Welcome! Reply here to say hello!

Hello!

Hey ya!

As promised, here I am!

One thing you may want to do, SP, is put a quick and dirty guide to basic html in the group guidelines somewhere. LT will make any URL a link, and will tag any username that begins with an "@" sign. But showing images, etc, has to be done the old fashioned way. Lot's of people find this post useful:

How to do fancy things in your posts:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/177029#4750147

ETA

tag a user @ plus the username: lisapeet
link to a referenced post in a thread: ">" plus the post number: >2 lisapeet:

Hi!

Hey y'all!

>3 southernbooklady: Thanks!

>5 Nancy_Sirvent: Welcome!

Hi!

Hey--there have been two flags on this group. I may be wrong, but I think that indicates there's an issue and alerts the powers that be. If that's the case and there is an issue let me know. If you want to bookmark the group or something like that, then don't flag it. You can always see the latest posts on your home page in the Talk section.

>9 SPRankin: Hi and welcome to LT! I think it's being flagged because it seems to be a group that is set up to drive traffic to another website, which would be against the ToS, so members think it's a SPAM group. You might like to consider changing the description a bit to avoid this, for example not explicitly including the site URL, so it is clear you're not simply using this to gain traffic?

>10 klarusu: Gotcha, will do. Thanks! We've been a separate discussion forum for a long time, and the plan is to migrate the group from the forum platform to LT since many members are already here.

>10 klarusu: In point of fact, it is just the opposite. The group is migrating from another website to here. And since I was among the member who joined immediately, I think that might have served as evidence that it was not a spam group.

I mistakenly flagged the group( Flag#2) I thought all flags worked the same and I could click on flag and get the option to counter flag that existing flag, like we do with other flagging situations. I have sent an email to Loranne and asked her to please remove my flag if at all possible.

I apologize for any issues this caused you!

>9 SPRankin: Welcome, and thanks for clarifying what's happening with this group! >10 klarusu: hit the nail on the head with regards to why it's collecting a few flags, here.

I've gone ahead and removed the two flags—you shouldn't see that pesky red message anymore. I can't guarantee that the group won't accrue any further flags, but flags themselves don't cause any direct harm to the group—it won't be removed or blocked from posts without admin action. If I see any further flags pop up, I'll remove those, too.

>14 lorannen: Thanks! I've adjusted the group description. And no worries, >13 debavp:. One of the major benefits of LT that I can see is the obvious care members take in keeping the place nice.

Lucia in London
EF Benson

Hello everybody! Now a member of LT - not thrilled with my user name but everything else I wanted to use was taken, but I might change it at some point. But if you haven't figured out, this is Cindy. Looking forward to exploring the place - looks pretty nice so far!

Glad you made it, Cindy!

>12 southernbooklady: Yep, that's clear as soon as you look deeper than the name. I have a feeling it was just a case of one or two people either accidentally doing it or not looking deeply enough before flagging. Hopefully fixed now! I posted to the Spam Fighters group as well so fingers crossed it won't happen again.

Hello! I like LT as an option. I'm a bit afraid I'll get sucked back in here, but there are worse places to spend my time. And I much prefer LT to either FB of GRs.

And SP, I really appreciate the time you take to keep our small group afloat.

I found you! This is April. I'd like to change my screen name--how do I do that? I joined LT years ago and then didn't use it, so this is the screen name I started with.

Edit: I found out how the change my user name. Apparently it has to be approved. I submitted a request, so we'll see what happens.

Hi April! Glad you're here. I'll be shutting down the forum fairly soon so I hope more people will drift over here.

Hi. Susan Pardue here. I signed up years ago with my blog name.

Hey, Susan!

I drifted from BookBalloon a long while ago, but have signed up here in the spirit of community in these dark days and will try to show up when I can.

Hi. And thanks for keeping up the work. I hope more old members will become active again.

Hello, I don't know you, but it looks like an interesting group. :)

Hey, Sarah! Glad to back in the BB ranks.

Susan, I've always loved your blog.Welcome back.

Hi, Lola.

Hi this is Alan from Canada. I was an early member of Readerville and loved that site. Then I moved late to Book Balloon and when it was reconfigured last spring(?) I found it a little disorientating.
So I'm happy you've all decided to move to Librarything because I've been on this almost since the beginning and it's a great site. I'm surprised Goodreads wasn't chosen because I like that too
although there are some very strange book choices people make there.
If you are totally new to Librarything-definitely sign up to the Early Reviewers group. I have received about six books since I first joined which I have reviewed and am expecting a new nonfiction
book from Peter Orner. Goodreads-as I'm sure you all know is massive-and there is a lot of weird reading being done there. I find things a bit more sophisticated and calm here. Although I am
sure there are some forums that would scare me away.
Thanks for the update about the move!

It's good to see people here. I hope being on LT will wake/shake up things a bit.

LuAnn here -- new to LT. Do I have to sign up for this group or anything? I haven't been terribly active - I haven't been reading as much as I'd like to -- but given recent events, I need this group and outlet more than ever!

Welcome! You don't have to join the group to read or post, but it makes it easier to keep track of things. There's a "join this group" button or something if you click the group name.

Got it. Thanks, SP.

Ok, I'm here. This is not a good week for change but I'm hanging in.

Hello.

It's change we can believe in!

I like being with like- minded people. I can't remember a time in my life where I felt so glum about a nonpersonal event.

Can anyone recommend something funny?

Glad to see you folks moseyed on over here, I get bad about remembering to check in places and think I didn't manage all too long over on the site, lol.

Yeah, I think moving here was a good idea for a lot of reasons.

I joined a while back but haven't used it much because I was so entrenched with GR.

I thought about GR, but I just sort of like the vibe here better. It reminds me more of RV, and of BB when there were more people. The Amazon ownership of GR is an issue as well, but I subscribe to the Washington Post, so I guess that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yeah, I think this format is nice.

I know anyone can post a new topic. Do we want something like a literary loft?

Sure! And whether we want ongoing/general topical threads or more specific threads or a combination of both is completely up to any LT member who joins or even visits this group.

Hi, everyone. I'm PJ from Readerville and Book Balloon.

Oh, it's so great to see all of you. It's already starting to feel like home. (This is April--waiting for my new user name.)

>27LolaWalser Welcome, Lola!

>30alans Good to see you, Alan.

Hello Lola! Welcome!

Greetings all. I never did really do BookBalloon. It just couldn't replace Readerville for me :( Not the same writer threads. I did stop by now and then but...
Still miss Readerville!
But, I will give this a try.
Hope everyone is surviving this worst pf all autumns. Falls. Yep, definitely fall.

Welcome!

Well, the GPS worked OK and I made it here without too many wrong turns! Hi everyone!

Yay, it's feeling more and more like home.

Greetings new members!

Hellllooooo to everyone new and old.

Hello! I'm lurk-y but post once in awhile. I'd move everything here but my reading record is at GR. Poop.

You can export your books from GoodReads and import them here if you want. That's what I did -- it even picked up all of my reviews.

Oh! Thank you for the tip!

SP, this is April. I see my new user name in the list of members of this group, but when I post it comes up under my old user name. Am I doing something wrong?

>57 read2learn: You might need to log out and log back in, April. The talk pages are ajax-y, I think, so global updates might not be immediately applied.

SP, could you do the HTML guideline or could I find it somewhere else on the site? Never mind, I found it all by myself!

I lost it again. Please help!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/177029 I also have it in the group description--just click the group name at the top and you'll see it.

Thanks!

Hi there! I think my RV name was "Imagine," and I don't remember what my BB name was (I joined and posted a bit when RV ended, and came back sporadically - but not in a while). Been a children's librarian, but currently a stay-at-home mother, so we'll see if I get traction here this time around. :)

Hey Sten! great to see familar faces, or rather names.

(ETA never mind found the link)

Welcome, all!

Good to see everyone! Curious, where were/are you a librarian? (If you don't want to say publicly that's OK; I'm just interested in all things library-adjacent.)

Present

ACK! What the heck is going on? The world really is ending, huh? I'll be around, and I'm a lifetime member of LT, but I haven't used it in years, so it will take me a while to get my bearings. I'm still in denial/mourning/drunk because of the election, so this is a lot of change for this week for me. I feel sad.

Julie, I'm glad you arrived! You had me worried for a minute.

Kat, Sten, jjaylynny. glad to see you made it. It wouldn't be the same without you.

Testing to see if my new user name appears.

Works on my end, April.

It is very heartening to see everyone here. You'll get used to it and I encourage everyone to do the "touchstone" thing with books or anything else. I feel like not being able to easily link to books etc. was something that frustrated people in BB 2.0 and it's not only very easy here, it's a fantastic feature.

Thanks, April! I've been bamboozled by everything this week, and just had my first chance to jump on BB...and y'all left me behind! Just kidding. I've just been out of it all week, but I'm here now! I'll figure this place out and be around to annoy you all!

It is great to have everyone here and to not have people tell you to quit whining! Julie, my week has been like yours.

I miss dg. Can someone tell him to get his ass over here.

lisapeet - I used to be a librarian in Boston. Still in libraries several times a week with my little ones. :)

Hello!

(But... what is this group??)

>77 Tid: Bookballoon was started oh, like ten years ago or something, by a group of people who had been members of a literary discussion site called Readerville. When Readerville shut down, one of the members created Book Balloon as a place to keep the community together. Now, after ten years we decided to find another home that wouldn't be so much work for a site administrator, and would be more open to new members. So the community migrated here.

What she said! And welcome, >77 Tid:! In addition to books, as a forum we've had a lot of great talk about food and film/music/TV over the years, so please feel free to talk about any of that.

Welcome >77 Tid:!

>78 southernbooklady: >79 SPRankin: >80 AprilAdamson:

Books, food, film, music, TV ... what's not to like (but I will add chocolate to that list :D )! Count me in... And thank you for your welcome.

I HAVE ARRIVED SO YOU CAN ALL START BEING FASCINATING NOW

Oh sure, welcome or whatever.

Well, hello there! It's been too long--far too long--since I popped in at BookBalloon (I've been incredibly busy the last couple of years getting my new novel in shape), but I'm happy to see the rest of you here at the LT BB.

Congrats on the second novel David. Nice to see you here. Woot, DG! And welcome Tid (although I'll think of you as 77 Tid for a bit because I'm suggestive that way) and Curious_Librarian.

Davidabrams,I found out about your amazing blog from Larry Dark because you did this exceptional post on new short fiction collections a year ago. It was just masterful. So I followed your great blog for a while but you said you were quitting. Now that I see you here I checked and your blog is back! How wonderful,more great distraction during my day at the office. Your blog is tops man!

Yay, Davidabrams! Its very exciting to see you here.

Hi everybody! Nice to see you all.

>82 DG_Strong: Thank god because I was caving under the effort of not being fascinating.

It's stupid because I can basically go up the street and clap eyes on DG, but it's fun to see him here.

>85 mkunruh: >77 Tid:

Ah, the perils of numbered posts! (They don't exist in FB or GR).

What was I doing in 1977? A boring Civil Service job, learning to hate some but not all punk rock, and loving "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac. All in all, a boring year really.

Thanks, alans. Your kind words really mean a lot to me.
I did call a halt to blogging in early 2015, feeling like it was pulling me away from my "real" writing. But, just like the best of love affairs, I was back in the blog's arms in less than three months. I even bought the blog a T-shirt that says "I just can't quit you."
I'm not blogging quite a fervently or frequently these days, but I do try to keep it afloat as best I can.
Again, thanks for reading!

David-last night I went and started reading the posts I missed and some of the wonderful things about your blog is that you always find these brand new writers and you do a lot of focusing on short fiction which is my absolute favourite. I think you mentioned you subscribe to Glimmer Train (it's one of the ones I subscribe to too). Even though I believe you have published (or about to publish)two novels, you seem to have a real appreciation for short fiction which I find somewhat unusual,apart of course from Larry Dark. Is this something you go out of your way to acquire? I so look forward to the round-up of the Story Prize every year to get their
best of the year listings, and usually I can guess who will be short-listed,but this year I can't recall one new
collection of short fiction that has blasted through yet, so I have no idea who will make the short list this year. If you've come across any great new collections this past year-please share them.

Hi all! Something new to learn which means I will probably still lurk more than post. But I will try to change that behavior. 😉

Does anyone know how to access groups (Book Balloon) in the app? I downloaded the app on my iPad but cannot figure out how to find a group. Thank you.

The app doesn't include talk. Just cataloging and catalog browsing. Oh and adding covers.

Go into LT through your phone or tablet browser—I use Safari on my Mac devices—and then bookmark it. It's not as pretty as the app but you can access all the regular features, including Talk.

Another tip--on iPhones at least, you can save a website directly to your home screen so it works just like an app. Just hit the share button and there's an option to do that, and you can call it whatever you want. Also, if you make sure the home page is set to display in one column it's a lot more phone/tablet friendly.

Thanks!

SP, that is really cool. I didn't know you could do that.

I'm so glad to see the gang is finally gathering. Who's missing? We need to light a fire under the slow pokes.

Can someone tell me how to add an author to my favorites list? The directions tell me to go to the author page, but when I get there I can't find a link to add the author. I'm an idiot.

Here's what I just did, April: go about half-way down the author page to the Members section and click on the Add to Favorites button.

And it can sometimes be a little confusing. If you want to favorite a popular author, like James Baldwin you may have to click around to make sure you get the correct James Baldwin.

It's nice to see all the familiar faces *and* some new ones!

curious_librarian, I think we have actually met in person once or twice! I believe you did me the favor of getting a copy of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys signed at an event I wasn't able to attend, so thank you for that.

Hello everyone. Not sure how often I will be here, but it is time to be away from FB. I am Sheila McCallum Dee there.

Cordel! nice to see you here.

Hi Sheila! I know what you mean about FB.

Hello, Sue from Brisbane, Australia (thewordygecko) here. I've been a member of LT for years, but not connected with BookBalloon before, so looking forward to joining in.

Welcome, everyone!

We got a nice welcome in LT's State of the Thing newsletter this month—thanks, lorannen! Everybody say interesting things now, OK?

>109 lisapeet: I am here via the newsletter mention. I'm hoping newbs with a propensity for lurking are welcome to join. LT was a great choice. I left GRs a year ago and love it here.

Welcome Sace! I can't promise to be interesting, but it is lovely to have new people joining the conversation.

>111 mkunruh: I can promise that I am utterly boring. I am far from fascinating. ;-)

A heads up for all the folks here who are new to LibraryThing: Today the BookBalloon group received what I think is it's first spam user and topic. These do crop up occasionally, but LT has a fairly effective user-driven system for removing them:

1) click on the name of the user to go to their profile
2) scroll down and find the "flag as spam" link on the right
3) flag the account

Users who receive a certain number of flags are first hidden, and then removed. And there is an entire group on LT dedicated to flagging spam into oblivion, so it is rare for any of them to stay up longer than a few minutes.

One thing to note, however, is that you should avoid replying to the spammer in the topic they started. Left alone, the topic will eventually go away, but any activity by valid users will keep the spam topic visible.

First spam ... bookballoon at LT is growing up so fast! Before we know it, it'll be heading off to prom.

Aw man, I missed it. For real, though, the spam-busting is one of the many reasons LibraryThing seems like a great outfit.

Hi, >112 Sace:! Lurkers welcome, but please feel free to join in!

>109 lisapeet: where do we find this?

Oh and welcome to all newbies, lurking or not!

::waves:: Hi, everyone! Happy to help. It's nice to see such an active and dedicated group having cool discussions on LT, and I wanted to do what I could to make you all feel welcome.

In case anyone missed or has yet to receive their copy this month's State of the Thing, you can read it right in your browser here.

>113 southernbooklady: This is indeed, one of the perils of being one of the week's most active groups on the site. However, as southernbooklady rightfully points out, we've got a good system in place that empowers members to catch and remove spam quickly.

>115 SPRankin: Thanks! I'll try to be fascinating. Hee hee.

lorannen, thanks for the link to the newsletter. BTW, in the past Bookballoon has had a book secret santa, but its run differently from LT. Not sure if SP wanted to do this again, but is it allowed for a group to have their own, or do we need to go through the sites system (and actually after reading about it, I think it sounds very cool to do!)

>120 cindydavid4: Good question! While we'd certainly be happy to have you all join in SantaThing, any group is welcome to do their own Secret Santa-type thing (and you could always do both, if you wanted!). The caveat being that SantaThing is the only such program LT staff will be directly running.

And thanks so much for the nice shout-out, lorannen. The transition has gone amazingly well and I'm super excited about the community here.

>118 lorannen:

Cool! I've never seen State of the Thing before (looks good :-) ) but at the bottom it said "You received this because you signed up for the email" ... but I didn't! I simply clicked on your link and got taken to a webpage with a personalised greeting at the top of SotT.

So ... how do I actually receive the email? Or, is there way I can see the Thing direct from LT without having to trouble my email account?

>123 Tid: Good question! And yeah, there's unfortunately no way for me to strip that text out of the online version. Don't worry—it doesn't mean you've actually subscribed.

So, to subscribe, you can take a look at your Account Settings, and make sure that, under "Email settings," the box for "receive monthly State of the Thing email" is checked. If it is already checked, and you're not getting the newsletter, take a peek at your spam folder, or, if you're using Gmail, the Promotions tab.

If you'd rather just read it online the day after I send it, I keep an archive of all States of the Thing here: http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/State_of_the_Thing.

>124 lorannen:

As it's only monthly, I decided to subscribe via my settings as you suggest. However... I see that box is already checked, but no email address is listed! How is that even possible - wouldn't it generate an error message here, if one ticks an email box but the email address box is blank?

Hi! Discovered y'all from the LT newsletter and it looks like this might be a nice place to have a thoughtful fun conversation, though I'll probably lurk and listen more than talk. Don't mind me .. I'll just be over here in the corner, reading.

Hey TempleCat. There are a lot of us that lurk more than post. Enjoy your reading corner, and pop in when you have anything to share.

Telling us what you are reading is an awesome place to start. And welcome. :)

>126 TempleCat: Welcome!

So good to see new names here! Welcome, welcome.

>125 Tid: Interesting! But, I'm not terribly surprised, considering that's a very old part of LT (and we've never required email addresses to create an account). That said, if you update your account to include your email address, you should certainly start receiving our newsletters! I'll prod Tim about how easy it would be to gray-out that checkbox if there's no email address entered.

>131 lorannen:

I'll do that! It's entirely possible that if one could register without supplying an email address, that I wouldn't have given one. I presume that if I supply one now, I can choose only to have the monthly newsletter?

>132 Tid: Absolutely! The only other email messages that LT sends out normally are profile comment notifications, but you can turn those off on that same settings page, too.

>128 laurenbufferd: What am I reading? Well, I have a good dozen titles that I'm actively working on right now, depending on my mood and what room I'm in (and the book's in.) The two that I'm really focused on and that follow me around on my Kindle are Octavia E. Butler (Modern Masters of Science Fiction) by Gerry Canavan, which I'm reading for a review that's due, and Sleeping Dog by Dick Lochte that I'm reading just for fun. They're both progressing very slowly 'cuz my other activities (editing a manuscript, learning to play the guitar, napping, browsing the internet, cooking and going on long walks) seem to be taking over at the moment.

Welcome, new people! And thanks, lorannen, for giving us a mention.

Yes, welcome to all the new folks. It's great to have you aboard HMS BookBalloon!

I found you all! Started with Readerville as cdcoleman and then transitioned to BookBalloon as devon. I've always been more of a lurker (sounds slightly sinister) than poster, but in an odd way many of the folks I've "known" since Readerville days feel like an extended family of sorts. Including Sue Russell, whose loss I'm grieving though we never even met in person.

Wow, so great to see you here! I love this community.

Hi cd/devon! And hi new folks too! It's good to see all the names trickling in.

I remember you from RV, cd. Welcome.

I remember you, too cd. Welcome!

As do I! Although I had no idea you were devon, so nice to put those two names together.

Hey, cd! Always great to see you!

Hi everyone! bookowl/Chris here from Pittsburgh. I've lurked for a while on BB, and now have some time to get back to serious reading and discussion. Almost an empty-nester (one just graduated, one a senior), and have missed this online community!

Currently reading "Between the World and Me", "The Fire This Time" and "The Underground Railroad" - it seems like a good time to get my eyes opened.

Hiya Chris! Nice to see you—I've been thinking of you.

Another book along those lines that I just finished today, because I've been thinking similarly, is Jeff Chang's We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation—slightly more diffuse in scope, and short, but smart and very on target.

Hiya Lisa!

My kids still think of you fondly, as do I! Patrick will be in NYC for his school's Showcase for agents and managers in the spring - hard to believe he's a senior. Liz stayed in Pgh and is working at a non-profit as their communications designer, so Bob and I are rattling around the house together, wondering where the years went.

I might pick that Chang up - anything that tells me "we gon' be alright" is a welcome message these days.

Chris, it is wonderful to see you!!

Hi Lauren! It's so nice to see this community continue :)

Welcome, Chris!

Good to see you, Chris!

Hello Chris!!

Ho, Ho, Ho! A late Happy Holidays to y'all.

Big thank you to SP for keeping me updated on your whereabouts.

Sorry for the long MIA, but the past year+ has been a ruff one. Briefly, without going into the morbid details, I suffered a really bad back injury at work which left me with severe spinal compression and the loss of the use of my left leg. I was determined to get back to work after only recently achieving my CNRN, and after 4 mos. of tortuous physical therapy I did just that. They created a new job position for me, as my days of heavy, bedside care were over: I was free charge of all the ICU's and Open Heart, and that went well... until a couple mos. ago when some of the symptoms started recurring. I'm on a leave now, until I decide whether to go iFLEX (new term for M.A.S.H. where I could work only when I wanted to), or take early retirement.

Either way, I'm going to have plenty of reading and posting time now, and I'm soooo glad y'all are still together.

I've had this LibrayThing account for years, but never really used it much. Gonna' have to get caught up, look around the place and figure this all out.

Anyways... Hello!

Pat_D (formerly exPat)

Hey Pat, great to see you here.

Pat! I missed you! Really good to see you here.

Pat, Missed you, so glad to see you back! Im so sorry for all that you've been through - Im glad that you have an employer who knows your worth and is looking out for you. And if you are having trouble with workmans comp or FMLA stuff, let me know - been through that the last year. Wishing that this year brings you health and strength.

So glad you're here, Pat!

Hiya, Pat!

Pat! Woot! (Although I'm sorry to hear about your back and its limitations, particularly after all the work you put into becoming CNRN)

Whatever happened to Finn from Chicago?

He hasn't been here since the switch to LT, but he is on FB.

Thanks, Thingies (can't call you loonies anymore).

Went through all the threads. So sorry to hear about Sue Russell. 2016 can't end too soon, as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks, Thingies (can't call you loonies anymore). Ha! We need pcashwell over here, with his two boys!

Heh. That's right. That's his trademark.

I like Thingies better than Loonies anyway.

Yippee, Pat has arrived! Sorry to hear about your health concerns, but we're sure glad to see you made it to LT. I hope the latest symptoms get resolved speedy quick.

Hi everyone! I'm really glad to see some of our old cohorts from RV and BB!

Pat, I'm so sorry about your injury. Sound excruciating, I wish you a lot of luck! (But I'm selfishly looking forward to having you back in the TV thread.)

With Pat_D's arrival, it's beginning to seem more and more like home here. As much as it can with Sue Russel gone.
Has Sarah Rockwell, I think her last name was, shown up?

No, she hasn't been around for a while (it's Rocklin). I'm still surprised TPC and Joseph haven't shown up here.

Happy New Year! Let's hope that... no, let's just hope.

I was busy forcrissakes .... plus someone already had my name.

ha. Nice to see you here, though.

Why is it so hard to make a link here? I made a link to a book image earlier, but now I can't find whee on LT I found the information to do that.

How to do fancy things in your posts:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/177029#4750147

tag a user @ plus the username: lisapeet
link to a referenced post in a thread: ">" plus the post number: >2 lisapeet: lisapeet:

thanks

You can tag other people besides me too.

Hi teep!

About time, jeez.

I haven't read anything worth talking about. Plus, I'm trying to get better about not talking about things I haven't read.

Hey, finally! Welcome to the new digs.

About time!

Is there an easy way to get back to the home (Book ballon) page without clicking the back arrow?

For instance, after posting this, to continue on the choices are to get to the top of the page where some pages have hundreds of posts or click the back arrow.

There is an arrow on the colored box with your name, on the right side. Click it, you will get to the top of the page. To your right is the Book Balloon link, click it and there you are! (took a while for me to figure that out too!)

yeah, that's the only way I've figured out how to do it. I click the "back to top" arrow to the right of the posts, and then click on the Book Balloon link at the top. I also recommend clicking on the bolded link to unread posts from the home page, so you don't have to scroll down to the unread posts, or you can click the link at the top of each thread that will take you to the first unread post.

I'm still not great at navigating this place.

Belated thanks!

Hi, I was a member of Readerville. I made so many dear friends and felt so at home there. I used to be called Saragreentea. I tried to join with that name but it said it was already taken. Sara

Hiya Sara! I remember you! (I was Oblivia.)

Sara, I remember you, welcome back!

YAY! I like when new old people arrive. What are you reading Sarayogatea?

Yay, welcome back, Sara!

Hello Sara!

I remember you too. Welcome back.

Welcome, Sara! I'm so glad when old Readerville or BookBalloon people come back!

Hi all. I just looked at my profile and discovered that I've been a member of LT since 2008, but it's only within the last week or so that I've done more than catalogue. How's that for slackness?

It's never too late.

Welcome. Hope it doesn't take another 10 years for you to post.

Welcome! So what are you reading?

As of last night, On Being a Bird by Philip Wills. (And I've just noticed that this is also listed here as by Philip Will. No copies though. This probably should be fixed but I'm not sure how.)
Last weekend, Letters from Iceland by Auden, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Oh if you liked Dirk Gently then you must read the sequel Long Dark Teatime of the Soul Hilarious, in typical Douglas Adams fashion; nothing deep just a fun read

Read it a few weeks ago. I've actually read both before, and I remembered The Long Dark Teatime as being quite dark (funny about that), but didn't find it so on re-reading. The oddity was that I bought The Long Dark Teatime ... new somewhere and decided not to buy Dirk Gently's ... as well, and then went to Barter Books in Alnwick and found Dirk Gently's ... there, almost new.

Hey, just read a few posts and thought I'd like to join this group.

Please do!

Let us know a little about yourself and please tell us what you are reading. :)

Name is Charlton, live in Texas on the southeast gulf coast. Right now I'm reading The Lies of Locke Lamora.
I like DnD , fantasy in movies and books. Some science fiction and paranormal.

We currently don't have a FANTASY thread but feel free to start one. You can also post in The Eternal Question: What Are You Reading 8 or Movies. If you want to stay current, the Literary Loft is where we catch up with one another.

Speaking of, since you are in Texas, did you get trounced in the most recent snowstorm?

Hi Charlton. Thanks for joining us! Looking forward to book chatting with you.

Hi Charlton, welcome.

I like fantasy, too. I have TLoLL on my shelves, but I'm doing an historical fiction read, right now.

Hey guys thanks for the welcomes, glad to be here.
And yes >201 laurenbufferd: the Texas "snowstorm" busted a couple pipes and I was out of water and electricity and internet for a few days. We got electricity back first then water but we had to boil it to make it drinkable. Thank you bottled water. But it took a while to finally get internet.

But to be honest, there were so many people worse off than me. Right now me and my wife feel lucky by comparison.

BB hasn't been very busy, lately, but it seems to go through these quiet stages every once in a while. Hope you stick around, Chalton. Meanwhile, have a look around and check out the other threads. Glad to hear you're getting through the worst of the outage crisis.

Hi Charlton, and welcome! Yeah, this group hibernates a bit in winter (you'd think staying indoors in bad weather would be conducive to intensive posting, but I guess everyone has their respective noses in a book). It's a convivial group—feel free to poke around and see what interests you here.

Hola again, y’all. I lost my login detail when migrating to a new device several whiles ago. But I missed you and the BOOK focus of this group. Thanks to a tip from Lisa, I am returned to the fold.

It's a good day when I wake up to see Kat rejoining us!

Missed ya', Kat. Please stick around this time.

New month! New books! New Kat!! Hooray!

Yay Kat! Howdy!

yeah Kat! good to see you again!