I made the final push to get all the books on my list loaded into the database, some 119 [Edit: missed three..] titles in all, and took the time to tweak the templates a little more. For the sidebar (picture on left), I moved the current book to the top as it was a little lost between planned and finished, though the original layout reflects a transition better. Additionally, I added the sums of each book into the header with the stock function call found in the library template (I’m grateful for Rob’s well laid out code!) to add a sense of perspective–if I read a little over a book a month I have seven years remaining!
One of the coolest things about Now Reading is that it is fairly extensible, the functions are well documented and data is stored in separate tables which will allow me to do all sorts of different things (RSS feeds, sorts, groupings, etc.). I just need to take the time to hack at it. One thing I would like to do is to be able to associate comments to books and authors as it would be neat to have the potential for a dialogue to emerge on those topics. My inital thought is that it would have to be separate from the regular Wordpress commenting system as if I ever decided to deactivate Now Reading or it breaks with a later version of Wordpress I’d be left with one hell of a mess. Things to chew on.
Back to reading!
Well, it appears that the site I was relying on for tracking my reading list, Reader2.com, is down (SQL connection error) and has been that way for several days. The programmer, it seems, last updated it over six months ago–along with all the other related sites–so it looks like it’s reached the state of abandonware. It was a great service while it lasted and I managed to load in some 90+ books, tagged, reviewed, and cross referenced so loosing it is a bit of a downer.
Regardless, it’s passing gives me the chance to pull the reading list into the site which gives me a greater degree of control and to do so I’m using Roblog’s Now Reading plugin–after some hacking of the default templates it flows decently with K2. On the left you’ll see a grouping of pending books, currently reading, and finished as well as a link to the “Library,” while at the moment is a tad sparse I’ll be filling it out over the next couple of days. Hopefully, I’ll be able to revamp the existing reading list page to reflect the information from the plugin to make the page a little more useful.
In other site news, I’ve moved onto the latest K2. I’m finding it to be a more polished experience; live search is tightly integrated and commenting flows smoother. One minor annoyance was that page template with comments was broken so I had to make a copy of the non-comments one and commenting to it. Beyond that I decided to change the background color to draw eyes to the posts rather than have them sort of bleed out into the surrounding page.
Good times.
With the weather being decently hot for this Yankee, Management and I have been laying low watching movies, some good and some bad and surprisingly I’ve been able to keep my attention rapt enough to follow the plots. Gorky Park was enjoyable, never thought the international trade of sable would be so contested and dangerous, as was The Machinist, a dark look at guilt and redemption. The Lost Boys was just as annoying as I remember and not nearly as fun as The Goonies. At the moment we are settling in to The Satan Bug, a 1965 film about a break-in at a germ warfare facility; promises to be part thriller, part mystery, part sci-fi wrapped up in a rough but well-meaning ex-spook.
I have about twenty pages left in Jordan’s The Shadow Rising which I’ll snack on for the rest of the day. The Wheel of Time series as been chock full of pulpy goodness thus far even it is it a physically heavy read and seeing as I am only about a quarter of the way in hopefully it will keep entertaining. For the time being I’m committed to finishing books five through seven and by the time I finish those Gabriella will be just about on the scene–lately I’ve been reading like pouring cold molasses.
Sleepy weekend and lazy indeed.
Looks like I haven’t really kicked my eBay used book habit. I was going strong there for a while but my insatiable need to finish a series once I start it pushed me into trying to round out the back half of Jordan’s wonderfully trashy soap opera series The Wheel of Time. In the process of hunting down the missing books I found myself bidding on other sets by other authors, this time four by Greg Bear.
Seriously, I have a problem. As if my “To Read” list of trashy fiction wasn’t already long enough (around 87) and my non-fiction list, which I haven’t touched in over a year, still remains with some 20 books waiting to be read. At my current rate of one book = one month Gabriella will be heading into middle school by the time I’m done. That is of course if I STOP BUYING BOOKS. Like some perverse math word problem my little habit will certainly outpace my ability to read and finish. “If Jimmy finishes one book per month but purchases four books every other month how soon until Jimmy is buried under pulp fiction?”
When Gabriella comes onto the scene this is likely only going to get worse as I try and hunt down every cool children’s book so that she can be buried just like her dad. If I’m lucky she’ll turn into a little reading junkie like us and her grandparents. If you’re going to be strung out on something literature isn’t the worst thing.
Over the past month or so I have been really enjoying David Wellington’s Thirteen Bullets, a serial novel being published via RSS. With the impending release of his novel Monster Island, Backstory gives him a chance to voice his inspiration for writing it. If you like action packed horror Wellington is definitely worth reading as his writing is crisp and his characters flawed and believable. Good stuff.
