I know. It's very uncouth these days to show smoking of all things. But one of my favorite belongings is this ashtray that I stole (yes, that's right, smoking and thievery!) from a hotel in India (below). I don't smoke, but I just loved it and had to have it. It now gathers my jewelry on my night table at the end of the day. I decided I would do my own lady version of it. I'm not sure what I will do with her: perhaps write a little book called the Girls Guide to Vice and put her on the cover. Or something like that. Do you think her forehead is too big? That's what she gets for smoking.
Yippee! Been craving a treasury on Etsy as of late and snagged one today after being booted the other night because of a weird site glitch.
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb
There are few things I enjoy more than being completely absorbed into a book with complete disregard for time and beckoning responsibilities. Unfortunately my recent attempts at escape found me stumbling through a series of severely mediocre books. I seem to be coming out of this pattern, but slowly. The last book I read was quite good — Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. But I am still craving a really good, fun, all-absorbing novel. This weekend, via the blog BleedingEspresso, I came across a site that may just help me find one: GoodReads.com.
GoodReads allows you to rate books, write reviews, find books you'd like to read, show what your currently reading and more. You can invite friends to do the same, see how their tastes compare with yours, peruse their lists for books you might like, recommend books to each other.
I immediately followed the steps —late last night — to invite friends and family to join. Within mere minutes, my book-devouring brother, Michael, had joined and rated almost 200 books. His tastes range from Dune to Don Quixote to Harry Potter, so it was great fun going through his list and seeing where our book tastes overlapped and how our ratings compared. I found several books I'd like to read and picked out a couple I thought he would enjoy. Michael and I have always shared a love of books and an equal lack of affinity for the phone, so I look forward to being able to continue our connection through books on GoodReads.
I'd love to hear about your favorite books. Feel free to comment below or join me on GoodReads. You can find me there as Nicole Ray. Happy reading!
I know. It's very uncouth these days to show smoking of all things. But one of my favorite belongings is this ashtray that I stole (yes, that's right, smoking and thievery!) from a hotel in India (below). I don't smoke, but I just loved it and had to have it. It now gathers my jewelry on my night table at the end of the day. I decided I would do my own lady version of it. I'm not sure what I will do with her: perhaps write a little book called the Girls Guide to Vice and put her on the cover. Or something like that. Do you think her forehead is too big? That's what she gets for smoking.
