Twitter, Books Read, Looking Ahead

So, I decided to create a twitter account as a companion to my blog. I just kept seeing other book bloggers mention Twitter conversations and wanted to see what was going on. But now that I have my twitter account (my handle is @agoodstoppingpt) I don’t know quite what to do with it except lurk and read other people’s tweets. I am following almost 50 people, mostly other book bloggers, and about a dozen are nicely following me back. So tell me other twitter users, what do you like to use it for? What kinds of things do you tweet about and what kinds of tweets do you like to read? I would ask this on twitter, but I think I have more readers on my blog than on my brand-new twitter account.

My last bunch of books have been fairly quick reads. I read a coffee-table type book called A Day in the Life of the American Woman: How We See Ourselves which was a collaboration of many female photographers. All of the pictures were taken on April 8, 2005 and they capture a diverse group of women; they are diverse in age, race, religion, career stage, sexual orientation, marital status, family status. Each photo or set of photos is accompanied by a brief snapshot of that woman in that time of her life. Very cool. I heard about this book on Olduvai Reads‘ blog.

I also read the second Mouse Guard graphic novel Winter 1152. I liked how it showed more of the mice interaction with other species, and not just in a predator/prey relationship either. That said, the owl was pretty creepy as were the bats.

And then I had also picked up Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris which is the first of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series. I never have seen “True Blood”, the tv show that is based on the series. Apparently before I worked where I’m working now, several of my co-workers had decided to read this series at the same time. Co-worker Kim confided to me that the books are her guilty pleasure but also gleefully told me how much more ridiculous things will get in future books. Dead Until Dark was definitely full of cliches, such as almost all of the male characters being attracted to the heroine, but Harris does know how to write in a way that keeps you turning the pages. There is a scene near the beginning of Dead Until Dark, where Sookie has been hurt so badly that she realizes that she is dying that was actually rather poignant.

Currently, I am reading The Enchanted April and quite loving it. I also have Dave Cullen’s Columbine out from the library and Jo Walton’s Farthing still out.

In non-bookish things, I’ve been watching season one of the show “Community” and it’s fantastically funny. I love the character of Abed especially, but the whole ensemble is great.

I have a discussion post in mind for this weekend, on the subject of sartorial description in books, inspired partly by reading the Charlaine Harris book.