This and that

I want to thank you guys for all the kind thoughts with the loss of Mittens and now Lana. It means a lot to check my email and see all sorts of people dropping in to pay their respects. I have tonnes of Lana pics, and I am calling the troops (aka the family) to acquire more. So, there will be lots of Lana moments until I run out of pics. I am still in shock, I think. I knew she wasn't going to come home today, but I still think I was hoping for a miracle. Everything just happened so fast, I am not sure I have totally digested everything.

In other news, I bought The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason today. I also bought a copy for my friend, because I am good at advertising and she has been telling me she wants to read more vampire-type books. Anyways, one copy I got through the internet, but the copy I got today recquired me to go to the store and locate it. It was not in the general fiction. I had to go to the romance section! Do not laugh, but I do not even think I have ever LOOKED at the romance section before. So, the person I was with was looking at me funny. Too bad they do not read, so my explanation fell on dead ears. Anyways, that was my adventures in getting this book. I plan to start it when I finish this post.

Also, I am a bit behind in my reviews. Okay, more than a bit. I am just going to do a big post with a brief summary and rating to finish off last year. I think I am going to rework my reviews so that I am more apt to not fall behind. But, since I seem to be having a bad week, just in case something else catastrophic decides to happen, there are two books that I have to mention that I read last year and did not review yet:

First up is Heat by George Monbiot. I thought this book was very eye-opening, it talks about global warming and what we have to do about it. The reason I was slow reviewing this book is that it is about a topic that I feel I would have to read more non-fiction books on in order to best rate how the book worked for me. I do not think I could give it a number value without reading other books pertaining to the same subject, which I plan to do. Anything about global warming is eye-opening, and I learned a lot about the subject, but I feel that I am too uneducated on the topic to give it justice without doing more research.

The other book is Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, the winner of the Giller. I am not big on short story collections, but I really enjoyed this one. I liked how the stories were interconnected and flowed together really well. I thought following the lives of four med students was a very good idea, and you see progression in characters, something that a short story collection does not always present. I would not give it a 5, but I would give it a 4.5. I STRONGLY recommend it. I cannot say he deserved to win the Giller, as I have not read all the other nominees, but I will say that I really enjoyed reading it and that for me, it was totally the best short story collection I have read to date. I will be looking for more books by him, as I believe he is working on a novel.

The reason I mentioned these two above all others is because they were from Random House, and I am very grateful for both of them. So, thank you Random House! I promise better reviews for all the books I read after, just have been disorganized lately.

To learn more about Colleen Gleason's book, click here and for more on Vincent Lam and George Monbiot's books, click here.