Caramellunacy's TBR excavation resumes in 2017

Excavations last year ground to a shocking halt given other commitments, so I have decided to keep the goal much lower this year. Hopefully scheduling and work will allow for more dedication to the dig and relevant fieldnotes this year.

Welcome back! It's always great to see you. Have a great reading year! :D

Books Read in 2017
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!

The intention this year is to focus on physical TBR, but I have no doubt that I'll be working through e-books and maybe some audiobooks as well.

January
1. Victoria and the Rogue - Meg Cabot
2. My Life as a Snow Bunny - Kaz Delaney
Acting Up - Melissa Nathan

February
3. Lady Rogue - Suzanne Enoch
4. Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor
5. Delicious! - Ruth Reichl
6. The Attorney - Steve Martini

March
HHhH - Laurent Binet
Dramarama - E. Lockhart
7. The Paris Architect - Charles Belfoure
The Obsession - Nora Roberts
8. Pretty Face - Lucy Parker
The Sun is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon

April
9. The Hired Girl - Laura Amy Schlitz
The Liar - Nora Roberts
10. Hunted - Elizabeth Heiter
Howard's End is on the Landing: a year of reading from home - Susan Hill
11. Ink - Alice Broadway
12. A Time to Kill - John Grisham
13. The Boy is Back - Meg Cabot
14. Vanished - Elizabeth Heiter
15. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride (Audio)

May
16. Crow Boy - Philip Caveney
17. A Little Love Song - Michelle Magorian
Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld

June
Resistance is Futile - Jenny Colgan
I Heart London - Lindsey Kelk
In the Commodore's Hands - Mary Nichols
Jane Austen at Home - Lucy Worsley

July
The Summer Seaside Kitchen - Jenny Colgan
The Map of Lost Memories - Kim Fay
The Trespassers - Tana French
18. One Perfect Rose - Mary Jo Putney
Tears of the Moon - Nora Roberts

August
My Not So Perfect Life - Sophie Kinsella
The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith
Map of Bones - James Rollins

September
The Owl who Liked Sitting on Caesar - Martin Windrow
The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy - Julia Quinn
The Improbability of Love - Hannah Rothschild

October
The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
19. Almost a Scandal - Elizabeth Essex
Whiskey Beach - Nora Roberts
Career of Evil - Robert Galbraith
20. Approval Junkie: Adventures in Caring Too Much - Faith Salie

November
21. One True Pairing - Cathy Yardley
Come Sundown - Nora Roberts
22. Lord of Night - Erica Ridley
23. The Lady in the Tower - Marie-Louise Jensen

December
24. Mr. Churchill's Secretary - Susan Elia MacNeal
25. Not Another Bad Date - Rachel Gibson
26. Love, Lucy - April Lindner
27. My Unscripted Life - Lauren Morrill
28. The Finnish Line - Linda Gerber

Stopping by to wave and star your thread! I hope you have a successful 2017!

Best of luck with your ROOTing this year. I hope you dig up some treasures along the way.

Hope you unearth some good ones!

I hope you will find the time for the fieldnotes! Happy excavating!

Welcome back & Happy 2017 ROOTing!

Best of luck with your ROOT goal!

Welcome back and Happy ROOTing, Caramellunacy.

>4 Sace:, >5 Familyhistorian:, >6 cyderry:,>7 MissWatson:, >8 avanders:, >9 readingtangent:, >10 connie53:: Thanks all of you! This is such a great group and I am really looking forward to sharing more with all y'all this year :)

Happy 2017 Rooting!

Artefact: Victoria and the Rogue - Meg Cabot
Trove: Paperback
Status: Unclear - a bit so-so, but I liked the heroine's "fix-it" nature, which I related to, but don't feel like I see all that often...



Fieldnotes:
1 Meddlesome Young Lady in Dire Need of Her Own Advice (Shades of Austen's Emma)
1 Handsome Suitor with Ill-Disguised Mercenary Intentions
1 Infuriatingly Self-Sufficient Sea Captain

1 Larcenous Street Urchin with a Heart of Gold
1 Rather Bland Secondary Romance
1 Terrible Cook

1 Torrential Thunderstorm
1 Purloined Gown
1 Daring Escape

The short version:
This was a pleasant enough wallpaper historical YA romance. It reminded me of a bit of a (sillier) mish-mash between Austen's Emma and Pride & Prejudice. I found the heroine's constant need to manage and improve other people's lives quite interesting, but the story remained quite shallow and fluffy when a little more depth from Victoria and Captain Carstairs would not have come amiss.

The Long Version:
I picked this one up as the first read of the year because the heroine is travelling from India - and since we have just returned from a trip to India over the holidays, it seemed to be fitting.

Victoria Arbuthnot has spent her childhood in India after her parents' unfortunate deaths, being raised by her maternal uncles and her ayah until Victoria's meddling attempts to "improve" her uncles' lives and manners irritate them to the extent that they send her to stay with relatives in London for her Season (and that, there, was the story I really wanted to be reading, but alas).

On the ship (owned and captained by the irritatingly self-sufficient Captain Jacob Carstairs), Victoria meets and becomes betrothed to the very handsome Lord Malfrey - not least to show the scoffing Captain Carstairs how a lady ought to be spoken to. It is no mystery from the very first moment that Captain Carstairs refers to her as "Miss Bee" in teasing reference to her tendency to buzz about busily fixing everyone's lives and servants to her liking that our pockets-to-let Lord Malfrey is unlikely to keep his hold on Victoria's heart, which will clearly belong to our overly patronizing young captain.

The story certainly had its moments and some genuinely funny turns of phrase, but I missed a certain depth to the characters - Victoria's desire to make herself useful and her frustration at traditional English social mores (and her frequent inability or lack of knowledge to live up to them) were touched upon - but most often in lectures about herself from Captain Carstairs (in true Knightley fashion, which is not a terribly attractive trait in a young man). And Jacob Carstairs? Aside from his Darcy-esque desire to protect a young woman from a known scoundrel - very little is shown as to why he actually wants her. I mean, I enjoyed Victoria's machinations, although I found her naivete regarding Lord Malfrey/her feelings towards Jacob a tad irritating at times, but there was no real indication that Jacob found her self-sufficiency or ability to run a tight ship intriguing or useful. Just that he thought he would be a better match because his life was already in order and he therefore didn't need her... A message I agree with, but I missed the "wooing" part... especially as the plot takes a bit of a right turn into a Gothic novel with abductions, street urchins, a daring escape through dark alleyways clad only in undergarments and being mistaken for a woman of negotiable virtue!

I am on the fence about keeping this one. The story was only so-so, but I don't run across many heroines, especially young women, who are so take-charge with regard to the household and servants (to the point of having strong words with the cook over an ill-prepared dish too often in rotation) and quite so no-nonsense. Generally this is only seen in the fearsome aged battle-axes of the ton (old and important enough not to give a fig what other people think) or the resigned spinsters (like Amelia Peabody in Elizabeth Peters' mysteries), and it was interesting to see the beginnings of it here as it's a character trait I love to read about (and perhaps share to a certain extent).

>13 Caramellunacy: I can see shades of Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy here, as in a young woman who firmly bosses everyone else around...

>14 MissWatson:
I haven't read The Grand Sophy in many years, so remember very little about it, but it sounds like a fun re-read!

>15 Caramellunacy: It's one of my favourites. Overdue for a re-read.

>13 Caramellunacy: I love your fieldnotes, they always make me smile.

>17 connie53: I'm glad you enjoy them! Hopefully there will be more of them this year than last.

How coincidental to find your archaeological thread at the same time that I'm reading Woman on the Orient Express, covering Agatha Christie's adventure of several months at Ur during the Leonard Woolley excavations where she fell in love with Max Mallowan, her future second husband.

Best of luck finding several treasures buried in the tell of Mt. TBR.

Woman on the Orient Express sounds absolutely fascinating! I think you may have hit me with the first Book Bullet of the year - off to put it on the wishlist (I'm still trying to resist buying new books until my birthday in Feb...)

Your character is stronger than mine. So, I won't tell you 'good luck' on that goal. Already bought several. It's too easy when the Kindle is in your hand.

If you think a review might help you to save money, at least temporarily. . .here's mine.

https://www.librarything.com/profile_reviews.php?view=Limelite

>13 Caramellunacy: I really do enjoy your fieldnotes... ;)

(and >17 connie53: I see I'm echoing Connie once again ;))

>22 avanders: Hihihihi. We think alike Ava!

>23 connie53: many hi's back! & we certainly do! :)

>21 Limelite: I really enjoyed your review - it has not made the "not buying" any easier, though!

>22 avanders: I am glad you enjoy them! I am working on the next round now.

I received Woman on the Orient Express as a Christmas gift. I was hoping to get to it this year.

>26 Tess_W: I will hope along with you, do come back and let me know what you thought if you do get to it! For now, I've put that one on the "when-my-not-book-buying-resolve-wears-out" list!

As a quick update, I'm working on putting together fieldnotes for my most recent ROOT artefact, but (in the meantime) have started two additional ROOTS - Prague Winter - Madeline Albright's history/family remembrance about WWII and Czechoslovakia and its impact on the country and her family for my commutes (although it is quite heavy and thought-provoking, so perhaps less suited to reading on the train, its subject matter is rather too dark to be reading before bed without courting nightmares).

For evenings, I am re-reading one of my first "second-wave" romances (the first wave were the ones I snuck from my mother's stash, the second those I chose for myself when I rediscovered them in college after realizing that I was often reading other books for the two paragraphs of romance shoehorned in and decided to just go for it - Suzanne Enoch's Lady Rogue, which I first read in 2006. I do enjoy the girls dressed as boys trope!

Fun to describe your books that way -- first wave and second wave :)
Enjoy!

>27 Caramellunacy: I think I had those same waves! The second one is still moving along.

>27 Caramellunacy:

Watch out for the 7th wave!

>27 Caramellunacy: Well I did get to The Woman on the Orient Express. It was a good, average read; a bit predictable. Agatha is traveling incognito to Baghdad. I gave it 3 stars.

>27 Caramellunacy: ...after realizing that I was often reading other books for the two paragraphs of romance shoehorned in and decided to just go for it.

The same thing happened to me. I've added Lady Rogue to my list :).

>27 Caramellunacy: I'm also a fan of the girl dressed as boy trope. Have you read These Old Shades? I highly recommend it.

>33 Sace: There's also The masqueraders which is quite fun. Not one of Heyer's best, but even her lesser efforts are better than the competition.

>34 MissWatson: I'll add that to my list. I've got a bunch of Heyer books in my TBR pile. She's a wonderful author.

I haven't read These Old Shades, but will certainly add it to the list! I did read The Masqueraders several years ago and enjoyed it (it read very like The Scarlet Pimpernel to me, with less revolution)

>36 Caramellunacy: I've got both The Masqueraders and The Scarlet Pimpernel lying around. I want to try to get to The Scarlet Pimpernel for the Category challenge.

>37 Sace: The Scarlet Pimpernel, one of my top 10 fav books of all time!

>38 Tess_W: Cool! I might try to start it during my break. I find it so hard to read anything with lots of words these days. Even graphic novels and manga are starting to be difficult. What is wrong with me??????????

brain fatigue! I go through it sometimes. I tend to have to take some time to listen to podcasts or audiobooks and do something else (like draw/color/build legos/scrub rust stains off of cabinet handles) for a while to click back into words :)

>40 Caramellunacy: That sounds very likely!

Hello! I'm not attempting to catch up on threads at this point, but just wanted to drop by & say hi :)

>42 avanders:. Same here. So Hi to you!

No additional fieldnotes at the moment, but thought I would stop by for a quick update as to what I am reading at the moment:

Grabbed from the library, I am reading Susan Hill's Howard's End is on the Landing: a book about books and reading and reminiscing about the memories evoked by books. I thought this sounded very much like my catnip, but Mrs. Hill and I have very different tastes (I am quite fond of things she describes as "rubbish") and philosophies (she advocates "slow reading" of "books worth the effort" that will "nourish") and while I am not reading books to rack up points or anything, I don't have any interest or pretensions of studying books to get "the most" from them. I read for my enjoyment and I am very pleased to read books that feel "nourishing" but am not as slavishly wed to the English major's canon. And while she is never openly prescriptive, I am not convinced that she is exempt from the criticism levelled (in a quote provided by herself) at literary critics by David Cecil: "...they seek first to draw up laws about literature and then to bully readers into accepting these laws...but you cannot force a taste on someone else, you cannot argue people into enjoyment."

On my commute I have also been listening to Cary Elwes' memoir about the making of The Princess Bride As You Wish and have been thoroughly charmed by his self-deprecating stories and clear respect and affection for his colleagues.

>44 Caramellunacy: I have As You Wish on my TBR (the paper book rather than audio). I love the film of the Princess Bride so much! (I read the book last year and was less enamoured with it - when he stuck to the story it was brilliant, but the asides got more and more annoying!).

I have the audio of As You Wish and am sure it will be excellent whenever I end up listening to it :)

>44 Caramellunacy: I know, he has such a lovely voice for reading, too... I only started As You Wish on a road trip w/ my sister last summer, but it's on my "to finish" list... :)

Artefact: One True Pairing by Cathy Yardley (Fandom Hearts, Book 02)
Trove: E-book
Status: Heart Eyes! (also, it's an e-book so doesn't take up physical space)



Fieldnotes:
1 Hunky TV Star on a Librarians/Supernatural Show
1 Gothabilly Barista/Blackjack Dealer with Commitment Issues
1 Miserably Low Q-Score
1 Fake(?) Star/Fan Relationship

1 Fan Convention
1 Struggling Bookstore Targeting Girl Geeks (WANT!)
A Fine Bromance (with No Kisses)
1 Agoraphobic Sister
Sequel Bait Co-stars

1 Badass Bodyguard
1 Meddlesome Movie Star Father
1 Psycho Stalker

The Short Version:
I picked up the first in this series (Level Up) last year after listening to an episode of the SBTB podcast, and while I wasn't the biggest fan of the hero there, I really enjoyed the women in fandom - particularly when the heroine of that book gets pulled into the geek girl group (which includes our current heroine and her sisters). I liked this pairing a lot - the sexy but sweet actor and his found family and the independent curvy heroine with commitment issues. Honestly, there was a section early on in the novel when Hailey manages a snotty hotel clerk for Jake and I would have read the heck out of her acting as his handler (though the story went in a very different direction).

Welcome back! Love your fieldnotes!

>49 MissWatson:, Thanks! I have had a bit of a mess of a year, but realized that coming back here (and the fieldnotes) really helps ground me. So onward!

Artefact: Come Sundown by Nora Roberts
Trove: Library



Fieldnotes:
1 Montana Ranch and Resort
4 Generations of Woman Tending It, including:
1 Headstrong Multitasking Resort Manager

1 Handsome Cowboy (Brother's Best Friend Edition)
1 Special Horse (with a lot of tricks)
Peppermint Treats

2 Employees Murdered
One Old Grudge
Gunshots

1 Intense Tone Shift (Jarring Variety)
1 Abduction with Abuse and Brainwashing (some on-page, and graphic enough to be upsetting)
Trauma

The Short (?) Version:
I like Nora Roberts. I particularly enjoy her competent heroines who get the job done, and Bodine Longbow manages the ranch resort (and sometimes the family) with the many checklists in her head. She's a wonder to behold and she sure knows her own mind. Cal is a charmer, but competent and hard-working as well. I'm a fan of the two of them, Cal's awesome horse Sundown and watching Bodine's brothers fall for the excellent ladies working at the resort.

But juxtaposing that with the treatment suffered by Bodine's long-lost Aunt Alice is too jarring of a tone shift for a comfortable read. I almost think it would have worked better to just have her in the prologue and then have her sad history come out when she is found rather than the interspersed painful sections of her suffering which jangled the nerves compared to the sweetness (even with the murderous subplot) in Bodine/Cal's story. I eagerly read both stories, but am just not sure they fit together smoothly.

I love Nora Roberts too. Every now and them it's just the right time for one of her books. And I found a Dutch translation, so I put that on my wish list for the books to buy next year.

I like to read Nora Roberts when I'm sad or depressed, which isn't often. But at that time, she fits the bill.

>52 connie53: - Hi Connie, thanks for stopping by! Sometimes a good Nora Roberts book is just the right amount of comfortable reading. I'm glad you found a translation :)

>53 Tess_W: I agree, Nora Roberts works really well as an immersive comfort read - add a blanket (or hammock depending on the time of year) and a cup of tea and you're all set!

I have not done particularly well with my fieldnotes (I am hoping to remedy a bit more this weekend with notes from my last few reads), but at least have managed to read more ROOTs than my initial target!

It is such a great feeling to surpass one's goals, isn't it?

>56 MissWatson:
It is! It has been a bit of a crazy year and I have read far, far less than previously, so it feels really good to be past my (modest) goal!

Artefact: Love, Lucy by April Lindner
Trove: Hardcover
Status: To be lost abroad



Fieldnotes:
1 Devil’s Bargain Backpacker’s Tour of Europe
1 Responsible (but Cranky) Chaperone/Travel Companion
1 Know-It-All Travel Guide Blogger/Writer Obsessed with “Authenticity”

Florence!
A Room Without a View
1 Devil-May-Care Musician Drifter Love Interest
Kissing in Romantical Fiesole
Rome!
Many 'Roman Holiday' references

COLLEGE!
1 Guilt-Induced Business Major
1 Renounced Love of the Stage (Temporary)
1 Overly Involved Father
1 Major Role in Rent
Drama Kid Friends
1 Perfect on Paper But All Wrong Boyfriend

The Short Version:

Lucy Sommersworth agreed to a bit of a devil's bargain. In exchange for a backpacking trip around Europe (duly chaperoned by a practical, no-nonsense upperclasswoman), she agrees to go to the school her father picked out for her to major in business - and to leave her love of the stage behind. But when they arrive in Florence, they end up ousting two young men working at the Hostel Bertolini for A Room With a View (as they were promised) - and Lucy starts branching off more on her own, then with the handsome Jesse to discover Italy and how much she enjoys performing. Soon Lucy is torn between being practical, responsible and keeping her promise to her parents and joining Jesse in drifting about Europe with no particular plan (nor apparently any concern about legality, visas and overstaying them, etc. - those are all too practical and not romantical enough… I think it is clear which side of the practical/romantic debate I tend to come down on).

I actually enjoyed Lucy working through her response to her dilemma (and that she didn’t just drop everything to drift about with no plan whatsoever, but also her “rebelling” and auditioning for the school musical , though I thought neither of the boys (symbols of her choices) were worth the page time spent worrying about them. This ends rather abruptly and without any real resolution/fallout from the underlying dilemma, but especially the abroad portions are a pleasant summery romance.

Hello... sorry for such a long absence! I kept seeing that "unread" number get higher and higher and was completely intimidated... Finally, I figured it's better to just stop by and say HI. :)
I wish I had time to go through these threads and read all about what you've all been doing and reading! But, alas, I very much do not. But I think of you often!! And my "hello" is heartfelt and repeated often in my own head ;)

I'm not sure how I will remain involved next year, but I will be around in some fashion!
xo