In which I talk about work and my desire to have a house cleaner

I bet you've all been wondering what I'm doing for work these days!

For two years, 2009 and 2010, I was busy studying for my Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship). In fact, my studies were what led me to start this blog. If you're feeling all nostalgic, you can click here and read my very first post!

All the while, I was working from home, tutoring high school students in Mathematics and teaching Flute and Music Craft (music theory).

Once I finished my Masters, I started looking for work in a library. So what's been happening?

I recently starting working casually as an Information Services Officer at a University Library near me. Yay!

This is actually the real library in which I work!

The job involves sitting at the Information Desk and waiting for patrons to come and ask questions. It's pretty much my dream job, apart from the fact that I'm only getting one shift per month at the moment and have to wait for someone to go on sick leave/maternity leave/long service leave to get more work. Should that happen, there would certainly be more involved than just manning the Information Desk, but it would all revolve around helping to connect Library users with the information that they need.

I also have a job interview on Monday for a year's full time (maternity leave) work as a librarian in a smaller academic library. So things are progressing on the career front.

What would be lovely would be for me to become securely installed in a permanent position so that I could stop looking. That would be a relief. I'd also love to give up the maths tutoring/music teaching. It's not that I don't love my students. It's not that I don't enjoy teaching them. It's just that my work hours are between 4pm and 8:30pm on weekdays and I just don't enjoy working at that time. Firstly, I find it hard, after being at home alone all day, to get myself motivated and excited to start work when it feels like everyone else is almost finishing.

Secondly, I'd like to be able to have dinner with the family and then enjoy the evening. As it is, our family is awfully busy after school. The kids have activities and of course homework to complete. I'd like to just come home from work and wrangle with kids activities and homework like a "normal" mum, rather than having students trooping in and out of the house and having to leave Chris to deal with the family.

I also have a confession to make. If I got full time work, I'd feel entitled to pay someone to clean my house!

I don't think I'd need a whole team!

Wouldn't that be just bliss! I'm not very good at housework and I don't take pride in it, but I would looooove to have a really clean house. I think it would be divine!

So what do you do for work? Are you in your dream job? And do you have a house cleaner?!?



Graduation Roadtrip

Last week Chris and I took a mini road trip to Wagga for my graduation. Here are some maps to show you where we went. I'm starting with a map of the whole of Australia, then zooming in progressively so you can see our actual route.

It was about five and a quarter hours driving each way, and we only had one night's accomodation, so we didn't really leave time for much in the way of sight-seeing. I think that was a real mistake, as I'd never been to Wagga before. What we should have done was make a week's holiday of it and take the kids with us, but that just didn't seem like a viable option when we were planning. I'd definitely like to go back again.

The countryside that we drove through was what seems to me to be typical Australian farmland. I've enjoyed a fair few family holidays driving through New South Wales, and though I've seen it all before, it never fails to lift my spirits to see it again.

The above photos were taken near Gundagai. We stopped at "The Dog on the Tucker Box" on the way home because I'd never seen it before. Let me tell you a little bit about Gundagai and the dog...

First listen to this popular old bush song, sung by Australian country music legend Slim Dusty.

Now here comes a confession to my lack of Australian historical knowledge.

I knew the song, I knew it well, I'd sung it many times. But I did not know what on earth the dog on the tuckerbox was all about. I'd heard of it, of course. I know that "tucker" is Aussie slang for food, so I know that a tuckerbox is something you keep your food in. I knew that it was a story from Australia's pioneering days. I had some notion in the back of my head that it was a monument to a wonderful, loyal dog who had guarded a drover's food. But I didn't really know.

 We got to the dog.

And there I read this poem:

I'm used to punchin' bullock teams across the hills and plains.

I've teamed outback for forty years through bleedin' hail and rain.

I've lived a lot of troubles down, without a bloomin' lie,

But I can't forget what happened just five miles from Gundagai.

'Twas getting dark, the team got bored, the axle snapped in two.

I lost me matches and me pipe, so what was I to do?

The rain it was coming on, and hungry too was I,

And me dog shat in me tucker-box five miles from Gundagai.

Some blokes I know have stacks of luck, no matter where they fall,

But there was I, Lord love a duck, no bloody luck at all.

I couldn't heat a pot of tea or keep me trousers dry,

And me dog shat in me tucker-box five miles from Gundagai.

Now, I can forgive the bleedin' team, I can forgive the rain.

I can forgive the damp and cold and go through it again.

I can forgive the rotten luck, but 'ang me till I die,

I can't forgive that bloody dog, five miles from Gundagai.

Um, what?!?

That's the dog we build a monument to?

Anyway, as to the graduation itself, you can read all about it at my "other" blog here.

Feel Good Friday - Can't Live Without...

Happy Friday everyone!

Guess who has finished and submitted all her uni assignments?

...and is just waiting to get her results to make sure that she has passed everything before she declares that she has officially finished her Master of Education?

Who me?

Yesterday I went out to run some errands and while I was at the shops I bought myself a little celebratory present...

...some new fragrance!

I can't live without fragrance.

Firstly, I'm a sensual person. I love scents, and tastes and beauty.

Secondly, I like to make the most of what I've got. I like to be well groomed and part of that, for me, is always smelling good!

For a couple of years now I've been wearing Jean Paul Gaultier 'Classique'.

LOVE IT! Love, love, love it.

But yesterday I decided to try some of Jean Paul's other scents for a bit of a change. After walking around the shopping centre with a scent on each arm for a couple of hours, I decided to get a bottle of 'MaDame'. It's quite different to Classique, but still from the same general fragrance family - floral top notes with a vanilla base. Time will tell whether I go back to Classique or if MaDame becomes my new favourite.

By the way, have you noticed that fragrances smell different on different people? You should never get a fragrance sample on a little card from the store - always try it on your skin. And always wear it for a while to allow the scent to develop. The 'top note' evaporates quickly, and you have to be sure that you like the way the fragrance smells as the middle note, then base note take prominance.

Anyway, enough of my little lesson on buying fragrance!

So, do you have a favourite fragrance that you can't live without?

Over to you. Please consider participating in 'Feel Good Friday'. You don't have to write about fragrance - just anything that makes you feel good!

1. Write a post on your blog titled "Feel Good Friday". Make it uplifting, or funny, or cute...basically anything that makes you (and hopefully your readers) feel good.

2. Make sure you mention my blog "a reader's random ramblings" somewhere in the post and include a link to my blog if you can. (I'm working on a button for future weeks, but for now you'll just have to copy and paste the URL.)

3. Use the Linky below to link your post to mine so that all my followers can visit your blog and read your Feel Good Friday post. Make sure you use the URL of your post, not just the home page of your blog.

4. Visit the other participants, read their posts, and FEEL GOOD!

Oooops! For some reason Mr Linky is not cooperating. If you decide to participate, then just leave a comment with the link.

Nearly there!

Oh happy, happy day!

My Dewey assignment is done and dusted. I now have only one more assignment left to do. Did you get that?

ONE MORE ASSIGNMENT THEN FINISHED MASTER OF EDUCATION!!!

My darling hubby has taken a week off work so he can spend some time with the kids during the second week of the school holidays. That means that he will keep them entertained while I am writing my portfolio. Genius!

I'm feeling energised and ready to go.

I will now unleash my brilliance!

Feel Good Friday - nearly finished uni and another cute puppy pic

Ooops! It's Friday morning and I haven't thought at all about this week's Feel Good Friday post. So you're not exactly getting a carefully prepared and composed piece of prose. However, I do have things to feel good about today, and I'd love to share them with you.

In just a little over two weeks, I will be finished all the course work for my Masters of  Education.

Finished.

Oh yeah!

I'm so looking forward to actually having my qualification. It will mean that I'll be eligible for Associate membership of ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association), which is a criteria that appears in lots of advertisements for jobs in libraries. I'm keen to get my foot in the door of a library to begin my career in the world of information services.

I have really enjoyed my study, but this last semester has been extremely difficult. I've had the heaviest course load of the whole degree, and two of the most difficult subjects to study at the same time. It's definitely been a struggle.

The weather is becoming "springish" around here.

Love spring!

Warmer weather means I was able to take Lucy for a walk along the waterfront the other day.

It was her first time in the water, and she loved it! I can't wait to take her to the beach, or out on the boat!

Now it's your turn.


1. Write a post on your blog titled "Feel Good Friday". Make it uplifting, or funny, or cute...basically anything that makes you (and hopefully your readers) feel good.

2. Make sure you mention my blog "a reader's random ramblings" somewhere in the post and include a link to my blog if you can. (I'm working on a button for future weeks, but for now you'll just have to copy and paste the URL.)

3. Use the Linky below to link your post to mine so that all my followers can visit your blog and read your Feel Good Friday post. Make sure you use the URL of your post, not just the home page of your blog.

4. Visit the other participants, read their posts, and FEEL GOOD!

The unexpected benefits of studying

Over the past week I've been working feverishly on my latest uni assignment, writing a paper arguing the case for the inclusion of contemporary realistic fiction in school library collections.

An unexpected side benefit has been the fact that I have read four different children's/young adult novels to prepare my case.

Before I Die by Jenny Downham is a devastatingly beautiful book. I cried rivers of tears reading it.

Tessa is 16 years old and dying. Once she knows that she has no more treatment options, she writes a list of ten things that she wants to do before she dies. Number one is sex.

I give this book ***** five stars. It's beautifully written, emotionally affecting, and provides the reader with lots of opportunities to reflect on life and death.

Recommended for older teens and adults.

Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught is the story of a fat girl whose boyfriend decides to have gastric bypass surgery in an effort to lose weight.

I give **** four stars to this story, told via Jamie's school newspaper column, of how a fat girl comes to terms with her place within a world where she is defined by her weight.

Recommended for teens.

I recommend Grace by Morris Gleitzman for pre-teens and younger teens.

**** four stars to this delightful read.

Grace and her family are happy members of a strict, fundamentalist Christian church, until her father is expelled for being too free-thinking.

A great novel for exploring ideas of faith, honesty and family.

Muffin top by Andrew Daddo is a wonderful book for children and pre-teens. **** four stars!

Ashton's mum writes for a newspaper, and has been given the opportunity to have a makeover and write a story about it. The problem for Ashton is, the whole family must get involved, having before and after photos taken at a professional photographer's studio, and spending a week at a health farm.

A great story for thinking about body image and family issues, and would make a great read-aloud.

So how's that for a silver lining? Alls well that ends well, and all that!

I hope you've been enjoying your reading too.

New Blog Up and Running!

My new blog: A work in progress... dedicated to my professional development as a librarian, is up and running!

Please head over and check it out, even if librarianship isn't really your thing! I'd love it if you left me an encouraging comment, even if you never plan to visit the blog again :)

And if librarianship IS your thing, then - what are you waiting for? - head straight over and become a follower!

I'll still be posting regularly here at a reader's random ramblings..., so you don't need to worry about missing me :)

Embrace the Randomness!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

Very observant followers may notice that a couple of things are missing from my sidebar.

Here's what's happening: I got sick of feeling torn about this blog; sick of feeling guilty posting pictures of my puppy and my kids and not posting enough "serious stuff" about librarianship. Sick of feeling guilty about boring my followers by posting too much "serious stuff" about librarianship. Aaaaargh!

I  have stumbled upon what I think is the perfect solution - have two blogs! (Of course!)

So followers of a reader's random ramblings... who like to see my puppy and my kids - rejoice! This blog will be my observations on life, posts about things and people that I love, and posts about the books that I'm reading. I'm going to embrace the randomness! I may even unleash more randomness! Yay!

And...drumroll please...my new blog A work in progress... is COMING SOON!!!

My new blog is where I will focus on my professional development as a librarian, so if that's your thing, stay tuned! When the first post is up I'll make sure that I let everyone know.

So what do you think? Are you up for a random ride? Or will you be jumping from the random train and boarding the bus to the library? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

This morning started out grey and rainy, but when the sun came out I decided to pounce on the opportunity to take Lucy for a walk.

(It's really hard to walk a dog and take a cute photo of her at the same time!)

While I was out and about, I thought I'd try to get a nice photo of a wattle in bloom since I was waxing lyrical about wattles the other day.

Doesn't it look lovely and cheerful and spring-ish?

I'm really snowed under with work for uni at the moment and my recreational reading is being limited to snatched moments here and there. I'm working on The Element by Ken Robinson, the Sunday papers, and the ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association) magazine inCite.

One of my subjects for uni is about Literature in Education, so if you know anything at all about recent childrens/young adult fiction and what value it has for students, be sure to drop me a line...

The other subject is Cataloguing, so again, if that's your area of expertise I'd love to know :) 

Work Placement Days 3 and 4

So...I have actually done some "real work" at the library!

Yesterday I learned how to process newly accessioned resources (for the non-librarians, that means how to get new books ready for the shelf!). I then spent the afternoon working through the pile that had been building up because the library technician has been on holidays. I got all the way to the bottom of the pile - yay me!

Today my supervisor checked through a whole lot of new arrivals and started a new pile...

Also, Joanne got me working on a metadata project that she is supposed to have finished by tomorrow. It involves choosing some keywords that will be used as search terms when prospective students are searching the website for what course they would like to enrol in. I was doing the Electical Engineering courses, an area in which I have absolutely no expertise! I read through the course description and career options for each course, then added funky keywords and phrases like "special class electrician" and "technical officer". I really hope that when new electrical-engineering-type-people search the database they are successful in finding the information that they need!

So, what have you been up to?

Work Placement Days 1 and 2

Wyong TAFE campus reminds me a bit of the High School that I attended. It's very low-rise with bushy surroundings. Here's a picture taken from the car park. The building behind the yellow car is Block J which houses the library.

So far I've spent most of my time learning about the procedures used and services provided within the library, in the hope that I may soon be able to contribute by doing some actual work! (I have used the "wand" to check in some books!) Tomorrow I hope to do some processing, which is fancy library talk for sticking barcodes on books and covering them with contact. On Thursday and Friday I might be involved with a special project adding keywords to some records in a database of course information. Then next week the students will descend upon us for library orientation tours and other "Reader Education" sessions. There are also many students who don't have access to computers and/or internet at home, so will be using the library as a study space. Some of the students may be new to the college, and so will need a lot of support initially.

I'm really appreciating all the time and effort that my supervisor, Joanne, is putting in to make my experience as valuable as possible. I'll update you again soon.

Help! Literature in Education

I am starting a new subject at uni called "Literature in Education" and I'm putting out the call for help.

What children's literature is in your school library? How is children's literature being used to enhance the education of children at all levels of schooling?

I am looking specifically at Contemporary Realistic Fiction for my first assignment. What are the current trends and themes in this area of children's literature? Can you suggest any current examples that are popular, relevant, and used in schools?

I appreciate your help! If you can post a link to this blog entry on your blog, or tweet a link to it so it gets to as many people as possible, that would be wonderful :)

Thanking you in anticipation.

Keeping all the Balls in the Air

I've been feeling a bit "all over the place" lately. You know that feeling you have when you've got a lot of balls in the air and you're not sure which one is closest to the ground and should be getting your attention? Yeah, that's been me.

Josh went off to his first school camp this morning, and in a massive photo opportunity fail, I did not take a single snap of him - with his bag, getting on the bus, smiling and waving goodbye - nothing. Ooooops. In an attempt to redeem myself I wrote him a letter and posted it immediately.

So tomorrow or Friday he should receive a letter telling him that I hope it's not still raining (!) and he's able to do all the outdoor activities (rock climbing, archery, canoeing) and that I hope the food is OK (Josh is a fussy eater)!

My next project is doing some sewing for Alana's ballet costume. She's competing in an eisteddfod doing a duo with a friend of hers in less than two weeks, and at the moment the costume is just a plain white leotard in need of a skirt and some decoration. There's a lovely dressmaker that's doing the skirt for me, but I decided that I'd be perfectly capable of tizzing it up with some sequins or some such! After a couple of trips to Spotlight and Lincraft, I've got some black braid to which I have to attach diamontes.

Then, the dressmaking sales assistant informs me, I'll have to sew it onto the costume WITH ALANA IN IT because the braid and diamontes have no stretch, and if I sew it on without Alana in it, the decorations will all fly off as soon as she tries to put the costume on! Fun for all the family.

You'll be pleased to know that I got my uni assignment back yesterday. I was really happy with the mark of 37.5 out of 50 (you must remember that I am doing a Masters degree so they have very high expectations!), but even more so with the comment. Of course there was plenty of constructive criticism, but the bits I liked were:

Your use of the literature is well considered and you provide evidence of deep thought and analysis. 

Good luck with your research- you have huge potential to complete this and publish it.

Yay for me!

So, what have you all been up to?

I am becoming an ICT nerd.

I've been having a busy few days exploring some new online applications that I hope will be useful in my everyday life.

First, I signed up for LibraryThing. Do you use LibraryThing? I'd heard of it, but I didn't really know what it was. Then when I visited The University of Technology Sydney's library for my study visit, one of the presentations was about using social networking in the library. They mentioned Facebook, Twitter, and LibraryThing. So I thought I'd give it a try.

LibraryThing is pretty fun! I've started adding books to "My Library", and you'll notice on my blog sidebar I have a LibraryThing widget. If you click on any of the covers, it will open up a window with a catalogue record of the book, including my rating and review if I've written a review. Cool huh!?

Second, I decided that I'd have a go of Evernote. I blogged a little bit about it here, and I decided to take the plunge and try it out.

So far, I LOVE IT!!!

For my MEd, I have to construct a portfolio which contains a critical evaluation of my learning during the course and an assessment of how this learning will enable me to be an effective teacher librarian in the future. I'm going to need to collect a lot of information to write an excellent portfolio, so I've decided to use Evernote to facilitate this process.

Here's a screen shot of my Evernote window:

On the right hand side is the "note" that I was most recently working on, which happens to be a text document. It's some ideas about what themes I will concentrate on when I'm writing my portfolio.

In the centre is a list of all the notes that I've made so far. On the left hand side is a toolbar for managing my "notebooks".

What is super fantastic about Evernote is the simplicity of doing anything that I want to do with just one or two clicks. I emailed my theme ideas for my portfolio to my supervisor straight from Evernote - no middleman needed! I also grabbed the screen shot that you see above in Evernote, right clicked on it and chose "picture" so I could import it straight into this post. And that leads me to my next discovery...

I get a lot of great information via Twitter. I follow quite a lot of librarians and teacher librarians, and I know that I'll be able to use lots of the links and information that they tweet in my portfolio. I needed to find an easy way to grab tweets that I like and store them in Evernote. And along came Seesmic.

Seesmic is a platform for Twitter so that you don't have to use the Twitter.com website to access your timeline. It has the excellent function that I can highlight a tweet, click the Evernote icon on my toolbar, and it sends a copy of the tweet as a "note" to my Evernote account. If the tweet contains a link to a website, when in Evernote I just double-click on the link and it takes me straight there! Sweet :)

Yes, it's been time-consuming to set up these new applications, and yes, I'm still learning how to get the best out of them. But I'm loving it!

Study Visit Day 4

Well, the study visit is finished, but I'm still processing everything that I experienced. I think it might be a few days before I can express what I've learned in any meaningful way.

Today we visited the State Library of NSW, and if you are able to, I advise you to visit. If that's not geographically feasible, why don't you check out the website.

Click here to visit the website.

That's it for me for now. If you go to the State Library website, make sure you look at "Discover Collections" (on the top menu). It has fascinating original historical documents that have been digitised.

Sydney Study Visit Day 3

So...I didn't take any photos today, but I wish I had! Today I visited the Australian Museum Research Library, and there were a lot of photo-worthy moments. For a start, there are taxidermied animals and birds dotted about the library, even on the librarians' desks! Also, they have an extensive collection of scientific monographs going back to the 1800's, many of which have hand-coloured drawings of animals and birds. It makes this library very, very different to the others we have visited, with their emphasis on a move to electronic information.

During the afternoon I visited the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. We were shown a sound stage, a recording studio and a digital mixing theatre used for post production on feature films and documentaries. We were all sent home with DVDs of students' short films and other multimedia projects. The library houses a very specialised collection of scripts, DVDs - even press kits! 

I'm tired again, but still have one more day to get through :) 

Study Visit Day 2

Yay! I took one photo today! Admittedly, it was before the first session began, and once the actual day began I didn't have time to take any, but anyway...here it is :)

I took this photo in the foyer of the UTS Library (University of Technology Sydney). I took it because I had never seen a vending machine like it before, and I thought it was cool. Maybe I'm just extremely naive and not very worldly wise, but I was pretty amazed to see a vending machine with notebooks, highlighter pens, staples and blank CD ROMs.

Today I visited UTS library and St Andrews Cathedral School library. Once again the tours and presentations gave me a lot of food for thought. Unfortunately I'm tired now and don't feel able to write a long post, but I'll catch you up when the week is over :)

Feel free to comment on vending-machines-you-have-seen! 

Study Visit Day 1

I really thought I would take lots of photos today...you know the sort of thing...

"Here's me in Sydney on the study visit"..."Here's the group in front of such-and-such library"

Not so much...

Had a great day, but I was constantly on the go and didn't really get to the "photo opportunity" stage!

I had my first experience of "commuting" in a long time, driving to the train station and trying to find a parking spot in the designated commuter parking. Ughh! Then an hour and a quarter on the train and a short walk to the first venue of the day. And the same in reverse coming home. The good news - plenty of time for reading Uglies by Scott Westerfield. The bad news - I'm going to need another book!

I found our visit to Ultimo TAFE library quite inspiring. It's a large library, with a lot of staff who seem to be passionate about meeting the needs of the community of staff and students that they serve. Particularly interesting for me was information literacy workshops provided, including help with using the Australian Bureau of Statistics website (apparently a minefield!), advanced internet searching, and help setting up iGoogle and RSS feeds to suit individual information needs. As far as I can see, the library is a dynamic workspace with large tables for group work, wifi access throughout, and a collection tailored to meet the current needs of the (often industry-related) courses that are taught. The library also serves International students studying at the English centre with a designated collection of "easy readers" and "easy reader non-fiction" (equivalent to junior non-fiction).

Customs House public library was not so inspiring for me. Although the building has been redeveloped, and the library looks as up-market as they come, I'm not easily fooled by flashiness! The ground floor of the library is designed like a hotel lobby, there's a cafe, lounge chairs and a model of the city of Sydney under a glass floor (yes, you can walk on top of it!). It's noisy and the architecture is fabulous, but what's with having the cafe tables so close to the newspapers that they seem in constant danger of spillage??? I don't get the impression that meeting the information needs of the community is the highest priority. The fact that the library space doubles as a gallery with ever-changing exhibitions does however make it a very interesting public space.

Now I must rest up for Day 2!

Sydney Study Visit

I'm so excited! From tomorrow until Friday I'll be completing my Study Visit, a required part of ETL507 "Professional Experience/Professional Portfolio" for my MEd (TL). I am attending a university-organised tour of various libraries and information agencies.

From my subject outline:

"Study visits are an excellent opportunity to see the information resources and services of a range of libraries and information agencies and to reflect on the diversity and commonalities in the goals of these organisations and the manner in which each works to fulfil these goals."

I'll be commuting via train to and from Sydney each day, then travelling by train, bus and foot to different venues with the CBD.

Libraries I'm visiting:

1. Ultimo TAFE Library
2. Customs House Library
3. University of Technology Library
4. St Andrews Cathedral School Library
5. Australian Museum Research Library
6. Australian Film TV & Radio School Library
7. State Library of NSW

After the visit is finished, we must hand in two reports. From my subject outline:

"The reflection report gives you the opportunity to overview and discuss what you have gained as a developing information professional from the sites you visited during your study visit and from the overall experience. The evaluation report gives you the opportunity to assess the value of each site you visit."

I'll keep you updated during the week as to how I'm getting along. Wish me luck!

grave secret by Charlaine Harris

grave secret by Charlaine Harris.

Borrowed from my local public library.

**** "Satisfying"

From the inside cover: "Lightning-struck sleuth Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver take a break from looking for the dead to visit the two little girls they both think of as sisters. But, as always happens when they travel to Texas, memories of their horrible childhood resurface...To make matters worse, Tolliver learns from his older brother that their father is out of jail and trying to reestablish contact with other family members. Tolliver wants nothing to do with the man - but he may not have a choice in the matter. Soon, family secrtes ensnare them both, as Harper finally discovers what happened to her missing sister, Cameron, so many years before. And what she finds out will change her world forever..."

grave secret is the fourth book in Harris' Harper Connelly series, which I love. I have reviewed each of the previous books in the series - you can read the reviews by clicking on each book's name.

grave sight

grave surprise

an ice cold grave

I was waiting on this book for a long time. It was so overdue that the library almost listed it as lost, but eventually it turned up and I got the call that it was ready for me to pick up. I've been working hard on an educational research assignment for my Masters, so it's been sitting on my bedside table for a week or so, taunting me! Ah, what the hell, I decided to give myself a break from the study and treat myself!

As expected, I really enjoyed this continuation of the story of Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver, who travel the country finding and identifying the dead using Harper's supernatural gift. As usual, there was a mystery to solve, and I also enjoyed the developing relationships between the characters. It was also extremely satisfying to get an answer about what happened to Harper's sister Cameron.

These books aren't demanding, they can be read in a single session if you have the time. But the storylines keep you guessing, the characters are engaging, and - you guessed it - I can't wait for the next one!

A quick check of Charlaine Harris' website shows that there is nothing new in the pipeline for Harper as yet, however the next Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead in the Family, is due out in May. You can read the first chapter of it (yes, of course I did!) here.