Amazon discontinued the ability to create images using their SiteStripe feature and in their infinite wisdom broke all previously created images on 12/31/23. Many blogs used this feature, including this one. Expect my archives to be a hot mess of broken book cover images until I can slowly comb through 20 years of archives to make corrections.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Paris, H&H, Bond, and Books

My knee-jerk reaction during times of great tragedy is to go dark on social media.  1) Because I never know what to say 2) Even if I thought I knew what to say there's always the chance I'll step in it and say the absolute wrong thing and 3) This is all assuming that any words I would say would be of any use to anybody dealing with a horrific tragedy like what has unfolded in the past couple of days in the cities of Beirut and Paris.

My solution is to stay positive, stay upbeat, and blog about something happy like love and romance novels.  And to leave you with these thoughts: positivity never hurt anybody.  Be good to each other Romancelandia peeps.  Hug your loved ones a little tighter, and don't let a wasted moment go by where you can kiss them, tell them how important they are to you, how life is a little better, a little easier, a little brighter, because you have each other. 

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I have a new post up over at Heroes & Heartbreakers, and surprise, surprise - it's about historical romance.  What would I love to see more of in historical romances?  Head on over and read Please Madam, May I Have Some More? to find out.

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You know how everyone on the Interwebs is losing their damn minds over the new Star Wars movie?  Yeah, that was me with Spectre, the latest James Bond / Daniel Craig offering, which I finally saw yesterday.

Final verdict: It wasn't terrible, but I was underwhelmed.  Probably a B- underwhelmed.  Here's my review in bullet points:

  • I miss Judi Dench. A lot. Craig / Fiennes just don't have the same chemistry.

  • Monica Belluci is criminally underutilized.

  • There needed to be buckets more Craig / Waltz on screen together. 

  • I never cared for the Moneypenny character in the old movies but love how they've rewritten her in the new movies.

  • The opening sequence. Mexico City during Día de Muertos = inspired.  Horrible blue screen during helicopter sequence = really, really not good.  They couldn't have thrown some more money at that to make the blue screen look less obvious?

  • I think I liked it better than Quantum of Solace, but nowhere near the caliber of Casino Royale or Skyfall.  QoS grew on me after I rewatched it - I'm hoping Spectre follows the same pattern.
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We had repairmen in the Bat Cave this week that required me to move my book case.  This required taking books off said book case, which in turn led to me doing a massive sort and weed as I was putting things to right after the repairmen left.

Stating the obvious, good golly I have a ton of books.  Between an addiction to used bookstores, library sales, and the multitude of books I get at conferences - it's no wonder I have TBR anxiety.  I finally admitted some hard truths to myself and got rid of things I know I'd never read.  Yes, you may be one of my favorite authors but I'm just not going to read your paranormals.  I read so few single title contemporaries, why did I pick this one up again?  Cutesy sounding historicals - that ship has sailed.  And on and on I went.  I didn't count, but I think I easily ended up weeding out a couple of hundred (did I stutter?).  Now it's just a matter of stealing boxes from work, taking them in to work, and finding them new homes.  Hopefully somewhere they won't be neglected.

6 comments:

willaful said...

Bravo, brave TBR declutterer! You won't regret it... iyou can always borrow the ebooks from the library.

Becky said...

Today I, for the first time ever, sought out "cats and boxes" as well as "cats in circles." Apparently Facebook was a little stressful today...

Jazzlet said...

Well done on the weeding, it is so hard.

Anna Richland said...

Decluttering idea -

Give a friend a landmark birthday basket of books, one for each year. I managed to get everything up off the floor by giving a friend 50 books of a wide variety, from nonfiction to mystery to every subgenre of a romance, including an ironic book about leading a Simple Life (why the heck was that taking up my shelf space?).

We can all pass on 40 or 50 in a fell swoop, I bet!

PK the Bookeemonster said...

I did a MAJOR organizing and weeding out in 2009. At library sales, if it even remotely sounded like a potential maybe I would get it because for a buck or less, why not? I asked of myself in the declutter process: would I ever REALLY read it? And out a lot of books went. It was lovely. And made room for more. :)

Wendy said...

Anna: Bwahahaha! Make my problem someone else's problem - I love it!

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I've been reading romance long enough now that I've seen my tastes/preferences change over time. What sounded like a potentially great read to me 5 years ago? Uh, maybe not so much now. Or I find myself getting burnt out on certain themes/tropes that used to be catnip. I'm usually pretty good with purging the category romance pile, but my mountain range of single titles was LONG overdue.