Teaser Tuesday: The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan

I am taking part in Aussie Author Month during April. Daily links tweeted using the #ausbooks hash will be collated {here}. Aussie Author Month is also supporting donations to the Indigenous Literacy Project. You can donate through the Aussie Author Month ILP page on on GoFundraise.

My posts for Aussie Author Month can be found using the Aussie Author Month or #ausbooks tags. If you don't have a blog, I am looking for guest bloggers for Book Bites during April. If you are interested, please email me on book bites oz at gmail dot com.

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers: 

Rosie sat under the shelter of the cabin with her pack jammed between her legs, swatting at the insects buzzing around her bare thighs. She wished she’d thought to change into a pair of longer pants, but clothes had been the last thing on her mind when she’d jumped out of the window.
Page 93 of The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan

What Your Favorite Kids Book Then Says About You Now

According to this meme on Flavorwire, this is me as an adult:

• There are eighteen different kinds of tea in your kitchen, and plenty of herbs.
• You’re a compulsive traveller and manage to make friends no matter where you go. Sometimes that leads to getting locked in prison or drugged, but you can roll with the punches.
• Your friends may be totally crazy, but you’re together enough that you can go out partying with them every night and still hold down a full-time job.
• You’re the guy who finds a way to ruin every party.
• You’re probably a genius by now. Or a politician. Definitely not both.
• You’re a staunch vegetarian and have a vast wine cellar. You also have really weird prejudices against random animals.
• You can’t stop talking about how your multi-media novel is going to be really awesome. It probably is.
• You’re a creative gastronomist with a flexible policy on slave labor.
• You may or may not be that lady who talks to her plants.
• Every house you live in must be outfitted with a walk in closet. Just in case.

Actually, they aren't all that far fetched... Okay, I am not a politician or a genius, and I am not writing a multi-media novel, but everything else... well, they aren't so far fetched.

Teaser Tuesday: Scatterlings by Isobelle Carmody

I am taking part in Aussie Author Month during April. Daily links tweeted using the #ausbooks hash will be collated {here}. Aussie Author Month is also supporting donations to the Indigenous Literacy Project. You can donate through the Aussie Author Month ILP page on on GoFundraise.

My posts for Aussie Author Month can be found using the Aussie Author Month or #ausbooks tags. If you don't have a blog, I am looking for guest bloggers for Book Bites during April. If you are interested, please email me on book bites oz at gmail dot com.

---

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers: 

The city itself was a ruin. Skyscrapers were skeletal hulks of rotting stone and weathered steel. Glass was gone from windows, and outside, steps were crumpled and overgrown with shaggy yellow grasses. Trees once confined to circular grills had grown to a monstrous size, their serpentine roots twisting and writhing in all directions, cracking open what remained of sidewalks.
Page 17 of Scatterlings by Isobelle Carmody

I used to love books about the Littles and the Borrowers as a kid. I love that one of my favourite authors has moved the myth into modern times and that the Little in question is a punkish girl. His punkish girls are always my favourite characters LOL

ARRC2011 Wrap Up

Keri Arthur and myself at the Awards Dinner

Nalini Singh and myself at the Awards Dinner

Erica Hayes and myself at the Awards Dinner

I had this post languishing half-written in my drafts. I've rephrased some sections because I am no longer posting it on the Monday after ARRC. I apologise for the delay in posting.

I have uploaded my photos to flickr (yes, I now have an account and will be cross posting photos between my blog, fickr and facebook) and you can find these {here}. Kat has also uploaded a lot of photos to her flickr. You can find these {here}.

Anyone who followed me on twitter last weekend knows that I must have been at ARRC, as most of my tweets contained the #ARRC2011 hash. I couldn’t afford the meet and greet on Friday night, or the Saturday panels, but I did attend the Awards Dinner and the Sunday panels. Just that sneak peak into the ARRA world was enough to get me hooked. I only joined ARRA a month or so ago (after two years of loosing forms) and wish I had have been there from the start. The association is made up of so many amazing women (and a man or two) and it is such a positive environment. There were of course undercurrents, but nothing overt – as someone who has been a key member in organisations in the past, it was quite impressive not to see infighting or the like. Even the AGM ran smoothly! (I used to be VP for a university Archaeology society – that is damn impressive, okay?) I was bitching and moaning about the price of ARRC before I attended, even though I know it takes a lot of money to organise a conference and that ARRA is a not-for-profit member organisation. I will no longer complain about the cost.. I came away with free books. Lots and lots of free books! I now have the first 3 books of Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamer series and Kissing Sin by Keri Arthur. I actually already own Kissing Sin, however, I asked Keri to autograph it for Gail at the Awards Dinner ;D I was at table five with Lami, Maria, Marg and …. ERICA HAYES ^_^’ We had a number of other authors at our table but I wasn’t familiar with their work. Which isn’t really all that surprising considering my main subgenre of a romantic persuasion is paranormal romance, although I do dabble with category and contemporary. It was lovely meeting so many fans of the genre, conversing with authors (my friends and I monopolised Nalini for a while at the Awards Dinner) and just generally having fun! Christine Darcas won the blingoff. She was sitting opposite me at dinner and she keep distracting me with all her shine! I won’t go on about who won what. I suggest you read Book Thingo’s blog for the full run down: http://bookthingo.com.au/arrc11/

My favourite panel to attend was the Fantasy, Science Fiction and Futuristic Romance panel. It was quite interesting because it was my genre, the authors had similar reading backgrounds as myself, and, I also found out, nearly all of them have used Jungian theory to the writing (which is what I have been doing myself - fascinating man, fascinating theories!).

Karen Simpson Nikakis, Kate Cuthbert (MC), Keri Arthur, Erica Hayes, Denise Rossetti & Nalini Singh

A selection of my live tweeting from the Sunday panels at ARRC:

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I didn't have time to draft a write up about our Sydney Book Blogger Meet Up at the Art House on the 24th, however Marg has written a great blog on the topic. You can find it here: {link}
It was lovely to finally meet @awritingjourney, @MargReads and @Vaveros, as well as catch up with other twitter friends and meet new ones. The last few of us actually got kicked out of the bar, and @bookthingo, @my_leage, @Hesitent_Sarah and I ended up standing on a street corner chatting until the cold chased us home.

The next three days: Sydney meet up and the Australian Romance Readers Conference

I have a lovely few days planned, and it all starts tonight! Tonight is the meet up we have organised for the online book community! I get to meet some lovely people I've been talking too online, some times for years. I've met people in the real world through book clubs, signings and writing groups, but that isn’t quite the same as 30 odd bookish people chatting over cocktails at a bar LOL There is an impromptu book swap, so if you have any books you wish to offload, please feel free to bring them along! I was distracted by the internet last night and forgot that I was going to do a cull around the edges of my collection *blushes* Anyway, if you plan on coming, you will need to RSVP, and if you wish to watch for updates, please follow me on twitter on @obsidiantears83. I should be turning up some time between 6pm and 6:30pm, so I shall see you there! If in doubt, look for the people with books! (It takes a special breed to take a book or three into a bar LOL)

This weekend is ARRC, or the Australian Romance Readers Convention. I couldn’t afford to go for the entire weekend (it kicks off with drinks tomorrow night) but I will be attending for the Awards Dinner on Saturday night and the Sunday sessions. For all the goss, follow me on twitter, or follow the #ARRC2011 hashtag!

I really wanted to attend the morning session on Saturday. Lexxie Couper, Nalini Singh, Maggie Nash and Rhian Cahill talk about Paranormal Romance and why it is “so damn seductive”. It would have been interesting. Instead, I decided to attend the Sunday sessions (I could only afford the one day) and am really looking forward to the session with reader Kate Cuthbert (@katydidinoz) and writers Nalini Singh, Keri Arthur, Denise Rossetti, Erica Hayes and Karen Simpson Nikakis. It is entitled Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Futuristic Romance: Our world, otherworlds – romance in the realms of the imagination. Looks interesting!

I do have the problem of where to sit for the dinner. You get to choose your tables Saturday morning, but I won’t be there until the Awards Dinner later that night. I am at a friend’s Divorce High Tea (definitely worth celebrating!) most of the day, voting in the morning (why is the election the same weekend as ARRC?!), and live too far away to pop in to write my name on the seating plan *sigh* We talking about having a twitter table (two actually) but I am not sure if we are going ahead with that. My friend Maria is attending for the first time too, but she only knows our book club members attending There are four of us, so Maria and I wanted to sit together. I know a number of people in the community now, and will know more after tonight’s drinks, but that isn’t the same as a close friend to hang with. If we don’t have a twitter table, I am thinking of asking one of my other friends to pencil us down for the same table. But at the same time, I like the idea of bonding over books with a random set of people I would not have normally talked to. I don’t know. I guess I’ll bring it up at the meet up tonight.

Have you attended readers or writers conventions before? I don’t mean cons like Supernova or Dragon*Con, but more serious affairs where the focus is on the books, the authors and the writing rather than cosplay and actors? I haven’t! This should be interesting!!

If you are attending either our meet up tonight, or ARRC this weekend, I hope to see there. Come and introduce yourself if we haven’t already met! I’ll be the one wearing a lot of black and with a pink* stripe in my hair LOL






*Oh yes, the pink! The red faded, the lovely metallic magenta faded, and now it is a rose colour… I hate pink! But I guess this colour isn’t too bad LOL

Teaser Tuesday: Little (Grrl) Lost by Charles de Lint

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers: 

“I don’t think it would be like that. I think it’d be more like they’d put you in a terrarium in a laboratory to study you. And everybody’d be tearing up their baseboards looking for more of you.” She paused for a moment before adding, “Do you have, like, a house back there?”
Page 9 of Little (Grrl) Lost by Charles de Lint

I used to love books about the Littles and the Borrowers as a kid. I love that one of my favourite authors has moved the myth into modern times and that the Little in question is a punkish girl. His punkish girls are always my favourite characters LOL

A question of storage for the book addicts

I have a question for book addicts like myself. Do you ever put part of your collection in cold storage? I have too many books for the space I have to shelve them. I either need to buy two large bookshelves (and find somewhere to put them!) or buy some large plastic storage boxes and put them on top of my wardrobe. My mother muttered that I should stop buying so many books and sell some of mine (!) but we all know that will never happen (“OVER MY DEAD BODY!” was my actual response). Currently my largest bookshelf is double stacked, with the books laying flat. Where I used to have five paperbacks standing up, I now have about twenty laying down. That bookshelf is just under 2m high by maybe just over 2m long. On top of the hardcovers standing on the top of that bookshelf, I have stacked more books on their bellies, as high as I can get safely them. Lucky I have vaulted ceilings, hey?! In front of the large bookshelf I have a small bookshelf I bought during my first year of university. It is about a metre by a metre, and was made in someone’s shed in Townsville. It is a bit wonky, but it has a nice design for display purposes. That display capacity is not being made use of right now! I have all my Nora Robert’s books (I own most of them now) crammed in this bookshelf any way I can fit them, and on top I have books stacked about ten high. Next to this I have 2 teetering piles of books about waist high. They are holding each other up, and braced by the smaller bookshelf on the left and the large bookshelf behind them. Yes, the smaller bookshelf is placed immediately in front of the big bookshelf. I need more room! I also recently took my shoes out of their shelf and replaced them with books. The shoe shelf is kind of like a dvd cabinet. I have books crammed in there two books thick, and it is about 2.5m tall, although only about 50 cm wide. There are still more books under my bed and on my desk. So what is the solution? I think I need to buy two new tall bookshelves, throw out the smaller ones and move my desk around so there is more wall space. It is expensive though. If I was leasing by myself I would just buy some bricks and 2by4s. I grew up with bookshelves like that and they may be cheap and nasty, but they WORK! The problem is, if they get bumped, they can scratch the wall. The lease on the sharehouse I am currently living in isn’t in my name and Lachlan would kill me if I scratched the walls. I just don’t know what to do. I can’t really afford to buy bookshelves, but the books aren’t stacked safely and I am always worried some fell breeze will knock them over. I don't want to be a Jacq pancake! (although, what a way to go!) I am hoping to move this year, but that isn’t a given because I buy books instead of dumping that $40 in the bank every fortnight. Books are a necessity of life, I refuse to listen to my Mum when she says they aren’t! If I lived anywhere near my parents I would just ask Dad to make me a big arse bookshelf, but they live fourteen hours away, so that is not going to happen.

Yes, I know, I am talking myself in a circle. There isn’t really anything I can do. I think I need to buy some large plastic storage containers and go through my books and figure out which I am unlikely to read in the next year or so. The biggest problem with storing my books like this is that our house is prone to damp. Can you recommend a way of keeping the damp out of plastic boxes? I don’t want to hurt my books. At least on the bookshelves there is nowhere for damp air to gather…Is there a product which will attract the moisture without hurting my books with chemical?

What are your solutions when you have too many books? Do you buy new bookshelves, cull your collection, stack them creatively or put them in storage? And do you have suggestions on the best way for me to put some of my preciouses out of the way on top of my wardrobe?