Little Thoughts About Books and Stuff

  Photo copyright K.S. Brooks.  Do not use without attribution. Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge I submitted this one but didn't win.  However, I had fun researching and writing this one! ***** Our job was to burn the house down. We devised a plan—a grease fire in the kitchen. The fire would catch on the curtains and spread to the cabinet tops, where there were years of dust and grease build-up. Within minutes we had planned on a flashover to spread to the rest of the house. We also made sure there were flammables in the attached garage for added combustion. “We’re all set in here. Over.” “Let it burn. Over.” I turned on the gas stove. Sloshed grease over the rim of the pan and watched as the fire started. I turned and made my way out of the back door, making sure to close it tight. I made my way to the property line and watched as smoke started to fill the house, the dancing flames filled the window over the sink, and I smiled at a job well done. I let out...

Currently Reading: Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert Date Started:  April 25 Goodreads Summary:  Eve Brown is a certified hot mess. No matter how hard she strives to do right, her life always goes horribly wrong—so she’s given up trying. But when her personal brand of chaos ruins an expensive wedding (someone had to liberate those poor doves), her parents draw the line. It's time for Eve to grow up and prove herself—even though she's not entirely sure how… Jacob Wayne is in control. Always. The bed and breakfast owner’s on a mission to dominate the hospitality industry—and he expects nothing less than perfection. So when a purple-haired tornado of a woman turns up out of the blue to interview for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car—supposedly by accident. Yeah, right. Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to ...

  Currently Reading: Browse: The World in Bookshops by Henry Hitchings Date Started:  April 13 Goodreads Summary:  Edited and introduced by the writer and critic Henry Hitchings, these fearless, passionate, inquiring essays by award-winning international writers celebrate one of our most essential, but endangered, institutions: the bookshop. From Denmark to Egypt, from the USA to China, Browse brings together some of the world's leading authors to investigate bookshops both in general and in particular - the myriad pleasures, puzzles and possibilities they disclose.   The fifteen essays reflect their authors' own inimitable style - romantic, elegant, bold, argumentative, poetic or whimsical - as they ask probing questions about the significance, the cultural and social (even political) function as well as the physical qualities of the institution, and examine our very personal relationship to it. Little Thoughts : I'm really enjoying these short glimpse in...

Currently Reading: Reel History: The World According to the Movies by Alex von Tunzelmann Date Started:  April 1 Goodreads Summary:  From ancient Egypt to the Tudors to the Nazis, the film industry has often defined how we think of the past. But how much of what you see on the screen is true? And does it really matter if filmmakers just make it all up? Picking her way through Hollywood's version of events, acclaimed historian Alex von Tunzelmann sorts the fact from the fiction. Along the way, we meet all our favourite historical characters, on screen and in real life: from Cleopatra to Elizabeth I, from Spartacus to Abraham Lincoln, and from Attila the Hun to Nelson Mandela. Based on the long-running column in the Guardian, Reel History takes a comic look at the history of the world as told through the movies - the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly. Little Thoughts :  I was enjoying this book until she gave A Knight's Tale a C+ entertainment rating...

Photo copyright K.S. Brooks.  Do not use without attribution. Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge This one is from February, I never entered it, because I never finished writing it. Something just felt off and I couldn't get it edited and submitted in time.   If you like alone time to just sit in nature and drink your tea don’t date a K-9 officer cause the moment he cannot find you he sends the dog after you and that very good boy will always find you. This happens at least once a week when I'm off in the woods that back up to our house, I’m never very far and always within cell range, but he still sends the dog. It’s good training for the dog and he does make me laugh so I guess it’s not a terrible way to be found, but sometimes you just want to be alone.  That’s what I was feeling when I stormed out of the house and headed off into the woods during a break in the snowstorm. I know better, yet in the heat of the moment off I went and in my anger I went too far ...