I swear, I DO NOT have a shoe fetish...

However, thanks to www.stumbleupon.com, I would spend the money on these shoes. All four colors.






Aren't they beautiful?!?!?! Sooo Alice in Wonderland-y, too. But, I'll never be able to afford them.

"Forget love....I'd rather fall in chocolate!"

So that's not actually true; I'm in love and quite happy to be there. :-)

However, I have chocolate on the brain today because of a book I began reading this morning and have nearly finished. Okay, I'm halfway through it. Chocolat, by Joanne Harris, is a delectable book! It is lovely because it is set in a sleepy French village called Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, and partly because the protagonist, Vianne Rocher, opens up a chocolate shop and the descriptions given of the treats she sells are mouth-watering. I can almost taste them as I read.

Joanne Harris had written other novels, apparently. Her writing style has intrigued me all day, and I will have to look into these others that she has published. I suppose I must allow for the fact that she is British (and part French, imagine that), since I have a tendency to enjoy writers from the UK more than from my home country of America. Not really sure why that is....

I spent a good part of the afternoon at the Borders Cafe in town, drinking a lovely coffee concoction that was called Cinnamon Swirl. No, it had no chocolate. I originally wanted something with chocolate in it, like a mocha, but for some reason the Cinnamon Swirl Brewed Coffee on the menu caught my eye. It certainly caught my taste buds!

My lovely drink and my book. Yes, I took a library book into Borders. But, it was only the cafe part AND I had it in my bag!

And now my coffee is gone and I decided to leave my book open for this picture. Note the epic Dragonology bookmark; I probably bought that at this Borders like, two years ago.

And then I came home, washed my car (it REALLY needed it), went swimming, ate dinner, and wrote this blog. Loveeeee life. :-)

Working at a public library has its perks. Really.

Mainly the perks are that I'm surrounded by books, and get to check out said books all the time. And being in the Children's Department is nice because it's always fun to talk to the kids. Today, I'm at the desk. Right now there aren't a lot of people, and not too many questions, either. There were a LOT of people here yesterday morning, because of the weather. It was pouring rain! And this morning it was nice and still is, as far as I can tell.

The reason I wanted to write this time, though, was not really to talk about my job. I know that probably gets boring after awhile anyway. What I wanted to say was that I discovered a new book series. Actually, a friend of mine mentioned that it was recommended to her, so I decided to look for it (while at work, of course, which is why I was talking about my job). The series is The Hungry City Chronicles, by Philip Reeve. He's a British author, which essentially meant I would like the books on some level. At any rate, I found the first book in the quartet, Mortal Engines, right away in the Teen Zone at our library. I then read that book in about a day! IT WAS SO GOOD. And actually, I felt like it should be turned into an anime series. Everything about the book was very anime-ish. I suppose that's probably because Reeve is writing about a rather post-apocalyptic and steampunk world.

I checked out the second book the other day, so I'll begin reading it soon. Also there is a short story by Philip Reeve that was written before this quartet and pretty much is where the Chronicles began.

Alice in Wonderland (1903)

There are so many film adaptations of Lewis Carroll's book out there that my head spins when I try to remember them all! I recently found, on www.youtube.com, a restored version of the first Alice film, made in 1903. It is just over eight minutes long, and for being made only eight years after the birth of cinema, it is remarkable! Enjoy!