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First of all, I had a “wow, the banner i created in 2007 using my minimal Photoshop skills is kind of terrible-looking” moment this morning. Is that just me, or…?
Take Our Poll
The other thing is that I’ve been looking through one of my many lists of books to read, and it’s kind of overwhelming. So, regular readers of this blog, what’s the one book you feel like I should have reviewed, but haven’t?
Tagged:
poll,
rqhousekeeping,
stuff 
I’ve created a Google Group because a) it seemed like the best compromise between a forum and a mailing list and b) I’m pretty familiar with the back end.
So, don’t feel obligated to participate, but if you want, head over and introduce yourself.
Tagged:
rqhousekeeping 
Nell S. and I have been talking about the possibility of a place to discuss…whatever it is I write about and we talk about here. I usually refer to it as “outdated popular fiction.” We were initially talking about a message board, but message boards intimidate me, so now we’re also talking about a Google/Yahoo group-style mailing list.
My thoughts are basically as follows: I’ve moderated Google Groups, and they’re super easy to use and allow you to participate in discussions via email but don’t really let you organize or preserve information in any useful way (although GG does have tagging and categories). And if you do participate via email, it’s hard to avoid spoilers.
Message boards let you organize things via category, which is nice, but I find them inherently kind of clunky. And it’s hard to read everything on a message board the way you can when you’ve got everything on a mailing list coming to your inbox.
It seems like there’s a lot more discussion going on here lately, and that’s awesome, but blog comments aren’t the best place to talk. So: are you guys interested in some kind of discussion space? Any preferences on type?
Tagged:
rqhousekeeping,
stuff 
WordPress has kindly reminded me that today is the 7th anniversary of Redeeming Qualities. So, you know, happy birthday to my blog, which I’ve been neglecting shamefully. Normally I’d try to do something special for today, but between the vast amount of work stress I’m experiencing at the moment, and also the NHL trade deadline, I don’t really have the capacity.
I’m currently in the first third of a hilariously terrible adventure novel set in China, which I will report back on when I’ve finished. Meanwhile, what are you folks reading? Comment with recommendations — or, better yet, with anti-recommendations. Is there a word for that? I basically haven’t had a full night’s sleep in three weeks, so I can’t be expected to remember words.
Tagged:
rqhousekeeping 
So, here’s a cool thing: Tasha from Truth, Beauty Freedom and Books and a couple of her book blogging cohorts have this project called Book Bloggers International, where they post interviews with book bloggers around the world, as well as general book blogging tips and things. It’s a nifty idea, the interviews are super enjoyable, and the latest featured blogger is me. So, check that out for a bit of rambling about my childhood reading and…nothing that should come as a surprise to anyone, actually.
As for new content here…I’m in a bit of a reading drought at the moment. This is a thing that happens, I know, but it always makes me feel kind of guilty and bereft. Like, reading is so easy; why don’t I just do it. And what else am I going to do, anyway?
I probably should have known this was coming, because I hadn’t wanted to read anything but fanfiction for a few weeks, and that’s a pretty good sign of incipient reading fatigue. Oh well. I’m alternating between trying to power through it and waiting it out, and eventually one of those things will work.
Tagged:
links,
rqhousekeeping,
stuff 
As of today, Redeeming Qualities has been around for 6 years. I know I was better at posting regularly when I was a student, or when I was unemployed, but even when I haven’t posted for months at a time, Redeeming Qualities has always been a source of good feelings and I’ve never considered abandoning it. So if you’re reading this — and especially if you read RQ regularly, thanks for being around and for sharing opinions and recommendations and for enjoying ridiculous books with me. Some of you are as important to this blog as the Williamsons, and none of you are less important to it than John Kendrick Bangs.
I’m thankful to be done with my Edgar Wallace kick, which culminated in me rereading several of his books that I had read once already. Hopefully I will soon be posting something about Geoffrey Strong, by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, although I might wait untill I’ve finished what seem to be the two other books in the series. Meanwhile, I’ve also just finished rereading Set in Silver (which may have overtaken Secret History Revealed by Lady Peggy O’Malley as my favorite Williamsons) and I’ve just started another of A.E.W. Mason’s Hanaud mysteries (The House of the Arrow, which so far I’m enjoying a lot). Plus I’m rereading The Hobbit for the first time since I was a kid, and finding it less awesome than I remembered, so maybe I should stop.
The House of the Arrow came from a book shopping expedition on Saturday, when I set out with a couple of family members in search of a fairly recent bestseller and a copy of Frankenstein. Neither of the two indie bookstores we tried had Frankenstein, but the second one had the other book. We continued on to one of my favorite used bookstores, but they were in the process of moving, and if they had a copy of Frankenstein, it was inaccessible. But we’d noticed another used bookstore around the corner, one I’d never been to, and it turned out to be kind of amazing.
Not only did we find a copy of Frankenstein, we found two, although the second was abridged and therefore unacceptable, in spite of the excellent 1960s children’s adventure style illustrations, which made Frankenstein’s monster look an awful lot like the Hulk.
For the rest, this store was a monument to paperbacked genre fiction. Romance novels took up the most space — there were signs saying things like, “We’re sorry, Nora Roberts has been moved to the back room,” and when you would go to the back room, you’d see an entire bookcase devoted to her — but there were also bookcases for different categories of thrillers and mysteries. My companions were inclined to be mean about the romance novels, which always makes me kind of angry on principle, but we all found things we wanted. I came away with three post-1923 Mary Roberts Rinehart mysteries, as well as the A.E.W. Mason, so I left pretty happy, but I want to go back soon, with less judgmental people.
Tagged:
rqhousekeeping,
stuff 
Five years ago today, I was hanging out in my dorm room thinking about how all I wanted to do was talk about A Woman Named Smith and nobody cared. Obviously the only thing to do was to start a blog.
So, if you’re reading this, thank you for being the kind of person who cares about books like A Woman Named Smith. Thanks for being here and reading Redeeming Qualities and recommending things and making me feel like it’s not that weird to love forgotten popular fiction.
I usually forget to commemorate Redeeming Qualities’ anniversaries, but I wanted to do something cool for the fifth one, so I’ve created a sort of virtual bookshelf over at Pinboard. There you’ll find almost all of the books I’ve reviewed here (excepting a few era-inappropriate ones that have crept in by accident) and some I haven’t, sortable by author, decade, and a whole lot of more ridiculous categories. Looking for books featuring vehicular accidents, or Boy Scouts, or bears? How about naughty and uncontrollable children? Or Cinderella stories? Or complicated families where everyone seems to have the same name? You can even sort by source if, say, you only want to read things from Project Gutenberg.
This is a work in progress, and it’s entirely possible that I forgot a tag while bookmarking something, or overlooked creating a tag altogether. It took kind of a while to bookmark everything, even with some much-appreciated assistance from my brother. So if I failed to add the ‘servants‘ tag to something you think ought to have it, or if you really wish I had a category for smart-aleck orphans from New York, or whatever, let me know.
Tagged:
rqhousekeeping,
stuff 
9 Comments on Happy 5th Anniversary to Redeeming Qualities, last added: 3/5/2012
I’ve always liked your banner! One thing I dislike about many blogs is the pictures that make the site so slow to load (I have a very slow computer). This is a blog about the written word so it doesn’t need lots of pictures.
I’d like to see your opinion of Nell Speed’s “Tucker Twins” books – or at least the first one.
I like that I can actually navigate the blog without having to wait on drop-downs, etc.
I like the concept of the current banner, but if you wanted to update the site a little, I’m sure that would be fresh and attractive! New graphics can be exciting even if they’re similar in theme. But actually your site has always been enjoyable for me, no particular issues with the design.
If you’re actually dissatisfied with the design, then you should change it, but I found out today that WordPress is so much more annoying than it used to be, formatting-wise, so heads up for that.
I come to you for book ideas to read, so I’d only be suggesting things I’ve already read, and I guess I don’t need your opinion of those! ha ha he he
But for others who might like her, you could try Anna Balmer Myers “Amanda: a Daughter of the Mennonites”, “Patchwork; a Story of the Plain People” & “Madonna of the Curb”
I found her while looking for Amish like books in the public domain.
Her people are plain or Mennonnite,
Amanda was good.
I’m about 1/3 through Madonna, and I’m liking it so far. It starts in a New Jersey slum and takes the 11 y.old heroine to a reformatory for girls. I loved this part. But now she’s looking for her roots and is heading to Lancaster PA.
I like the plain look of the site. But if you want to go fancy, I’m behind you!
I love your banner!
I hasten to add that the reason I don’t visit the site and so see the banner etc. is that I read your posts in LiveJournal. So I do see every post!
Thanks! I’m not thinking of changing the layout, or adding lots of pictures, just maybe getting a new theme and banner.
I definitely want to give those a try, although my failure to get through the Molly Brown books was kind of disheartening.
I don’t want to do a functional redesign, but I though it might be a good idea to make things look a little nicer.
Thanks! That’s pretty much how I’m feeling about it–everything works, but I would like some nicer graphics. Sadly, I don’t think my skills have improved since I created the last one.
I’ve never gotten all that deep into the technical side of WordPress–or at least, I’ve done more of that with the website at work than with the blog. All I really want to do is change the theme and come up with a new banner.
Those sound like fun. And I’m always open to recommendations, although this time around I’m really looking for things I should have read/reviewed but haven’t.
Also, you were asking about the illustrations in the banner, right? The guy at the desk is from The Mysterious Shin Shira. The girls are from an illustration in a piece in a comic strip reprint magazine. I think the magazine is in a box right now, but when I find it I’ll post the whole picture, which is pretty cool.
That’s what RSS is for!
Thanks. It’s just been looking pretty amateurish to me lately.