Monday, October 05, 2015

haul

How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse; narrated by Ian Carmichael. This wasn't a good audio recording, at least (or especially) for driving-- the narrator's accent was just strong enough, and he spoke just fast enough, that any slang or regional words were almost impossible to pick up.  He also didn't distinguish between characters; they all were narrated exactly the same.  Only listened to the first half of the first disc.

Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse; narrated by Frederick Davidson.  Pretty sure I listened to this story, although by a different narrator.  Yep.  Fortunately, I figured out how to plug my phone into the library's car.  Unfortunately, I had thought to but forgot to download any back-up titles.  So I Pandora'd it the rest of the way home. 

I came across this while preparing for my PNBA panel and wrote it down: "'Poorly written' often seems to mean successfully written to achieve an effect that some readers admire but that this particular reader dislikes, finding it too sexually arousing, too descriptive, or too literary." 
Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Making choices: What readers say about choosing books to read for pleasure, p.7

I feel motivated to search through the blog for times when I've used the descriptor "poorly written."  I feel like, on the occasions I've used it, it was to describe a story with an unorganized plot, characters with no depth, terrible grammar, or some other fault which is not a stylistic choice and which is detrimental to the success of the book.  I could be deluding myself on that point, and, although I feel like I want to go and find some instances, I'm still too tired from last weekend to do it right now. 

Speaking of last weekend, here's what I brought home from the conference:
I managed to haul everything in and divide it up into separate sections: Juv/YA (ARCs and pubs intermixed); published adult material, possibly to add to the library; adult ARCs to divvy up among staff; and stuff I'm keeping (ARCs and pubs intermixed).  The stack for me to read through before moving the books on to other homes is 23 titles, a stack over 2 feet high.  Currently a third of the way through the first one, which is already promised to a coworker as soon as I'm done.

The important thing to remember about the PNBA tradeshow, should I go again in the future-- or if you are interested in going-- is to schedule Monday off.  Fourteen-hour days-- plus, you know, showering and flossing and such on either side of the 8am-to-10pm scheduled events-- even just for the weekend, is very tiring. 

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