I am feeling worried, intimidated  but also sort of  disgustingly gloatingly smug ( I hardly ever had any books I wanted to read through my teens)  about my recent  evaluation of my TBR pile. It got  so bad I had to fill myself with courage and tried to alphabetize it. Sort of, it did not quite fit the available bookcase shelves, yeah, shelves, unnamed number of shelves even after some ruthless pruning ( ruthless meaning quitting on 8 books, and changing my mind back already on two), so it´s sort of alphabetical but considering it has to fit, so it´s all vertical, horizontal and diagonal to make it fit. But I know where each letter is, more or less. I thought to challenge myself with an A-Z challenge strictly from the TBR pile, but I am not that bad, there were a couple letters absent. BTW any recommendations for something special by an author starting with the letter Y?

I should have taken the opportunity for scientific measurements of the height of each pile,  but still I think the pile for M managed to win over the pile for C ( with pike P a more distant third) easily.

Is any of you on goodreads? I have been checking it out, but refused to give them acess to my gmail adressbook on me-not-spammer principle. It is interesting, but honestly their ranking system just does not have enough phase space for all levels of love-hate.....

I think I still remember the password (if you see this, I did), but  obviously I have not posted in long enough to not recognize the layout. Much too long.  If it applies, apologies for the long silence, sometimes it feels like everything you got to say is a waste of electrons or time. But I have been reminded of the fun of sharing opinions on books with others, and because it is probably simpler than mailing the two  or three of you which might be interested here goes.

First of all, I rediscovered http://www.bookfinder.com. I have not used it or abebooks a lot in the past year, but  the currency exchange is now totally different than what it was when I stopped using it. Wow. I am working hard to rationing myself. But, just because, any special recommendations? I have been working hard at the to be read Hoard ( honestly, I feel about it like a dragon with gold) and have not kept track of recent releases.

I have read a couple books highly recommended by some of you lately. Most recently of all <b>Flora Segunda</b>, which was addictive, very quirky atmosphere ( teen girl Ghormengast like, aztec-californian universe) and I liked very much almost all the characters. The problem was the plot, which seems to be about trusting people (and magic entities) and things happen, sometimes works, sometimes not, I am not really sure I see quite the reason why it works on some cases and others not. I sure loved the atmosphere though.

Also just read <b>Devilish</b>. It´s contemporary YA catholic Faust deal. But something there did not quite work for me.  It was sort of my cup of tea, but some unidentifiable bit made it just not totally to my taste. Not a very helpful opinion at all, sorry.

By the way, i do mean it about the book recs, please ;)

The longest I spend without giving any news, the hardest is to find a really good reason to write about, and right now the one I found is some very honest wishes all of you have a very happy 2008 - if I can see some of you live the best. And hey X this is valid also for people 20 kms away ;) Ok, my fault as well.

On local news, not breaking with tradition I got a cold for the holidays. I finished the flu vacination some 11 days ago, I don´t know how this is possible, but my plans for New Year´s Day are sort of gravitating to bed/sofa, a nice easy book, and for some reason risotto. Risotto is now my new comfort food for when I am feeling ill. It´s more respectable than porridge, and a lot more respectable than Nestum ( honey flavour. Because sometimes it is just *is* the right food for an adult).

Happy New Year to all.

It´s officially summer, not only it´s getting hot, but I have been to the beach, yay. I am picky about beach conditions, but a few not-high-noon hours on nice uncrowded, wild beach does very good things to parts of my mind. On books read, I have been quite slow, but I have read a couple things some of you might be interested in.

- First Patricia McKillip´s Solstice Wood. I loved it, more than Winter Rose, it´s not typical McKillip but some of it seemed just so right to me. I am going to have to hunt down reviews, I am interested of what people thought of that ending, it seemed quite fair to me, a balance to Winter Rose, let the other side have its say.

-Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb, a fandom murder mystery, sequel to the very brilliant Bimbos of the Death Sun. Totally different in tone, meant almost seriously rather than satirical, not nearly as much fun, but perhaps fairer to fandom. I did like it a lot.

-Making my way through Sharon Shinn´s new fantasy series which started with Mystic and Rider. A bit so-so to me, and the second book was seriously annoying in plotting, and yes slow. And unfair to a character which was meant to be important but never passed from a cypher there. Not sure if am hooked enough to read any more. Anybody tried her (other) new YA fantasy series?

-New Moon by Stephenie Meyer, second in a new teen vampire thing. I quit here. It´s all very meant to appeal to teens, the angst, the declarations of love, like with fashions, I am not objecting to the ingredients but just to how there is no stop to adding those ingredients.

-Stick Figure by Lori Gottlieb, a (probably fictionalized) autobiography of the author´s bout with anorexia when she was a pre-teen. I got this rec from a newspaper article about adults reading YA fiction (*no guilt there*), and I loved this. The description is accurate but it is somehow completely different than I expected, a great voice, very funny, and avoiding that dreaded "women suffering and triumphing" sort of tone ( you know what I mean...). It was great, and an extra eye opener. A couple days after reading it, I chance upon a site of a photoshop studio, their portfolio of work is still, weeks later, making me feel sad and somewhat angry. Maybe photoshop really should be forbidden, at least for articles supposed to be news ...

And a read/reread of Elizabeth Peters old mysteries, summer reading by definition. Some annoying chick lit

I remain very bad about keeping track of everything, except possibly posts involving puppies, my apologies. But I have been actually finishing a few books, I think the trick was a definite change of palate, no real wow books ( I wish!) but some which I managed to get into and finish.

• Kitchen Confidential - sort of a tell all memoir set in the restaurant business. There is a pretty useful chapter ( it seems the most important high end restaurant cooking trick is butter), easy to read, funny and colorful. I might never eat mussels again though - apart from possibly in Galicia, because they are so good there, and so far never been ill there. So far..
  
  
• Wintersmith - new Terry Pratchett, I would read this sooner or later. New to me because I am always some months late with his books. This is a new Tiffany Aching novel, now with romance. Of a sort. With Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg (with a cameo by Magrat I think). With Tiffany, Pratchett seems to be able to change the witches series a bit, make it a bit newer, though the series seem to be merging nicely. BTW Granny gets a kitten, which is not a spoiler because it is right at the beginning. It´s not my favorite of Pratchett´s novels, but I liked it and better than Thud and Going Postal.
  
  
• Knit one, kill two - a knitting murder mistery, all I can say is that I am trying different genres, and I was curious, just in case and because I wanted to see how it is pulled off. In fact the whole mistery genre is incredible, you got mistery series about everything it seems. There are probably mistery series about avocado growing. Or hamsters as detectives. I gave this a try. It just did not work for me. And these characters felt very very remote to me. In the fiction I like to read, somebody who knits something neon lime with cherry details is not on the side of good.
  
  
• Dead Famous - a murder mistery set in Big Brother´s House. Very satirical of course.I liked this a lot. Sadly I suspect the most shocking details might actually be true.
  
  
• Twilight - a sort of teen YA novel. I might be having Buffy withdrawal symptoms years after the fact or something. I first saw it on fnac, but checking later this seems to be hugely popular, my book radar is not what it once was. I enjoyed this, might read the sequel but a warning, in my opinion this is very much a teenage fantasy fulfillment book. Not that there is nothing wrong with that, if you have the patience for it ( I do. And I am in one of those moods) but if one starts to think too much, the plot is perhaps a bit weak. And the book seems mostly to be about how gorgeous the male vampire is and how in love he completely is with our main (female) character, lots and lots of devoted love, I think mostly due to her smelling delicious to a vampire. No sex - and I must rant a little bit how in a lot of popular culture, vampirism seems to be a lot more acceptable than characters ( say 17 or 18) having sex. Vampire boyfriends, excellent way of not having sex, boyfriends can´t do it or will kill you, or lose their soul, or you got to do it to save their lives or something. And don´t get me talking of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.
  
  
• Priestess of the White - it´s the first on one of those fantasy series, seems to be pretty popular, I picked it up by accident. It´s a bit predictable, I think it is directed mostly at teens, but I am sort of impressed. It´s like a simple dish, but pretty well cooked and served. You more or less know what you are getting, but the author gets it presented fast and with a couple interesting details. I am not sure if I will read the rest of the series ( it´s on going for a start) but I will actually finish this volume, which is more than can be said for other versions of this type of thing ( sort ofYA, sort of medieval with magic, multi volume fantasy).
  
  

I have just been attacked by a piece of paper. Honestly papercuts are one of those things which make you really sure life is not some platonic cave fiction, nobody would invent paper cuts and expect people to believe it.

I am very shopping depressed, mother´s day is sunday (at least here is) and I am getting very panicky. Plus my unrealistic expectations about affordable, pretty and not lame swimsuits and coats. And we might cut the affordable of the sentence, because I have not seen any of any kind, though I got to admit I have trained myself to not look at some things with likely painful price tags. And it´s raining. I must whine....

In case somebody has not heard of it yet, S and T had been recommending me http://bookdepository.co.uk/ for a while, I finally gave in, and I think this is going to became a huge favorite. British site, prices perhaps a little bit higher than regular UK or US amazon, but free shipping to a whole lot of countries. Free shipping of any book, I can´t tell you how that makes me want to cry in a very good way and if you got an amazon site in your country, you won´t understand. But free shipping without any visible strings, meaning I can order a £3.44 american paperback, it gets here in 2 or 3 days and it costs me just a smidgeon over 5 euros. I love the internet sometimes.

Today is a holiday and I am dedicating myself to trying to catch up on bloglines - and it is making me realize how very bad I have been at catching up with people lately, sorry sorry sorry! I am ok, feeling good (apart possibly from glances at the covers of sports newspapers when unavoidable. Or my inability to find a spring coat), I think sometimes I sort of forget to talk. Ok possibly because I got nothing interesting or new to talk about, but that does not stop me most of the time, I am not quite sure why sometimes I keep postponing answering mails or making phone calls. I can´t even blame it on feeling depressed or low, and I am not uninterested, really, totally honest on it. Hugs to all in any case.

And a sort of a gloat, spring is here, yay, I am wearing a dress. A dress I optimistically bought in December, and with a cardigan, yes, but a dress. Feels sort of a victory.

And a request, I am in a book rut. Nothing is seeming just right. What I really want ( and H and AE both separately made me think of it recently) is perhaps another Megan Whalen Turner book, but that is not likely to come any time soon. Anybody good recs of anything similar or anything very good but totally different to shock my "palate"?

ouch, I just killed another keyboard with diet coke, oh why why?!? They should certainly be able to do to make diet and regular coke resistant keyboards by now, it was just a couple drops! Extremely embarrassingly, it´s not even MY keyboard ( my nice sweet resistant keyboard, *lurve*). Ok, maybe I better present this as just a malfunction, these keyboards sure are flimsy.

Aparentemente o actual treinador do Benfica tem uma licenciatura melhor ( e menos mafiosa) que o actual primeiro ministro de Portugal. O treinador do Benfica tem mais direito a ser chamado de engenheiro que o "engenheiro" Sócrates. Este país às vezes consegue-se exceder a si mesmo....

Footballing wise, crazy time of the year. This weekend, Porto is coming over to play in the Stadium of Light, nuff said. And going by my traditional rigor of adressing what is really important in football



Ok, who are those people in white? The game was Serbia-Portugal ( result 1-1, which is OK, but left us wanting something a bit more) and theoretically that is Portugal, I think I recognize a few people ( yes, there is only one Petit. We love him like that BTW). What is on with the white?!? Portugal´s home kit is a rather nice dark red, the away kit is a rather cool all black, white is not on the cards... I suspected some shenanigans with Nike and contracts, but the Nike logo is there. Bring back the black, it was a Nike idea, but it is got to be said that being Portuguese we do tend to look good in black. My only theory so far is that we were trying to do an impression of Argentina, but I don´t know what they wore in *that* game.

Ah, still about football, an account ( in portuguese, sorry) of what really was going on on the Portugal-Belgium. And X, you better be ready to go see that Belgium-Portugal....