Champagne Wishes And Caviar Dreams

Today marks the 6th anniversary of The Misadventures Of Super Librarian. That's right kiddies, six years of glamor, sophistication, and so much librarian awesomeness that it's illegal in 23 states. (No joke. I even looked it up!)

Which in Internet dog years means I'm positively prehistoric. Maybe I need to start bitching more about you young whippersnappers.

"Why in my day posting a graphic to your blog required a secret handshake. And we didn't even have comments yet. When we did want a comments section, we had to install separate HTML code to get them. And even then nobody was commenting. And we had to walk to school, uphill, both ways, in blinding snow storms with holes in our shoes. And we were happy to have those holey shoes too!"

But seriously, it has been fun. Back when I started blogging (scientists refer to this period as The Dark Ages) I had no idea that my vain little hobby would actually pan out to be much of anything. I started a blog for one reason and one reason only - I like to hear myself talk. Or type as the case may be. I literally just started throwing shit stuff up on my own personal Internet wall to see what would stick. I had no grand plan. Hell, I didn't even have a half-assed drunken plan I scribbled down on a cocktail napkin. I winged it. Which is the stellar advice I give to all the young'un baby bloggers crazy enough to e-mail me for "advice" on "how do I get started?"

Yeah, which pretty much makes me no help at all.

But that's how I did it, and it worked for me, so there you go. And because I have no life, I stuck with blogging - even when nobody was reading. Oh, as in the first two years. Seriously. But I stuck to my guns, and now I'm the overnight sensation you see standing before you.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! ::wiping tear from corner of eye::

Honestly I amuse the hell out of myself. I'm not sure what's funnier - the "overnight" or the "sensation" part.

Ahem, so anyway, thanks to everybody who has stopped by over the years. The people who read my blog in spite of the fact that they don't like westerns. The people who don't even read romance novels. The people who really miss the wacky librarian stories I used to tell. And the one or two trolls I've picked up over the years. Yes, I even like you. Mostly because I can't believe I have trolls. My running theory is you got lost on your way to Dear Author, Smart Bitches or Karen's.

I'm not sure what's in store for this blog down the road, only that I have no intention of giving it up. It's mine. My own shiny Internet bauble that sparkles in the sun. Everybody could stop visiting tomorrow, and while I would miss you all terribly, I still wouldn't quit. Because, you know, the whole not having a life thing.

OK, that's enough self-deprecation. Now on with the celebration! Party time! Air kisses and cosmopolitans all around! Or Jello shots and keg stands for those of you who swing that way. Either way, keep on truckin'.

Groovy Man, Like Far Out

I work in a fairly sterile office environment, so it's always fun to go out to one of our branches and weed through their adult fiction. You think cover art is atrocious now? Yeah, nothing close to as horrifying as the decade in publishing that was the 1970s. I came across this gem today, published back in 1971.

Scary, isn't it? Like a really bad acid trip. The kind of acid trip they always depict in those anti-drug movies where the pretty blond girl-next-door loses her mind and jumps out of a 20-story window because she wants to fly, fly, fly like a bird.

There are days I'm glad I don't remember the 1970s, and this would be one of them. ::shudder::

Power to the people dude!

Oh No They Aren't!

Dear Hollywood Assholes Incapable of Having An Original Idea,

I read on the Internet today that there are plans for another movie version of the popular board game, Clue. OK, this time you assholes have gone too far. I've been annoyed by the fact that no one in Hollywood seems capable of coming up with an original horror movie idea ("Hey, let's make another version of Friday the 13th!" "How about Saw 25?" "Let's have Rob Zombie remake Halloween!"), but I've been able to roll with it because, quite frankly, I'm not a horror movie fan. But now y'all are messing around with a movie that doesn't need to be messed with.

It's quite possible only my Lil' Sis and BFF will understand my anguish, but the 1985 movie version of Clue is one of my all-time favorite movies. Besides my insatiable crush on Tim Curry, it also features the delectable Lesley Ann Warren as Miss Scarlet (I would kill for the dress she wears in the movie!), plus amusing appearances by Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull and Michael McKean. But the clincher? The pièce de résistance? Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White. Madeline frickin' Kahn!

And you want to make another movie version? When the first go around featured Madeline frickin' Kahn! Are y'all high? Seriously, I need to know. You're all high, aren't you?

It's funny, it's got a slew of fabulous one-liners (I can quote the whole damn movie), and it amuses the crap out of me. It's goofy and silly and there are a bunch of dead bodies. Heck, there are even three alternate endings. It's like a visual Choose Your Own Adventure with dead bodies in it. It doesn't get better than that.

And now y'all want to go and make another one. Leave it alone. Get a clue (pun intended). Come up with an original idea already. What other favorite films of mine are going to be next? A new version of Gone With the Wind starring Zac Efron as Rhett Butler? (Shoot me now if this is the case. Please. I'd consider it a mercy killing.) Fight Club starring Robert Pattinson? Fried Green Tomatoes with Miley Cyrus?

ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Seriously, you all suck.

Sincerely,
Little Miss Crabby Pants AKA Wendy the Super Librarian

I'll Make You A Star!

In case you wanted further proof that I've been blogging a long ass time, way back in June of 2005 I read a category romance featuring a librarian heroine. It wasn't the worst librarian heroine I'd ever read about, but it did insult my intelligence. In the comments of that blog post, Lilith Saintcrow chimed in and what followed was her writing a book about a demon hunting librarian. She sent me the first draft, and I read it during a time in my life where I wasn't a happy girl. (I had applied for my current position and was flatly turned down. Fail!)

But all good things come to those who wait. I eventually did get My Super Awesome Job and Lilith eventually got her demon hunting librarian story published.

The Demon's Librarian has been published by Imajinn and is now available as an ebook through Fictionwise. A print version is apparently in the works, and according to Lilith, will hopefully be available to order in the next couple of weeks. Keeping in mind I read an early draft of this story (and I'm not sure how much reworking/editing Lilith has done to it since then), I really enjoyed this book. My 2005 reading records were destroyed in a Great Computer Meltdown, but I seem to recall I graded this one around a B or B+. The librarian heroine is fantabulous, and I'm not just saying that because the book is dedicated to me. She really is that fantabulous. So without further ado....

Description:

Demons are preying on schoolchildren in her city, so Francesca Barnes does what any red-blooded librarian would do--she does some research and goes hunting. But the books she finds in a secret cache don't tell her the whole story. Chess has no idea what she's just stepped into or just how special she is.

Orion is Drakul, part demon, and a loyal servant of the Order. He doesn't expect a motorcycle-riding librarian to be messing around with demonic forces, and he doesn't expect her to smell so damn good. But Ryan's got bigger problems. His partner has disappeared, and the forces of Darkness are rising.

Now Chess is Ryan's only hope of finding his partner, and Ryan is Chess's only hope of survival because the demons now know Chess exists and that she is the heir to a long-lost power that could push back their dark tide. If Ryan can keep her alive long enough, she just might be the key to destroying the demons completely. But Ryan doesn't know he's been betrayed by the very Order he serves. And if Chess does, by some miracle survive, he won't ever be able to touch her again. . .

To add to the all around awesomeness, there's a really healthy excerpt over at Fictionwise. You should read it. And then, of course, you should buy yourself a copy. Me? I'm going to try and restrain myself and wait for the print version to be released. Because, being honest and all, as much as I love reading on my Sony Reader, I want a Dead Tree Copy to show off to my family and friends so they'll finally realize how cool I am.

My Own Private Oscar Party

Lord help me, I love watching the Oscars. Even though I think the Academy has been extremely out of touch the last few years (I'm still not over the crap-fest that was last year's best picture nominees). My Man would rather be boiled in oil than watch any type of awards show (he's an equal opportunity hater), which means I spend Oscar night hanging out in our bedroom watching the ceremony on The Other TV. This year it was me, a frozen pizza and a box of 75% off Valentine's Day candy I scored at the grocery store. Seriously, all I needed was a bottle of cheap wine to complete the night. Here's my rundown of the show:

I thought Hugh Jackman did a nice job. He was charming, funny and easy on the eyes. I liked the funny moments with Ben Stiller, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, Jack Black and the Pineapple Express boys. In theory, I liked that they brought out five previous winners to introduce the nominees in the acting category. I liked seeing Joel Grey. I liked seeing Sophia Loren. But the introductions were a little too ass-kissie and it slowed down the show. Best speeches of the night go to Kate Winslet and Sean Penn. It took forever to get to the big awards, but they were worth the wait.

I seriously, seriously, seriously could have done without the dippy musical number in the middle of the show. Besides the fact that it was beyond pointless, I'm so sick of seeing Beyonce everywhere I could just scream. The show is already long to begin with, there's really no need for a pointless musical number in the middle of it to make it even longer.

Now on to the most important stuff. What I thought of the clothes!

I'm like one of four women in this country who actually likes Angelina Jolie. She has a habit of dressing kinda blah for the red carpet, and this dress is no exception. It's the earrings that get me. I want to have babies with those earrings.




















In my Oh My God She's Not A Train Wreck category, we have Marisa Tomei. Let's be brutally honest here, she's not exactly known for dressing for success, and this awards season is no exception. But this isn't bad. Certainly I'm not in love with this dress, but it could have been sooooo much worse. Truly.



















Oh Viola Davis. Gold lame'? Honestly? But Taraji P. Henson! Oh. My. Gawd. She was my best dressed for the night. The dress was pretty, that necklace kicked ass, the hair was fantastic and the make-up! Every actress in Hollywood needs to find out who does her facials, because I would kill for her complexion. Girlfriend looks like she's never had a zit in her life. Ever.

















Best looking guy of the night was Robert Downey Jr. I'm excited about his upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie, but in most of the photos I've seen of him recently he looks quite old and tired. Like his previous lifestyle had finally caught up with him. I'm not sure what he's had done (Botox? Facials?), but he looks postively rejuvenated here. Fantastic!


















Who you callin' a bitch? I love the Queen! The dress is nice, but I'm really only putting her picture up here because she kicks ass. U.N.I.T.Y baby!























Worst dressed woman of the night for me was Jessica Biel. It looks like she went out to dinner before she hit the red carpet, decided she had nothing to wear, and stole the table cloth to wrap around herself.





















My worst dressed man goes to Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Frankly Mickey Rourke is too easy of a choice, and everyone expects him to show up on the red carpet looking like a deranged pirate from Hell. But Phillip? Such a good actor, I adore him to bits, but what the hell is he wearing on his head? Instead of the after parties, did he hang out on L.A.'s skid row?

Forceably Finding My Mojo

I did a stupid thing. I overextended myself in the book department. This might not be such a terrible thing if my mojo was firing on all cylinders. However as long time blog readers know, my reading numbers have seriously dipped in the last year. So what do I do? Genius that I am, I volunteer to read a bunch of stuff. Stuff with deadlines attached to them. Yeah, that's a great idea! ::headdesk:: So what do I have on tap for the next month?

• I'm moderating the romance panel at my library's upcoming Literary Event on April 4. I have at least two more books I need to read in preparation.
  

• I have Harlequins to review for TGTBTU. I have two more February Harlequin Historicals to review and four March books to review (a Blaze, a Silhouette Special Edition and 2 HHs). It's a good thing all the SuperRomances are baby books in March, or else I could be in serious trouble.
  

• The Orange County chapter of RWA asked me to be a judge in their Book Buyer's Best Contest for published authors. So yeah, I have five books to read for them before an April 7 deadline. Luckily three of the books are category romance, so I should be able to knock 'em out quickly.

I think I should probably be feeling more anxiety over getting myself in this situation, but damn, I'm seeing it as a challenge now. I really think I can pull it off. I really do. Because I am the Super Librarian! Hear me roar!

Which means I should probably stop typing up this blog post and get reading, huh? Off to work.

Those Pesky Assumptions

It's not exactly a huge secret that libraries receive donated books. It's also not a huge secret that some of these donated books can end up in the library's circulating collection. This is how a lot of libraries supply their paperback collection, which I am vehemently opposed to. Yes, put some donated paperbacks in your collection, but for the love of all that is holy, don't make donated paperbacks 100% of your collection. You'll have a really shitty collection. Just sayin'.

As the adult fiction buyer for a large library system, I do actively purchase paperbacks. Not as many as I should, but probably more than some of the librarians want me to. Hey, circulation numbers don't lie. That's all I'm saying. Ahem, anyway.....

We do still supplement our collection with donations. I don't think this is a bad thing. I do my best to take care of all the "big" stuff with central funds, and donations are there to sort of round it out. Frankly, I don't have the money to buy every single romance published every month. Nor would I want to, since we'd run out of shelving space (and money) rather quickly. So yes, donations are good.

We tend to do paperback donations on the fly. The branch gets together a stack of what they'd like to add, then they send the information (author, title, ISBN) directly to cataloging, who then throws up a brief record so the title is searchable in our catalog. That's about it. Piece of cake. Even though I'm in charge of buying the adult fiction, I never saw these donations. They were out of my hands. Which was fine, in theory...until I got control issues.

So I asked my boss to put me on the distribution list for when these titles were sent straight to cataloging. I'm not micro-managing. I'm not vetoing any of them and I don't slow down the work flow. No, I just wanted to see what was being added. Mostly out of curiosity, mostly to make sure I hadn't fudged up. Oh, like the time I forgot to buy a Lorraine Heath book, a donated copy got added to the collection, and the waiting list immediately shot up. (For the record, I think it was In Bed With The Devil, and yes, I immediately banged my head against my desk and ordered copies).

I don't like being surprised. That, and I'm a freak. So now I'm seeing all the donated paperbacks coming in through cataloging. And I have to say, it's been surprising.

I assumed that most of what I would be seeing were Harlequin Presents. Or as I like to call them, Those Books With The White Covers And Dreadful Titles. So imagine my shock that after a month of seeing the incoming donations that the HP line has been seriously dwarfed by....

Harlequin SuperRomance and Harlequin Historical.

Well I'll be dipped.

Certainly this is hardly a scientific study, but I'd always heard that the HP line was Harlequin's best seller. Maybe HP readers are keeping all those books about billionaires, mistresses and tycoons? Maybe HSR readers skew "older," those readers have more disposable income and are therefore more likely to donate their unwanted books to libraries instead of, say, trading them on sites like Paperback Swap or taking them to the used bookstore?

Although that doesn't sound right, because I love the HSR line and I'm not that "old." Not yet anyway.

Who the heck knows?

I'm finding it very interesting though, and more than a little enlightening. But I'm a geek like that, and tomorrow I'll work on getting a life.

Road Trip

It's a holiday here in the U.S. (President's Day), which means two things: 1) There's no mail delivery today and 2) Wendy has the day off. And since it's currently raining here in southern California, I plan on spending the day drinking entirely too much tea and reading some of the Harlequins I currently have loaded on ye olde Sony Reader.

In the meantime, I'm on the road today, flapping my gums on another blog. Kimber Chin is one of my fellow Romancing The Bloggers, and she e-mailed me a week or so back with an interview question. Would I pretty please consider helping her out with an upcoming post over at the Night Owl Romance blog? "Sure," I said. And I did. That post has gone live today. Go forth and learn about the first romance novels that I and several romance authors cut our teeth on.

Doesn't Hold Water

I am not a spider person. Needless to say moving to California has almost killed me, because dayum, there are some freaky spiders in this state. But I love me a good suspense novel, and what better to keep me up at night than a freaky suspense novel about spiders? So when an ARC for Say Goodbye by Lisa Gardner rolled into my office last spring, I grabbed it. And there it sat on my desk for months collecting dust. Finally, admitting defeat, I put my name on the massively long holds list for an audio book copy (I listened to the Books On Tape production, which is quite good).

First things first, listening to an audio book is a different experience than reading. It just is. For example, I cannot listen to romance on audio. I can't do it. Because inevitably I hit a love scene, and no matter how tame or raunchy, I feel like a pervert. I can read the skankiest, sweatiest, dirtiest, nastiest sex on the printed page, but having someone "read" it to me? Um yeah, no can do.

I was reminded of this while listening to Say Goodbye. Why? Well this is a Bad Things Happen To Kids book. As in Very Bad Things. I found it really, really disturbing. I have no doubt I'd still be disturbed by this suspense tale if I had read it - but not as much I don't think. It's one thing to read about bad things happening to good people; another thing entirely to have a narrator, in a creepy voice, tell you about the bad things happening to good people. Especially when the good people are, by and large, children. Yeah. It was a touch unsettling.

I've been reading and listening to suspense novels for a long time. While the majority of my blog readers were raiding their mama's stash of Harlequin Romances, I was reading Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton and Mary Higgins Clark. I cut my teeth on suspense. So trust me when I say it takes quite a bit for a suspense novel to disturb me. It just does.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Say Goodbye - because it's really breathtakingly good. It's just a really tough book, because while you know it's a fiction book, you also know that monsters like those in this book do exist in real life. And that's enough to make you install 15 dead bolts on every door of your house, throw your computer out into the street, and never let your kids out of your sight.

This was my first book by Gardner and in the author's note she says, "Of all the novels I've written, this book is by far the most violent, and yes, it was difficult to write." I imagine it was. I'm hoping she kept a strong bottle of something (whiskey? vodka?) in her desk drawer while writing this one, because dayum. But after I finished the last CD in the audio book I knew I immediately wanted to address many of the romance readers who have commented on some of my suspense reviews in the past....

Yeah, you know how y'all tell me you won't read suspense or mystery because it's "too scary." Yeah, if you've read this book by Gardner? That argument doesn't hold water. Because this book warped my fragile little mind, and I've read a ton of "scary stuff" over the years. No more excuses for not picking up the Chelsea Cain books. Just sayin'.

Description:

Come into my parlor . . .

For Kimberly Quincy, FBI Special Agent, it all starts with a pregnant hooker. The story Delilah Rose tells Kimberly about her johns is too horrifying to be true—but prostitutes are disappearing, one by one, with no explanation, and no one but Kimberly seems to care.

Said the spider to the fly . . .

As a member of the Evidence Response Team, dead hookers aren’t exactly Kimberly’s specialty. The young agent is five months pregnant—she has other things to worry about than an alleged lunatic who uses spiders to do his dirty work. But Kimberly’s own mother and sister were victims of a serial killer. And now, without any bodies and with precious few clues, it’s all too clear that a serial killer has found the key to the perfect murder . . . or Kimberly is chasing a crime that never happened.

Kimberly’s caught in a web more lethal than any spider’s, and the more she fights for answers, the more tightly she’s trapped. What she doesn’t know is that she’s close—too close—to a psychopath who makes women’s nightmares come alive, and if he has his twisted way, it won’t be long before it’s time for Kimberly to . . .

Wendy's Final Grade = A-

Paperback edition is due out May 19.

Bailout This

OK, so I sort of dropped out and unplugged there for a few days. But I'm back, and with huge news. Big, colossal, super fantastic news. Ready for it?

I HAVE PAID OFF MY STUDENT LOANS!!!

Words can not express how happy this makes me. Honestly, I could have paid off my student loans a few months back, but given the current craptastic economy, My Man felt we needed to "put more money away in savings first." Sigh. Let me tell you how much that almost killed me. Every loan I've ever had, once it gets down to a semi-manageable amount, I just want to pay. the. damn. thing. off. But I knew, he was right. Damn him. I hate it when he's right. Our savings now back up to an acceptable amount in his eyes, when I got my latest loan statement earlier this week I was able to pay it off!

Wahoooooooo!

And as if that weren't fantastic enough news.....

I've also paid off my car loan.

Frankly, I'm saying that in a quieter voice since now that I have the Batmobile paid off it would be my luck to be driving down a So. Cal freeway only to have the transmission fall out. Or the engine blow up. Seriously.

So that's my exciting news. Although it's slightly tempered. Because now that we're out from under my student loan and car payment? Yeah, we have to start kicking more cash towards My Man's student loan. :::headdesk:::

Gotta say though, I sort of feel like a "real" librarian now that I'm no longer paying for the Master's degree I earned 10 years ago. Kinda like I graduated all over again.

Welcome To The Jungle

It's that time again kiddies. Time for Wendy to get her Homework Reading done. For the third year running, my library is hosting a literary event, and once again I planned and will be moderating the romance panel. I like to include a nice mix of sub genres, and this year's paranormal author is Chris Marie Green (who also writes for Harlequin under the name Crystal Green). I'm so unbelievably burnt out on paranormal anything right now that I think the last time I read one was this time last year. While Night Rising didn't rock my world, and it didn't cure me of my "paranormal burn out," it was still a decent read.

Stuntwoman Dawn Madison came home to Los Angeles for one reason: to find her missing father. While no one will ever accuse Frank of being Ward Cleaver, and Dawn was essentially estranged from him, he's still her father. However once she lands in L.A., she soon finds herself in a world she was completely ill-prepared for.

Frank was working for Limpet & Associates when he vanished. The firm consists of Breisi, a washed up Telenova actress and tech geek; Kiko, a psychic little person with big dreams of Hollywood stardom; and "The Voice," the mysterious never seen, but always heard boss behind the business. Frank was working with these people when he disappeared, and now Dawn hires on in hopes of finding him. Which means working the case that Frank was working - the reappearance of a child star who tragically died over 20 years ago. He's been caught on film, looking exactly as he did the day he died. Yep, he's "still" 12 years old.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the setting. Certainly a lot of celebrity crap passes for "news" these days (shit, just look at all the hub-bub about Jessica Simpson's weight). Certainly no one with a TV or Internet connection is immune from this "reporting." But sometimes I think it's even worse (if that's even humanly possible) in southern California. It's a breeding ground for narcissism. It's just wrong. And sad. And pretty pathetic. Green does a good job of tapping into this narcissism, and it actually fuels the world she has created.

I also liked Dawn. She is, at times, quite abrasive. But I enjoyed the stuntwoman angle, and I enjoyed that she didn't blindly accept that vampires and the paranormal exist, but she also didn't stupidly deny their existence when she begins to see proof with her own eyes. I also liked her baggage. Green gives her heroine a Hollywood superstar mother, who was beyond gorgeous, talented, and tragically murdered when Dawn was still an infant. Her mother's death not only continues to haunt Dawn, it also deeply effects her relationship with her father.

But....

One of the big reasons I'm so burnt out on paranormals is that so many authors seem incapable of writing endings for their books. This continues to grate on me, since I'm a long time mystery reader. Mystery authors can tie up books and still make them part of series. Why do so many romance and urban fantasy authors have trouble with this? That being said, Green does give the reader some resolution to the not-so-dead child star angle, but there's a ton of other stuff left swinging in the breeze. Also there's the introduction of a Oh Gee Big Surprise Love Triangle! and I have the impression I already know exactly where a couple of these plot threads are heading and how they'll conclude.

But who knows? I've been wrong before, and I could be wrong again.

Green indicates on her web site that the Vampire Babylon series is meant to feature 3-book story arcs. Book four, the soon to be released A Drop Of Red, features the same characters, but they've moved on to another adventure.

Where does that leave me? I found this book to be OK. It didn't knock my socks off, but I kept flipping the pages, and I'll more than likely read the next two books in the series. Just as soon as I plow through my other current reading obligations. I would, however, strongly recommend this book to younger readers. I know me, but more importantly I know me from 10-15 years ago. I would have lapped this up with a spoon in my early twenties and turned into a slobbering fangirl. If you know a paranormal-lovin' college student? Yeah, she'll more than likely really dig this one.

Final Grade = B-

Like We Needed An Excuse

The So. Cal. bloggers in all our glory! From left: Blanche, Holly, Lori (who is hiding!), Daphne, Tracy, Lisabea (honorary California girl for the day), Me (the tall one, in the back!), Rosie (wearing what I'm now calling her Mary Tyler Moore coat. Or maybe That Girl?), Nikki, Alice (in red), Renee. Like how cute are we? Seriously.

I'm a little late to the game, since so many of my fellow bloggers were Johnny On The Spot and blogged already about are fantabulous day yesterday. Alice and I carpooled to our meeting destination and we were the last ones to arrive thanks to rain, Californians not knowing how to drive in the rain, and traffic. I called Rosie and told her they should start without us, and when we arrived at the restaurant we found everyone at our big ass table still looking over their menus. So perfect timing!

A couple of things I love about us getting together? Talking books of course! There's always one of us frothing at the mouth over a recent disappointing or wallbanger read (this time out it was Nikki, Holly and Blanche comparing notes!) and of course we all gush endlessly about some of our favorite authors. I also didn't realize until yesterday (or maybe I had forgotten!) that Nikki, Lori and I share pretty similar tastes when it comes to category romance. They too love the SSE and HSR lines. And I waxed poetic about the old Silhouette Desire line. You know, before Harlequin decided to morph it into Harlequin Presents II: The Revenge! Sigh. Seriously, I miss those old SDs from the late 1990s/early 2000s. We also agreed that we still missed the old Harlequin Temptation line.

Then of course came the real fun - the parking lot book exchange, which is always an experience. If any of us have books lying around that we've read and don't want to keep, we bring them with us to swap. Basically we find a lonely corner of the parking lot, open up our car trunks, and paw through them all. Tracy has been taking our leftovers with her to donate to a local library up in her area. So all the books end up going to good homes.

It's amazing to me how many bloggers are in my area. I've gotten so spoiled. When I lived in Michigan, I sort of felt like I was talking into a vast space of nothingness. Granted, I moved to California in 2004, so there weren't very many people blogging back when I lived in Michigan. Still, if you have other bloggers in your area? Plan a get-together! It's such an insane amount of fun that's it's probably criminal in 23 states.

Also, if you ever find yourself out in this neck of the words? Oh Lordy, e-mail one of us! This impromptu gathering was in honor of Lisabea visiting from the east coast. Let us know you'll be in the area - because while we don't need the excuse to see each other, we love having honorary members of our little group if only for just one day.

We need to do it again soon chickies! Way too much fun!

Dusting Myself Off

As already reported elsewhere in Romance Bloglandia, today a whole mess of the SoCal Bloggers are getting together for food, books and frivolity. We were due for another gathering anyway, but threw this one together rather quickly when we found out Lisabea was going to be in town. Weeee!

In other news, I've started reading the latest Teresa Knight erotic thriller (Yes, thriller. Not, I repeat not, an erotic romance. Romance does not hold the market share on "erotic." Just sayin'). Sybil sent me an ARC for this one (bless her heart) so expect the review to ultimately land over at TGTBTU. Anywho, after reading the first 50 pages or so, I flip over to the back cover blurb and a review quote catches my eye:

"Lawrence has hit one out of the park...An erotic thriller with a mystery thread that keeps you guessing, and a heroine who's smart, savvy and sexy...Naughty and entertaining." --TheRomanceReader.com

LOL - Um, yeah. That's a quote from a review that I wrote back when I was still with TRR. I've had this ARC lying around for a couple of months, I started reading the book yesterday and I just now noticed that I have a quote on the back of the book. They got a little liberal with the slicing and dicing up of the review, but I stand behind every word. I really do enjoy this series quite a bit - mostly because Teresa is kickass, adventurous, a true feminist erotic heroine in every sense of the word. I'm about 70 pages into Sexile, and can't wait to get back to reading.

Libraries: Better Living Through Advertising!

One of my longtime e-mail buds sent me these commercial clips for the Alberta Library. I heart Canadians. I really do.

For All The Aspiring Librarians

Meghan over at Recreational Reading slapped me with the Premio Dardas Award. You're probably wondering what that means. I know I did. Here it goes:

This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his/her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values every day. But with great shiny things, come great responsibility.

I'm honored that someone thinks I transmit anything cultural, ethical or literary. Because honestly? This blog started with me throwing random crap up on my own personal Internet wall trying to figure out what would "stick." It's been an evolution people. Which is why I always encourage newbie bloggers to stick with it and not throw in the towel right away. It takes time. It takes patience. And above all, it takes a helluva lotta practice.

Anywho, Meghan asked me a question in the comments of another post and I thought I'd answer it within it's own blog post. Here it goes:

By the way, I'm currently a Library Science student and I've narrowed down my future career path to advocacy/outreach and/or collection development. How did you get to where you are now? (I would LOVE to have your job).

I wrapped up my course work for my Master's degree (yes, librarians have master's degrees) in December 1998, and I had a job waiting for me. Seriously, the late 1990s were a great time to be getting out of college. The economy was booming...everywhere except western New York. I had to leave Buffalo to get a full time job, and I decided to go back home to Michigan. I started working for a small district library system on January 4, 1999. I always remember the date because on the first day I was supposed to report to work? Yeah, major blizzard. Snow day! Also, I spent my entire first year dealing with, and hearing about, Y2K (ah, remember those days?).

Anywho, I found myself working for a small branch system that consisted of 7 small town libraries. And by small, I mean small. A large library in that neck of the woods is around 5000 square feet. Several great things about this job: 1) I had a great boss. Seriously, a great, supportive boss. 2) I had money to spend and I could "learn" on the job. 3) I did a little bit of everything. I checked out books. I answered reference questions. I did programing. And most importantly, I was in charge of buying adult fiction for all 7 libraries.

I always encourage new librarians to not dismiss small public libraries. My former employer offered me the job at a competitive salary for a starting librarian, and I literally got to dip my toes in a lot of ponds. Not surprisingly, I fell in love with collection development and buying adult fiction. I've always loved reading, and I've always adored fiction. But being in college for almost 6 years? Yeah, I had forgotten how much fun it was to read. That job was responsible for helping me fall in love again with reading.

Fast forward, My Man graduates from college around the time the economy in MI takes a dump. It was either 1) do something drastic or 2) Wendy becomes sole earner. So he moved to California, got himself employed within a week, and I eventually followed him 6 months later. This was April 2004.

I ended up working as a branch manager for a large library system. The library I was at is considered "small" by their standards. Yep, 5000 square feet. I felt right at home. But I learned rather quickly that I wasn't cut out for management. See, I tend to focus on the negative. And when you're working with the public? Yeah, that isn't good. Plus, I had no time for collection development anymore. I was a little fish in a very big pond dealing with plugged up toilets, a leaky roof, homeless people trashing the library patio, the lights constantly going out in the parking lot etc. etc. etc. I was totally overwhelmed.

Then it happened. The former fiction buyer obviously lost her mind and took a job managing one of our larger branches. I submitted my resume to human resources, got an interview, nailed the hell out of it and....

Didn't get the job.

I found out on a Friday. Yeah, let me tell you how happy I was that weekend. My Man still talks about it. I was not a happy girl. Not happy at all.

But I decided to make the best of it. I was still overwhelmed. I was still conspiring to figure out a way I could throw rocks at people who talk on their cell phones in libraries without getting sued. I was determined to make it work. No use whining about it. I had to suck it up.

RWA had been in Reno that summer, and I talked my boss into letting me go on "work time." Basically I could treat the conference like "work" and not have to use my own vacation time. In exchange for letting me do this, I gave a reader's advisory presentation to all of our adult services librarians in November 2005. I totally nailed it. I was like the most popular girl in the entire system for about a week. I even took my presentation on the road to other libraries in the immediate area that aren't part of our system.

Then one day in February 2006 I came back from lunch and had a message waiting for me. I was having a particularly not so good day. So to cheer myself up I hit Taco Bell and wandered around a huge-ass used bookstore (that has, sadly, since gone out of business). The message was from somebody in administration, and I figured she was calling to tell me either I or one of my staff had done something "wrong." Nope, she was calling to offer me The Job. Another retirement was happening in collection management, and the woman they hired instead of me? Yeah, didn't like buying fiction. Because she's obviously insane! No really, she's very nice. But she happily gave up fiction and viola! They offered me the job. I took it and started working The Most Awesome Job In The Whole World in March 2006.

Which technically makes me second best - but ask me if I care? For the record, hell no!

Now, I don't know for sure if my reader's advisory talk on the romance genre "got me the job," but it sure as shootin' didn't hurt. So god bless you romance genre. God bless you.

The short answer on how I got this awesome job? Persistence. These jobs do not grow on trees, so my advice to anyone interested in collection management is to get your foot in the door somehow. If you work for a very large system, volunteer for special projects like 1) weeding or 2) compiling a list of recommended titles to purchase in a specific subject area. If you work for a small library? Even better. Because the staff in these types of libraries really have to be a jack of all trades. Again, ask to work on projects. Maybe volunteer to oversee a part of the collection (like paperbacks or DVDs or audio books). Take some initiative. And share with your employers your special interests. My super supportive former boss in Michigan? He felt that my reviewing romance novels for The Romance Reader qualified as "professional development." How can you not love that?

And that's pretty much it. I wish it had been quick, easy and simple - but I've been quite pleased with the progression of my career so far. What will happen next? No idea. But right now I'm happy where I am. And frankly, they'll have to pry adult fiction buying out of my cold dead hands. This job is way too much fun.

Phoning It In

I'm over at Romancing The Blog today, giving a shout-out to Rosie and discussing my idiot savant tendencies.

So go forth and read the latest bit of Super Librarian brilliance (Ha!) and leave a comment.

Insomnia Happens

I didn't think it was possible, but I think I drank too much caffeine yesterday. I can't be expected to resist the siren song of Republic Of Tea Rose Petal Tea. Of course, I probably didn't need to drink like three pots of it. Just sayin'. So when I couldn't sleep, I hit the living room couch and plowed through the last 300 pages of Stranger by Megan Hart. I'm still working out my feelings about this one, so bear with me.

Grace is a funeral home director, a family business she took over when her father retired. Her job essentially entails helping people through the grief process. It's because of this grief that she sees every day that she's gun shy about personal relationships. As in, she doesn't have any. She's single, and instead of getting emotionally invested with a boyfriend or husband, she pays strangers for sex. OK, not strangers per se. Male escorts. Still, strangers. She's at a local bar one night to meet her latest stranger, and in walks Sam. They have mind blowing sex, and after the fact Grace realizes she slept with the wrong stranger. Oops.

What basically follows is Grace's story. Her relationship with Jack, the stranger she was supposed to boink that night, and who she continues to hire over the first half of this book. Then there is Sam, who comes back into her life when his father passes away (side note: Sam is the brother of Dan, the hero from the author's debut Spice novel, Dirty).

I want to start this review by saying I liked this book, and I continue to enjoy Hart's writing. I love that her Spice novels feature emotionally messy and stunted characters. I'm a sucker for characters with baggage, and hers have it in spades. I also enjoy watching all of the characters (secondary characters included) orbit and crash into each other over the course of her stories.

That said....

My main issue with Stranger was the same issue I had with Tempted. It felt "over long" in parts. Like it could have been edited down by a good 50 to 100 pages. I really felt the author spent too much energy on Jack. Not that Jack isn't a nice guy and all - but I wanted less of him and more of Sam. I wanted a lot more of Sam and Grace and a lot less of Grace and Jack. Now I don't want to mislead anyone - this is NOT (I repeat NOT) a love triangle book. Which is probably where my frustration came in. It's apparent that Jack isn't our hero. I wanted a lot more hero.

Because of this I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. I needed "more" of Sam working through his issues, and likewise, working through his issues with Grace. Because of all the time devoted to Jack, I felt like the conclusion of the Sam and Grace romance got a bit of a short-shift. I closed the book thinking, "That's it? That's all there is? There ain't no more?"

That being said, it's the second half of the novel that really sells this book for me. Once the author is past Jack, and Sam and Grace are working on being "together" is when this book shines for me. Because all their baggage, all their issues, come tumbling out in the open. There are some great scenes between them towards the end, and I wanted them (desperately!) to get their happily ever after.

So where does that leave me? It leaves me with no idea how to grade this book. Usually grading comes really easy for me. I just "know." I liked it better than Tempted, and I graded that a B+. But I'm not sure Stranger is a B+. So maybe both it and Tempted are a B? Yeah, let's go with that for now. Although don't be surprised if I change my tune during my End Of 2009 Reading Recap and bump this up to a higher grade.

For now...

Final Grade = B

This Is Not A Joke

My fondest wish for every woman on the planet is that she have at least one ex who 1) she doesn't want to shoot and 2) who sends her funny shit via e-mail. David lives in New York with his wife and adorable baby boy - and occasionally stumbles across funny librarian and book related nonsense that he sends my way. This is his latest find.

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is a real book. No joke. It's being published by Quirk Books in May and is the brain child of author Seth Grahame-Smith.

I'm going to be blunt here. Austen doesn't really do a whole lot for me. Yes, yes - it's all a rich tableau and I'm a philistine. Blah, blah, blah. I suspect the reason why is because dear ol' Jane never dressed up her comedy of manners with zombies. Hell, that's what Regency England needs more of! Zombies! Think how much more interesting Almack's would be with the undead walking around, drinking the god-awful lemonade and eating debutante brains?

I probably never would have suffered Regency Historical burn-out if there had been zombies. Just sayin'.

Description:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life!

Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans.

Seth Grahame-Smith is a contributor to The Huffington Post and whose backlist includes The Big Book Of Porn and How to Survive A Horror Movie. He lives in Los Angeles.

Which surprises no one.

Seriously though - Jane Austen with zombies? I'm only pissed that I didn't think of it first.