yeehaw.

Well, finally.
After much yammering about and wrestling with what exactly I wanted to do with this site, I've decided to just screw it and use blogger to post book reviews for the time being. (I'm eventually going to con my ever-lovely pal, Pete, into fixing this thing up all fancy-like with a database for book reviews so I can subdivide and organize everything into categories like a good little newly-minted librarian.) Until that magic day when I finally get my act in gear, ye olde generic blog format is going to have to suffice, or I'll never get anything done and will continue to feel pangs of guilt while I sit on the couch and watch 97 hours of tv.

So, when I'm not enjoying the many fine offerings of network television, I read. A lot. I'm that girl with the brown hair sitting on the couch at the Empty Bottle with my nose in a book during shows. Hi. I can also walk and read at the same time, which is shocking given my propensity for injuring myself and general clumsy behavior. Anyway, I started crankybooks because in 2005 I began keeping track of every book I read in a little calendar I received from my Gentleman Friend’s mom for xmas and ranking them based on a vague, semi-incomprehensible rating system. It just seemed like a good idea to start writing some book reviews so I can really remember what I liked and hated and maybe offer up some book suggestions at the same time. We’ll see how this goes.

As to what I like: I’ll read pretty much anything, but a book only gets about 50 pages or so to suck me in or it ends up in the reject batch – there are way too many fantastic books out there to waste my time reading some pile of crap just because it won an award or is in some way supposed to be special or popular - for instance, that fucking DaVinci Code book - I cannot even begin to describe the loathing I have for it other than to call it poorly-written tripe with a terrible plot and retarded characters, especially Sophie, the "brilliant young cryptologist" who can't manage to decode a secret message that is written backwards. aaagh. And people get so defensive about that book with the "what?!? you didn't like it?!?" - it's crazy. Anyway. For the record: No. I did not like The DaVinci Code. Feh.

I think that’s just about enough intro nonsense for now – I just needed to post something. Time to watch an episode of The Shield and then read for a bit so I can create a proper post the next time.

The current reads:

• Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman


• The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle