craftyhobbit

I've just discovered that I have a different veiw that most of the people whinging about books on booktube.

Wilko's went bust a couple of years ago because they never got out of the Covid lockdown trading mindset (i.e. they never had anything in stock on their website...). They got bought out, had their website come back (most of their stores were closed down), and they still are in the Covid lockdown mindset.

Gardening was once a stress free, peaceful hobby, but ever since Covid, it's become a nightmare because you can't get anything delivered.

I really don't know why libraries bother with offering services that aren't easily accessible to people. Our library has Borrowbox for e-books and audio books only...

You can't read the library's e-books on kindle.

You can't stream audio books direct from the website, you have to download them on to your laptop and faff around with the file, or you have to have a phone. It should be simple to listen to an audio book, espeaically since most of the people who want to listen to audio books are blind/have difficulty with their eye sight. It's not a format that was made for on the go non disabled people, though they can take advantage of it if they want.

I genuineingly feel sorry for the blind person who constantly gets discriminated against because shops, taxis, cafes, etc, don't like their guide dog because you can't have a simple library service that's accessible.

March hasn't really been a good month for reading so far... I've read a couple of books that I've enjoyed, but one which I thought that I would like, I found a bit dull and gave up reading it. The book is Vet's in Love by Cathy Woodman. (Spoiler, the main character of the book isn't a Vet, she's the local GP, which makes it a strange title for the book to begin with.) The focus of the story wasn't to my liking, even though the setting was in a series that I've enjoyed before... I guess that there was too much romance, dull family focused stuff (not that the romance was that stella, anyway...) and not enough focus on the animals. One thing that I also find frustrating about more modern writing (books of the past 20 years or so) is that the lifestyle of the characters tend to be too perfect - their job is perfect, their home is perfect, their finances are perfect, their 'modern' approach to romance is 'perfect' (not really, because it's shallower than a toddler's paddling pool, but if it doesn't 'work out', it doesn't really affect them much emotionally and they are able to shrug it off like water off a duck's back.) and if there are challenges, it's always challenges for other people around them, not the main character or couple. The result? A lack luster meh story.

One of the other books that is unfinished is Buried Deep by Naomi Novik. It's a short story collection and I am only really interested in the two Temeraire verse stories, but I have figured out why I sometimes have a hard time getting through short story collections and the reason wasn't what I thought it was. I used to think that it was because I didn't like the writing of the author as I used to buy urban fantasy short story collections and found that I usually didn't like the stories that weren't written by authors I've not read before, (that is part of it, I'm sure), but what I also don't like is not really having enough information in the story about the world, the characters, etc, which can sometimes happen in short stories because of the limited word count. If I don't know the world, I can't get into the short story because it is lacking, or feels rushed when you read it. When I read the Mark Antony story, I wanted a series, or at least a trilogy following him and the establishment of the dragon military traditions, so the story ended too early. These books are ones that I've borrowed from the library so it doesn't bother me much that I've not finished reading them from a money perspective, as I've got quite a lot of my own books that I want to get thorugh and they've been waiting on my reading pile for too long. I want to get through the libary back log by the end of the month so I can start reading the books that I own.

Bought a box of tea bags the other day. About half of them hadn't been sealed properly so all the tea leafs have come out of them. I won't be buying that brand again.

Bugger...

I'm not really a fan of first person narrative, particularly when the book has a contemporary setting. Mainly because I find that the author ends up imposing their opinions, likes, dislikes, politics, etc, too much on to the reader and it can get a bit grating when they assume that the reader is the same as them. It becomes a cliché, or at the very least gives the impression that everyone is a Hyacinth Bucket, at least in terms of sameness, or with what is popular among the culture at the time. There is a tendency for the first person narrative to be more unique among historical or fantasy settings because the surroundings is different, and as a result, the writing has more of a distinct voice, but even so it is not my favourite kind of narrative, and it only seems to work when the reader can identify strongly with the character. It doesn't work at all in audio books that have more than one character using the first person narrative unless there is a clear distinction between which perspective we are being shown and that is the case with the current book I'm listening to as the characters blend together into one. It needs to become less of a trend in books and I've found that over the years I enjoyed reading much more when first person narrative was a rarer occurance.

Dear Microsoft

I do not want to use your AI infested office applications. What I would like is to go back to Office 2008 (or earlier) because those applications were actually usable.

I've found that over time, my favourite season has flip-flopped...

As a kid, Summer was my favourite season - probably due to summer hoildays, not going to school, etc...

Sometime, in my twenties, it became Winter... I started finding the summer too hot.

In my thrities, it filp-flopped back to Summer, because of health problems and this has become more promiment as time's gone on because the health problems accumluate and get worse.

Over the past few years, I have put together so much flat packed furniture that most of it no longer intimidates me - the only ones that do so are Ikea's Billy bookcases and ones of similiar size and weight simply because the size and weight of them make it difficult to put together. Later on today I'm going to be putting together some drawers that arrived this morning. I was going to get some craft drawers as they wouldn't have needed the drawers put together, but having looked at the reviews for them, I decided that the quality of them wasn't that great and so looked for something that would be a similiar price instead, and ordered these. The disruption caused by us moving about a year and a half ago is almost finally over and I'll have the place how I want it at last. I just hope we don't have to move again any time soon because even though the house isn't as modern as it could be in terms of fittings like the kitchen and bathroom, I just can't face the disruption of having to pack everything up again - it takes too long to sort it out after you've made the move.