Monday Malarkey - The Internet blows up, Christmas arrives early, flamingos fight, and bookish things

Last week, the internet felt a little like a flamboyance of flamingos. Those guys really like to fight. And, the internet was aflame with controversy. We'll talk more about that in a moment. First, the usual dose of malarkey. Also, yes, I went to the zoo with my camera. 

Last week's posts:

• Me on the Floor, Bleeding by Jenny Jagerfeld (review)
• Catch-Up #3: Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming (review), The Giver (review and F2F report)
• Fiona Friday: Basket Case (cat photo)

Last week I read exactly one book:

• Ballistics by Billy Collins (poetry)

Currently reading:

• Big Fish by Daniel Wallace - Last week, ugh. It was not a good one. I "grazed" or as Andi refers to the process of reading bits of one book then another then another, "taste-tested" numerous books. I thought Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje was going to be the one that hung onto me, but I was wrong. There's still a bookmark in Divisadero and I'm hoping it still will click, but it wasn't till Big Fish that I finally read without drifting off, looking at the dust that needs to be wiped off the fan or stopping to think about something entirely unrelated to my reading material in the middle of a passage. Lord only knows how many books I abandoned. When it takes you a week to read a small volume of poetry, you know something is off. I will probably finish Big Fish, today. Then, we'll see what happens. For now, I'm grateful to Daniel Wallace for breaking a bad spell.

Ditched, but only temporarily:

• Hieroglyphs - ed. by Finn and Cramer - I misplaced this book so many times that I've decided to temporarily pull it off my sidebar while I clean the mess known as my TBR pile, which has spread out like a second carpeting (thanks to all that grazing). No wonder things are getting buried. I enjoyed the first story in Hieroglyphs and absolutely will continue the reading but having it in my sidebar without getting beyond the opening story for 3 weeks has finally intimidated me enough that I don't want to keep looking at the image, so I'm going to take it down and put it back up when I've made some decent progress.

Recent Arrivals:  I've had so few arrivals in recent weeks that I neglected to put this category at the top, where it typically goes. I got Christmas books! This week's arrivals:

Unsolicited from Sterling Children's Books (and very welcome!):

• When, When, When will it be Christmas? by Cathy MacLennan
• A Pirate's Night Before Christmas by Philip Yates, illus. by Sebastia Serra
• The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore, illus. by Tom Browning
• The Great Reindeer Rebellion by Lisa Trumbauer, illus. by Jannie Ho

I'm particularly excited about The Night Before Christmas because the new granddaughter I think of as Tiny Anonymous Human (since I'm not allowed to post photos or mention her name) definitely needs her own copy of The Night Before Christmas. I can't wait to read it to her! But, alas, I have some waiting to do.

From a friend: 

• Out by Natsuo Karino

Movies:

We watched Bringing Out the Dead (1999), the movie version of Joe Connelly's fabulous novel (which is still sitting in my sidebar, but no worries . . . this one won't let go of me; I'll get around to reviewing). And, we watched the last halves of two other movies, which we happened across while flipping channels: Cactus Flower (a 1969 film I've heard of but had never before viewed starring Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman and Goldie Hawn, very entertaining) and Air America (an old favorite starring Mel Gibson in his glory days and Robert Downey, Jr. before he did drugs, got arrested, spent some time in jail, got his act together and became the fabulous creature he is, today).

In other news: 

We finally made a drink from Momosas by Paul Knorr. It was like dessert in a cup.  Yum!!!

Special message for e-book lovers and Colleen Gleason fans:

Colleen's Victoria Gardella Vampire series is being re-released in e-book form and The Rest Falls Away is on sale for a mere 99 cents for Kindle only until Thursday, Oct. 23.  Don't you love the new covers? I'm pretty sure I passed some of the earlier titles on to friends so I'll be buying copies of the new e-books. I've had regrets about not holding onto the entire series.

Final note:

Since I've had a couple very bad reading weeks . . . actually, 3 weeks, now (I've read a whopping 5 books in 20 days) and last week was just a Bad Internet Week, with various controversies and stupidity making me want to simultaneously rant and step away, I am going to avoid the computer for a couple weeks. I may drop in and write a review if I feel like it. But, there's not all that much left in my sidebar and apart from the backlog of children's books (most of which I need to reread before I can review them) it seems like a good time to take a mental health break for the restoration of my reading mojo and soul. I've found I need breaks from the Internet more often, now, no matter what's going on, but last week really did me in. Again, I may still drop in to write a review or two. I'm merely granting myself permission to step away for a couple weeks.

Happy Monday!

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