So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Over 650 comments!

And to give this thread a topic: current reading?

At the moment I'm reading the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters - I think I'm on the 6th one now and enjoying them. Amelia is a great character and I really like the mixture of the archaeology and random mysteries - and the narrative voice.
I'm also intermittently rereading the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey, as my partner has decide he wants to read them, and he kept asking me questions. I'm not sure when I last read most of them, but they are still fun, although I am very glad to be reading them spread out, as all the angst.

I'm also looking at the Yuletide tagset and trying to decide what I should read from it to help get a head start on what I might be assigned, but there are so many choices.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We've beaten last year already!

I'm currently still ploughing through my bookmarks from last year's Yuletide, trying to pick out my recs set before sign ups open. I'm down from 150 to 11 to reread and some 15 more I'm undecided over, but many of the remainder are novellas.

I've got a big pile of books on my long-unread heap (which is well over a hundred books now); some of them are Yuletide perennials so I might try to get my brain in gear for one of them -- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Stardust or Cloud Atlas perhaps.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Very impressive. I always fail at reccing fic, mostly because it is so hard to try and explain what is good about it (I hated writing book reports at school for the same reason - well that and the fact that the teacher didn't believe what I was reading and the fact that I could get through books very quickly).

I'm not sure how many books I've got on my to read list - I've been trying to avoid acquiring more paper books as they are bad for my hands to try and read, but this makes the heap less visible.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I find that too -- also I'm spoiler allergic, so I really don't want to do what a lot of recommenders do and review in such depth that it gives away much of the plot. There again, recs that just give the link don't tend to entice me.

I've had to split my to-read pile into two, not just because the piles started to teeter but because it was just getting psychologically overwhelming. At least now I have a single downstairs shelf for things I think might appeal, as well as the huge piles upstairs...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

My To Read heap is approximately as high as my DVDs To Watch heap. Basically, I read and watch things I need for my writing.

Currently, I am digging through the Torchwood novel Skypoint (donated by the lovely red_day_dawning) and the WETA books about the making of The Hobbit, simultaneously. For pleasure, I mostly read fanfic. Yeah, I know. I am slowly becoming a barbarian. But that is what I still enjoy. The rest is research.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I stopped buying books for myself unless I was sure I was going to read them immediately several years ago, but people keep buying me books for presents. I've had to tell them not to, which is embarrassing. Maybe one day I'll get my head in gear & get back to reading hundreds of books a year, but these days I'm lucky if I get into double figures of new books annually, rather than rereads of old favourites.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with reading whatever you want! Research is such fun - even if it can just keep growing.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It does keep growing. Then it spawns more plotbunnies. That require even more research. And so on...

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

yes... and it seems to be hard to stop researching and start writing

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It's very addictive. :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I just finished The Princess Bride for a fiction book, and haven't started a new one. My current for pleasure non-fiction book is The Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton, about the search for the North-West passage and the race to the North Pole. I actually started it before the news came about the Canadians finding one of Sir John Franklin's lost ships from his final (and fatal) Arctic voyage.

For work, I am currently reading a number of textbooks on Solid State Physics and Materials Science, because I am teaching modules in those two subjects at the moment. They are mostly also quite enjoyable, with the one exception of Feynman's Lectures on Physics which is pure joy to read! The man had a brilliant mind, and was able to explain physics clearly without dumbing it down.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It is! I wish I had time to read the entire three volume set of Feynman's lectures...

[sammydragoncat]

I am currently finishing up The Bloodied Ivy (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries) by Robert Goldsborough. I am not sure what I am going to read next - my to read stack is outrageous.

I looked up Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody Mysteries - the first book sounds good, I had not heard of it before; thanks for the tip.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I've still got some Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes books to finally read in original.

[sammydragoncat]

so do I

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I've read most of them in translation when I was young, but when I started writing Sherlock fanfic and needed references to the original, I discovered what riches are hidden there, and now I'm hunting down every single story, either in hard copy or on the Internet - one day I might even find the time to read them.

Miss Marple, I've read all in Hungarian, but it's so very different in original as if they weren't the same books at all!

[sammydragoncat]

It's true things do get lost in translation, if your able it is always best to read it in the original language.

[jenn-calaelen.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :)