Lunch with Wendy today led to a snicker-filled discussion about a flap in the publishing world I hadn't heard about yet. Apparently a prolific romance novelist, Cassie Edwards, who has authored over a hundred romance novels, was outed as a plagiarist by the romance-novel review blog Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books, whose contributors used Google Book Search to spot numerous similarities between Edwards' work and other works.

If you're curious, check the site; Smart Bitches has posted transcripts. (Ouchie.)

I lay on the bed this afternoon, drowsy with sunshine and tea and salacious novel, and trawled fingers through Edmund's orange fur. As my hand crept over and around, to reach the white fur on his belly, the purring changed from lazy to nearly explosive, as if to say, oh yes, pet me right there...

Stolen from Stephen and Misty.

Misty: "These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. I’ve bolded what I’ve read and italicized what I started but couldn’t finish..."

49 read, 2 in progress, 2 instances of sheer loathing:

1984
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys

I've been meaning to point out two things that I've added as extras on the site, because some of you might find them equally nifty. I have an industrial-grade barcode scanner on loan from the library, which I used to go through our book collection and scan barcodes into librarything. Every book we own is now listed in our librarything catalog. I opted to just buy a lifetime account and get it over with.

I've been at a bit of a loss for words lately. Many things have happened here, and each time I've had a reason, whether personal or professional, for choosing silence over writing, and I've just left it at that. I'm well aware that I'm out of the habit of writing now, but I'm also aware that I have to be very careful of what I say, because my name is now well enough known in the library world that my co-workers can easily google my name and turn up this site.

I started this habit when Stephen and Misty began returning books to me with little removable flags, like Post-It notes but smaller, affixed to the margins of pages. What a great way to remember something that caught my eye, I thought.Months later, I stumbled across a set of the flags and promptly purchased them, stashing a dispenser or two in the rooms that I typically read in.