topaz119 | ...and the hits just keep on coming

There's always something, you know? Somebody in the hospital, somebody needing long-distance transportation arrangements, something that needs to be researched, an extra project that--whoops!--somebody forgot to staff... My to-do lists are starting to resemble use cases, with alternate flows and error conditions and supplemental technical specifications. When I was growing up (you know, back in the (technical) Stone Age) I never quite got how much like a house of cards life apparently has a tendency to resemble (or maybe I'm still rebelling against the feeling of being trapped in a life that says there's only one way to be.)

Anyway.

It's Wednesday, and it's been ages since I've done the reading meme, but that would necessitate me having to go look at goodreads and see what it is that I've read recently (my brain is not retaining anything these days--if it's not written down, it's gooooone) which is unappealing at the moment. But I saw this post on bookish bucket lists on bookriot.com and thought it was a good conversation starter (wow, can you tell I have a bunch of conferences coming up in the next few months? One of my lists is Stuff To Talk About With Strangers, aka, schmoozing for introverts.)

So, yeah, what's on your bookish bucket list?

I'd love to say that mine included something like reading Proust (in French) or finishing The Brothers Karamozov or having tea/coffee with a giant of literature, but really, I'd be super-happy to go traipse through Kensington/Mayfair and work my way through all the squares and parks of a good Heyer novel, with optional side trips down to Cornwall for the classic Gothic romance scenery and a bonus weekend in Edinburgh and points north to scratch the Scottish historical itch. I'm not even going to spin it with references to Austen and the Brontes or Doyle or the Bard, because I know you won't judge. Just pure immersion in all the genre novels that have made me happy over the years.

That's mine, what's yours?

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I guess mine would be the lamest excuse for a bookish bucket list item: to visit The Stanley Hotel in Colorado. Uncle Stephen ruins me.

No, no! No judgement! Not here, for sure. That's an amazing hotel and it's in a great place.

Bath would also be an excellent Heyerish place to visit, with bonus Jane Austen. And as you pootle from place to English place, you can spot Heyer characters all over the landscape.

Oh, Bath would fun-- and I'm right in the middle of re-reading Persuasion. (re: the icon--I am not at all displeased, but I seize any opportunity to put Lady Catherine to work.)

There are professional tours for the one I want to do but also, I'd like to go to New Zealand and wander the movie filming sites, as well.

One such tour, though, I've actually already done. Bea took me on a whirlwind War for the Oaks tour - We went by (it was morning, so not in) First Avenue and the Seventh St entrance, and we tromped down into Minnehaha Falls and across Hennepin Avenue.

Oooooh, I didn't even think about the Arthurian stuff! ::adds to list::

Your WftO tour sounds super-fun! I suppose I could do something similar for Gone With The Wind here... or something in DC. D thought I was nuts back when we were dating for all my Chincoteague obsessions, but he married me anyway, so the joke's on him?

A Gone with the Wind tour would all be daytrippable, even, though I think it would take more than one day. You'd have to build your own, though, as the ones Google found for me are more about M Mitchell and the movie than about Scarlett and Rhett, it seems.

They've re-built the house where MM lived when she wrote the novel twice now it's a semi-museum, but... she's interesting, a female reporter during the early part of the 20th century, but it's just a boarding house. It's a nice one, but it's not like there's any kind of sentimental value to it other than her typewriter was there. I could go do the Antebellum Trail, I suppose... I have to wonder how they handle the actual slavery part of things. It could be interesting (but probably cringeworthy, sigh.)

Yeah, I would think there would be a difference between a Mary Margaret Mitchell tour (which seems to be the norm) and a gone with the wind tour.

I fear you may be right. Though I was surprised recently at how differently businesses in the same field can be.

LIie is weird. And sometimes I have to do a lot of surface skimming in order to be able to say mine is satisfactory. Because on the surface how could I possibly complain? And then I resent that I'm stuck on the surface.

Sorry, I just started my first cup of coffee.

Your reading bucket list is completely identical to mine, with the addition of some Agatha Christie. These days I don't have the patience to sit and read unless it's fanfiction, so I depend on audio books, mostly nonfiction, which are in my ear as I go about my day. I never could have survived packing, moving, and unpacking without them. And now they're working hard to push back the sudden silence in my house. (Although this morning I"m watching Curious George and pretending Seba hasn't woken up yet.)

I just finished listening to David McCullough's "The Wright Brothers." My current book, which is going to get me through a four mile run today, is Erik Larson's "In the Garden of the Beasts," about Nazi Germany in 1933-4. Up next is Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me."

Curious George is really quite delightful.

Oh, I could do a grand country house or two for Agatha, too. Good add.

I have a stack of nonfiction waiting for my next yen for facts and reality (however strange.) I think I actually do have Larson's Nazi book in one of my stacks. I've read his The Devil In The White City and Thunderstruck and really like the way he stitches everything together. And then, not 2 minutes after you commented, I saw this interview/conversation (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/review/the-charge-to-be-fair-ta-nehisi-coates-and-roxane-gay-in-conversation) between Roxanne Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Serendipitous.

You can be grateful for the surface and still yearn for more, right? Hard, but true. ♥

Recovering from transatlantic (dis)location here. Time to read? HA!

But nice to know there is another Heyer fan out there! I almost did a little dance, the first time I came across Halfmoon Street...

In terms of my own literary ambitions, I'd just like to un-read "Go Set A Watchman."

So you've made it across the water? Congrats!

At some point, I have to introduce you to

withdiamonds--she's another Heyer fan.

I finally came to the conclusion that I'm not reading GSaW--there are so many hinky things about the publication even before the rest of it...

So, yeah, what's on your bookish bucket list?

Read all the fanfic in the world, and reread my childhood favourites over and over again? :D

I have 18,426 files in my fanfic folders, of which I have probably read 20%, and about 1800 unread ebooks saved on box.com.

Somehow I doubt I am going to get to all of that...

That is totally acceptable!

oooh, yeah, I don't think you're going to get to all of that! But it's totally a viable bucket list item!

...and the hits just keep on coming

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