September's First Read choices

 (This new Blogger layout has odd colours in the post-writing page - very hard to see the text entry area. )

Amazon's First Read options for September:

• Thriller - The Unspoken
• Book club fiction - Millicent Glenn's Last Wish
• Domestic Suspense - This Secret Thing (how is "domestic suspense" different?)
• Literary Fiction - A Single Swallow
  
• Humorous Nonfiction - Welcome to the United States of Anxiety
• Romantic Comedy - Room-maid
• Supernatural thriller - the Haunting of H. G. Wells
• Picture book - The Monster on the Block

Not interested in Thrillers or Suspense, although the H.G. Wells looks closer to SF/Fantasy, and the library has a copy of United States of Anxiety, Roommaid, and The Haunting of H.G. Wells, so those are out of contention.  Millicent Glenn's Last Wish looks kind of interesting, but I think A Single Swallow is the winner this month. 

Also - the extension for Chrome and Firefox called "Library Extension" is very handy.  If you're on an Amazon or Goodreads listing page for a book, it'll check your local library catalog to see if it's available there. 

Pandemic entertainment - Baywatch

 The Samsung pandemic TV came with an added perk - Samsung has streaming channels for their TVs.  I knew there was a Bob Ross channel, and the Jack Hanna channel, but until I hit the wrong button on the remote, I didn't know there was a channel that was nothing but Baywatch, 24 hours a day.  And they happened to be showing my favorite season - the first, non-syndication, NBC season with Parker Stevenson.  So I watched for a w hile.  Then I found out that Amazon Prime currently includes Baywatch (but not Baywatch Nights or Baywatch Hawaii), so I've spent the last few days watching the whole first season again - including the first TV movie, where a few people have different names.  

Now I'm watching the beginning of season 2.  No mention at all of Parker Stevenson's character or his sudden disappearance, after being a co-star for the whole first season. Erika Eleniak still has very Brooke-Shields eyebrows.  Richard Jaeckel is back as a different character, after dying in the Panic at Malibu Pier movie.  And Andrea Thompson is doing a 2-episode appearance which I'd forgotten about. 

I was reading an article last week about Baywatch, when I was trying to find out if the first season was available on DVD or not (answer: sort of, if you get an international release, or buy all the syndication seasons that included 2 episodes each of the original).  The writer's notion is that women watched it for the strong female characters and their storylines.  I'm not sure I agree; I think most people, male and female, watch for the scenery, both the natural kind and the human kind. 

Amazon First Reads for August 2020

Amazon's First Reads, deadline time.

1. Thriller - Interferency by Brad Parks (library owns)
2. Psychological Suspense - Girl Gone Mad by Avery Bishop
3. Mystery - Deadly Waters by Dot Hutchinson
4. Crime Fiction - Don't Ever Forget by Matthew Farrell
5. Book club fiction -  Honeysuckle Season by Mary Ellen Taylor
6. Young Adult - Find Layla
7. Literary Fiction - The Woman in the Moonlight
8. Picture book - Rosie The Dragon and Charlie Say Good Night (library owns)

So, knock out 1,2, and 8 right off the bat.  #3 sounds too much like a thriller/psych suspense. #4 ditto  #6 looks interesting for YA, no zombies, werewolves, or vampires.  #7 is about Beethoven and the Moonlight Sonata.#5 is about a wedding photographer, sounds like romance works in somehow.

So, Find Layla it is.

the holy grail is here!!

After a long time looking, two deals that fell through becasue family members won't drive a few miles for me, and one day spent at an auction only to watch it go out of my price range on the second bid, I finally own a card catalog.  Huzzah!!

I was very lucky.  MU Surplus posted a link to the GovDeals auction on their Facebook, and Facebook's algorithms are sort of hit or miss as to whether I see things.  But I saw this post, and checked out the GovDeals page.  Two large catalogs, and just down the road, so getting one home wouldn't be a totally crazy idea.  So, I put in a bid on one, and hoped that the other one wouldn't go cheap while the one I bid on went sky high.  Then sat at the computer for the last 20 minutes, refreshing non-stop and trying to  breathe.

Score!  Got it for under my price limit of $500 (and I probably would have upped that limit another hundred or so if needed.

Got the brother-in-law to come over with the truck and we went to get it a week later.  Hauled it home, and just as we got in the driveway, a lovely torrential rain opened up.  So we took all the drawers out and brought them in through the garage, and waited around for 45 minutes or so for the rain to let up.  It never stopped, so we threw a tarp over it and brought it through the front door on the furniture dolly.

 And then I got to put all the drawers back in.  One did come apart at the front joints, but a little wood glue fixed it right up.  I do need to look at the photos and make sure the drawers are back in the right spots.

So there it is.  One vintage Brodart 72-drawer card catalog.  Complete with all the rods and handles, about half the drawer labels, three pull-out writing supports, and a Property of MU metal tag. It's not modular, though, which would have made it a lot easier to get home.  The bottom is just wood.  I've seen some with legs, or with two big drawers at the base, but this one is just an empty case. 

Now I just need to wash it down, and decide what to do with it.  I'm thinking all the fabric remnants can go in the lower drawers, and my postcard collection in the top row.

Aside from the one I was talking about in January, there was one in March that popped up on Facebook, about 5 miles from my sister's house.  Gorgeous wood, modular so it would be easy to fit in the car, and I think only $25.  And my sister, after leading me to think she was going to get it, decided not to.  And didn't tell me.  So those hours of texting back and forth with her and the seller was a waste. 

July First Reads

July is a 2-book month again. 

1. Suspense - Trust No One by Debra Web
2. Contemporary Fiction - Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing
3. Thriller - Her Final Words
4. Historical Fiction - Across the Winding River
5. Book club fiction - Last of the Moon Girls
6. Memoir - The Son and Heir
7. Crime thriller - White Out
8. Children's picture book - Clover Kitty Goes to Kittygarten
9. Essays - Tomboyland

Okay.  Skip the suspense, thrillers, and picture book, and that cuts it down to five.  "Cleo" is about a single-mom politician, and the essays don't sound interesting to me right now.  Across the Winding River sounds interesting enough, so do Moon Girls, and Son and Heir.  The memoir might be a little too dark, so I think I'll go for the other two, even if "book club fiction" sounds like a healthy dose of romance is involved, from the reviews.

The ongoing CD-weeding project

There's a large pile (okay, 5 stacks) of CDs that need to be weeded through.  Lots of random things that looked interesting enough to get them from the discard pile at the library, mostly.  So I've started listening to them, and deciding whether to keep or not. 

1. Sports Car Lady with a Station Wagon Life - nope, funny title, don't like the voice
2. Guys & Dolls soundtrack - meh
3. Mannheim Steamroller, Fresh Aire IV - keep this one, but one is enough
4. Nightnoise - keeper
5. Soweto Gospel Choir - African Spirit - keep for now
6. Dave Van Ronk, the Folkways Years - not my style
7. Voices of New  York, Hearts Afire - not my thing either, but good background music for a party
8. Sounds of Yellowstone - nope.  I want my nature sounds to be nature-only. 
9. 
   

Prime First Reads for June 2020

Another month, still staying home.  Another selectionof Prime First Reads books. 

This month we have

1. Crime thriller - Find Me by Anne Frasier
2. Suspense - The Bone Jar by S.W. Kane
3. Contemporary Fiction - Someone Elses' Secret
4. Thriller - Never Look Back
5. Book club fiction (that's a genre?) - The Lending Library
6. Epic Fantasy - Scarlet Odyssey by C.T. Rwizi
7. Historical fiction - Opium & Absinthe by Lydia Kane
8. Children's picture book - Kat & Juju

After you take out all the thriller/suspense, and the picture book, there are only 4 left to choose from. The "historical fiction" is more of a fantasy, with vampires. So I'm down to playing One Potato Two Potato with the fantasy and the book club fiction.  And then I read the reviews, and Lending Library sounds way too annoying. So, Scarlet Odyssey it is.