Ch-Ch-Changes…

As you may have noticed, it has been rather quiet of late. I know that I still owe you a winner of the Julie Czerneda giveaway, which will come later this week. But today I want to announce some changes to the blog. In the past year, finding the energy and time to blog has been a struggle. In some ways blogging just wasn’t fun anymore. I often jokingly said that I had three jobs: being a mum, my day job, and the blog. But that’s actually not a really healthy situation, especially if I want to do other things as well. So to make the blog feel like a joyful thing again instead of a chore, I will have to make changes.  Read More …

Service announcement

Hello there! This is just a quick update to let you know that posting might be spotty in the near future. We’re currently in the middle of remodelling our home and my downstairs currently looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And while it is exciting to make the house completely our own, not to mention the fact that I’m getting my own personal library, it is also not very conducive to quiet weekends where I can sit down and write reviews. As such, I’ll be trying to keep to my weekly Monday post, but as the past two weeks have borne out, that might not always be in the charts.

However, this week I’ll be making up for the past two with not one, but four reviews. I’m having a bit of a Peter Newman theme week, reviewing not just his latest book, The Seven on Thursday, but reviewing the second book in the series, The Malice, and the novelette and novella he published in-between as well. After that, we’ll see!

As ever thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this week’s posts.

Global Affairs and Housekeeping

book-316411_6402016 has been a year, hasn’t it? And it is not even over.

I know that last week’s events have thrown many people’s lives into turmoil, both within and without the US. It was the capstone to a year that seems to only bring us horrible news, though as one of my friends reminded me it also brought us new (small) people to love and other joyful things. But it is hard to hold on to those when faced with the grim reality of news reports and to not feel despondent. Ana and Thea over at The Book Smugglers had this amazing post, which says all I’d want to say much better than I ever could. As they said, we’re stronger together. Let’s remember that and be there for each other.

So much for global affairs, now for some housekeeping. Read More …

Return of the Librarian

InternetSlowdown_DayHello, is this thing on? Remember me? I’m your resident Fantastical Librarian and I’m back or at least I’m on my way back. Last October live sort of exploded and I had to take a bit of a break. I got burned out due to stuff, mostly my wanting to do three full-time jobs at once — being a mum, my actual job as an information specialist, and a book reviewer — and as it turns out, that isn’t a healthy ambition, for me at least. I had to take a breather and since I can’t stop being a mum  and I can’t just not do my job, the blog became the thing that was put on the back burner for a month or two.  Read More …

Posting interrupted

intermission-435441_640The past three months have been a bit lot spotty in the posting department. This has been for various reasons, but mostly it has been because I’m tired. Apparently, working four days a week, having a family to care for and running a blog isn’t as forgiving in the energy department as one would like. In the past six months life has thrown several spanners in the works and after removing most of them and while still working on the last couple, I’ve run out of spoons.  Read More …

Blog Break

keyboardpauseIt feels a bit weird to post this right after the post celebrating A Fantastical Librarian’s 5th birthday, but it kind of just fell out that way. Life has been rather stressful here at Casa Librarian in the past few months and I’m feeling the strain somewhat. Add to that a week of broken nights due to a Noro-virused 5yo and the fact that our cat Mara managed to disappear and I’ve not felt very much like writing up reviews or work up interviews. I’m just that tired and wiped out. Thankfully it is only four more days before my holidays start and I get to rest up and relax for a bit. So with that I’ve decided to take a bit of a break till the end of the month and get through this last week of work without feeling I also have to work on the blog at night.

I just thought I’d give you a heads-up on why the silence in the past week and the coming one. See you next month!

A Fantastical Librarian turns 5!

birthdayHalf a decade… It’s been half a decade since I started A Fantastical Librarian and I can’t believe I’m still here. Who would have thought I’d have so much to say about the books I’ve read? I certainly didn’t! A Fantastical Librarian has been a constant factor in my life through some hectic times, including having my second child, unexpectedly losing my father-in-law, which resulted in an unexpected house move with all the accompanying rigmarole. Having the blog to focus on at times was the best way to set all of the chaos aside.  Read More …

Return of the Librarian or where I’ve been

So you may have noticed I’ve been somewhat quiet around here and on Twitter. This was due to me and the family being away for a few days visiting my sister in law in Sweden. We had a fantastic time visiting her and her family and Sweden was lovely even though the weather was mostly atrocious—we had rain four days out of five! We did however see lots of beautiful scenery and wild animals. We saw a raven, a fox, reindeer, deer, and even a couple of elk. There was snow, lots of forest, hills, mountains, lakes, and rivers.  Read More …

Spotty Service Due to Brain Melt

photo credit: :: gw1 :: via photopin cc

photo credit: :: gw1 :: via photopin cc

Just a quick post to say that reviews might be spotty the next week or two (and have been for the past week) as I’m having trouble finding the mental bandwidth to actually write the reviews. With work being busier than usual, Cat deciding to not sleep through the night for the past month, and having had extremely busy weekends the last two weeks, I haven’t really written up much of my reading as I generally feel like my brain’s melted by the end of the work day. Add in the additional curve ball or getting a call this week that Emma can transfer to a school closer to home and having to do all the arranging for that as well and… you get the picture. But as we’ll be adjusting to a new situation and dependent on how Emma copes, I might be a bit scarce for a week or two longer.

The good news is I have interviews and guest posts lined-up and I have been reading loads. So once I get back up to speed, there will be ALL THE REVIEWS!
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