Merry Christmas!

JOMPy and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We hope that you and your family have a wonderful time celebrating the season in your own way – and of course that you find lots of books under your tree!

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about library etiquette…


For the regular library patrons among us: do you have your own idea of what constitutes proper library etiquette? Is there anything you always try to do? Anything you hate when others do?



PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Musing Mondays post, or share your opinion in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks.

Between work, friends and my own borrowing I spend a fair amount of time in libraries. In fact I'd probably spend around eight hours every week in various libraries. As such, I see how a lot of people behave in libraries and have developed some very strong pet peeves - and now I'm wondering if I'm the only one!

There's the usual, of course - people being too noisy, dog-earring books, never returning them - but there's other things that I've come to dislike that I never thought would bug me. Like people returning books to the shelves with the spine facing in. I realise that not everyone is library-saavy, and that they may return it to the wrong spot - but back to front? really? It bugs me.

Another thing is when people leave their searches open on the collection computers. You only have to press one button ('New Search') to get a fresh page, but people NEVER do it. And then when the next person steps up, you're met with their search terms - and people look up some odd things.

And lastly - the people who wait until the 'This library will be closing in five minutes' call to come up to the desk with a question that's going to take five hours to answer. And they do it, every time.

As for things I try to do - well, firstly the opposite of all of these, because I know they bug me. I always try to keep the book tidy, returning it without the receipt or envelopes being used as bookmarks. I use the self-check machine and split my returns up in the tray (NF, F, YA) so they're easier to shelve, and usually take most of them back myself.

What about you? Any pet peeves?

Help! I need rescuing!

That is me.

Well, to be fair, my mountain is not all paper-work, but the sentiment is true. As such, I've become progressively more behind in my blogging. And it was starting to get to me. I was starting to panic by the growing amount of non-reviewed books on my desk, and the number of posts in my Google Reader (did you know that when you hit 1000, they stop counting??). I've decided that this is not healthy, and that feeling guilty about not having updated my blog is ridiculous. It is, after all, merely one thing on my to-do list.

So! To that end, I have made a decision - poor little JOMPy is taking a holiday.

Musing Mondays will continue to be posted, but for the most part I won't be blogging again until January. I am wiping the slate clean on owing reviews (except, of course, for the few ARCs I have), and will be starting fresh next year. There will probably be the usual end-of-year challenge summaries and sign ups - and of course I'll be around to wish you all a Merry Christmas - but other that that I'll be going into temporary blogging hibernation.

I do apologise to those of you whom I haven't been commenting on. I haven't forgotten you!

Musing Mondays (Nov 30)

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about reading/blogging during the holidays…

How does your reading (or your blogging) fare in the holiday months? Do you read more or less? Do you have to actively make time to read?

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Musing Mondays post, or share your opinion in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks.

I don't know about the rest of you but come mid-October, my reading (and then my blogging) takes a definite nose-dive. Between Christmas shopping, holiday crafting, Christmas card making and sending, I don't have a whole lot of time left over. I find that I usually have two or three books that sit on my bedside right over Christmas, and my blog sits mostly untouched (sorry about that, by the way).

I do try to set aside some 'under-the-tree' reading time for my usual Christmas books, but aside from this, the months go so fast that it's over before I even realise they've begun.

What about the rest of you?

Wordless Wednesday (Nov 25)

 
‘After School’

click for more Wordless Wednesday

click for more of my photography

A-Z Wednesday (Nov 25)

 

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicky of Reading at the Beach

To join, here's all you have to do: Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link(amazon, barnes and noble etc.).
Be sure to visit other participants to see what book they have posted and leave them a comment. (We all love comments, don't we?) Who knows? You may find your next "favorite" book.

THIS WEEK'S LETTER IS: P

Here is my “P” Title:

Peter Pan and Wendy – J.M. Barrie
267 pages; published 1911

In stifling Edwardian London, Wendy Darling mesmerizes her brothers nightly with bedtime tales of swordplay, swashbuckling and the fearsome Hook. But the children become the heroes of an even greater story when Peter Pan flies into their nursery one night and leads them over moonlit rooftops through a galaxy of stars to the lush jungles of Neverland. Wendy and her brothers join Peter and the Lost Boys in an exhilarating life free of grown-up rules, while also facing the inevitable showdown with Hook and his bloodthirsty pirates.

Teaser Tuesday (Nov 24)

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page. 
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

 

 

Silence. I am trying to look harmless, and nice. Nice looms large in Clare’s childhood, because so many people aren’t. (40)

The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

Musing Mondays (Nov 23)

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about your bookshelf… 

Tomorrow I have my first teaching job (yes, I’m sharing my non-book bloggy news!) and it’s inspired today’s Musing Monday.

What books did you read while in school? Were there any that you particular liked, or even hated? Did any become lifelong favourites?

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Musing Mondays post, or share your opinion in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks.

  
I always loved when we came to starting a new novel unit at school – one student would be the person to go collect the books (you, if you were really lucky!), you’d take a book out of the box and then the whole class would walk down to the library to line up and borrow it out. Best part of the year. What can I say? I was always a book nerd (I’m sure you can relate).

The funny thing is, I don’t seem to remember a lot of the books we read – why I have no idea, because it was something I truly enjoyed. I remember that in Year 8 I read Scott Monk’s Boys ‘R’ Us. I didn’t dislike the book, and have evenreread it since, but it wasn’t a book that I loved.

I also remember reading Shakespeare, as you do in school – Othello, Hamlet, The Tempest - but read them far more in uni.

The text I read for Year 12 was Jane Austen’s Emma, which I loved, but love it far more now that I’m not studying it. I also remember stealing my friends Year 12 books to try out that year also (Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi).

The first book I think of, however, when asked about school books was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read in Year 10. I’m sure a lot of people read TKAM in high school, but I can remember thinking that this was the first big book that I’d read in school. It was Year 10 – the first year my school set an Advanced English class – and it was the first time I’d truly discussed a book. It helped that the English teacher that year loved TKAM … well it was probably a toss up as to whether she loved the book or Atticus Finch more. I loved it then and, if possible, love it even more now.

Wordless Wednesday

‘Garswood’

click for more Wordless Wednesday

click for more of my photography

A-Z Wednesday (Nov 18)

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicky of Reading at the Beach

To join, here's all you have to do: Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link(amazon, barnes and noble etc.).
Be sure to visit other participants to see what book they have posted and leave them a comment. (We all love comments, don't we?) Who knows? You may find your next "favorite" book.

THIS WEEK'S LETTER IS: O

Here is my “O” Title:

Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
528 pages; published 1998

From Amazon
Oscar Hopkins is a high-strung preacher's kid with hydrophobia and noisy knees. Lucinda Leplastrier is a frizzy-haired heiress who impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. In the early parts of this lushly written book, author Peter Carey renders the seminal turning points in his protagonists' childhoods as exquisite 19th-century set pieces. Young Oscar, denied the heavenly fruit of a Christmas pudding by his cruelly stern father, forever renounces his father's religion in favor of the Anglican Church. "Dear God," Oscar prays, "if it be Thy will that Thy people eat pudding, smite him!" Lucinda's childhood trauma involves a beautiful doll bought by her struggling mother with savings from the jam jar; in a misguided attempt to tame the doll's unruly curls, young Lucinda mutilates her treasure beyond repair. Neither of these coming-of-age stories quite explains how the grownup Oscar and Lucinda each develop a guilty passion for gambling. Oscar plays the horses while at school, and Lucinda, now an orphaned heiress, finds comfort in a game of cards with an odd collection of acquaintances. When the two finally meet, on board a ship bound for New South Wales, they are bound by their affinity for risk, their loneliness, and their awkwardly blossoming (but unexpressed) mutual affection. Their final high-stakes folly--transporting a crystal palace of a church across (literally) godforsaken terrain--strains plausibility, and events turn ghastly as Oscar plays out his bid for Lucinda's heart. Yet even the unconvincing plot turns are made up for by Carey's rich prose and the tale's unpredictable outcome. Although love proves to be the ultimate gamble for Oscar and Lucinda, the story never strays too far from the terrible possibility that even the most thunderstruck lovers can remain isolated in parallel lives.