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Nervous and excited
Oct. 21st, 2006 07:36 pmI spent $500 at The Home Despot today...on tiles, grout, adhesive, paint, primer, etc. In preparation for the small kitchen reno that will happen next week. Tomorrow I'll clear everything out of the kitchen. [Where'd all that junk come from?]
After spending all that money, I went to the library, which always soothes me. The copy of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad that I requested arrived, along with a couple of other books. And of course I had to visit the sale room downstairs. The romance section is pretty unimpressive generally, but I did find a couple of books in hardback or trade paperback that I read and liked but didn't want to pay full fare for (say that three times fast): Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner, and Dixieland Sushi by Cara Lockwood.
I also found a couple of old Victoria Holts on the sale shelf. Victoria Holt (aka Jean Plaidy and Phillippa Carr) was my intro to serious romance reading. I read Mommom's bodice rippers surreptitously, but the Holt books were hardbacks that I could check out of the library without any objection from Mom or the librarian. [It makes me wonder if either of them had ever read any of the books, because some of the VH books were a little inappropriate for a 13 year old, I think, in retrospect. There's one where a young woman is more or less raped by the father of a friend, IIRC. And yet these books were "more appropriate" reading than mmp bodice rippers by Shirlee Busbee? I dunno.] Anyway, I think maybe The Biochemist found VP/JP first, reading Plaidy's Plantagenet series. My favorite -- The Revolt of the Eaglets...and any with Eleanore of Aquitaine, who was a woman before her time. But then I found her books under the Holt pseudonym, which fascinated me. Books set in England, France, Australia, India, with the period ranging from the 1600s up to mostly modern day (1960). After I read her books, I moved on to Phyllis Whitney and Barbara Michael and . . .
I had forgotten how much I liked Holt's books until I saw a couple of paperbacks for sale. At a quarter each, they were a bargain. I only hope that when I read them, they live up to my memory of them.
After spending all that money, I went to the library, which always soothes me. The copy of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad that I requested arrived, along with a couple of other books. And of course I had to visit the sale room downstairs. The romance section is pretty unimpressive generally, but I did find a couple of books in hardback or trade paperback that I read and liked but didn't want to pay full fare for (say that three times fast): Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner, and Dixieland Sushi by Cara Lockwood.
I also found a couple of old Victoria Holts on the sale shelf. Victoria Holt (aka Jean Plaidy and Phillippa Carr) was my intro to serious romance reading. I read Mommom's bodice rippers surreptitously, but the Holt books were hardbacks that I could check out of the library without any objection from Mom or the librarian. [It makes me wonder if either of them had ever read any of the books, because some of the VH books were a little inappropriate for a 13 year old, I think, in retrospect. There's one where a young woman is more or less raped by the father of a friend, IIRC. And yet these books were "more appropriate" reading than mmp bodice rippers by Shirlee Busbee? I dunno.] Anyway, I think maybe The Biochemist found VP/JP first, reading Plaidy's Plantagenet series. My favorite -- The Revolt of the Eaglets...and any with Eleanore of Aquitaine, who was a woman before her time. But then I found her books under the Holt pseudonym, which fascinated me. Books set in England, France, Australia, India, with the period ranging from the 1600s up to mostly modern day (1960). After I read her books, I moved on to Phyllis Whitney and Barbara Michael and . . .
I had forgotten how much I liked Holt's books until I saw a couple of paperbacks for sale. At a quarter each, they were a bargain. I only hope that when I read them, they live up to my memory of them.
