Why is it that HouseInProgress' fixer-upper came with 1500 books, while ours came with dropped ceilings, inadequate 2nd floor support and moldy carpeting? Why? Why? Why?

Of course, my house in progress friends, I realize that 1500 books is alot to archive and weed through, along with the other junk that comes along with 1500 books. But I drool reading that entry. Not to mention all the hard work accomplished...

En route to this entry, I got seduced by an offer to try out Gmail. It's special for Bloggers. So far, I am lovin it. Crowing like a rooster. Going to tha gmail for my morning booster.

So this is what they call jetlag. It's 6 in the morning, and I'm wide awake. Luckily, reader Nishank sent me a link to ReadPrint, a free (did I mention free?) online library. This is literally full of complete novels, posted by the chapter, of classic authors like Louisa May Alcott, Cervantes, Kipling, Dickens....you get the picture--anybody who's too old to hold a copyright. Very cool. Maybe I will finally finish A Tale of Two Cities.

Oooh. I just discovered Jack London there too. White Fang, story of a hybrid dog/wolf was my favorite book by far as a kid, at least until I discovered Walter Farley's Black Stallion series.

Sometimes I check my own website seven or eight times a day.

Sweet home, Chicago

I never thought of myself as a patriot, but after 5 1/2 weeks of daily city-to-city-to-country travel, I found myself humming...nay, BELTING..."America the Beautiful" as our plane touched down, much to the chagrin of my travel companions and the other passengers.

Finished a number of crappy magazines and crappy crime novels (which are all the rage in British convenience stores, dahhhling) during the final 10 days of tour. The only standout was The Blind Man of Seville, a classic police thriller set in Seville and Morocco, chronicling a tortured detective's pursuit of a serial killer and the truth about his own shaded past. Read a sample here.

At the airport, I tried to buy a bosom ripper set in historical England for the trip home, but the only pulpy genres supported where more crime novels and science fiction. Luckily, I picked up The Fourth Queen on the new fiction shelf, which more than made up for my humiliating novel requirement. This is the story of Helen, who is captured by pirates aboard her ship bound from Scotland to America and sold to a harem in Morocco, where she gains a lot of weight and shaves all her body hair to entice the Emperor and influence foreign policy. Just when all this power and poluence is within her grasp, though....WARNING, PLOT SPOILER UP AHEAD...Helen (who is now named Aziza or some such nonsense) has an affair with the palace dwarf and decides to turn it all down to have his baby. Swear to God.

In other news, Wrybrarian got mentioned on Laughing Librarian's March entry (scroll down a little). I also met up with fellow blogger, alumnae and employed British librarian, Rory, in London. Check out her site, Rawr: a Blog for Lions.

Cheerio folks. I'm off for a spot of tea, then to a half-day of proofreading.

Wrybrarian in Brighton, UK

I miss you too, Cindy! And everybody who has emailed me, I am keeping them and will reply as soon as we return (which is in just a week point five).

I've been reading up a storm in the van. Liam picked up the beautiful and tragic Fiskadoro, Denis Johnson's story of life in the Florida Keys after the apocalypse. I also finished the incredibly disappointing Dude, Where's My Country, which I left in a hotel safe.

And, finally, I'd avoided reading anything by Pulitzer prize winner Jane Smiley because of irrational prejudices against her name (which conjures up thoughts of my junior high fashions), but I picked up her latest book, Good Faith which, lo and behold, has convinced me that a story of real estate development can contain fully developed characters and culturally universal themes.

Well, I'm off to have a spot of tea and cream, and maybe a public shower at the shore.

Cheerio.

Incidentally, our host and promoter, Sarah (who is standing beside me fixing me a cup of tea with one lump. teehee.), recommends The Tin Drum, Lolita and Soul for you all. Get reading.

"Little did they know the dark clouds forming overhead were a tempestuous portent of the DOOM to come...." Stinky Erik Larson. The story itself is really interesting though - old Chicago stuff is so creepy. Everything is dirty and dangerous and vaguely depressing. Sort of like now, but with more ponies.

I miss you Robotic and hope you're having a fantastic time.

Wrybrarian in Berlin

I'm finishing the last book to be passed around the band van (now named the Badmobile), Devil in the White City. I know we've discussed this numerous times on Wrybrarian, but I'll weigh in here without linking to those discussions (and I hope you'll forgive me out of respect for this German keyboard....linking is hell when you can't find the brackets).

The plot is fantastic. Larson does an impressive job of weaving the true stories of a deranged serial killer and his victims, a delusional murderer and the artists involved in the creation of Chicago's world's fair. I recommend you try to grin and bear everything else, in particular the use of literary devices like simile and metaphor. The story is worth knowing about...

Wrybrarian in Franfurt, DE

Finshed reading Yalom's Lying on the Couch on the road from Munich to Frankfurt today. I'm so pissed that I finished already. If I weren't going on stage in 20 minutes, I'd give a plot summary, but perhaps that would ruin it anyhow. If you have any interest in the mystical science (art?) of analysis, read this book!

Wrybrarian in Vienna, AU

We've been reading only three books in the van: Devil in the White City, The Russian Debutante's HAndbook, Devil in the White City and a Bob Dylan atrocity. Now off to Munich. Reallz, that's all I have for computer time.