Oh Phoo

You might note that my last post was Monday, February 21st. This wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary except that, it was in that post that I expressed my resolve to post more often. Well, after that I clicked "Publish Post", shut down my computer and headed to bed. The next morning when I went to power up the computer, check the weather, e-mail, etc., I was writing my first e-mail of the day when my keyboard did a, then rather annoying, in retrospect hilarious and fun, thing. Every time I typed the "h" key only a dot would appear and sometimes after typing the "h" key other letters would be influenced, for example my "w" would appear as a sigma, or my vowels would have non-English accents over them. A friend said it best "Jamie your e-mail is a great combination of Yiddish and cockney! See you when you get here!" She was certainly right. But, all has been remedied - so I'm back to post away!

I've recently joined a book group with a really great component - reader services advisory. This is an important topic for me because it is something that I am asked in my professional work and a very difficult skill to do well. This book group has decided to choose books for each month based on the Dewey Decimal classification system. But that got me thinking. I just happened to have finished three books this week, my on the go non-fiction book, my at home fiction book and an audio-book. This has never happened before and left me reeling as to what to read next! I decided that instead I would like to read about Ireland for the month of March. In a rush to begin a new audio-book I started the next one in my audio library, which happened to be The Devil Wears Prada, completely non-Ireland but...oh well. I am enjoying this audio book and it has spurred ideas for April and given me time to find The Story of Lucy Gault, which I am also looking forward to listening to this month.  For other reading about Ireland, instead of purchasing new books- always a temptation, I decided to "start" with the only  two books about Ireland that I already own but have not yet read; Tales of the Elders of Ireland, the translation that I have is by Ann Dooley and Harry Roe, and Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales by Alwyn and Brinley Rees.  Perhaps this will segue nicely into a month of books about Wales, which I have a lot more material about, for April. I suppose we'll wait and see!

Please send along any recommendations for fiction books about Ireland. I've already read all of the "Irish Country" books by Patrick Taylor - wonderful reads if you've not read them yet!

Mad about Marginalia

I love a great many things, marginalia is definitely one of them.  So, it would come as no surprise that I was very excited about, and then very disappointed by, today's New York Times article "Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Note in the Margins." I had quite the post going when I realized I do not want Livrelle to be a place for rants, so the link is above for you to read the article and form your own opinion of the piece.  I think the heart of the article is in the right place.

Since this is a post about marginalia I suppose I can't just leave it at that so....Love books and want to start a collection? Next time you're in a used bookshop or ordering something from Amazon, or somewhere similar, look to see if there's a copy of one of your favorite books with notes in the margins. It is fascinating to learn how others responded to the same text, and often very cheap too! The only downside is that you can't ask the marginator (that's my made up word for people who write in margins) any questions. It's a fun and interesting way to enjoy books you've read time and again in a new way.

When I began Livrelle I wanted to post every day. Obviously, I have not been successful in that goal. But, I have been reading like wild fire and my most recent read, Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, has got me thinking about revisiting my goal of posting every day and about what the content of Livrelle will be. I can't say I have any answers yet but if there are any regular readers out there - please bear with me. I think this will be fun!