Bond, Brontes, and the End of Bloglines
Last week I started the final course of my MA: The Brontes, two nights per week, for six weeks. What a nice way to end my academic career, no? I think this is my third time through Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, and they both get better on each reading. And I’m excited about the lesser known novels too--I loved The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne). It’s pretty cheeky stuff for its time. I’m starting to think about papers again--the very last academic paper I will ever write (yay!) will revisit one of my favourite topics: the maternal. There is no shortage of material in the Bronte books.
For work, I’ve been trying to expand my reading horizons by reading genres I normally shy away from, specifically popular fiction and non-fiction. I just started reading a manuscript copy of Ronald White’s What is America? Books about current events are not usually my thang, but so far this one is very readable, and is almost distracting me from Villette. Almost.
I’ve also made a discovery that has rocked my world--audiobooks! I just finished listening to the new James Bond, Devil May Care, written by Sebastian Faulks. (Full discosure: this is a big book for us. But I promise you, I will never recommend a book here I don’t truly adore--the ones I don’t like, I don’t mention at all). Big or not, Bond is fucking great! The reader is fantastic (I love how he does the female voices). The book is fast-paced and cinematic, with gruesome killings, exotic locations, wonderful descriptions of food and drink, and dark humour. Bond is just as he should be--like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, he’s tough and rough. Pitch perfect.I went to a Web 2.0 conference yesterday. The speaker, Mitch Joel (who is fabulous by the way), convinced me to convert from Bloglines to Google Reader (it’s so easy to share items, creating reciprical links, which you can automatically post to your Facebook profile using an application called Feedheads. This stuff turns me on.
What’s exciting you on the web these days?
posted by metro mama @ 3:04 PM
11 Comments:
I just made the switch from Bloglines to Google Reader, too. It only took me about a day to see that it's way better. Feeds appear much more quickly, I find.
I still haven't made the switch, mostly because it would require me to do something. Trillian has it, and it looks much more user-friendly than what I have. So it's on my to-do list.
Bite your tongue. Nothing and I mean NOTHING can distract from Villette.
As for the web, welcome to Google Reader. It is way better than Bloglines. Now, work your way on over to del.icio.us. It's waaaay cool. I've just started using it to organize all my bookmarks--work ones, personal ones, Sesame street YouTube clips for Miss M... You name it, I'm tagging it on del.icio.us. Metadata: power to the people!
Mouse: you can export your Bloglines subscriptions to Google Reader--it's almost a one-touch transfer.
I'll have to check out google reader!
That's funny, I thought Google Reader WAS Bloglines. Didn't realize they were two different options. I'm such a luddite.
am thinking of switching to google reader...maybe...
I am slow on switches like that - it took me forever to even get onto bloglines instead of patrolling my blogroll every day! Now I have to update the 'roll, instead... It never ends!
And well-done audiobooks can be fantastic, especially if you drive a lot or have a hobby that employs your hands. One summer I listened to a Stephanie Plum novel read by debi Mazar - a perfect match - while making a stained glass window.
dammit.
now i might have to check out googlereader ...
It is really easy to migrate from Bloglines to google reader. Like Mad sad, you just export your bloglines subscriptions to a file, then import into google. It even keeps your folders intact. It took me about 30 seconds!
I was a loyal and HARDCORE Bloglines fan but it screwed up on me one too many times. I switched to Google Reader exclusively - I was using it just to share posts on my widget thingy - and I LOVE it. I haven't logged in to Bloglines in months.
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