First off, happy Leap Day! In honor of leap day Mother Nature finally decided to give us a couple inches of snow on top of rain and sleet. Heavy, wet snow with treacherous ice below made life interesting today especially for the brief moment when the bus I was on got stuck. Not so fun having to shovel it when I got home from work this evening. But what happens on Leap Day stays on Leap Day, right? So my plan is to eat an entire chocolate cake because the calories won’t catch up to me until four years from now and by then I will have made another plan on how I can avoid them.
Do you all know about The Browser’s Five Books interviews? I’ve been following them for some time now and I must say they are quite detrimental to my TBR list. There is a new interview every few days. They choose a subject expert, either a scholar or other professional or a person who has written a book on a particular subject, and then the chosen person recommends five books on the topic. The interviewee gives a brief synopsis of the book and explains why the book was chosen. For example, a new five was posted today. The expert is Peggy Orenstein and the topic the Gender Gap. Last week Edith Grossman talked about translation. Other recent topics include the American West, Christianity, and classic thrillers.
I’m not always interested in the topic but the interviews are usually quite good. I highly recommend subscribing to their feed. You won’t be disappointed.
Now, off to eat that cake.
The browsers five books is a dangerous website. Not sure if I should thank you or not for introducing it to me. I need MORE things to read…. Not!
I keep forgetting about the Five Books interviews and then every time I rediscover them much time gets wasted reading through all the posts that have gone up since I last visited. In the name of efficiency, I’ve followed your adviced and subscribed to their feed.
We had snow here today too. Not impressed.
Happy Leap Day to you Stefanie!
Yikes, it’s nearly over in my part of the world…. in minutes!
I hope you enjoyed the “entire” chocolate cake. That is usually how I eat things, too — in portions that can best be described as “their entirety”!
Helen, Bwahahaha! I am well aware of the dangers and I wanted to drag other down with me
Claire, glad to h ave found another who likes the Brower Five Books interviews! I used to do like you but then I finally broke down and added the feed to my reader. It makes it much easier to keep up with them! Hope your snow melts fast. Ours will probably be gone by next week. At least I hope it will.
Cipriano, one must never do things small on leap day
The browsing idea is a great one, but I’m miffed because I thought of it years ago and wrote to various radio stations,offering to record a similar series of programmes – and to no avail! Boo hoo! I’m vindicated, but I’m also a little pissed.
The cake thing made me laugh, though!
Litlove, obviously the places you approached didn’t know a good idea even when it bit them in the ass
You could do your own podcasts if you still feel so inclined. The cake was delicious though I had to keep drinking cup after cup of coffee to get it down and I haven’t slept since from all the sugar and the caffeine 
Thanks, Stefanie. I would have been interested in this anyway, but was especially keen when I saw the reference to Peggy Orenstein, as I just started reading Cinderella Ate My Daughter last night. I’ve subscribed and expect to add to my TBR list regularly with its (your) help.
Didn’t know about the Browsers Five Books Interviews. Yes, detrimental to the TBR tome, but I love things that are detrimental to the TBR tome, so thanks.
BuriedinPrint, ah, what a great coincidence! And I am always glad to help others add to their TBR piles
Emily, I love stuff like this too even if part of me knows I will never get around to reading even a small fraction of the books, just knowing about them and imagining reading them is a pleasure.
Oops catching up. I wish Leap Day brought us a treat … 1 March is the beginning of Autumn here and the beginning of my favourite month (and not just because it has my birthday in it!). March is usually a lovely, mild, settled month BUT 1 March this year was horrendous. It rained, and rained, and rained and rained … and it pretty much rained from then until 4 March. Today was a lovely 25°C March day, at last.
As for The Browser’s Five Books interviews, all I can say is don’t listen to them! Go read some TBR books instead. You’ll feel much better!
March did not start off well there! I hope the weather has turned and you are now having bright, sunny and appropriately wonderful autumn days! As for the Browser, it’s too late, I am well hooked on them!
Well, don’t come complaining to me when you are overwhelmed with EVEN more books to read! (And no, the weather doesn’t look great still … I hear we should expect rain for three months. Our government decided after years of drought and our dams falling to about 35% capacity with no end to the drought in sight to enlarge one of our dams. Within a year (ie just over a year ago) the drought broke but of course the dam isn’t completed so they are not catching all this lovely water AND the rain keeps delaying the building of the dam. The current rain has in fact damaged some of the work so they are set back. Oh well, c’est la vie.
whisperinggums, I can’t complain? Way to take the fun out of it
It’s good then you are getting rain but not so good that it seems to happen all at once. Oh, and that dam, someone must have accidentally mixed in some irony with the concrete!
Gosh, I’m behind! Leap Day was too long ago now!
I hope the snow has melted and that you are also going to get the lovely 70s weather next week that we are expecting here! Thanks for the link–I’ll check it out.
Oh yes, the snow has melted and the weekend gave us the 60s. So wonderful! It’s like May.