"Hey, want to burn a couple of vacation days sleeping on the ground outside?"

My friend Doug (I'm sure you all remember Doug) is going camping this weekend, which made me realize that, along with a yearning to suddenly travel back in time to 1890 and hug everyone with leg-of-mutton sleeves, I harbor the delusion that camping would be really, really fun. This is the same sort of feeling that gets me excited during Chicago winters when I have to put on every piece of wintergear I own. "IT'S JUST ME AND YOU NOW, ELEMENTS."

This is a big reason I find certain cowboy novels attractive -- campfires! bedrolls! wide expanses! hats with brims! long rides ahead of us!

Of course, then I neatly leave out the threat of snakes/scorpions/kangaroo rats, but it's not like I'm going to be magically placed in The Sisters Brothers, so whatever.

Meanwhile:

Gratuitous Alex Kingston
GIF I'm never gonna find a
reason to use

I'm actually looking for other silent Western cowboyish novels. True Grit and Sisters Brothers were oh-so-similar in tone, and it's a tone I super-like. "We shall not use contractions! And there shall be strange characters met along the way. And a magical code of the West we shall refer to from time to time." Oh, so wonderful.

It's Thursday, and this is more Fridayish, BUT please be telling me particular genres you like. And remember that the more specific you are about shit, the more interesting it is. So if someone says like "Oh, I really like romantic sorts of novels," it's like "Oh, how very general of you." But if you say "I will ONLY read time travel narratives from the POV of a Polynesian man," it's like "Well. Let's delve into that and your psyche, please."

Of course, being that specific is nigh impossible, but STILL. Genres are usually so broad and boring. And we can CHANGE that.

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Book Blogger Hop, Pt II

All right. The question for this week is: "Do you read only one book at a time, or do you have several going at once?" Oh-ho my. I have an issue with book commitment. I start a new book, and it's exciting and fresh, and I get really jazzed about it, and then 20% of the way through, almost without fail, I start getting bored and want to start another book. I once had seven books going at the same time, because I kept getting bored and starting new ones. It's a sickness. Right now I'm being pretty good and working on The Monk , Northanger Abbey , Kissing the Witch , and I'm about to start Waiting for the Barbarians since my friend lent it to me. But The Monk and NA are basically books I only read when I'm at work, so I don't see it so much as working on four books, as having books in different locales. Yes. This entry wasn't as good as some of the others, but I shall rally on the morrow. Yes I shall.

Fanfiction and Why It Doesn't Suck

Like most female 20somethings, I was at one point very into the fangirling scene. I wrote fanfiction, I made music videos, put together fanmixes, and created horrible graphics using a version of Photoshop I or someone bearing a resemblance to me possibly downloaded in my college dorm room off Limewire. I would here like to interrupt myself by stating that perhaps “most” was the wrong word, as I have met many normal female 20somethings who don’t have a fricking clue what I’m talking about when I use words like “fangirl” or “ship” as a verb involving the romantic involvement of two fictional people. So by “most” I mean “most of the people I met online in fangirl communities.” Or perhaps “all” in that case. Anyway. Fanfiction is probably always going to be controversial, in the dumbest way something can be controversial. Are we talking about climate change? Well, no, we’re talking about whether or not it’s at all okay for a 15-year-old to write a scene where Mulder and Scully get stuck ...

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar...

Reading Rambo

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