"every inch of Miles is a mile I'd like to travel"

I've been reading Bujold's Vorkosigan series lately, avoiding my BBYA preconference books. This is tricky - reading Bujold, I mean - because I don't particularly like Miles, the main character. I like his parents, I like his brother, I like his wife and his cousin - but Miles is a tiresomely smug bit of work. I suspect that Bujold fell in love with her own creation, in the same way that Dorothy L. Sayers did with Lord Peter Wimsey (another fictional character who I don't much like - my favorite Sayers is Murder Must Advertise, when Wimsey spends much of the book pretending to be someone else). I'm reading Mirror Dance by Bujold right now, and I like it because Miles is dead. He'll be brought back to life before the book is over, but I'm enjoying the series far more without him.
And in case you're wondering why I read Sayers and Bujold when I don't like their main characters - well, they're good writers, and those aren't so plentiful that I can afford to ignore a few. Kudos to anyone who can tell me where I got the title for this blog entry, btw.

behind on BBYA

I'm supposed to be reading a pile of old teen novels, trying to decide which are the best for a given year. I'm a week behind on my self-imposed schedule, because I had reviews to write. I read parts of Paradise Lost this week, among other things (I had to review Nancy Willard's retelling of it, so I read parts of the original again). But last night I made the fatal mistake of turning on the TV for a few minutes before I started reading, and darned if I didn't spend the next five hours catching up on America's Next Top Model. To my joy, the show is recapped on Television Without Pity - yippee!

book clubs revisited

Quick blog before my dinner break ends:
Just finished a book club meeting - a kids' one, for Trumpet of the Swan. I'm almost done with tomorrow's Book Club book, The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I've read it before, and it's a quick read.
I've been showing everyone the hilarious Unshelved strips that start here: http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20050404 . I liked these so much that I literally bought the t-shirt.
"Book Club is the toughest thing there is."