chapter. Book 7 is about to come out, YAY! Rated buy.
Then I read Laura Crum's first novel, Cutter. It's reprinted on Kindle for .99, and she just got the second one out last week or so. She was all "oh you should read it but don't expect too much it was my very first book" - but she's wrong. It's quite good! Mysteries aren't my thing (unless it's also SF/F), but I really enjoyed Cutter. The pacing was a little slow - you could tell it was intended to be Book One of A Series, and she was introducing a lot of recurring characters - but the writing was crisp and it flowed really well. And such a charming look back in time, to the misty past of 1994 - the protagonist Gail carries a beeper! A beeper! how cute is that!
Endurance friends: Gail boards her horse with an e-rider, who will ring very true to you. She does, in fact, say shit like "Oh not a long ride, just 20 miles today." (I talked to my Dad tonight, and he asked if I had my big race tomorrow, and without even batting an eye I said "Oh no, it's just 20 miles tomorrow.")
The writing was solid, the mystery wasn't immediately obvious, the characters were strong - AND THE HORSES WERE REAL HORSES. I always get excited when there's a horse in a book, but almost always it's either a Magical Fairy-Tail Horse who reads your mind (figuratively or literally) or a prop, something that the character can leap upon and gallop for 20 miles. Before I got a horse, I knew that neither of those was accurate, and now I just grit my teeth about most horse appearances. But Laura, duh, has had horses her whole life, and her horses are just real horses. They do real horse stuff!
Definitely recommended. Book 2 just came out for Kindle (and remember, you can read them on the computer with the Kindle app, even if you don't have a physical Kindle) and it's next on the list. Rated buy (unless you really can't read them online, then you're stuck borrowing them, cause they're out of print.)
I think after that I read Transition by Iain M. Banks.
(I first read Banks' Culture series, last year, and L-O-V-E-D them. Are you on the liberal end of the political spectrum, a fan of space opera without the super-hard how the FTL travel system works details, and interested in the idea of a post-Singularity culture? You will love the Culture books! Read them in any order. If you aren't (or if you don't know what the hell any of that means), you may like them. They share the same universe (and occasionally, the same character appears more than once), but you don't need to read them in any particular order. I thought The Player of Games was rather approachable and a good starting point. Borrow, then buy your faves.)
Anyway, Transition was also good. Not Culture. Banks does Quantum Leap with many leapers. There's a bit of torture porn - one of the Bad Guys is a torturer, and it's a little too gruesome for me, but it's easy enough to skim his chapters. Quite enjoyable. Rated a strong borrow.
I think after that I read The Night Circus. My mom recommended it to me - it's, mmmmm, magical realism? Based loosely upon The Tempest. (Which I really should read one day - The Tempest is a really popular mythological framework, and I've read a bunch of books with Prospero/Miranda characters, but I've just never read the original.) I know a lot of yall aren't SF/F fans - this is a book anyone who likes fiction would like. It's just fun. I wasn't so captivated that I'd buy it - giving it a borrow.
Now I'm working on Entwined and Ruby Red. Aarene promises that Entwined is pretty good, and I normally love fairy-tale retellings, but it's a little too ~princessy~ for me, so I'm alternating with Ruby Red. RR is a time-travel novel - I read the blurb about it on the Unshelved Book Club. I get a lot of "I should look for that" book ideas from Unshelved - good comic, great resource. Anyway, I put in an order for it back in October when I read that, and its time has come!
I shall update with more books no later than May.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Nerd alert: Top 100 SF books
One for the nerds! Saw this on a totally unrelated blog, thought it looked fun. Feel free to play along, or just castigate my terrible taste in the comments. :)
NPR's Top 100 SF/F booklist
I will bold the ones I've read (at least partially) and snark about the suck.
1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert (well, I read Dune at any rate. It didn't catch my interest enough to read the rest.)
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin (I think everyone knows about my love/hate relationship with GRRM.)
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov (Started it long ago, but it was just too old to keep my interest. Old SF can be good, but I usually fail to suspend my disbelief when they start talking about how the super advanced computing machines can store *thousands of books* on one tape drive!)
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (Listened to this on our cross-country move. Highly recommended, but especially good if you're driving across a lot of America.)
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (It's good, but do you know what's even better in the 80s book to movie world? The Neverending Story! Way darker than the movie.)
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan (Well, kind of. I quit about 5 books in, after an endless slog through the Aes Sedai bathing and plotting and only two chapters about the theoretical hero. If I am ever bedridden I might go back to them.)
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell (First read as a kid. Didn't really get it. Title very misleading.)
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson (Our kids will never understand about sky "the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." They'll think it means bright blue.)
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein (Good stuff if you're a teenager. Probably doesn't age well.)
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss (These are surprisingly good! Remarkably good!)
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick (I just don't like PKD. I've tried several of his books but they're like bad acid trips. I don't need any reminders of that, tyvm.)
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King (It was just ok.)
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson (One of my personal top 10.)
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman (I've always meant to get around to it, but... they're comic books. I like real books!)
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein (Space marines and weird right-wing SF propaganda! Very entertaining, at least. And the protagonist is nonwhite, which is rare for older SF.)
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein (This one did age well with me.)
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller (Read half of it last week. Got bored. May go back to it, but life is short and I no longer feel guilty about abandoning books.)
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings (How the hell did this end up at 41? It's awful! It's really amazingly trite. I loved it when I was 14 though!)
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson (Read the first one. Although now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I even finished it. It was meh?)
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin (Fascinating look at gender.)
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien (Again, perhaps if I'm bedridden for months.)
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman (Very good! I read Un Lun Dun shortly after I read Neverwhere - that's fun.)
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons (They're good, they really are! Sadly Dan Simmons appears to have gone totally insane. But these four are still worth a read.)
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman (Good, but how did this get more votes than Coraline?)
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson (Another personal top-ten. I annoy my husband to no end by constantly quoting bits of Crypto at him. Am very tempted to name my firstborn Bobby Shaftoe.)
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett (I've tried a few Discworld and I just can't get into them.)
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson (Started it as a kid/teenager. Too dark. Never went back.)
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist (More teenager stuff.)
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks (Seriously, how did this get on here? If you're 12, and you just read LOTR, and you want something exactly like it, read this!)
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore (I was a kid!)
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson (I'm such a Stephenson fangirl.)
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey (I read one. Weird mix of politics and kinky sex.)
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson (Started it this summer. Didn't finish the first book. Meh.)
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks (Oh man, these are awesome. Just discovered them this year and ripped through the whole series in like a month. Yes, I do read ridiculously fast.)
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson (His weakest book, IMO. Too much philosophical yammering, too little action.)
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher (Why is the crappy Codex Alera on here and Dresden isn't? I read the first one.)
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (I have a love/hate thing with Wolfe and I haven't gotten around to these yet.)
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn (I never liked Star Wars enough to read thefanfic extended universe works.)
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan (Well, I read two or three when I was a teenager. I hear the last one gets seriously weird.)
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock (Read part as a kid. Not to my taste then.)
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley (Sunshine is *excellent!* Everything McKinley wrote is wonderful, actually. Aerin from The Hero and The Crown was probably the first awesome female hero I ever read.)
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge (Quite good, along with the loose sequel, A Deepness in the Sky. I haven't liked his other stuff.)
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis (I love her time travelers!)
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville (Ehhh. I really liked Un Lun Dun but haven't enjoyed - or even finished - anything else by Mieville.)
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony (I was 10, ok? Why is this on here?)
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis
NPR's Top 100 SF/F booklist
I will bold the ones I've read (at least partially) and snark about the suck.
1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert (well, I read Dune at any rate. It didn't catch my interest enough to read the rest.)
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin (I think everyone knows about my love/hate relationship with GRRM.)
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov (Started it long ago, but it was just too old to keep my interest. Old SF can be good, but I usually fail to suspend my disbelief when they start talking about how the super advanced computing machines can store *thousands of books* on one tape drive!)
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (Listened to this on our cross-country move. Highly recommended, but especially good if you're driving across a lot of America.)
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (It's good, but do you know what's even better in the 80s book to movie world? The Neverending Story! Way darker than the movie.)
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan (Well, kind of. I quit about 5 books in, after an endless slog through the Aes Sedai bathing and plotting and only two chapters about the theoretical hero. If I am ever bedridden I might go back to them.)
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell (First read as a kid. Didn't really get it. Title very misleading.)
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson (Our kids will never understand about sky "the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." They'll think it means bright blue.)
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein (Good stuff if you're a teenager. Probably doesn't age well.)
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss (These are surprisingly good! Remarkably good!)
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick (I just don't like PKD. I've tried several of his books but they're like bad acid trips. I don't need any reminders of that, tyvm.)
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King (It was just ok.)
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson (One of my personal top 10.)
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman (I've always meant to get around to it, but... they're comic books. I like real books!)
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein (Space marines and weird right-wing SF propaganda! Very entertaining, at least. And the protagonist is nonwhite, which is rare for older SF.)
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein (This one did age well with me.)
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller (Read half of it last week. Got bored. May go back to it, but life is short and I no longer feel guilty about abandoning books.)
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings (How the hell did this end up at 41? It's awful! It's really amazingly trite. I loved it when I was 14 though!)
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson (Read the first one. Although now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I even finished it. It was meh?)
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin (Fascinating look at gender.)
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien (Again, perhaps if I'm bedridden for months.)
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman (Very good! I read Un Lun Dun shortly after I read Neverwhere - that's fun.)
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons (They're good, they really are! Sadly Dan Simmons appears to have gone totally insane. But these four are still worth a read.)
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman (Good, but how did this get more votes than Coraline?)
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson (Another personal top-ten. I annoy my husband to no end by constantly quoting bits of Crypto at him. Am very tempted to name my firstborn Bobby Shaftoe.)
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett (I've tried a few Discworld and I just can't get into them.)
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson (Started it as a kid/teenager. Too dark. Never went back.)
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist (More teenager stuff.)
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks (Seriously, how did this get on here? If you're 12, and you just read LOTR, and you want something exactly like it, read this!)
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore (I was a kid!)
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson (I'm such a Stephenson fangirl.)
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey (I read one. Weird mix of politics and kinky sex.)
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson (Started it this summer. Didn't finish the first book. Meh.)
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks (Oh man, these are awesome. Just discovered them this year and ripped through the whole series in like a month. Yes, I do read ridiculously fast.)
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson (His weakest book, IMO. Too much philosophical yammering, too little action.)
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher (Why is the crappy Codex Alera on here and Dresden isn't? I read the first one.)
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (I have a love/hate thing with Wolfe and I haven't gotten around to these yet.)
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn (I never liked Star Wars enough to read the
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan (Well, I read two or three when I was a teenager. I hear the last one gets seriously weird.)
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock (Read part as a kid. Not to my taste then.)
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley (Sunshine is *excellent!* Everything McKinley wrote is wonderful, actually. Aerin from The Hero and The Crown was probably the first awesome female hero I ever read.)
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge (Quite good, along with the loose sequel, A Deepness in the Sky. I haven't liked his other stuff.)
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis (I love her time travelers!)
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville (Ehhh. I really liked Un Lun Dun but haven't enjoyed - or even finished - anything else by Mieville.)
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony (I was 10, ok? Why is this on here?)
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Action-packed day
Ok, not really. I finished stacking my hardwood then I sat down with the Kindle and read. I polished off Changes, again, then absolutely wailed on Ghost Story. I thought it was awesome. I've read a little discussion about it and I think other discussors are idiots and it ruled. Yeah, you could look at it as a placeholder novel full of boring character development, but it was really important character development. Of course I had some wild hypotheses after reading Changes when it first came out, and I was actually half-right about them. I'm glad I was wrong about the ones I was wrong about! Really impressed with the long term story arc that Jim Butcher has going here.
I know that's utterly cryptic if you don't read Dresden, but it's non spoilery if you do. (Email me if you want to talk after you read it!)
Better than Dance with Dragons and I only had to wait an extra six months for it. As opposed to five damn years for GRRM's doorstopper.
ANYWAY. In between my marathon of reading I did my food shopping for Lake Almanor and (drumroll please) I washed that horse. Somebody had asked about the Flappy Lip Thing, so I took a video for yall. Yeah, Dixie's sunburned, but not too badly, and my general horse philosophy is to treat her as a free agent as much as possible. She hates the sunscreen (and I sympathize, I hate that crap too) so I don't usually smear it on her.
Today was Day One of working on her mane. It's really more than we deserve. I think it took 12 pumps of the shampoo bottle to suds it up and scrub it, then I used a good six ounces of conditioner on it, then I let it dry for a while and sprayed Show Sheen on it. I let it get mostly dry before I turned her out again. Tomorrow I will use like half a bottle of Cowboy Magic on it and brush it out into a glistening two foot long halo of silver. Thursday she'll have scrubbed dirt and branches back into it and we'll be back where we were Monday. Futility, thy name is horse.
I measured, and it's 27" long at the longest point.
Obviously she's standing facing downhill and she's a little stretched out, but she looks good! The stall rest lardiness has melted right off of her as soon as I started riding again.
If it looks like I didn't even wash her body, well, I didn't. It's futile. See?
So there's a Southern tongue-in-cheek horse myth that a horse is worth an extra $500 for every time it rolls completely over. Anybody else heard that one? Dixie's only +500 here, but I've seen her get up to +1500. ;)
I know that's utterly cryptic if you don't read Dresden, but it's non spoilery if you do. (Email me if you want to talk after you read it!)
Better than Dance with Dragons and I only had to wait an extra six months for it. As opposed to five damn years for GRRM's doorstopper.
ANYWAY. In between my marathon of reading I did my food shopping for Lake Almanor and (drumroll please) I washed that horse. Somebody had asked about the Flappy Lip Thing, so I took a video for yall. Yeah, Dixie's sunburned, but not too badly, and my general horse philosophy is to treat her as a free agent as much as possible. She hates the sunscreen (and I sympathize, I hate that crap too) so I don't usually smear it on her.
Flappy Lip Face from Funder on Vimeo.
Today was Day One of working on her mane. It's really more than we deserve. I think it took 12 pumps of the shampoo bottle to suds it up and scrub it, then I used a good six ounces of conditioner on it, then I let it dry for a while and sprayed Show Sheen on it. I let it get mostly dry before I turned her out again. Tomorrow I will use like half a bottle of Cowboy Magic on it and brush it out into a glistening two foot long halo of silver. Thursday she'll have scrubbed dirt and branches back into it and we'll be back where we were Monday. Futility, thy name is horse.
I measured, and it's 27" long at the longest point.
Obviously she's standing facing downhill and she's a little stretched out, but she looks good! The stall rest lardiness has melted right off of her as soon as I started riding again.
If it looks like I didn't even wash her body, well, I didn't. It's futile. See?
So much for being clean from Funder on Vimeo.
So there's a Southern tongue-in-cheek horse myth that a horse is worth an extra $500 for every time it rolls completely over. Anybody else heard that one? Dixie's only +500 here, but I've seen her get up to +1500. ;)
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Kindle calls
I'm such a bad blogger!
A couple weeks ago, I finally decided to read Harry Potter. I guess the ads for Deathly Hollows made me remember it? I tried, when they first came out, but I didn't want to read kids' books at the time. If you remember that far back (oh god I'm old), A Game of Thrones had come out the year after the first HP book, and I was really in love with dark gritty fantasy then. If you've read them both (or even seen the movies/series) you will understand what polar opposites they are. But people kept telling me HP gets better as he gets older, so I settled down and started slogging through the series.
I'd gotten to the point where they weren't so bad when I went camping with Mel. When I came back I reclaimed the house, then got sucked back into them over the weekend. I read 4 on Saturday, 5 and 6 on Sunday, and polished off the last one yesterday. They really are pretty good! I am kind of jealous of the kids who got to grow up reading them.
Then I got up this morning and half of Facebook was showing off their copies of A Dance With Dragons, so I had to get that for the Kindle immediately. Honestly I'd given up on that bastard GRRM ever finishing DWD, much less the series. It took him six years to write it, and he kept writing other crap I don't care about in the meantime and going to cons and blogging about sports and I got immensely frustrated with him. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he delayed the damn thing til AGOT finished on HBO - which is no doubt a shrewd business move and all but SIX YEARS? Ridiculous.
Other media: Torchwood USA looks even goofier than Torchwood UK was but I'm willing to forgive a lot to see Jack and Gwen again. True Blood continues to make me howl with laughter. In two weeks we get new Dresden Files!
Other stuff: Dixie's rehab is still going uneventfully. The banty managed to hatch out three (full size) chicks so far. She took off to set on infertile eggs right before the roosters started crowing and doin' their thing so I shoved some fertile eggs from the big hens in there with her. At least one of the chicks has feathered feet - SO CUTE. They're not moving around yet, but better pics will come.
I am really dreading cleaning out the stinkbomb eggs from her nest.
Anyway. I have now flung myself into DWD. See you in a couple of days.
A couple weeks ago, I finally decided to read Harry Potter. I guess the ads for Deathly Hollows made me remember it? I tried, when they first came out, but I didn't want to read kids' books at the time. If you remember that far back (oh god I'm old), A Game of Thrones had come out the year after the first HP book, and I was really in love with dark gritty fantasy then. If you've read them both (or even seen the movies/series) you will understand what polar opposites they are. But people kept telling me HP gets better as he gets older, so I settled down and started slogging through the series.
I'd gotten to the point where they weren't so bad when I went camping with Mel. When I came back I reclaimed the house, then got sucked back into them over the weekend. I read 4 on Saturday, 5 and 6 on Sunday, and polished off the last one yesterday. They really are pretty good! I am kind of jealous of the kids who got to grow up reading them.
Then I got up this morning and half of Facebook was showing off their copies of A Dance With Dragons, so I had to get that for the Kindle immediately. Honestly I'd given up on that bastard GRRM ever finishing DWD, much less the series. It took him six years to write it, and he kept writing other crap I don't care about in the meantime and going to cons and blogging about sports and I got immensely frustrated with him. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he delayed the damn thing til AGOT finished on HBO - which is no doubt a shrewd business move and all but SIX YEARS? Ridiculous.
Other media: Torchwood USA looks even goofier than Torchwood UK was but I'm willing to forgive a lot to see Jack and Gwen again. True Blood continues to make me howl with laughter. In two weeks we get new Dresden Files!
Other stuff: Dixie's rehab is still going uneventfully. The banty managed to hatch out three (full size) chicks so far. She took off to set on infertile eggs right before the roosters started crowing and doin' their thing so I shoved some fertile eggs from the big hens in there with her. At least one of the chicks has feathered feet - SO CUTE. They're not moving around yet, but better pics will come.
I am really dreading cleaning out the stinkbomb eggs from her nest.
Anyway. I have now flung myself into DWD. See you in a couple of days.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Semi-Annual PSA
Ok, I swear I will calm down about Dixie's feet unless she actually, you know, goes lame. They're fine. I know where the room for improvement is. I have a good local trimmer, and some great internet trimmers, and a rasp. She'll be fine.
Today I rode for a bit and took (and even printed!) some pics for her upcoming brand inspection thing. She looks like a yak, but at least she has a nicely combed fluffy mane. But that's another post - this is my PSA post.
If you haven't read it before, please read Animals in Translation. Your library probably has it, and if not, it's available used on Amazon for under five dollars. When else will you find a truly useful horse item for under five friggin dollars, yall?
There are tons of books that do a very good job of explaining horse behavior. There are lots of free scholarly articles about horse anatomy. This is the only book I ever read that really helped me understand how they think - not herd dynamics, and not vision and flight response stuff, but how their little brains process what they see. Temple Grandin has a convincing argument that animals perceive the world in a similar way to how autistic humans see the world. She didn't write a horse-training book - she's worked with cows way more than horses - but I've developed such a kind understanding of what horses go through from her book.
I am afraid I'll misrepresent something if I try to explain the book, so I'll just tell you about my ride and how it could've gone differently.
Dixie was peacefully snoozing in the snow when I got there. The other horses were standing guard as normal, and it was just her turn to take a nap. She was pretty pleased to see me, and walked about halfway to meet me! That's unusual for her - usually I have to walk up to her and hold out the halter, then she sticks her nose in it and follows me politely. I led her out of the gate and she got very excited. I walked her around and let her nose the earth moving equipment, the muddy gravel, and the snowy areas for a while. Then I saddled up, mounted, and we rode out.
It took a long time to get out of the gate. She needed to stop and stare way more often than usual, and she had to drop her head and nuzzle the snow every few steps. She wasn't trying to panic and turn around for home, and she wasn't terrified - just very inquisitive and unwilling to barge on ahead. When we got to the road, I asked her to walk down the cleared muddy gravel road, instead of on the verge where we usually walk. I didn't want her to step in a hole I'd forgotten and feel trapped and freak out. She really wanted to walk in the snow, and we kept renegotiating. She kept doing the very strange nuzzle the ground and look around thing.
We moseyed very slowly down the road to where the trail branches off. I knew we weren't going to get far, but I asked her to walk off into the snow on the trail (like she wanted to do all along!) We got just a few strides off the road and the whole thing got to be too much for her, and she started getting nervous. I asked her to turn around and walk home really calmly, and she did. I had to half-halt like 17 times in a row at first, but then she settled in to a nice calm fast walk home.
Here's what I saw today: The exact same place we've been riding, almost every day, for the last three months. There was snow, but all the landmarks were clearly visible, and the road was even uncovered.
Here's what she saw: Something completely different. An alien world covered in alien white stuff, and a road that didn't look or smell or feel like the road she's used to.
I could've gotten mad, because the damn horse was so complacent about the damn snow that she was laying down in it! And we barely got out of sight of her buddies! This trip was so close to home that there's just no WAY she could really be afraid! Argh stupid hateful yak of a horse, always ruining my fun!
But I didn't get mad. As soon as I led her out of the paddock and she started acting so peculiar and curious, I realized I wasn't seeing what she was seeing. Horses don't generalize well, and they don't seem to remember the way we do, and it was a different world for her. She was used to the snow in the pasture, but that didn't generalize to snow outside of the pasture. Nothing smelled the same. Nothing looked the same. Everything was covered in white stuff that didn't taste like anything. Even the road, which might have been familiar, was wet - a state she has never before seen it in.
Once I looked at the day from her point of view, she was a fantastic companion. She wasn't scared! She got nervous when we walked into the snow, but before that, she wasn't even remotely upset about it. She needed a lot of extra time to process what she was seeing and smelling and hearing, but she wasn't upset. That is a huge improvement for us. I am so very happy with both of us!
Anyway, the book does a really good job of giving you a paradigm to view your horse's behavior through. Temple Grandin is, of course, a human, so her book isn't any more infallible than anyone else's. Nobody will ever know what horses really ARE seeing, smelling, thinking. But Grandin's "thinking in pictures" paradigm holds up pretty well to my real world experiences with real live horses, and I bet it would hold up to yours too.
Today I rode for a bit and took (and even printed!) some pics for her upcoming brand inspection thing. She looks like a yak, but at least she has a nicely combed fluffy mane. But that's another post - this is my PSA post.
If you haven't read it before, please read Animals in Translation. Your library probably has it, and if not, it's available used on Amazon for under five dollars. When else will you find a truly useful horse item for under five friggin dollars, yall?
There are tons of books that do a very good job of explaining horse behavior. There are lots of free scholarly articles about horse anatomy. This is the only book I ever read that really helped me understand how they think - not herd dynamics, and not vision and flight response stuff, but how their little brains process what they see. Temple Grandin has a convincing argument that animals perceive the world in a similar way to how autistic humans see the world. She didn't write a horse-training book - she's worked with cows way more than horses - but I've developed such a kind understanding of what horses go through from her book.
I am afraid I'll misrepresent something if I try to explain the book, so I'll just tell you about my ride and how it could've gone differently.
Dixie was peacefully snoozing in the snow when I got there. The other horses were standing guard as normal, and it was just her turn to take a nap. She was pretty pleased to see me, and walked about halfway to meet me! That's unusual for her - usually I have to walk up to her and hold out the halter, then she sticks her nose in it and follows me politely. I led her out of the gate and she got very excited. I walked her around and let her nose the earth moving equipment, the muddy gravel, and the snowy areas for a while. Then I saddled up, mounted, and we rode out.
It took a long time to get out of the gate. She needed to stop and stare way more often than usual, and she had to drop her head and nuzzle the snow every few steps. She wasn't trying to panic and turn around for home, and she wasn't terrified - just very inquisitive and unwilling to barge on ahead. When we got to the road, I asked her to walk down the cleared muddy gravel road, instead of on the verge where we usually walk. I didn't want her to step in a hole I'd forgotten and feel trapped and freak out. She really wanted to walk in the snow, and we kept renegotiating. She kept doing the very strange nuzzle the ground and look around thing.
We moseyed very slowly down the road to where the trail branches off. I knew we weren't going to get far, but I asked her to walk off into the snow on the trail (like she wanted to do all along!) We got just a few strides off the road and the whole thing got to be too much for her, and she started getting nervous. I asked her to turn around and walk home really calmly, and she did. I had to half-halt like 17 times in a row at first, but then she settled in to a nice calm fast walk home.
Here's what I saw today: The exact same place we've been riding, almost every day, for the last three months. There was snow, but all the landmarks were clearly visible, and the road was even uncovered.
Here's what she saw: Something completely different. An alien world covered in alien white stuff, and a road that didn't look or smell or feel like the road she's used to.
I could've gotten mad, because the damn horse was so complacent about the damn snow that she was laying down in it! And we barely got out of sight of her buddies! This trip was so close to home that there's just no WAY she could really be afraid! Argh stupid hateful yak of a horse, always ruining my fun!
But I didn't get mad. As soon as I led her out of the paddock and she started acting so peculiar and curious, I realized I wasn't seeing what she was seeing. Horses don't generalize well, and they don't seem to remember the way we do, and it was a different world for her. She was used to the snow in the pasture, but that didn't generalize to snow outside of the pasture. Nothing smelled the same. Nothing looked the same. Everything was covered in white stuff that didn't taste like anything. Even the road, which might have been familiar, was wet - a state she has never before seen it in.
Once I looked at the day from her point of view, she was a fantastic companion. She wasn't scared! She got nervous when we walked into the snow, but before that, she wasn't even remotely upset about it. She needed a lot of extra time to process what she was seeing and smelling and hearing, but she wasn't upset. That is a huge improvement for us. I am so very happy with both of us!
Anyway, the book does a really good job of giving you a paradigm to view your horse's behavior through. Temple Grandin is, of course, a human, so her book isn't any more infallible than anyone else's. Nobody will ever know what horses really ARE seeing, smelling, thinking. But Grandin's "thinking in pictures" paradigm holds up pretty well to my real world experiences with real live horses, and I bet it would hold up to yours too.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Serenity
Tuesday was pretty tough.
See, there's a couple different possibilities which would lead to my husband needing to move back to Ohio. There's always the fear that the recession will eat his job and he'll need a new one at a different company. And there are no jobs for his particular speciality down here. I'm not going to go in to it too deeply, but Memphis is a third-tier market with only a handful of his positions, and they don't open up very often, and they're not ideal for him anyway. Anyway, I've been coming to grips with the probability that we'll be packing up and moving away pretty soon.
Tuesday I got down about it. Felt very sorry for myself - why can't things work out like I think I want, I'm going to freeze to death next winter, I'm going to have to take another bar exam, I'll lose my friends and my beautiful southern countryside, blah blah blah. I sniveled for a while and went out and rode Champ. He's my emotional rock, whether he likes it or not.
We had a lovely ride. It was a very foggy grey day. The first big lake had a small flock of mallards, who took off and squawked away, and two Canada geese, who honked and swam in circles and completely captivated Cersei. We continued on, all the way back to the deer shooting field off the back corner of the property, and it looked otherworldly. Champ grazed happily on the green grass while I took some pictures.
The big cottonwoods by the creek are covered in kudzu vines, like shackled giants.
Fuzzy horizon.
Cersei snurfled around the kudzu at the edge of the creek. A minute after I took this, she turned up an armadillo. My very first live armadillo! It was completely unfazed by her - it took two steps and tumbled down the edge of the creek. She growled at it and sniffed where it had been and stared over the edge for a while, then we moved on.
We grazed our way to the end of the green grass, then I thought I'd canter Champ back to the tree line. As always, he had other ideas, and when I asked him to speed up he gaited back toward home. He lives to do the opposite of what I ask, sigh!
Back at the skeet shooting lake, Cersei started not one but TWO deer. I swear, I think deer know exactly how long hunting season is. Before the season, I'd see 2-3 a week, but during hunting season I was lucky to hear a deer a week. Now, two days after the season closed, I saw two big deer from 50 feet away!
By the time we got back, I felt a lot better. Accept the things I cannot change, most people never manage to move anywhere even when they want to, it'll be an adventure, etc. I still get a little overwhelmed thinking about the logistics of a possible move, but if it happens, I'll deal.
Yesterday was the big Ice Storm. Well, it, uh, didn't. I mean there was a little snow on the ground, so the schools were closed, but no real ice. Graham's car had a 4" icicle hanging off the bumper, but that was the biggest piece of ice I saw. It never got cold enough for the ground to freeze. The cats were furious about the snow - they spent all morning in the windows, glaring outside and twitching their tails. They'd look over at us occasionally, but I'm not sure if they wanted us to let them out to investigate or somehow magically make the snow disappear. We did neither.
I got a book from the library that's waaaay beyond my abilities, but I'm enjoying it anyway. Advanced Dressage, by Anthony Crossley. The review of the fundamentals (legs, seat, hands, etc) was helpful for me, and at least I'll know what yall are talking about when you discuss the fine differences between shoulders-in and leg yielding. I'm thinking about buying the previous book, Training the Young Horse.
See, there's a couple different possibilities which would lead to my husband needing to move back to Ohio. There's always the fear that the recession will eat his job and he'll need a new one at a different company. And there are no jobs for his particular speciality down here. I'm not going to go in to it too deeply, but Memphis is a third-tier market with only a handful of his positions, and they don't open up very often, and they're not ideal for him anyway. Anyway, I've been coming to grips with the probability that we'll be packing up and moving away pretty soon.
Tuesday I got down about it. Felt very sorry for myself - why can't things work out like I think I want, I'm going to freeze to death next winter, I'm going to have to take another bar exam, I'll lose my friends and my beautiful southern countryside, blah blah blah. I sniveled for a while and went out and rode Champ. He's my emotional rock, whether he likes it or not.
We had a lovely ride. It was a very foggy grey day. The first big lake had a small flock of mallards, who took off and squawked away, and two Canada geese, who honked and swam in circles and completely captivated Cersei. We continued on, all the way back to the deer shooting field off the back corner of the property, and it looked otherworldly. Champ grazed happily on the green grass while I took some pictures.
The big cottonwoods by the creek are covered in kudzu vines, like shackled giants.
Fuzzy horizon.
Cersei snurfled around the kudzu at the edge of the creek. A minute after I took this, she turned up an armadillo. My very first live armadillo! It was completely unfazed by her - it took two steps and tumbled down the edge of the creek. She growled at it and sniffed where it had been and stared over the edge for a while, then we moved on.
We grazed our way to the end of the green grass, then I thought I'd canter Champ back to the tree line. As always, he had other ideas, and when I asked him to speed up he gaited back toward home. He lives to do the opposite of what I ask, sigh!
Back at the skeet shooting lake, Cersei started not one but TWO deer. I swear, I think deer know exactly how long hunting season is. Before the season, I'd see 2-3 a week, but during hunting season I was lucky to hear a deer a week. Now, two days after the season closed, I saw two big deer from 50 feet away!
By the time we got back, I felt a lot better. Accept the things I cannot change, most people never manage to move anywhere even when they want to, it'll be an adventure, etc. I still get a little overwhelmed thinking about the logistics of a possible move, but if it happens, I'll deal.
Yesterday was the big Ice Storm. Well, it, uh, didn't. I mean there was a little snow on the ground, so the schools were closed, but no real ice. Graham's car had a 4" icicle hanging off the bumper, but that was the biggest piece of ice I saw. It never got cold enough for the ground to freeze. The cats were furious about the snow - they spent all morning in the windows, glaring outside and twitching their tails. They'd look over at us occasionally, but I'm not sure if they wanted us to let them out to investigate or somehow magically make the snow disappear. We did neither.
I got a book from the library that's waaaay beyond my abilities, but I'm enjoying it anyway. Advanced Dressage, by Anthony Crossley. The review of the fundamentals (legs, seat, hands, etc) was helpful for me, and at least I'll know what yall are talking about when you discuss the fine differences between shoulders-in and leg yielding. I'm thinking about buying the previous book, Training the Young Horse.
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