I've been trying to declutter myself. It's a slow process. On a good day I've made some kind of progress. But, I count almost anything as progress at this point.

One rule I hope to stick to after this is not bringing in more stuff than I have gotten rid or or used. Too much stuff is the cause of clutter. No matter how much storage space you have or don't have, you can only keep so much stuff around and you only need so much stuff around too.

I have too many books. I know I have too many books but I still keep bringing more of them home. Like lost souls.

I have gotten good at not keeping fiction books. Once I read them I take them to the secondhand bookstore and bring back fewer of them in exchange. Less is more, right?

But, I have a mild obsession when it comes to non-fiction books. I have a book on every topic that has ever interested me. Sadly, that's not much of an exaggeration.

I don't collect books. I don't quite hoard books, in my opinion. But, I do keep books. I keep them in plastic storage containers, on top of my chest of drawers, in piles on the floor and on actual bookshelves too.

I'd love to have a book room, a library. It's a dream. I've never had the kind of space, just to myself, for displaying all my books.

I'd settle for a corner, a reading nook. But, that won't work out right now. Too many people in a small living space and I'm the only one here who actually likes to keep books.

I just have too many books, more than I can keep. But, they are so hard to part with. Leaving a book behind is like giving up on a dream, a plan or a goal you wanted to keep. It's very hard to do. I still remember books I've lost along the way, years and years after they have been gone.

Maybe some day I will have my reading space. I like to look at other reading rooms, places and spaces. I design my own in my mind. It has masses of revisions at this point.

Do you have a reading space, just for yourself and your books?

Wouldn't You Like a Book Nook Too?

Create a Book Nook without Renovations

1. Find the right spot in your home. A quiet corner you can relax in.
2. Get a comfortable chair, pile cozy pillows on the floor or pull up a couch you can stretch out on. Bring a blanket and pillows to keep you warm and content.
3. Let there be light. You need a good reading light. One you can easily reach to turn off if you get sleepy.
4. A little table for your books, a place to set your beverage of choice, maybe something like fake flowers to pretty it up a bit too. You might keep a stash of paper and pens for taking notes and jotting down ideas.

When you really love bookshelves...

• On the Bookshelf

• Bookstore & Bookshelf P@rn

• Bookshelf Porn

DIY Book Reading Nook

• Thrifty Decor Chick: Closet turned book nook

• Perfect Bookshelves | Do It Yourself Home Projects from Ana White

• Book Nook - Workbench Magazine

The Dusty Bookshelf Challenge

1. Write a blog post with a list of all those books that are literally or figuratively sitting on your shelf that you’ve been meaning to read for a while.

2. Pick a level

• Pixie Dust – Read 0-5 books
• Dust Bunny – Read 5-10 books
• Cobwebs – Read 10-15 books
• Grungy – Read 20+ books

EXTRA CREDIT-Say how long that book has been sitting on your shelf!

3. Link your blog post where you are doing the challenge at the bottom of this post (with the blue button) and then enter the giveaway!

There were only two groups I could find but there are likely lots of Canadian book artists. Add your links in the comments (moderated - they won't automatically show up when you post).

ARA Canada

Canadian group promoting art bookbinding. French-Canadian site. An official chapter of an international association devoted to promoting art bookbinding on the national and international stage.

Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild

Supports the development of the book arts in Canada. Bookbinding, artists' books, papermaking, calligraphy, letterpress printing and typography, wood engraving, paper decorating, restoration, and conservation.

Can you buy and then read the last book in a series, knowing there will not be another. Once you read the final page all the adventures will be over. When you close the cover all those characters will become just memories.

This is The End for Rachel Morgan and the Hollows series of books by Kim Harrison

Letting go of a great book is hard. But, knowing this is the last book in what has been such a wonderful, readable adventure... that's really hard. Kim Harrison's series of books with Rachel, Ivy, Jenks and the rest of the group living at the old church in the Hollows has become my complete favourite in the urban fantasy/ horror genre.

Multi genre series: urban fantasy, alternate history or horror? Not always easy to find in a bookstore.

The Hollows is a location just outside of Cincinnati. Our current time line all changed when the existence of Others came to light. Tomatoes became deadly, for awhile. The people divided themselves into Others and humans/ everyone else. Rachel Morgan doesn't know it but she's a demon witch or witch demon depending on how you look at it. Long ago Rachel was saved from death due to her demon blood and this becomes an important part of her life as the adventure moves along from the world of paranormal bounty hunter, vampire culture bystander, a witch shunned and a demon who can perform dark magic but at the cost of collecting smut on her aura. The story covers 13 books so you don't need to know it all before you even begin, at the beginning.

The Misadventures of Rachel Morgan...

There are a lot of great characters in the Hollows

My favourite character (other than Rachel) is Ivy. Kim Harrison herself once wrote that Ivy scared her as she wrote the character even. That always stuck in my mind. The vampire culture and history was given a lot of focus as the Hollows series goes along. I liked the backstory evolving for Ivy and her vampire kin. I hope her story gets more attention, maybe a book of her own.

My other favourite is Algaliarept, most often known by the short form, Al. Rachel dated a few men (and Ivy) during the series but this was never the focus. It is all about the story, the adventure. But, of all the men in Rachel's adventures: Nick, Kisten, Glenn, Pierce, Trent, David and a couple others on the fringes, Al is the only one I really wanted her to care about and keep around. Al is more than just the character in the pages of a series of books. I really will miss Al because what other story could you find a demon who can be self serving, almost romantic, sometimes gentlemanly and old fashioned and yet kind of sweet in his own odd way. Al doesn't seem likely to be the guy who gets the girl at the end of the last book - but he is the one who has stuck by Rachel and been a faithful companion even in the beginning when he cursed her for his own reasons. Al is just complex and misunderstood.

How I Started as a Fan of Kim Harrison and The Hollows

I was so lucky! By luck and good fortune I found a blog the publisher was running to promote more of their books. All I had to do was request the book I wanted to read and the publisher sent it to me. Within a week or two I had a fresh, new hardcover book sent to my door. It had that great smell which only a newly minted hardcover book gets. I was so impressed, I even wrote about it in my blog before reading the book at all.

Then I did read the book. Great story. Not muddled by romance and dating and the endless drivel of boy/ girl stuff. Characters I loved and wanted to know more about. A real storyline which grew as each book came out. Every book could be read on it's own but... how could you read just one and not want to know what happened before and what happened next?

From the start I was a fan of Kim Harrison's writing, her story and her character, Rachel Morgan.

I read this book in high school, a long time ago. The story has stuck with me. It's science fiction but it could be horror. Not because it's gruesome, creepy or morbid. Just because the idea of seeing yourself so clearly and so much better than you had been before - only to then be returned to what you had been... that seems horrifying to me.

The book came first. There are at least two movies created from the story in the original book. I've seen the older movie and I've read the book. The book had more impact and meaning to the telling of the story. It was less like seeing the story through someone else's vision rather than your own.

Algernon is the mouse in a lab experiment. Charlie is the man picked to take part in the same experimental brain surgery. It all seems to work so well at first.

Algernon is exceptional, the experiment seems to work with greatly positive results! So they pick Charlie because he has never been exceptional, intellectually, and this is what the experiment is all about. Can they improve the intelligence and thus the whole life of someone who started out the level of below average? Can they turn Charlie into a genius?

At first Charlie is still being beaten by Algernon, the mouse. Charlie doesn't like that, of course. He has always known he was not as smart as some people but he looks up to people and thinks well of everyone. He believes the people he works with are his friends. One of the saddest parts of the book is Charlie's realization that they were making fun of him, even treating him badly but he never understood enough to know.

Charlie improves, understands more, sees more and begins to want more for himself too. It's not long at all before he is beyond any intelligence level in Algernon, the mouse. Charlie even surpasses the scientists who created and performed the experiment. Charlie falls in love, makes plans for the future... but one day Algernon dies.

Algernon had started losing his super intelligence, gradually. Charlie, knowing he had the same surgery, expects his results will backslide and now, knowing and understanding so much more he knows he is going back to who he was before. the difference being that now he sees a very different picture of who he was before and how he was treated by other people.

If knowledge is power, is ignorance bliss?

How would it feel to have come far, learned so much, changed your life and yourself and then have it all taken back until you are reduced to so much less than you had been even for a short time? I can't imagine living each day as someone who understands the jokes people made about him when he was less intelligent and knowing you would soon be back to that life again.

Of course, there is a movie too. Read the book first.

I began reading the Immortality Bites series when the first paranormal romance came out in paperback at my local book store. The last three books in the Immortality Bites series have evolved from paranormal romance to the mystery genre. An interesting switch in genre while staying true to the original characters and style of the books.

Michelle Rowen is a Canadian writer, from the Toronto area. This year Michelle celebrated a ten year anniversary for heroine, the main character, Sarah Dearly. Ten years from the original idea, books published in two genres to now. Quite an accomplishment.

Finding Michelle Rowen Online

Michelle Rowen Twitter Facebook

A Quick Interview with Michelle Rowen

I was disappointed to read that you have put the Immortality Bites mystery series on the back burner. Do you have plans to keep Sarah Dearly going, maybe in another genre?

I'm very happy to hear you've enjoyed the series! I would say, more than "putting it on the back burner," that after writing about Sarah for a decade, over seven books in which she "starred," we've both come to a comfortable stopping place. I absolutely adore the paranormal mystery genre, so the future will probably include more books about a brand new main character, or perhaps I'll get the urge to revisit Sarah and Thierry one day and see where their adventures have taken them.

What was the hardest or most interesting thing about writing in the mystery genre?

I started writing in what could only be properly described as "paranormal chick-lit" when it was a hot genre back in 2006. Before too long, most paranormal readers began looking for grittier and sexier books, rather than quirky and funny. What I love about paranormal mysteries is that the "fun" stuff that I love can rise to the surface again. Mystery readers (specifically in cozy paranormals) are totally okay with talking animals, wacky spells, and sarcastic heroines -- which is what I love to write the most.

Why did you choose to write a mystery rather than science fiction, fantasy or the horror genre?

For many of the reasons stated in the last question... there's more room to explore the fun side of things that isn't entirely welcomed in other genres. Also, I will admit that Sarah is the one character I've written that stubbornly directed me in what she wanted -- probably since she's existed in my head for so long, she feels she can take such liberties. And after she got the vampire of her dreams (who, FYI, was not the guy she was originally supposed to end up with at the end of Bitten & Smitten!), she implicitly stated that now she was ready to solve some mysteries. There were always mystery and suspense elements in the original series, so it felt like a very natural evolution.

I really enjoy your writing style. What was your writing background before you became a published writer?

Thank you! It took me a while to find my voice. I spent my "wannabe a writer" years trying to write historical romances and literary fiction, to no great success or personal passion. I'd say that my love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a huge influence on me -- and I know it was a huge influence on many other paranormal authors. Around the same time, I discovered first person urban fantasies, in particular the earlier Anita Blake books, that helped me develop my own writing. I even wrote some fan fiction to practice, which will never, ever, ever see the light of day. grin They say write what you love to read, so that's what I tried (and still try!) to do.

What do you especially like to read yourself?

I'd love to say I read widely, but that is a goal I constantly fail at. Currently I seem to read a great deal of YA paranormal and fantasy books, almost always in first person, and...judging from my TBR shelf... not much else! I used to be a big Stephen King fan and would love to get back to his writing. And I am a major Karen Marie Moning fan who is counting down the days until the next Fever book.

What do you see as the future of paranormal novels? It seems to be a genre that's slowing down a bit.

I think, like with every "hot" genre, there is a life span to it. Paranormal has been super hot for, I'd say, twelve years now, which is quite a long time in publishing. A few years ago, I visited a bookstore to see that the shelves, particularly in the romance department, were full to overflowing with paranormals, as publishers scrambled to put out what readers were buying. Nothing can be sustained at those numbers for long, and readers' tastes change. As businesses that need to see a profit to survive, publishers will try to meet these changing interests. Luckily, now there is the option of self publishing and authors who love to write PNR can take the fates of their vampires, werewolves, or fae princes, into their own hands -- and straight to the reading public who can't find it as plentifully on the selves anymore. It's a great time to be a writer!

Reading Immortality Bites

The name Sarah means "princess" and I was expecting the character would be another of those vampire princess types who seem to have endless money and resources for shopping, beauty and fashion being a feature of the book as much as the story itself. I was very glad to be wrong.

Although fashion is part of the story it is not the focus. Instead you will find an adventure with plot twists, a strong backstory, unexpectedly likeable villains and characters you don't easily forget. The writing style flows and carries you along. I found myself unable to stop reading until after 4:00 AM when I came to the last page and all the loose ends were tied up in a fairly happy ending for most of the characters. No, not everyone gets a happy ending, some just get to carry on and maybe find themselves in another story.

The story is the thing in a book by Michelle Rowen.