The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum

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Having grown up on the 1939 movie, literally every Christmas, it’s easy to forget that it was based upon a fairly lengthy series of children’s books by Frank L Baum. The first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was first published on May 17, 1900 and was illustrated by W. W. Denslow, a long time collaborator of Baum.  Having finally gotten around to reading the original books in recent years, I thought it might be fun to celebrate by comparing a couple of images from the original book to the same scene from the 1939 movie. Dorothy in the tornado Okay, honestly those are nothingRead More →

magnifying glass

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(first posted March 12, 2021) But that’s not the most intriguing part. It was originally published in 1925. By a man. Oh, and there’s more. It’s the first Charlie Chan novel by Earl Derr Biggers titled The House Without a Key.  As far as I know I’ve seen most of the Charlie Chan movies many times. I actually like them. Now I know that those movies are a point of contention regarding the fact that a white man was cast, not once but multiple times, as an Asian. It’s a valid point. It’s also how things were done then. However the thing that’s always struckRead More →

Let's get comfortable!

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Well, if it’s a really good flashlight, that is. So, a couple of weeks ago we had a high wind event with winds that reached lower hurricane levels. This is a very unusual occurrence for our area seeing as we are in western Kentucky. There wasn’t a lot of widespread structural damage but our electric grid took a major beating as several hundred poles came down. As a result we had no electricity from mid-day Friday thru late Sunday afternoon. We were probably lucky to have it back that fast, too. But, seriously, by the second day of our blackout I was totally bored. I finallyRead More →

Ten Nights of Love

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I was reminded this week in a big way about my Ten Night of Love post series by something on the All About Romance blog. After I commented there with a link back I thought I should look them over and make sure they are still presentable. I gave them a serious technical edit and format review in 2020 but the occasional quick check never hurts. Which led to this “It’s almost Valentine’s Day” reminder that they are on the site. Full list of current Ten Nights of Love posts (in reading order and including some posts I added as addendums to the original series):Read More →

Let's get comfortable!

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The reorganization work I’m doing behind the scenes is going really well but it will be a long process. When I’m not working on that I have been reading a lot lately. Most of the books I’m enjoying right now, though, are either very short or really, really big. Wheel of Time I’m looking at you. Yes, I am. So, anyway, I decided it would be easier to track my reading activity immediately by actually using my Goodreads account. At least until I get caught up on the background work around here. I’ve updated and refreshed the Goodreads widget on the site so that itRead More →

non-fiction

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I currently have three fairly short non-fiction books at the top of my to-be-read list that I really want to read soon. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction… for “fun” I mean. I pick them up here and there. Reference them when needed. But rarely do I think of non-fiction as something to go on my to-be-read list and be read cover to cover. But the following are all books I’ve gotten recently just because I wanted to read them which is what’s so unusual. The Trouble With Tribbles This one I got on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a post onRead More →

Let's get comfortable!

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On the fantasy side, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately reading The Wheel of Time (WoT) series. I’ve honestly decided I’d like to finish the entire series by the end of this year. Well, it’ a goal anyway. Which means I’m trying to read a couple of chapters a day. At least! Since I’m already almost finished with the 8th book (The Path of Daggers), it’s . . . doable. Maybe. The problem is that I think I’m in the middle of what the fans not so fondly call The Slog – the point in the series where Robert Jordan got really, reallyRead More →

binge watching

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Yes, zones. Plural. When I’m in the mood to read, romance novels are my favorite pick. I have authors and series that I’ve read so many times I could probably recite some of them. Since this entire site is devoted to that activity, I won’t go into any particulars here. When I’m in the mood to play, my favorite games bounce somewhere between building and adventure quest games. Which is honestly a weird place to be. Put it this way, I love the stories and puzzles of quest type games but can easily spend hours on good building games. Put the two together and I’mRead More →

at the bookstore

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One thing I realized when I was recovering this spring is that I desperately need new-to-me romance authors to read. I mean, comfort reads that you’ve read over and over again are great when you are really sick. But as I got better, I was looking around for something new and found out I didn’t have anything. For one thing, I don’t keep a big romance to-be-read list. When I get them, I read them. Part of that is because the older I get, the pickier I get about what I read. So anything that ends up in my hands to-be-read is already from oneRead More →

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Because I have so many things I want to do on the site right now but my life has been chaos lately. Seriously it’s gotten so bad that I finally had to sit down and go over the “in-progress” stuff I’m supposed to be working on for the site. Mainly because I couldn’t remember some of them and wanted to make sure I still wanted to work on them right now. Oye.  Which kind of turned into an idea for a post. I don’t like doing these “a little bit of everything” posts because I prefer to concentrate on one thing at a time butRead More →

The Wheel of Time

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I had almost decided to skip this week’s post because right now I am on a serious binge of reading the Wheel of Time. So not much else to talk about and several recent posts have already been about WOT. But then I finished Lord of Chaos (#6), started on A Crown of Swords (#7) and wanted to share a couple of thoughts about Robert Jordan’s writing style. Before that, though, let me admit that going right into the next one of these books is unusual for me. They are so big I tend to want a break before starting the next. I didn’t this timeRead More →

The Wheel of Time

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The Wheel of Time book series by Robert Jordan has an immense and devoted fan base. To the point that there are so very many fan sites and channels out there. To put it bluntly, It’s difficult to know where to start. Especially if one hasn’t even heard of the books before. So I thought I’d share the main sites that I – a relative newbie compared to my super-fan son – use to expand my own knowledge. WOT 101 First, if you are a complete newbie to the Wheel of Time – haven’t read the books and/or know basically zilch about them – thenRead More →

The Wheel of Time

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Yes, they finally dropped the first teaser trailer this week. And, of course, I promised my son I would post it. Oh, but it’s really good. I’ve actually gotten back to my read through of the Wheel of Time books in recent weeks. I found out my son had them on both Audible and Kindle. (Because of course he does. Heh.) The important thing, though, is that by having both they can be synced. Seriously, being able to follow along in the text as the dramatic reading plays helps me tackle these very, very, very, very long books. Immensely. As in I probably won’t finishRead More →

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I do. I think of it as a to-be-read list for the digital age. But more on that in a moment. I’m not sure I’ve read a book or watched a TV series this week. I simply haven’t been in the right mood. At all. So I’ve spent most of my off time catching up on my YouTube watchlist. Which had gotten seriously out of control, let me tell ya. Other than that, I spent some time doing some mental housecleaning. What is my want-to-finish list? First of all, let me be clear that I’m not talking about stuff I’m working on for the website.Read More →