Announcement: Love Saves the Day Buddy Read

When I first started out my “Recommend Me a Book” series, someone earned the VERY FIRST chartreuse flag by suggesting I read a Barbara Cartland book. If you don’t know, Barbara Cartland is the Queen of Romance, with over 700 books under her belt. You don’t need AI when you have Ol’ Barbie churning out the mush.

As the jokes flew fast and furious over the days and weeks afterwards, I began to wonder if perhaps I could leverage this into a fun misery read?  Unlike Neuromancer,  there will be no hate, just pure emotional misery as I wade through the estrogen with my extra thick Man Boots on.

I expect this to be comparable to when I read Venetia by Georgette Heyer back in 2016 on a dare. It turned out as badly as I expected and I fully expect this read to be just as tumultuous.

“Oh the sights I have to show you!”

But instead of just keeping this to myself, I figure I’d share the fun and invite anyone who wants to participate in a buddy read during December with final reviews going up January 7th, 2025. Love Saves the Day is approximately 110 pages and consists of 10 chapters.

I will be publishing updates as follows:
December 6 – Chapters 1-3
December 13 – Chapters 4-5
December 20 – Chapters 6-7
December 27 – Chapters 8-10

I plan on fully discussing the chapters in each post, so there will be spoilers. If you would like to participate, let me know in the comments and please use the “Barbara Cartland Buddy Read” tag. This is a “fun” read, so be as crazy as you want, I certainly plan to. Love Saves the Day just screams to be made fun of after all.

Here is the publisher’s synopsis if that will help you make up your mind in any way.

The beautiful redheaded Tiana Weston sets out to visit her inheritance in Dorset with high hopes.
It had been her parents’ dream to restore Castle Rose to its former glory as it is now a dilapidated ruin and only a small part is fit to live in.
But Tiana soon discovers that enthusiasm and determination alone do not pay the workmen or keep property developers at bay and soon she is faced with a dreadful dilemma.
Her handsome and aristocratic next door neighbour Richard, the Earl of Austindale, also faces considerable problems.
He has to be married by midnight on his next birthday or he will lose everything he holds most dear to his cousin Alan, Viscount Paige.
A young girl anxious to protect her home – a man desperate for a wife – it seems like a sensible, business-like arrangement that they should marry each other.
And Tiana finally accepts the Earl’s proposal and they are due to be married on his thirtieth birthday.
But then an old flame of the Earl’s arrives to claim him for herself and Tiana is filled with doubt especially as the Viscount is paying a great deal of attention to her.
She also finds herself in great danger because now so many are determined that the marriage will not take place.
How Tiana realises how much she loves the Earl.
And how she finally finds happiness is all told in this exciting romance by BARBARA CARTLAND

My Week I

This has been a brutal work week. If you’re one of those “Centigrade” people, here’s a link to a handy converter for you:
Online Temp Converter

By the end of each work day, I felt like a steam roller had run me over, multiple times. In the 9hrs at work, I would drink about 3/4 gallon of water and about 1/2 gallon of gatorade.

I came home, cooled down and went to bed. I had no energy for much else. And I still have to get through today. Wish me luck!

Author Index - It Is Finished

Well ok, to be honest, it has some touchups that need to be done, but my Author Index project is essentially finished.

I started this Project back in October of ’22 and have been slowly working on it. I am now done the bulk of the work and just have to add all the “new” authors that I’ve read since I started. So I’ll have to comb over my Calibre library and play catch up. It also means that I need to do monthly maintenance and add new authors at the end of each month. That is MUCH easier than doing the 900+ from scratch. I can handle that easily.

What this means though? Between this and Hotel Bookstooge, it means I’ve put more work into Bookstooge.blog than I have into any other blog I’ve had over the years, to the point where I feel extremely possessive of this site and can only imagine one scenario where I would disappear it. Sadly, this does mean that I am tied down to WordPress.com for the quite foreseeable future. So expect me to rage and rattle my chains and then do nothing because the reality is that I’m here and I cannot abandon this much effort. It would kill me to do that.

What this means for you? Not much really, unless you use an index a lot. My experience has shown me that not a lot of people do and only the outliers tend to. But do be happy for me, because it’s another Blogging Project under my belt. I think I’m going to take a nice long break from such projects. Unless someone suggests something that catches my fancy, then all bets are off.

Having a Dickens of a Time!

I am currently working on my Author Index. It is going extremely well. I started at Z and am currently working my way through the D’s. Specifically, I am dealing with Charles Dickens right now. I have 56 reviews for that man. And I have to go through and find each post and see if it has the Dickens tag and if not, add it.

I was wondering, why do I do this to myself? And I realized that if I wasn’t doing this, I’d be doing something similar and complaining about that too 😀 I am just an organizational freak and I need to accept that fact. Whatever my current hobby is, I’m organizing it. When I was playing Magic the Gathering, I had all sorts of ways to organize those cards. I eventually gave up because 15,000 cards were simply too much for me. At least all my reviews are now electronic so I can deal with them a bit easier.

Despite my complaining, I am enjoying myself immensely. Which is why I am complaining. I just can’t enjoy something fully unless I’m miserable about it. Yeah, I rolled my eyes at myself too, but hey, that’s just how I’m wired so I’m learning to roll with it. So join me in celebrating by being miserable with me, hahahahaha! Dickens for the win!

Wordpress Reader Issues

No, this won’t be a rant this time, just more of an “by the way, X is happening, be aware”.

WordPress has steadily been messing with the reader that has caused other issues, but I’ve noticed in the last week or so that only the picture of my avatar has been showing up when my posts go to the reader. I did figure out that if I made the book cover a “featured image” that it would show the book cover instead of my avatar. I’m guessing the feeder now shows the biggest image unless there is a feature image? So one problem kind of solved. I can go through all my scheduled posts and give them a featured image.

That however has rippled into other problems. I use the (details)(/details) code to hide my synopsis because sometimes it is outrageously long and nobody needs to scroll through it all. So when I edit a post that is already scheduled that has the (detail) code, WP in its infinite wisdom, strips that code out. So not only do I have to add a “featured image” but I also have to wade through the guts of the post and add the correct code all over again.

Just wanted make you aware of this so if you see all of my posts for the rest of the month showing just my avatar, I didn’t want you to think I was being (completely) egotistical. I’ve started to add the featured image to my already long list of steps that I have to take just to bleeping post here on WP so starting in June it should become a non-issue for any viewers.

Cheers!

Author Index: Update

Back in November I began to work on my Author Index Project for the blog. I started out haphazardly but then decided to be a bit more organized about it. I started at Z and have been steadily working my way backwards. Once I finish I’ll go through and add all the new authors I’ve read since then and then try to update it on a monthly basis.

BUT!

I am finished with up to the M’s. What a chore! 79 authors with the last name starting with “M”. And only about half of them had their names as tags so I had a bleeding lot of work to do. The only other letter with more authors is “B” at 87. I am not looking forward to that already :-/

But rejoice with me. Things like this make me happy 😀

Author Index: My Next Big Project

After finishing up The Hotel Bookstooge Project, it was evident that I needed another blogging project to keep me busy in the background. But something that wouldn’t disturb everyone quite so much. Bormgans gave a good suggestion that should help anyone searching the site, ie, an Author Index.

While I never use an index if a site has one (I always use the search bar), I’ve heard that other people DO use them, to good effect too. So instead of alienating these good folk of the internet and impeding their unquenchable thirst for all things Bookstooge, I have decided to begin work on an Author Index.

I’ve created a new page and posted the link to it at the top of my home page along with all of my other Important Things. It will slowly fill in over the upcoming year/s. If you are that kind of person, I hope this helps you out a lot. If you are not that kind of person, it will be going on completely in the background so you won’t be bothered or notice a thing. You’re welcome 😉

So Stay Calm & Index On

Need More Space? Bookstooge Has You Covered Part II

Two years ago I wrote a post (Part I) detailing how to utilize Dropbox as a picture hosting site so you didn’t have to eat into your free space here at WordPress. I’ve been using it on any picture over 100KB and it seems to work well for me. But just because something is working well doesn’t mean I am content to sit on my lees and let WordPress continue to work against me behind my back. It would be just like them at some point to disallow outside hosted pictures on free sites, so I decided to investigate what I could do for picture compression. Just in case you can’t tell, I have an extremely adversarial relationship with WP.com.

What I found was the Caesium Image Compressor. Here is the website and the download for various OS’s is part way down the page: Caesium Website.

I have been very pleased so far. Once I installed it, it took a while of playing around to get all the various options set up how I wanted. What I didn’t realize, and was very pleasantly surprised with, is that Caesium can also resize your photos along with compressing them. This is wonderful for me as I use the high quality pictures from my Calibre Library for my book reviews. Instead of having to use a separate resizer tool and then Caesium to compress that, I can do it all in one step. I even have it save the picture where I want so everything is conveniently stored for upload.

I use it on the little pictures for the book reviews (which are 194px wide) and I regularly get 30-60% compression. Going from 30KB down to 18KB isn’t a world breaking but if I want to continue blogging for years and years, every little bit adds up. I also use Caesium on any files I upload to Dropbox as well. Saving space any way I can means I don’t have to worry about hitting that 3gb limit (or 1gb if you’re a poor new user to WordPress. You newbs really have my sympathies in that regards!) It is another step in the blogging process however. So you have to decide if that is worth it to you or not. For me, it totally is. It is free, it is small and once you set it up to your taste, it is almost just 3 clicks of the mouse and you’re done.

I hope this post has been helpful even if just to inform you of options that you have. Because knowing is half the battle!

GI Bookstooge is the REAL American Hero, but we all knew that anyway

The Hotel Bookstooge - Now Open for Business

Back in 2018 I started working on my blog to neaten things up (Site Update). Four and a half years later, I have finished. All 4060 of the books I have read since April of 2000 now each have their own little room in The Hotel Bookstooge. (+/- for omnibus and the occasional stray manga volume I lost track of)

And the best part? They can’t check out NOR can they leave. Mwhaahahahahahaa.

I’d like to thank everyone of you who gets posts emailed to them for putting up with this construction. I know this added up to a LOT of emails over time (and sometimes even within just a couple of days) but you can rest assured, the last beam of lumber has been cut, the final coat of paint has been splashed on the walls and the staff have all been vetted and are ready to cater to my every whim. So please, enjoy!

I would say feel free to wander around and check out the over 4000 rooms, but there is a small cover fee to keep the riffraff out. I’m sure you understand. Oh, and watch out for security. I’ve set them on “kill” instead of “stun” because it’s more fun that way. That way as I watch you on the cameras I can be sure you’re genuinely terrified as you run screaming down the falls, begging for mercy and desperately trying to find the way out. My goodness, I’m already chortling in glee just thinking about it! Sounds like a great time, eh?

And to help you take the first step on your fun filled adventure, just click the following link which will take you to a random page on the blog. And THAT service is on the house! Yes, yes, I know, I’m just too generous.

CLIKCC MEE (or else. jus’ sayin’)

Of course, the only problem is what do I do next? I shall have to give that some serious thought. Cheers!