Books in review for 2012

2012 was a bumper reading year for me. I managed to read 65 books! I was aiming for 52 (one per week) but easily surpassed this. I think I could have potentially read another 10 but I got rather sick at the start of November and haven't physically read a book since. Basically I've lost my reading mojo...  Instead I've been watching trashy TV series so I hope once I finish what I'm watching that my enthusiasm for reading returns.  But here was what I did in 2012:

Fiction: 49
Non-fiction: 16
Teenage: 0 (this really shocked me)

Of the fiction 19 were in what I would call the Australian Rural Romance genre. I just loved reading about farmers and strong independent women...  There are a ton of new releases in this genre due out early 2013 so am rather excited!

I continued with my two bookgroups. In one I read 9/12 books and the other was 10/11. That elusive 100% still eludes me.

Best book from the year is a toss up between "Shadow of the Wind" or "Sarah's Key". Both just brilliant.

So now I look onwards to 2013. Maybe I will finish a few more books in the next week but it isn't likely...  My aim for 2013 is to read 52 again. Part of me wants to say more but I need to be realistic here...

Book: Sing You Home

Summary: Zoe Baxter has spent ten years trying to get pregnant, and just when she’s about to get her heart’s desire, tragedy destroys her world. In the aftermath of loss and divorce, she throws herself into her career as a music therapist. Working with Vanessa, she finds their relationship moving from business, to friendship, and then – to Zoe’s surprise – blossoming into love. When Zoe allows herself to start thinking of children again, she remembers that there are still frozen embryos that she and her husband never used.  But Max, having sought peace at the bottom of a bottle, has found redemption in an evangelical church, and Zoe needs his permission to take his unborn child . . .

What I thought: I really enjoyed this book. Once again such thought provoking subject matter. And this one kept me guessing right up until the end on what the outcome would be...

Uni

The second semester saw me finish two more subjects of my MBA. The first was Managerial Skills Workshop. This was very much a personal look at myself and relecting on me as a manager and leader. I really enjoyed it. My other subject was Strategy and Management of Change. This was not so good... But in the end I passed both with DISTINCTIONS so was sure happy!  Now I am just left with one subject to go. How I wish it was all over with already...

Final card swap for 2012, part 2

And the rest of them... 

Final card swap for 2012, part 1

Final card swap for 2012 had 12 of us participate. Here are the cards: 

Book: Identical strangers: a memoir of twins separated and reunited

Summary: Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn't until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins.  Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from the adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula's life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth.

As they reunite and take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. They learn that the study was conducted by a pair of influential psychiatrists associated with a prestigious adoption agency. As they investigate their birth mother's past, Paula and Elyse move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives.

What I thought: This book was hit and miss. Some great parts and some ordinary. Fascinating story though. I wonder if I have a twin out there...

Book: Outback Heart

Summary: Joanne van Os was just twenty-two when she met Rod Ansell. At twenty-three Rod was already a legend in Australia and around the world, having survived alone for two months without supplies in one of the harshest and most remote parts of northern Australia. To Joanne, Rod was a a genuine hero who could do anything, could make anything out of nothing, told the funniest yarns, had a philosophy on everything. She married him, and they had two beautiful sons who idolised their father. Together they lived the tough life of outback bull catchers and cattle musterers.But as time went on Joanne came to realise that Rod was both a complicated and deeply troubled man. For the sake of her sons she never gave up on Rod, even after their divorce, but just how far he'd gone only became apparent when his life ended in tragedy: out of his mind on drugs, Rod became involved in a shootout in which a young police office was killed. 'How does someone, whose extraordinary story of survival in the wild inspired so many Australians, become a psychotic, drug-crazed gunman?' Joanne asks. Outback Heart captures the Territory life on paper: the dust, the heat, the struggle and the larger-than-life characters. But it's also a deeply moving and powerful story of a love affair and a marriage, and the pain when it all falls apart. It's the story of Rod Ansell, but even more it is Joanne's story, of how a young, naive woman grows up the hard way, and has the most exhilarating and the most heartbreaking times doing it.


What I thought: I really enjoyed this as she grew up just around the corner from me and I went to school with her nephews so I felt like I knew many of the people individually. What a life though. Just amazing. The Territory is just so different from my world...

Book: Valley of the White Gold

Summary: The Half Moon Valley is not easy to farm, nor are its inhabitants easy to know. But the valley produces the best superfine merino wool in the country, and Dan Stafford is its top woolgrower. Dan relies on his capable son, Jim, and his two eye-catching daughters, Bella and Beth, to help run the property. Now he is battling to retain its prize-winning status. When Bella marries and moves away, and the neighbouring property is sold to an outsider, Dan is unnerved. At least Beth seems content to remain on the land. But Dan's new woolclasser, the intriguing Rod Cameron, turns out to be more than Dan bargained for. With Rod on the scene, Dan's status and Beth's future are far from assured.

What I thought: A great country romance with that old fashion feel.

Health Libraries Inc. Conference

Last Friday I headed down to Melbourne for the annual HLI Conference.  As always it was fabulous to catch up with other health library colleagues, to chat to vendors and to head out for a yummy dinner afterwards. There were a few tweets under #HLIConf2012. Here are my notes from the day:

Ilana Jackson - Western Health

Health education strategy
Lit search survey
Dashboard - feedback, lit searches
Marketing - Scholar, Up-to-Date, Discovery services
If you block a tool the user wants they will go elsewhere

Michele Gaca - Heart Foundation

Be visible, involved, relevant
KNOWN - build reputation on timely and quality solutions
Constantly sell your message
Expertise - we can find it, and find it quicker
Quotes from customers

Mary Peterson - SA Health Library Network

Support from clinicians
Go to clinical meetings
High level profile
resources are worth 50cents per hit (etc.)
Cost of individual purchase compared with centralised

Stephen Due - Barwon Health

Empowerment has to include facing up to challenges and problems
Acknowledge you need more - have a prepared plan so you hit the ground running when funds are available
Competition - other libraries (especially academic), CHC, publishers
Need strong web based presence
CLIENT SURVEY
E-books, current deficiency. need critical mass to work. ebrary (proquest, 1000 books), clinical key (800 books)

Ann Ritchie - on marketing

Position. Position. Position.
Perceptions of values.
Communication values.

Sue McKerracher - Re: HLI Survey

IMPACT - what users do with the info you source for them
Quality report to the Board (during May's LIW)
Dollar values - 40 gratis ILL's = 40 x $16.50
Average all hits out. eg. St V is $3 per article. Pay per view is $12-$50.
Insync surveys (about $3000)
Email signature. Words that align with BHS vision

Book: Zoe's Muster

Summary: When Zoe, restless black sheep of the Porter family, discovers that her biological father is a North Queensland cattleman, Peter Fairburn, her deep desire to meet him takes her from inner city Brisbane to a job as a stockcamp cook. Zoe’s mother, Claire, is wrestling with guilt and shock over Zoe’s discovery. She swears Zoe to secrecy, fearing that the truth could ruin the career of her high profile politician husband. When she is forced to confront her past, Claire also reassesses her marriage
Virginia Fairburn is happily married to Peter, but she’s always lived with the shadow of the other woman her husband loved and lost. On the muster at Mullinjim, Zoe meets brooding cattleman Mac McKinnon, who knows from painful experience that city girls can’t cope in the bush. Every instinct tells Mac that Zoe is hiding something. As the pressure to reveal her mother’s secret builds, Zoe fears she must confide in him or burst.

What I thought: Loved it! Another great rural chick lit book.

Another card swap batch. Swap 3, batch #3

Another card swap batch. Swap 3, batch #2

Another card swap batch. Swap 3, batch #1

Me and 15 of my closest friends (including acquaintances and strangers) have taken part in another card swap challenge. The general gist was that you made 16 of the same cards (one design), then you sent them to me, I split them out and send you back 16 different cards. The next few post are photos of the cards. Apologies for being so slow to load them all!

Book: Love Our Way

Summary: Managing a household of eight children is not for the faint-hearted. When you′ve adopted six children from overseas and succeeded in creating a riotiously happy family of ten, there′s a good chance you can handle any challenge life throws at you.  That′s what Julia and Barry Rollings thought until they discovered that two of their children had not been willingly given up for adoption in India. Much worse, Akil and Sabila had been stolen from their mother while she slept - and sold by their father.

How do you deal with such devastating news? Bow to the advice that ′You adopt the child, not the family′? Perhaps not tell the children until they are older - or not at all? But Julia Rollings is not one to take the
easy road. She makes the courageous decision to reunite Akil and Sabi, 13 and 12, with their birth mother, Sunama, and her family.  In Love Our Way Julia shares their moving journey of discovery to India and how it has expanded and enriched her family in more ways than one.

What I thought: Fantastic book. What an amazing family. So inspirational.

Return of the card swap. Batch 2 #3

Return of the card swap. Batch 2 #2

Return of the card swap. Batch 2 #1

Me and 16 of my closest friends (including acquaintances and strangers) have taken part in another card swap challenge. The general gist was that you made 17 of the same cards (one design), then you sent them to me, I split them out and send you back 17 different cards. The next few post are photos of the cards.