There are the occasional days when I think I have the best job in the world. And today, my belly full from free Fox and Obel meeting leftovers, is one of them.

I'm getting paid to thumb through our library's entire collection of books about whiskey. Yes, me, wrybrarian, reading through reference books...for money!

Hahahahaha. What a bunch of suckers -- I do this sort of thing on weekends for fun. And for free.

And I'm learning so much. For example, did you know that 33 percent of Ireland's liquid milk production goes directly to Bailey's Irish Cream? Thanks for the memories, The Classic Whiskey Handbook.

If Tamora Pierce had been around when I was a kid, I would have been the happiest girl in the world. Considering my early propensity for wandering through supermarkets neighing like a horse, on the other hand, it was probably good that I wasn't introduced to the idea of actually falling in love with a shape-shifting animal until adulthood. Anyhow, I've been secretly reading Pierce's series for about a year, but I finally got my hands on the Trickster series, and it blew me away.

I finished Trickster's Choice on Wednesday, then dragged myself, despite stomach flu, to the library Friday to pick up Trickster's Queen.

Pierce simply can't be beat for tight plotlines, strong heroines and engrossing entertainment. Most of her work is for a younger audience -- think 12 - 14 -- but the Trickster series is about a 16-year-old, and it's complex and mature enough to really capture my 32-year-old imagination.

It seems I can only bring myself to review books when I have something else to do. Um, like reviewing books for somebody else. Heh.

I've been reading at a snail's pace this season, down to about one book a week. The culprit? Cable television, of course. You see, after about 5 years of freelancing, I started working fulltime. And i rewarded myself with cable.

But I'm still reading, of course. Just finished include:

1) Jane Eyre - far better than I remembered from high school. Dark, suspenseful and terribly romantic.

2) The Eyre Affair - this month's bookclub pick, thanks to yours truly. It's a fun mystery, along the lines of a Sparkle Hayter but set in a 1980s Literary England. A little heavy on the puns, but a pleasant read all around.

3) Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay's twist on the serial killer genre. But this serial killer only murders bad guys. A light and easy read, except for the nasty scenes.

mashup: BookMooch meets LibraryThing
So, I've been reading a lot lately (and I should be talking about that more here), all thanks to BookMooch, a very cool book swapping website. More on that later.
It's still hand-driven at this point, but I like the idea of using LibraryThing's bookshelf and tags to display my BookMooch inventory.
LibraryThing has an awesome Universal Import function that can grab all the ISBNs off my BookMooch inventory and add them to my bookshelf. Then, it's a simple matter of using their widget to output the covers of the books I've tagged bookmooch (automatically done on import, natch):

Unfortunately, the cover links lead to Amazon, not my BookMooch inventory, should someone want to mooch a book. Another annoyance: my LibraryThing shelf will have to be manually updated when I do give away a book.
I'll have to see what I can do about that.
xposted on HipSmart, web2.0depot.net

You’d think, what with being the wrybrarian and all, that I’d have a houseful of books. But actually, my collection is neatly organized – by subject matter – on just one bookshelf. Only three of which comprise actual reading (the other two are dedicated to craft reference, writing reference and magazines).

How do I manage, you ask? It’s easy. I only keep books that truly move me (and anything with sentimental value). And when I read a new book I love, I force myself to make way for it by passing one of the bookshelf books along. My point is, it’s not often that a book makes its way to the hallowed grounds of The Shelf. But I just shoved a couple of copies to the side to make room for Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

It’s the sad and creepy tale of a group of kids who grow up in a special boarding school, where they’re raised to contribute to society. How they contribute isn’t revealed until about midway through, but you can guess pretty early. It’s just a really sad and tense read, which would normally be something I hate, but in the case, I couldn’t put it down without finishing. And I didn’t even sneak a look at the last page.

Wrybrarian on hiatus. Back soon.