idiosyncreant | Entries tagged with month of books

Day 29

It is time to write a love-letter to an author. If you write to more than one, keep it to 3 or so, and make your words count—mini-essay time!

Dear Diana Wynne Jones,

Thank you for writing what seems like whatever you feel like. I'm sure this isn't true--I'm a writer, I know a bit about how it goes.
But I love the way you've taken huge weird ideas and made them feel so common-sense in your story that it feels like only certain impossible things are possible in the book we're reading but that that anything is possible to form a world in any given book.

I haven't liked all of your books, but the ones I've loved have more than made up for it in the passions that they have formed.

I wish you weren't going so soon, but thank you for leaving your books, instead of keeping your wild ideas to yourself. It must have been very brave of you to start doing it when you started. And I know some of my favorite authors who you inspired, and I'm also grateful for them.

Much love,

Bethany

Current Mood: pensive

Day 28

Is there a book that inspired you to try something new, or look at certain kinds of people a different way? Or perhaps their profession?

The first book I remember being about craftsman and about a life's occupation primarily is The Golden Goblet.

The story is set in ancient Egypt. Ranofer is an apprentice stonecutter, working in a shop at a craft that has an art to it, but is dull and dangerous. What's worse is he knows better--his father was a goldsmith, and he did such work before his death, when his stepbrother decided to have him come apprentice for his own business. The longing to be part of the art of goldworking is a passion that drives him, and when he discovers his stepbrother's reason for allowing him to go back to it is to betray them, his conflict is full of real love.

The Journeyman by Elizabeth Yates was a book I remember being so excited about, because though some parts of the story were weak, the passion of art was there.

It's also a period of American history I was not over-saturated in (unlike Pioneer history, and so on).

The young hero is ostracized for his passion to capture textures he sees in nature, to put them down. When a journeyman painter sees his work, and offers to take him on as an apprentice, the impression is that the boy is being saved. The crushing of his heart and spirit over his "wasteful" expenditure of time is at a fever pitch.
And then the description of their work creating paints, creating the stencils used to decorate walls in early America, matching their designs and colors and the meanings of the symbols to their hosts and patrons was so compelling to me.

I myself like to write about people with artistic passions--they're the kinds of people I willingly spend time with, in real life, after all, and they are just more interesting to me, no matter what they're doing. I like it when magic systems seem like part science, part art-form.

I have about ten other answers to this question, but I guess that's the one we're getting today...

Day 27

If a book, with it's tone, dialogue, characters, setting, were to be a life you would chose, which would it be? Include the bad spots and why you'd chose those. This could be revealing...

Well, I can tell you a few comparisons: I'd rather be in Harry Potter than Lord of the Rings. The Shire's better than Muggle London, but Middle Earth seems so sparse on humans, and a twilight world, whereas the wizard world is claustrophobic yet surrounded by an outer universe of people.

And despite their difficulty, I like people.

I'd take Daddy-Long-Legs over I Capture the Castle.

Damar over Dune.

If we combine favorite period and favorite sense of magic and humanity--I think I'd go with Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. The bones-of-earth feel to the magic, the contradictions of the polite common-places of the British society in a time of high war, and the abandon of the results of magic and the controlled scholarship of those practicing it fascinates me.

Current Music: Cold - Crossfade

Day 26

At this point no doubt you've been provoked to think of other books in answer to some of the earlier questions. FreeStyle Space! (Borrow this question again if your month has 31 days, and you're keeping track of that sort of thing.)

This question oughta come sooner in the questions, methinks, because I'm kind of worn out at this point... but let's see.

AH!
Frances Hodgson Burnett!

beth_shulman brought her up in the comments, but I didn't remember her for the questions where she would have fit.

I loved A Little Princess when my mom read it to me, though the injustice had me so frustrated, and I was leery of the beginning. It was a foreign world I was encountering.

In my early teens I had a renaissance of interest when I discovered The Secret Garden was by the same woman, and I went looking for all her books. My passion for The Lost Prince did not quite stand up to the next time I read all these books in my 20s, but I understood what I loved about it. It had some weird mystical stuff, but the idea of being devoutly loyal to a cause, and that a friend could be raised up... it was just a book full of Sparkly Ideas.

Now I'm delighted by the idea of such richly gothic children's literature. She wrote unpatronizing stories where even the typecast characters had dimension. Something to aspire to...

Briefly, before we begin... I am having a moment of anger and disbelief so many people do not love the idea of The Carnie's Conspiracy. And am lamenting what I could be doing wrong...

On the other side of things, this morning I wrote a piece of flash (1000 words style...I need to cut out 47 words, if we're being strict here) titled:

The Fox of the Karaoke Bar

which is a title that was in my head several weeks, and then last night developed a story to go with it. Maybe I'll post it someday, though posting fiction has never gone that well for me when it wasn't fanfiction. (Is this a demand I ought to fill? WAIT. Save me from myself!)

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Last 6 days of the Obsessive Book-Lover's Month of Books meme!

Day 25

What authors do you most wish to have bring out a new book, right now? (Dead or alive, keep it down to five!)

Dead People include Tolkien (and endless back matter being presented as new books is not what I mean, but a Hobbit or Farmer Giles of Ham kind of book) and Jane Austen (but not something serious as Her Last, like Mansfield Park, tho' I don't think she would have done it again, she never did things again).

At the same time, I don't feel like they're body of work was incomplete. Tolkien told the stories he wanted to tell.

Hmmm. Living people? Saving the obvious that I've already been over? Well, first, I wish Christopher Stroud would stumble across an idea like The Bartimaeus Trilogy again--his other books have not caught me the same way.

...and Hey, Presto! Robin McKinley's about to bring out a new book that looks soooo good. Pegasus is not a winged horses story (read

sarahtales 's latest post with an interview with her for a bit more on that) but a story about a pegasus race that has forged an alliance with a human race--and a pair of friends who are not alienated from each other enough for their respective sides.

I haven't gotten to reading Chalice yet, by a terrible negligence on my part and a wariness produced by both the wonderful darkness that is Sunshine (which I read) and the reactions to Dragonhaven (which I haven't). I'm not talking about the controversy, so much as the impression I got of the book from posts of various people. I need to buck up and just read them both.

Because apparently Pegasus is really Part One of a single story that's huge and the ending of the first is cruel. DO NOT WANT.

Day 23

Autumn books would be?

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, particularly The Golem's Eye. All of them are wintry, but a bit too vivid...

I said Patricia McKillip's books, but of note particularly is The Forest of Serre and Od Magic

The Perilous Gard

(ahem:

The Dancing Tree! Fanart Yarn for Perilous Gard! also, I got some new pictures)

Day 24

And winter is the best time for books (unless they have too much ice in them), so what kind say winter to you?

I Capture The Castle--just spare enough a whole run of seasons stay in the cold that set the tone for the beginning. It's Gothic feel in the storyline helps loads...

Jane Eyre, for the same reason. There is a Spartan edge to the whole of the world surrounding the characters, though the high-feeling of the MCs contrasts--it's the contrast that makes it stand out.

The Hobbit for a different one: it feels much like being drawn close to a fireplace, the outside dark but inside warm and cozy in sweaters and lapblankets with tea.

Day 22

How about summer books?

I'm going to try and come up with books that aren't summer just because it's scorching out during the book, so let's see...

Magic or Madness (Justine Larbalestier) is dry and scorching in the presence of its magic and the feeling you have about the world, though also opening in an Australian summer, where they make 'em bigger and badder.

Keys to the Kingdom series (Garth Nix) is also one where the feeling of the world and magic and life is sharply lit and dry. His Sabriel books feel that way to, so maybe it's just his style...

though all the Harry Potter books start in the summer, I really thought of those only as fitting in with the Nix series that way. Everything is...not blatant, but you know. Clear-cut. In bright colors and flat textures. The movies are different, because they mess with the lighting a lot, and colors affect my perception of things almost as much as 3-D actors... :P

The Bronze Bow is more like Magic or Madness in that what's going on is subtle, despite the harsh light and open-air staging.

Now that I keep thinking about it, I'm realizing the authors all have this impression on me in all their books--it's part of their writing style that makes that impression on me.
This isn't that strange--textures and colors and lighting come as part of the story in my mind, and style is a huge part of what I perceive in that way.

I~nteresting.

lookit that. They all have summer-dust coloring on their covers, too... Secretly, I really, really love The Chamber of Secrets. Yeah. What secret, right?

***

I just finished Batman Beyond's 3rd and last season tonight! Awww, I really liked that end episode. Though I was a bit dubious for how much a flashback it was going to be, and I supposed that's not ideal storytelling, it was cute. And the fakeout of the title of the last episode was relieving, since it didn't really cut off the sassy Batman Terry career...

I probably should do a proper write up of this, but I'm too sleepy right now.

My only complaint about the latest episodes is that in the last big arc they don't let Terry himself get the victory, and the big emotional point of the episode seems a bit flat. If they wrote it before knowing it was one of the penultimate episodes, maybe...no. I think it's too bad they left Terry feeling like he's not the real Batman. Because he is, even if Bruce Wayne is more awesome in his own way.

Finished putting together a new yarn yesterday, The Dancing Tree:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/59527530/the-dancing-tree-100-yds-handspun

and then promptly made up a post about the travails it has put me through...well, okay. Not that bad. But in a common way...there is some very ugly yarn in that skein, though the other strands mask it... More pictures that-a-way! Also, the revelation of what fandom it is, if you can't guess from the name...
And the picture above is a magic portal to it's place in my shop...

***

Day 20

So spill...what do you read when you're in a junk-food mood?

Meg Cabot, Jennifer Crusie, Georgette Heyer...stories where funny people get together. I reread books, too, but that more depends on what I haven't read in a long time. Shojo one-shots. L. M. Montgomery.

Day 21

What books seem like spring books to you?

Blue Castle (L.M. Montgomery) technically spans all seasons, but the very lushness of the description of nature, the importance of its presence, the fact that the forest is one of the main characters makes it feel like spring--and the book's denouement takes place in spring, too.

Howl's Moving Castle also isn't set only in the spring, but the warmth of the descriptions -- bread, seasides, flowers and hats, honey, and stars falling -- make it feel like the unfolding of life at the beginning of the year.

Both are about the renaissance of a life, as well--young women throwing off a life that is more stricture than structure, a circle of people who mean well (or mean to act properly) but are actually crushing their spirits.

Personally, autumn makes me feel that way, but thematically, that's still spring-like. :)

Emma which is the most subversively clever books Austen wrote--I swear, rereading it with an analytical mind to see all the layers of humor going on was revelatory to me... Jane Austen never wrote the same kind of book a second time. Which is why it's hard to love all her books equally.

Ombria in Shadow (Patricia McKillip) which is unusual: her books feel rife with the dying riches of autumn, but this one also feels like an emerging from winter.

I thought I looked pretty good today until I was taking a politician's pamphlet from him and he said, "--if you could give that to your parents for me."

Yes, I know that's what I was going to do in the first place.
The point is the assumption here...because most people my age probably get one for their very own.
I know...I know. It's not their fault I still look about 15 years old. But as far as I can tell it's not my fault, either...

It has gone over from bothering me to being my ongoing joke with the universe, now.

Day 19

How about books you changed your opinion about (for better or worse) when you read them a second time?

First in importance has to be Queen of Attolia.
I didn't, on my second read through it, realize I had actually previously read the whole thing until I got to the end and it was all still familiar.

It was pretty weird actually. But the first time it felt like a nightmare, rather than an actual story to follow The Thief. When I reread it because The King of Attolia had come out, I was ready for seeing it as Gen's nightmare, rather than mine, and following what happened under the surface, and buying a bit more of it, because I had seen how it ended up.

I also realized how very unique Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was only on re-reading, watching the words and the world-building. I had liked it in a sneaky way the first time, but the second time I had the brainspace to watch what J.K. Rowling was doing as a writer and admire that. No more shame!

I'm sure there are others, but I'm running out of steam here, and I'm sure you're running out of patience...

Day 18 of the Obsessive Book-Lover's Month of Books

What books have you read where you didn't expect to like them, and then were surprised?

I guess my list got less inspired after day 17--and I know why. Let's try and think of a way to rewrite this, so it's more fun...

You're handed a book, and it looks dull. Serious. Somehow not your thing. But you read on and revelation struck--you liked it. Has this ever happened to you? Tell an unexpected love story...

This has. Books I read for school that I didn't expect to enjoy and then found just as advertised (despite my doubts) include: Hamlet, For Whom The Bell Tolls, The Heart of Darkness, Middlemarch, and Dune.

These books have a common thread: they are written more beautifully or intelligently than anything I had encountered of quite that kind...

For unexpected love story, though, I have to talk about Ender's Game.

never saw this cover in my life before, but it is genius, and needs to be on all the copies of this book

First, you need to understand that sci-fi gives me the creepy crawlies. It's not always a terrible thing, but there's something chilled, mechanical at the core of them [though I generalize, as far as I know it's true], and I like the organic warmth of other fiction better.

Don't think Ender's Game doesn't give me the chilly creeps. But like Dune, that sensation was an experience that pulled me into what was going on in the story.

This story is full of contrasts. It's about the most vicious, brilliant kids of the whole Earth in military school--and yet it is about humanity and the emotions of the most desirable of those children.
It's a story where 'xenocide' of a whole alien force is the entire goal, and they remain a complete icon of an enemy until the last pages--and yet it engages in the love of understanding an enemy, and brings home this emotional epoch with no punches pulled.

***

I don't remember why I ended up reading this book--I don't remember when I read it. This is odd, for me. And this is a book that I think may go under tomorrow's category--I only actually loved it in the second reading, because I tend to enjoy books better the second time through when I know where things are going and can savor the way there a bit more.

But it's probably one of the top ten books I love, because it takes you into the darkness and weakness of being a person as well as being about amazing, strong people.

I'm a sucker for paradox. And as far as I can tell, this is just a really, really good book.

Day 17

Villains you think are awesome?

Lemme clarify that "villain" here is the more fun word for antagonist, not some category of antagonist more specific.

So.

Awesome ones?

Smaug.
The Queen of the fairy folk in The Perilous Gard.

Both of these are just what they are, and that makes them the enemy--clever, inhuman, treacherous by nature. Their pride and disregard for other beings, though, makes their defeat not seem so terrible (though sad). They are part of the book, some of the most colorful characters.

Tacroy in Lives of Christopher Chant
Eris in Webmage
Snape in Harry Potter

None of these three characters are the final archnemesis, and this give them a unique power in the story.
Tacroy is a decent guy caught up in a bad business, and he's being poisoned by the double-dealing--but he's still sweet and empathetic and funny.

Can I have this cover? PLEASE? (Diana Wynne Jones is having better luck lately, but her covers have been unfortunate in previous eras...)

Eris is the Goddess of Chaos, but also a chaste goddess of ... well, she can inflict lust, I'm not sure how to phrase it otherwise, because love seems a little too serious. And her interactions with the young hero oscillate between a meeting of minds (programmer to programmer) and a horrible teasing that usually only shojo girls have to put up with, on a more emotional level.
She's a Grecian Goddess Punk Codemonkey in leather pants. What is more cool than that?
NOTHING, basically.

Professor Snape is a bitter, nasty middle-aged man living out his high school career in perpetuity and exercising his power in unjust ways.
BUT he's perfect for his role. And Harry and his friends are rulebreakers--the fact that he is annoyed by Harry out of the chute is realistic, though not fair.
Of course, this dude didn't hurt my perception of the character:

but aside from that, he is very compelling. No scene with him is *boring* as tooth-grindingly unjust as it may be (and injustice makes my teeth hurt, it's the worst.

And he has his own reasons, and his own fears, and his own secret strengths.

Yarn Eyecandy and me talking about the look I'm going for these days with my shop photography!
(I call it "rural shabby-chic" but it means "the cool weird stuff in my front yard in Oklahoma"...)

Roses by Moonlight feature post

***

Obsessive Book-Lover's Month of Books Meme

Day 16

Any villains you think are too lame?

I knew this was going to be a hard one for me.
To be quite frank...I don't pay much attention to whether villains work for me or not.

I do know that I appreciate it when I can completely sympathize with a villain--so a villain that is evil just BECAUSE is...yeah, lame. In the more literal sense of being robbed of power, too.

I also don't really appreciate it when the bad guy is just a sociopath or lunatic. That's not lame automatically, (it can be quite frightening, hello Criminal Minds) but I don't like it--what's the point then? No matter what the victory is, basically you're just taking out a nutter, the equivalent of a man-eating lion. Though a psycho can be done so you do empathize with them and that is both freaky scary and unlame. (HELLO CRIMINAL MINDS.)

Because then there is an emotional victory, and an emotional defeat--on the side of the hero.

Note that this does not mean I find Sauron or Voldemort lame. If someone has become so consumed by their goals as to be a force-of-nature level of villain, it can be done well. Sauron is like a god and his very power and inevitability are becoming part of the world's very face--and his servants, like Saruman are his avatars. Saruman basically *is* his avatar, the revelation of what he is in the very progression from most wise to most deceitful.
And Voldemort is clearly insane from the start, but his rise to power was due to sane people, and his destiny being tied up in the hero's makes this work quite well.

Examples of villains who don't work for me are harder to drum up than ones I can make exceptions for...
it's not like I have those books on my shelf, so no visual cues, either...

...I also dislike when you don't meet the villain behind all the villainy until the very end--if he's been there all along and a mystery, that's great! But then you don't get to connect with them at all.
Eragon is such an obvious, conspicuous flawed book I hesitate to bring it up but it's the only one I can recall feeling quite that blah about. The Blue Sword sorta falls into this category, but the political enemy is not the real source of conflict in the first place--it's more of a romance, so the conflict is square between the two main characters more than anything.

Um. Um.

That's it. I'm out of ideas.

I was thinking about NaNo and wondering if it's particularly good for me, as a year-long novelist. I'm not very sure that it would be a good idea this year.
I've just recovered from a 2 year slump as far as novels go, and I don't need to rush right back in by doing something taxing.

I'm going to observe, but not with as vigorous a word-count goal--and I'm going to try and write a poem a day. Because I need to get some more practice doing this thing if I'm going to keep having semi-successful quests to publish them...

So be my buddies, anyone who's doing it this year! Forgive me for lessening my achievements. 9_9

Day 15

How about *hates* along the lines of romantic interest?

Let's see...

MANIPULATIVE? I ha~te that, especially when the guy or girl goes along with it, or is oblivious though it's pretty clear that's what's going on.
Scary jealousy puts me off, too--jealousy is natural, rage because of minor incidents causing jealousy is very, very frightening, even if the character's not frightened.

Someone who's only discernible personality is their good looks. This makes them look retarded in my mind, because being attractive with no personality is being handicapped. Unless they happen to be fae, and that's why they have no personality. Or something equally scary and hive-minded. WAIT that's still scary in the romantic interest...

NOW. If the one person is tricking the other for a reason, this is not what I mean by manipulation.
But if the hero's feelings for the other person are being used by that person, that is what I EXTRASPECIAL mean by manipulative.

And I have run out of words, never mind eloquence. Good night!

What type of character do you most like as a romantic interest in a story?

As far as the standard Archetypes go, I'm pretty broadminded, but with the same caveat as with the main characters: they have to be smart.

Preferably clever.

Even if this does not manifest itself as an ability to banter. Because I'm less drawn in by couples bantering than I am by the interest proving themselves as someone worth being around long-term, and having a range of skills or characteristics that complement the hero.

This is usually where stories with guys as the main characters fall down. Some do a better job of painting the attraction than any stories with a girl main character do. But it often misses in the department where I believe these people belong together, for their goals and needs.

(This is why [ semi-non-sequitur] Minerva's okay for Artemis Fowl in theory, but Holly Short is the racially inappropriate (like, species-race) 'ship we all wanna be on. [/semi-non-sequitur ])

So, um.

All those words and not an answer.

fabricalchemist said this question was hard, but she was all set for tomorrow, the "romantic interest you hate" question, and now I see she was right. Because I was about to throw a curve-ball answer...using what I'm not attracted to.

- I get drawn into the story when the love interest is part of the problem for the main character.
- When they are able to fall in step with the main character keeping up mentally, even if they have a different area of expertise, so stuff has to be explained.
- I like it when they are better at something than the main character, actually.
- And when the two fight about things that really matter, but are trying to listen to each other.

YAY that'll have to do for an answer for now.

Thoughts?

A Double-Feature!

Talk about a book or a few that made you go out and shamelessly foist it/them on all your reading friends. Moreso than usual.

The Thief. The King of Attolia. Beauty.

I'm a pretty hopeless foister of books, but I generally try to customize to the person I'm talking to, get a feel for their interests. Beauty and The Thief I can live with someone not loving, but I just don't *understand* it.

fabricalchemist talked about her brother being patient with her reading aloud some of the books she listed for this question. I made my brother sit down in our hotel in Yonezawa, Japan, in the days after our move, and read Beauty to him. Reading aloud to people is a way of telling them a story very dear to me, and of retelling it to myself in a more vivid way, by speaking the words. I think this was definitely a self-comforting move, though I didn't know it at the time.

What type of character particularly draws you into their story?

I like bold but cunning people. People I enjoy hearing talk, so they are generally witty, too.

In other words, I like to spend a book with characters who are as smart or smarter than me, but who take that as an opportunity to do amazing things. This is true in my writing, too--I especially like it if they have some further talent--music, sport, it doesn't really matter what. The same kind of people I seek out to be my friends in real life, really.

The most important facet is the sense of humor, which is a product of wit and talent. I've discovered I only put books down even if I'm interested in the story when there is no wit.

( Get the Meme! )

Have you found a reading soulmate? Describe why someone would be yours.

I dunno, mate, but for manga rhinemouse and I have freakishly similar weaknesses. Particular tastes skewed from each other enough she's read a lot of stuff I never clicked into in my searches, and it seems like the reverse is also true...

things I have infected her with, because that's kind of an interesting angle to put to this question...

It's really interesting to meet a whole circle of people who share some of your more obscure book-loves, like the sounis people.
It almost takes the ground of your superiority out from under you, so you eagerly probe until you've covered all the things you've both read.

I don't yet know of a person who has been able to recommend to me, spot on even 80%, novels I would like, but I sure do love reading other peoples' reviews...some people, like rachelmanija , are good enough at articulating why they did or didn't like a book that I can know when I'll have the opposite feeling about it. The art of reading reviews is really in seeing the bigger picture even from the stupid drivel ones, and using the language as a code, to be translated to your own lexicon.

and these are the ones that she got ME reading

to be frank, these two little mini-libraries do say a lot about our respective areas of expertise [And why do hers have all the cool covers? Sheesh. ]
Basically, she finds the fighting ones, I find the ones with tons of interesting/odd characters. But I really like the (physical) fighting ones!

Current Mood: curious

Obsessive Book Lover's Month of Books - Day Nine

Day 9

Make a mini-list of things you have pre-ordered (at the store OR library) or at least bought fresh off the presses. If N/A, why?

For things I bought...well, I preordered Conspiracy of Kings, and The King of Attolia and Queen of Attolia are pretty much the ONLY books I have bought new besides having gift-money in my pocket, in a bookstore, and deciding for once to not burn it on chocolate or socks.

So that tells you how I feel about Megan Whalen Turner's work, and the Queen's Thief series. They also have covers that are their own small passion of mine:

The paintings are so beautiful, so masterful, and by an artist who knew enough of the details for it to be a treat to look at.
:lovelorn:
Ahem. (They are out of order, except for the little order that my favorite two of the bunch are on top...)

Now, preordering at the LIBRARY, that's a much more common theme.

Well, that last isn't a book, of course, but it got me all kinds of fired up to write, so in a way it's more useful...
Apparently Maybe This Time (Crusie's retake on Turn of the Screw) is coming to me as we speak!
Yay!
Can't say the same for the Karate Kid DvD my sister has on hold on my mom's card...

geh. My eyes are burning, it's only 11, and I have to wake up tomorrow, but look! I have a bookpost!

As if that was hard.

Day 8
Make a mini-list of the latest books you remember loving or at least liking (keep it to in the last year or so, or this could take all night)

White Cat
fabricalchemist found this one too choreographed, though Black is one of her favorite authors, but the neatness of I actually found enjoyable--maybe because my mother's a big fan of mysteries and so we get excited about books where the pieces fall into place at the end.

Wide Awake Princess
Her fairy gift was to be safe from magic, since her older sister Aurora was cursed, and worse, contact with her reveals what's behind the spells on other royals. When the whole castle goes to sleep and Anne is in no way waiting 100 years to get her family back, it could have devolved into more mundane fantasy quest, but it's just odd enough, just familiar enough, and yet led by two characters with intriguing personalities to be fun.

Yotsuba&! 5
DIdn't read this one for the *first time* recently, but my crush on Koiwai remains unabated. <3 bachelor freelance translator stay-at-home dads with both a sense of balance and a sense of humor!
If only they came On Demand...

Ultimate Spiderman Vol 2
Oh man. I love Spiderman in his raw essentials of quirky, technical, smart-mouth kid who is also vulnerable and very cherishing of the people around him. And the comics really are the best source of him as such, be it the original or this spin-off and no doubt several incarnations I have not read...

And the Smoke is Briars
which is

rhinemouse 's manuscript I am betaing at a snail's pace.
You all are going to have to wait until it comes out, and pray that the blind may see so it DOES, because the blend of manga epic fantasy tropes, keen worldbuilding, and mythology's high drama is pitch perfect for a discerning fangirl like me.

First, I just wrote the nasty fight at the end of the book! I just have to fill in a little end-matter and Letters to My Nemesis will be a done draft. I'm squealing inside!

Day 7

Make a mini-list of books that show cases your reading at its most eclectic (up to 5)

The Princess Diaries
Middlemarch
The Bartimaeus Trilogy
Women Who Run With The Wolves
Winnie The Pooh

The books I own are on my shelves because I love them and think I want to read them again several times, at a moment's notice.

Princess Diaries, to me, represents the fluffy side of young adult literature, into which I'd lump Harry Potter and other slightly more serious but still pillowy fantasy. I don't read much YA that isn't fantasy, but if the voice strikes me enough, and makes me really, truly laugh, well...that's special. And Meg Cabot just nails it with this one.

(haven't found the right cover [shock! outrage!] but this is in the more proper spirit though I have never seen it in the wild)

Middlemarch is ambitious literature--one of the few novels of such that I've enjoyed. It was a challenge, like Monte Cristo, that I overcame and found worth going back to mull over. With it I put Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and the fantasy literature that really stands on its own as the only of it's kind. Peerless books, where their basic materials have been transcended.

...see, when you get me into comparisons I can throw so many book names out, it's not even funny. I must stop! Even if this is an obsessive book-lover's meme. There is no one to impress here... :lies:

The Bartimaeus Trilogy is an emblem of YA fantasy that is dark, and clever, and unique. I only have a few of that kind and calibre on my shelves besides this one

I have only a couple of non-fiction books for keeps, even fewer that I've actually read, but Women Who Run With the Wolves is basically that book. It is one the line I adore in non-fiction of being poetic, funny, with stories that aren't just anecdotes for the thesis. There are a few more I'd add to my library if they were the kind of thing easier to find in a used bookstore, but yanno...niche books are niche books. And Autumn Lightning - Tale of an American Samurai is just not kicking around Goodwill.

Lastly, Winnie the Pooh is just awesome.

tho it also had a sketchy illustration style I found uninspiring as a kids. I love saturated colors and textures and depth. Digital cameras in the hands of the masses are like the best thing to happen to me...

Day 6 of the Obsessive Book Lover's Month of Books

What books lift your mood when you don't want to talk to people?

Okay, well mostly any book will do. But if we're talking about a book that will immediately send me rocketing off in search of convivial fellowship with mankind (that is, going to bother my mom in the kitchen) it is Eloise.

It is presented as "a book for precocious grown-ups" (which does not work out to an insult, but I think it *does* work out to mean adults who can remember what being a child is like, which makes them much more mature than most) and this is a good way to put it.

The drawings take the oddball story one step further into hilarity. This book laughs, not at the expense of the people it pokes fun at, but instead treating them all as part of the idiosyncratic world we know.
Nanny is a boxing fan who drinks and yells while watching matches, though otherwise is quite presentable. Eloise is a child whose energy and disregard for adults as she lives a fairly independent life are not that of a little monster (though no doubt many of her neighbors regard her so) but that of a small person. The personalities around her are undiminished by the largeness of hers.

Distilling it down, it's like reading a P.G. Wodehouse novel without the brain-wracking plots to push through, a moment of "cheerful humanity".

This was one of the first books I bought with the express purpose of having for my own house, as my own property, rather than just because I wanted it handy all the time.
If you now need to see it, I do lend it from time to time, and my brother tore the dustjacket already, so it's not an enshrined copy, to which no harm may befall. Feeling a need of Eloise?

***

I have an amendment to make, about picture books and being read to.

I remember my mother loving the Madeline books! This may be one of my earliest experiences of her enthusiasm for something I didn't think she should be so excited about causing me to be contrary. Sadly, it is not the last. Nor was it the only time I was proved wrong in my skepticism. XD

The fun, unexpectedly strong-willed heroine is much more impressive to me as an adult looking back, than it was at the time.
But

fabricalchemist ...I didn't much like this art either. T_T I find it fun now, but back then it just seemed simplistic, and dumbed down... Forgive me?

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