Caramellunacy's TBR Excavation continues in 2016

After a somewhat disappointing excavation last year (particularly with regard to fieldnotes kept), I have set a target to excavate and document 52 artefacts this year (one per week), which I hope will be a more realistic goal given other commitments and travel plans!

Books Read in 2016
Titles listed in italics are loans (library books or borrowed from friends/family rather than TBR) and do not count towards the total. Numbered entries do count toward the challenge and bold underline means an exhibit of the month pick!

January
1. Hex and the Single Girl - Valerie Frankel
2. Just Listen - Sarah Dessen
3. Ripped at the Seams - Nancy Krulik
Little Beach Street Bakery - Jenny Colgan
4. Blowing My Cover - Lindsay Moran
The Lavender Keeper - Fiona McIntosh
5. A Little Bit Psychic - Aimee Avery
To All the Boys I've Loved Before - Jenny Han
6. Last-Minute Bridesmaid - Nina Harrington
7. Empress of the World - Sara Ryan

February
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Therese Anne Fowler
8. The Trouble with Flirting - Claire LaZebnick
9. One Tiny Lie - K.A. Tucker
Finding Colin Firth - Mia March
10. Level Up - Cathy Yardley
10.1 Hooked - Cathy Yardley (novella)
Infinity - Sarah Dessen (novella)

March
Maisie Dobbs - Jacqueline Winspear
The French Promise - Fiona McIntosh
A Swift Pure Cry - Siobhan Dowd
11. Cracked Up to Be - Courtney Summers
12. Battle Dress - Amy Efaw
13. Leviathan Wakes - James S. A. Corey
The Cosy Teashop in the Castle - Caroline Roberts
Dauntless - Jack Campbell
How to Run with a Naked Werewolf - Molly Harper

April
14. Killer Heat - Brenda Novak
15. The Ripening Sun - Patricia Atkinson

May
16. Act Like It - Lucy Parker
17. Treasure Me - Robyn DeHart
18. The Battle for Duncragglin - Andrew H. Vanderwal
19. A Midsummer Night's Romp - Katie MacAlister
20. Lock and Key - Sarah Dessen

June
21. The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder
22. Be Careful What You Wish For - Alexandra Potter
23. Pardon My French - Cathy Hapka
24. The Secret River - Kate Grenville

July
25. Botswana Time - Will Randall
26. Bad Romeo - Leisa Rayven
27. Tiny Pretty Things - Sona Charaipotra & Dhonielle Clayton

August
28. The Marriage Ring - Cathy Maxwell
29. Dauntless - Jack Campbell
30. Fearless - Jack Campbell
31. Holding Court - Kristin Held

September
32. Under a War-Torn Sky - L.M. Elliott
33. True Grit - Charles Portis
34. The Crimson Rooms - Katharine McMahon
35. The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin
36. Desire Me - Robyn DeHart
37. When a Scott Ties the Knot - Tessa Dare

October
38. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
39. Boomerang - Noelle August

November
40. The Collector - Nora Roberts
41. Illuminae - Amy Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

December
42. The Crimes of Paris - Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler
43. The Hating Game - Sally Thorne
44. Beneath a Marble Sky - John Shors
45. Gemina - Amy Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Good luck with your ROOT reading!

Happy rooting!

Happy ROOTing,

Welcome back and happy ROOTing!

Echoing: Welcome back and Happy ROOTing!
And while we love your field notes, completely understand if you can't keep those up! I've also reduced the kind of reviewing I've been doing due to ... not enough time. :)

Welcome back and enjoy your challenge! I hope you unearth some great artefacts!

Artefact: Ripped at the Seams - Nancy Krulik
Trove: Paperback
Status: Deaccessioned



Fieldnotes:
1 Overly Naïve Aspiring Designer
1 Scary Big City
2 Very Bad Boyfriends (Not Simultaneously)
3 Stolen Designs
1 Well-Placed Punch in the Nose

1 Model Best Friend
1 Very Friendly (Handsome) Neighbor
1 Excellent Boss (Mentor Variety)
1 Lingerie Store
Custom Designing

1 Pregnant Best Friend (Meddling Variety)
1 Disapproving Dad

The short version:
This was a bit of an odd one for me - the Simon Pulse Romantic Comedies are generally light teen romances set in high school that tend to be pretty low-key. But in this one, the tone seemed all over the place with a simplistic and naïve Disney-style plot (girl immediately finds job, roommate, mentor and is attending swanky red carpet parties within 100 pages) mixed up with a few misplaced-seeming adult elements (staying at a hotel frequented by prostitutes, working in a lingerie/adult novelty store and a scene when our heroine almost sleeps with her boyfriend on a conference table after work) that left me feeling a bit confused as to who the intended audience actually was.

The Long version:
Naïve Midwesterner Sami Granger heads to the big city to become a designer armed with a few hundred bucks and her portfolio. Luck (and a bit of unauthorized snooping) help her get her foot in the door - even if it is only as a receptionist, for now.

The plot on this one is predictable, which wouldn't be a problem if it made me smile (couldn't we have her intern for a kooky fashion designer making unreasonable demands or something?). But for a romantic comedy, there wasn't much that was funny about this one, nor was there actually much romance - just the boy next door pining after her, and at times the story took a weirdly preachy tone (such as when Sami "realizes" how "selfish" she's been by focusing on her own budding career instead of calling her pregnant best friend from high school all the time to listen to her insist that she will never be happy unless she has a man, because an unattached 18-year-old is too dreadful to contemplate...). Maybe that last bit of gloss comes from me...

While I certainly don't mind books about teenagers who date around, here, too, the book seemed a bit odd. In a short novel billed as a romance, it was pretty painful to have to watch Sami cycle through two pathetically awful boyfriends (one after her designs and the other after media attention with nary a redeeming quality to explain her naivete to be seen - except I guess sexual attraction as evidenced by the aforementioned sleep with him on a coffee table scene which came out of NOWHERE) while insisting on friend-dating the one decent boy in the whole book.

So - not much romance, not much comedy, a lot of family/friend drama since Sami snuck away from home without bothering to so much as let her father know she was alive because he would disapprove of her going to NYC (which wouldn't have been uncalled for since the first place you moved into housed PROSTITUTES and was the scene of a MURDER).

And to top it all off, we have a small-town-girl-from-the-Midwest-breaks-in-big-on-the-NY-fashion-scene-with-no-contacts-and-no-experience-through-sheer-unexplained-talent. Also because men's dress shirt inspired nighties are the new craze (which wouldn't be such a bad thing). Which if the rest of the book had felt more Disney-esque I could have gone along with (it sounds like a Disney Channel movie), but the roller-coaster tone and unclear audience made this one a definite dud for me.

Better luck with the next one, right?!

>9 Caramellunacy: Love the fieldnotes. Shame about the book. Better luck next time, yay.

>9 Caramellunacy: I had to smile reading your fieldnotes!

Still enjoy your fieldnotes ;)
And, yep, better luck w/ the next one! :)

>1 Caramellunacy: Don't forget to copy your ticker to the ticker thread! Good luck in 2016!

Thanks! All done - (post 58!).

Love your review setup!

Life has been a little bit crazy around here recently. I've been getting quite a bit of reading done - although I'm not sure if I'm just in a persnickety fault-finding sort of mood or if my latest run of books has just actually been pretty dreadful.

I keep on picking up things that sound like they will finally hit the spot, and then something goes irritatingly, frustratingly wrong with them:

Chick lit breezy novel about a woman opening up a bakery? -Love Triangle where one suitor has a Surprise!Spouse, plus a suitor who is meant to be from Savannah, Georgia but whose speech patterns kept making me think of a pleasantly plump English lady wrapped in a pinafore and brandishing a teapot.

Memoir about being a CIA spy (to feed my Quantico addiction until the show comes back from its mid-season break)?
- Main character loses me completely by making some throwaway remark about being nervous because a training exercise reminds her of Southern backwaters where she will be "bubba-raped".



WWII novel about the French resistance?
-Awesome heroine, but insta-love attached to overbearing jerk hero with no sense of self-preservation who manages to be less likeable than the Wehrmacht Colonel she is spying on...

Modern-day Pride and Prejudice adaptation with a vaguely paranormal twist?
- CREEPY past age difference issues and reads like disjointed fanfiction...

It has not been a good run...

>16 Caramellunacy: oh dear! The next batch has got to be better, surely?!

That sounds awful, CL. I do hope the next ones will be better!

Love the picture!

>16 Caramellunacy: Well you're getting through the stacks, I guess! I hope your next read is more satisfying.

I love the nope creatures and the field notes btw.

Thanks!

I'm currently reading Last-Minute Bridesmaid - he's a publishing house scion. She is a quirky fashion designer. So far, it is quite cute. I'm hoping the Nope-topus does not need to make another appearance (though I do love him).

I feel your pain. So many of the books I have read this year were just blah and then I hit a streak of great reads. Here's hoping you find some winners soon.

So my "review one book a week, how hard can it be" plan has not worked out well thus far, with a whopping ONE set of fieldnotes posted in January.

However, I think I may finally have hit on a good book (now that it has turned February) to pull me out of my reading slump (and of course it's from the library) - I'm currently reading Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler, and I'm really enjoying it so far - to the point where I'm tempted to pick up Scott's This Side of Paradise. It doesn't hurt that thanks to Midnight in Paris (the least Woody Allen Woody Allen movie, hallelujah) F. Scott Fitzgerald is played by Tom Hiddleston in my head!

>22 Caramellunacy: I'm looking forward to reading the Henry plays because Hiddleston plays Prince Hal (later Henry V) in The Hollow Crown -- a nice bit of casting there :)

>16 Caramellunacy: lol! "plus a suitor who is meant to be from Savannah, Georgia but whose speech patterns kept making me think of a pleasantly plump English lady wrapped in a pinafore and brandishing a teapot"
and I am in LOVE w/ that picture. it is amazing.
Ooph - sounds like a rough run! Good luck finding a better read!

>22 Caramellunacy: Yes, RL has a way of making the updates difficult!
Oooooh glad you are enjoying Z! I was very pleasantly surprised by that book!
I know, it made me want to read more Fitzgerald... weird ;)

>22 Caramellunacy: Two book bullets for me. Adding to my list :).

Hi Caramellunacy! My RL bookclub is slated to read Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald for our meeting in June and am looking forward to it.

So after a slow reading month, I have now finished Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and I enjoyed it, though it was quite heartbreaking to see the Fitzgeralds and their marriage spiral out of control. This further cemented my loathing for Hemingway - he does not come across terribly well here, which isn't terribly surprising since the novel is largely Team Zelda and she and Hemingway detested one another vehemently and venomously.

I've taken a breather and have now started The Trouble with Flirting (which is a ROOT), a YA retelling of Mansfield Park - which is an Austen I'm not very familiar with, having only listened to the BBC audio version with Benedict Cumberbatch and David Tennant. It's set at a summer theater camp for teens and Franny has a summer job working in the costume department as a seamstress assisting her aunt. I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far, and it is most definitely more light-hearted.

>27 Caramellunacy: I think you put thoughts about Z quite well... :)

Back after a long absence! I have just returned from a few days in Edinburgh and on a Scot-yssey through bits of Scotland and the Highlands (which were utterly beautiful despite the weather).

Since it was very long travel time, I decided to take a thematically appropriate book and went for Treasure Me by Robyn De Hart (not least for it's plaid dress on the cover). It's one of her Legend Hunters series, and has the heroine (a not-so-secret palaeontologist) and the hero who is searching for the Stone of Destiny near Loch Ness. And it played right into our travels as we went cruising on Loch Ness and saw Urquhart Castle (which they search under), as well as the Stone of Destiny, which is part of the Scottish Crown Jewels in Edinburgh Castle. Yay!

I will post fieldnotes as soon as I have finished it (very nearly done now!), but wanted to post a tiny update to prove I hadn't been eaten by a kelpie!

>29 Caramellunacy: I'm glad you enjoyed Scotland! (I live in Stirling). Sorry the weather hasn't been so amazing, but then I guess Scotland isn't one of those destinations anyone goes to for the weather...

Yay for trips to Scotland! So jealous. We did the boat cruise on Loch Ness a few years ago and it was lovely, but with a cold wind coming off the lake. Glad to hear you had a great time. Looking forward to fieldnotes!

>30 Jackie_K:, We went to Stirling Castle on our first day (it only snowed a little!), and the re-enactors/guides were absolutely top-notch. Very informative and in character without seeming over-the-top and fake. We had a wonderful chat with one man who told us tons about Mary de Guise (whom I've only ever heard maligned) that was absolutely fascinating. That was definitely one of our highlights.

And, actually, the weather for the one day that we spent mostly out-of-doors in Edinburgh (on Saturday) was really gorgeous sunshine, so that worked out quite well!

>31 rabbitprincess: Our boat cruise on Loch Ness was VERY chilly for the most part - and oh-so-atmospheric - but we ended up in a patch of sun by Urquhart Castle that warmed us right up (and had the side benefit of providing lovely photos). Did you see any signs of Nessie?

>31 rabbitprincess: No signs of Nessie for us. But I did like just being on the lake. The guide was telling us how it formed and that was really interesting. I also liked reading the Gaelic on the signs at Urquhart Castle.

>29 Caramellunacy: oooooh, so cool! Edinburgh is one of those places that I really want to see someday!

>30 Jackie_K: I beg to differ... some of us like that kind of weather ;)

>32 Caramellunacy: Oh yes, the Stirling Castle guides are always excellent. I must admit though, when I took my parents there my mum and I ended up giggling like schoolgirls at the ridiculous codpieces! So much so that when one of the male re-enactors was talking to me I found myself staring at his face and all I could think was "don't look down don't look down don't look down!"

>29 Caramellunacy: Wow, I would love to visit Scotland. Right now I'm a bit hooked on Outlander , the series and the books. It would be so much fun to go there and see the real thing.

Did you know that I had a scrapbook when I was a teen about Castles in Scotland. I must have lived there in an earlier live!

>36 connie53:, I really enjoyed the first half of the Outlander series (I haven't had a chance to catch up and I don't think Season 2 is available near me yet...) and I remember enjoying the first book last I read it. The guide pointed out the castle that they used for the first season, as well, though I don't remember where exactly it was anymore!

Your scrapbook sounds great - do you still have it?

>37 Caramellunacy: No, I don't have it any more, I think. It could be somewhere in a carton box in the attic.

We can see season 2 up to episode 6 available here. My brother is such a sweathart, he finds them for me. Season 2 is the period where Claire and Jamie are in Paris.

Good morning! I've just come over here from my thread and your wonderful messages. I absolutely forgot that you were reading Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and had tied Midnight in Paris to it. Brainrot. And I even commented in February! And, I'm on book 7 of the Outlander series. It's a bit of a slog right now for some reason. Gabaldon has introduced a new important character and the action switches to her/his point of view frequently. I haven't fall in love with this character yet so am resisting a bit. (I've also gotten involved in a couple of projects around the house and it's been cutting into my reading). Cheers!

Hello everybody!

I haven't been here for a long time, and my fieldnotes have suffered dreadfully. But I am just back from a fantastic African safari - I will post some pictures if I can figure out the cool code to do so - taking real life fieldnotes of real life animals, and was reminded that I ought to come back and re-start here!

I am just about through with Cathy Maxwell's The Marriage Ring, so hopefully fieldnotes will follow shortly!

>40 Caramellunacy: African safari sounds great and reason enough to be absent for a while.

Here is some help for codes and other stuff.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/59470

>40 Caramellunacy: How exciting, an African safari. Pics will definitely be appreciated if you can figure out the code!

Oh, real-life fieldnotes! I'm looking forward to those!

Ok! Here we go, first off is our elephant buddy, Jabulani - we got to meet him up close and in person as he is part of a semi-habituated herd. In this picture, he has just stolen Mr. Fox's hat right off his head and is trying it on for size. I think he looks very dashing!

We had just landed in Botswana (properly) and were on the drive to our first camp, when I spotted the beauty below. I have to brag a bit on this one because she was MY SPOT! The guide/tracker didn't see her until I pointed her out (there was, of course, a ton of stuff that they saw first, but I'm claiming this one). Isn't she gorgeous?



She had just spotted some warthogs and was contemplating whether they would make a good dinner...

The below pair turned up as we were having our sundowner drinks and snacks one evening.

And when we went down to the desert, we found this beautiful lioness (she had her teenage daughter with her as well). I didn't realize how much BIGGER the lions would be in the Kalahari, but they were huge (and amazing)!

>41 connie53:, Thank you, Connie for the link. This was a fantastic help! Hope y'all enjoy!

Oh, thanks for the gorgeous photos! I love big cats!

Wow, I'd love to go to Botswana! I have been to neighbouring Namibia (which was stunning), including seeing wild animals in Etosha National Park - it really was the holiday of a lifetime. I think despite being neighbours though (and sharing the Kalahari!) they are quite different.

>50 Jackie_K:, Namibia sounds amazing! I would have loved to have had more time to travel around. We mainly were in the Okavango Delta, went down to the Kalahari next and ended up with a few days at Victoria Falls (on the Zambian side). It was an absolutely incredible trip, and we saw so many beautiful animals!

Beautiful pictures and excellent comments. Thank you. I'm envious.

Wonderful photos! So happy that you had such a good time.

Wow, amazing photos! Glad you enjoyed the safari :).

Amazing photo's and you must have an eye for spotting those animals.

>48 Caramellunacy: You're welcome!

>40 Caramellunacy: oh my gosh, how wonderful! An African safari.... I hope I someday get to do something like that!!

>44 Caramellunacy: to >47 Caramellunacy: Love the pics! Thanks for sharing!

>52 karenmarie: to >55 connie53:
Thank you all so much - I can't really claim credit for the photos; that is all Mr. Fox's handiwork (I just pointed at things). But I have to admit, I am ridiculously proud of them.

I'm so glad to get to share them with you all here.

In more bookish news - for an anniversary present this year, Mr. Fox got me a reading subscription from Mr. B's Emporium of Reading Delights (which has a most excellent name). I got to fill in a questionnaire about my reading tastes, and they're going to pick me a new book EVERY MONTH for a year (except January) and send it to me in a BROWN PAPER PACKAGE TIED UP WITH STRING and with a Wax Seal! I am so excited about sharing my bookish loot (and reading them).

>57 Caramellunacy: Ooooooo! Awesome! Mr B's rocks. I hope you enjoy your reading subscription! 😄

>57 Caramellunacy: Ooh, brown paper packages with string and sealing wax..... what a fantastic present. And I just checked out their website and sure wish I lived in Bath!

>59 karenmarie:
*pssst* they ship internationally...

>57 Caramellunacy: Great present! I would love getting such a package by mail. Just keep us updated!

>57 Caramellunacy: !!!! What an awesome anniversary present!!

>60 Caramellunacy: I will not, I will not, I will not. So far, so good.

I am just back from a whirlwind trip to Seattle/Spokane (for a Historical Romance Retreat)/San Diego, and guess what?!

My first Mr. B's package has arrived!!

Even though I am in the middle of (and enjoying) The Oregon Trail as driven in a covered wagon, I have abandoned author Rinker Buck and brother and his team of mules near the top of California Hill after a very treacherous climb to join the crew of the Wayfarer tunnelling wormholes through outer space in Mr. B's first pick The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.

I know nothing about it, but have been enjoying the first few chapters - it has a vaguely Firefly-type feel to it and I'm looking forward to seeing how everything turns out.

>64 Caramellunacy: How exciting!

>64 Caramellunacy: I've heard rather good things about Mr. B's first pick! Enjoy.

>64 Caramellunacy: Anything Firefly-like is good with me. The Long Way to a Small Planet sounds very interesting - I've added it to my wishlist!

And was the packaging wonderful?

>64 Caramellunacy: ooooooooh so fun getting your first Mr. B's package!
Can you post a pic of your next one? I'd love to see how it arrives... :)

>67 karenmarie: Yes, the packaging was fantastic!
>68 avanders:, I will definitely post pictures of the next one (and it should hopefully arrive fairly soon as well!)

>69 Caramellunacy: yay!

And you are in luck! I got home yesterday to my next package from Mr. B's - photos below! It turned out to be The Son by Philipp Meyer (I had to wade through a LOT of options before getting to that touchstone!), which I am very excited about starting as soon as I get through my current read (The Collector by Nora Roberts)

Ooh, that is lovely!

>71 Caramellunacy: Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. I really need to win the lottery and treat myself.

>71 Caramellunacy: beautiful! I continue to be jealous.... ;)

>71 Caramellunacy: Lovely, lovely packaging, great books so far. I'm trying to not be jealous..... but it's hard!

I gave it a good try, but I'm going to have to come back to Philipp Meyer's The Son during a time when I am feeling a bit less overwhelmed with both the macro and micro of the world.

It's not that it's badly written, but I think there's just too much violence and brutality for me to be able to deal with at this stage. Which I feel a bit hypocritical saying since I moved to a YA scifi/horror novel that was quite violent (Illuminae) and am currently reading The Crimes of Paris - a nonfiction story that is exploring the theft of the Mona Lisa, the fascination in Belle Epoque Paris with crime and the seedy underbelly of the city and detective novels. (I, too, am waiting to see how all of this gets tied together. I'm enjoying each of the chapters individually - slice of Belle Epoque Paris life/society; the Mona Lisa and its theft; the history of detective novels and now famous criminals of the time - but would prefer a tiny bit more of a narrative thread.)

I think definitely a happy book next, though...

So I'm plugging away at The Crimes of Paris, which despite its opening chapter setting up the theft of the Mona Lisa to be the guiding thread, is far more about the birth (essentially) of forensic science and a true-crime style examination of a number of crimes fascinating Paris during the Belle Epoque.

While the discussion focused on Bertillon's techniques, evolving into fingerprints, touching on the Dreyfus affair and even tying in detective novels and how fictional detectives inspired crime-solving techniques (as well as vice versa), I was hooked, but after a brief interlude in the art world to tease us further with the Mona Lisa's theft) the authors have once again shifted gears to discuss the anarchist movements common at the time and a fresh wave of crimes - including the first use of a getaway car. All of this is interesting stuff, but the abrupt insertion of the Mona Lisa/art world bits that just don't seem to go anywhere are actually more frustrating than helping to tie things together.

At this point the story isn't tying its disparate interests together particularly nicely, and I am tempted to go back and reread The Vanished Smile - which I picked up from the library a few years back (though I don't remember particularly much about it...)

>71 Caramellunacy: What a lovely package!

>76 Caramellunacy: ... overwhelmed with both the macro and micro of the world.

the macro of the world was reinforced for me last night.....

We had our real life book club meeting last night to discuss Travels With My Aunt. All 11 of us have been extremely upset since 11/8 (I don't want to discuss politics per se, as it's your thread and not fair to hijack it, but the date is pertinent) and quite a few of them said they couldn't concentrate on the book and since it wasn't an 'easy' read to most of them, they simply stopped.

>79 karenmarie:,

Yes, life has been a bit overwhelming lately, and I'm having a hard time finding books that will keep my mind engaged and away from stressing out/making list after list of what needs to be done/worrying about work/general catastrophizing.

Instead I've been zoning out to an old season of the Great British Bake-Off (which is dangerous because I always end up with an urge to bake things)

>80 Caramellunacy: Oh I think The Great British Bake-Off is a wonderful idea. Confession: I have never watched it, but it may be time to give it a try.

>81 Sace:,
It's quite fun - I only watch a few reality/competition shows, and I like this one because they focus on the baking and the flavours and the contestants tend to be very supportive of one another (rather than there being a lot of artificial drama). It's pleasant to watch (although I recommend having something to snack on - cookies for biscuit week, for example) otherwise you (like me) may start baking.

It just hasn't turned out "right" the last few times. I tried to make salted caramels, didn't get the heat high enough the first time (which resulted in some delicious toffees, actually - kudos to the husband who suggested waiting until they were set to try them before tossing) and hopelessly burned the second batch. :(
Then I tried to make strawberry cake (from mix) but ended up with escapee cupcakes as the oven wasn't quite level...

>77 Caramellunacy: hmmm... sounds like it could be really interesting.. or annoying.. or both?

>80 Caramellunacy: lol we've also been watching a Holiday Baking Championship ;)