Bookblogging!

[rushthatspeaks]

Books Read

In as best a chronological order as I can recall, except that November goes down any old how.

November 2005 (started counting the 26th, list includes from about the 15th):

The Steerswoman, The Outskirter's Secret, The Lost Steersman, Rosemary Kirstein
Black Hearts in Battersea, Joan Aiken
Shot in the Heart, Mikal Gilmore
City of Djinns, William Dalrymple
Out of the Silent Planet, C. S. Lewis (re-read)
Peeps, Scott Westerfeld
Those Who Hunt the Night, Barbara Hambly
Bet Me, Jennifer Crusie
Witchcraft in England, Christina Hole
Love Mode, v. 1
Shinobu Kokoro (I think it's a one-shot)
Earthian v. 1
Please Save My Earth v. 1
Fire Logic, Laurie J. Marks
Don't Try This At Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs, ed. Kimberly Witherspoon and Andrew Friedman (good Anthony Bourdain essay)
The Gastronomical Me, M. F. K. Fisher (halfway)
Please Save My Earth v. 2

Reading aloud to wife (depending on mood):

Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
various H. P. Lovecraft including 'Pickman's Model' and 'The Thing on the Doorstep'
The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison
The Masqueraders, Georgette Heyer

December:

The Best of American Splendor, Harvey Pekar
Outsiders: Wanted, Judd Winick
Global Frequency v. 2, Warren Ellis (note to self: keep remembering that this title is too violent, and not just that the premise is cool)
Kizuna v. 4, Kazuma Kodaka
Cage in the Finder, v. 2 of oddly titled yaoi series of which first was Target in the Finder, Ayano Yamane
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clark
The Sorceress and the Cygnet, Patricia McKillip (re-read)
Last House, M. F. K. Fisher
Dangerous Drawings, ed. Andrea Juno (G.B. Jones and Phoebe Gloeckner interviews among others)
The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, Karen Cushman
Fire, Marguerite Yourcenar
A Coalition of Lions, Elizabeth Wein
Fell, issue 3, Warren Ellis
Flame of Recca v. 15, Noboyuki Anzai
Angel Sanctuary v. 11, Kaori Yuki
Qwan v. 3, Aki Shimizu
Gals v. 4, Fujii Mihona
Gals v. 2, v. 3, Fujii Mihona (re-read)
enough of Walking the Labyrinth, by Lisa Goldstein, to realize that it is boring and I hate the heroine
It Made Sense At The Time... Selected Sketches by Ursula Vernon, Ursula Vernon
Digger v. 1 (re-read in new dead tree format), Ursula Vernon
some Keats, at random (comfort re-reading), including 'The Eve of St. Agnes' ,'Lamia I' and the one about the pot of basil
The Cenci, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and also some translations of his from Goethe's Faust
XXXholic v. 6, CLAMP
Doctor Dolittle on the Moon, Hugh Lofting (re-read)
Please Save My Earth v. 3, v. 4, v. 5, Saki Hiwatari
Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo-Tokyo, Patrick Macias and Tomohiro Machiyama
Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot
Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit: The Essential Guide, Glenn Dakin (OMG screenshots with all the visual puns yay)
Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder, Rachel Reiland
La Esperanca v. 1, Chigusa Kawai
A Cook's Tour, Anthony Bourdain (re-read)
Dog Blessings: A Collection of Poems, Quotes, Facts, & Myths, Bob Lovka (trapped in waiting room oh gods THE PAIN)
Target in the Finder, Ayano Yamane (re-read)
Public Enemy #2: A Boondocks Collection, Aaron McGruder (re-read)
Love My Life, Ebine Yamaji (scanslation)
Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link (re-read)
The Virginian, Owen Wister (my first e-book!)
Dramacon v. 1, Svetlana Chmakova
Winter Rose, Patricia McKillip (re-read)
The Cartoon History of the Universe, Vol. III: From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance, Larry Gonick
Hunter X Hunter v. 6, Yoshihiro Togashi
MeruPuri v. 3, Matsuri Hino

Reading aloud to wife:

Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain (finished 12/24)
The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison
The Masqueraders, Georgette Heyer
selected essays from Last House, M. F. K. Fisher




To Be Read

These are in no particular order and will happen as I come across them.

Sitting Right Here:

The Sunbird, Elizabeth Wein
Earth Logic, Laurie Marks
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
Fall of Kings, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman
various Faulkner, including As I Lay Dying
Perelandra, C. S. Lewis (re-read)
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
The Sound of His Horn, Sarban

Library/Bookstore:

Specific:

the Heike Monogatari
Dangerous Games, The Cuckoo Tree, Dido and Pa, Joan Aiken
The Language of Power, Rosemary Kirstein
The Emerald Wand of Oz, Sherwood Smith
Dragonsbane, Bride of the Rat God, Barbara Hambly
Guide to Supernatural Fiction, E. F. Bleiler
I Am Jonathan Scrivener, Claude Houghton
City of Glass, Moon Palace, Paul Auster
The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
The Temptation of St. Anthony, Salammbo, Gustave Flaubert
The Victorian Age in Literature, The Club of Queer Trades, G. K. Chesterton
The Coasts of Illusion: A Study of Travel Tales, Clark B. Firestone
Book of Beasts, T. H. White
The Seven Deadly Sins, Morton W. Bloomfield
The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Jean Seznec
Voyages to the Moon, Marjorie Hope Nicolson
Mysteriously Meant, Don Cameron Allen
The Code of the Woosters, Right Ho, Jeeves, Leave It to Psmith, P. G. Wodehouse
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
Captain Blood, Rafael Sabatini
Rogue Male, Geoffrey Household
The Unfortunate Fursey, Mervyn Wall
Thus Was Adonis Murdered, Sarah Caudwell
The Five Jars, M. R. James
The Book of My Life, Girolamo Cardano
What a Life, E. V. Lucas and George Morrow
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
The Game of Kings (re-read) in order to read Queen's Play, Dorothy Dunnett
Hello Summer, Goodbye, Friends Come in Boxes, Michael Coney
Mind-Hold, Mind-Find (re-reads), Wilanne Schneider Belden
Midsummer Moon, Laura Kinsale
Mother London, Michael Moorcock
The Haunting of Cassie Palmer, Vivien Alcock
Midnight Is A Place, Joan Aiken
The Secret World of Polly Flint, Moondial, Helen Cresswell

Authors I need more of/to start, generally:

Jennifer Crusie
Connie Brockway
Loretta Chase
Icelandic sagas
Flann O'Brien
M. F. K. Fisher
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Montague Summers
Frances Yates
Sylvia Plath

Comments

[shati.livejournal.com]

Ooh, A Coalition of Lions and The Sunbird! The Winter Prince is still my favorite, but I wish I could find more books like those two.

[shati.livejournal.com]

I read this entry before your notes on it, so I'm adding on. And assuming you've already read The Winter Prince. A Coalition of Lions and The Sunbird are about Goewin and Telemakos, Medraut's son, more than Medraut (who is featured as a very changed man, and from another's POV) or Lleu (who doesn't show up at all).

They're lovely and readable. And they're as atmospheric as The Winter Prince, but with sun and fierce heat instead of snow and freezing cold; I liked The Winter Prince for the characters, but these two as much for the setting of Aksum as anything else.

[zdenka]

I second the Sabatini. He also wrote other stuff. If you want to re-watch the movie (Captain Blood) when you finish the book, let me know & I'll borrow it from my parents.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

The Romantic Agony, Mario Praz

Why?! He's awful.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Good to know-- I think he was referenced in an essay by Michael Dirda as being the source of some interesting factual information about later Byron, but if he is awful I shall stay away.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

ohmygod so awful. Horrible misogynistic ravings about women everywhere.

[foleyartist1.livejournal.com]

Okay the thing about Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar is that it was revolutionary at the time and it IS NOT now. If you've read I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, you do not NEED to read The Bell Jar, and in fact I enjoyed The Bell Jar less because it has so much mythos surrounding it that it pretty much has to knock your socks off or it's a massive letdown. And you know, it doesn't knock your socks off. So I hope you're talking about her poetry here. ^^; I know I reviewed this novel, so it should be in the reviews section of my memories somewhere...

Re: Faulkner--if/when you get to The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!, 2 notes:

1 - MAKE SURE you have a copy of the Compson Appendix either with the book or separately to be read directly after finishing the book.
2 - In my opinion the correct order is TSATF comes BEFORE Absalom, Absalom!, not the reverse.

Re: Dashiel Hammett--I think you've read The Maltese Falcon, so I think I don't have to give you a Dashiel Hammett speech, but if I am incorrect about this I would be happy to babble pleasantly about Dashiel Hammett for awhile.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I am talking about the poetry, as I read The Bell Jar back in high school and couldn't figure out what the fuss was about-- I am, in fact, much fonder of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (if 'fond' is the right word to use about that sort of book-- at any rate, I think Garden is better and has some good imagery). But I am far less familiar with Plath's poetry than I would like to be, partly because of disliking The Bell Jar, which I have decided was the Wrong Place To Start.

Speaking of places to start, how is As I Lay Dying? I have this Faulkner omnibus which I inherited from my grandfather, containing, uh, something I don't remember and am too lazy to go look up (Light in August?), As I Lay Dying, and The Pylon. I could go get something else out of the library if starting with this omnibus would be a Bad Thing, but I own this one, so, y'know.

And I have not read The Maltese Falcon, so feel free to babble pleasantly about Hammett at your leisure.

[foleyartist1.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear it on the Plath score. And I think I have the same issue with her poetry--The Bell Jar was the Wrong Place To Start...

As I Lay Dying is a pretty good place, I think. It gives you sort of more clues to the narrative than his other stuff of the same time period, so it's a good "figure out where this guy is at" type thing, and it does have power to it in its own right. I really liked it, in an it-depressed-the-hell-out-of-me sort of a way. So yeah, start with that one, then maybe read The Sound and the Fury?

Excellent. I have to go to church now, but at some future time let us have Hammett babblage. ^_^

[sovay]

But I am far less familiar with Plath's poetry than I would like to be, partly because of disliking The Bell Jar, which I have decided was the Wrong Place To Start.

I never read The Bell Jar, but my impressions of Sylvia Plath were done a great disservice by my tenth-grade high school teacher, who had us read "Daddy" and then talk about her suicide. I would start with The Colossus, which may be her earliest collection of poetry—beautiful, tough, tactile imagery, and a control of meters and rhythms that impresses me all the more because I didn't notice any of it the first time around. Reading that book was what made me realize that, yes, Plath was actually a damn good poet: not just another dead woman artist. Plus it contains some of my favorite poems about the sea.

I really like I Never Promised You A Rose Garden . . .

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I look forward to reading you on Joan Aiken. The T.H. White Book of Beasts is a wonderful thing, if not necessarily a straight-through read.

And how does your wife cope with never knowing whether what you are reading to her is Kitchen Confidential or The Worm Ourobouros?

[shetheliving.livejournal.com]

hello there audiography friend!

it appears that i will be making you a mix for the great audiography mix trade. if you could e-mail me your mailing address and perhaps a small sample of what music you are currently enjoying, i'll be sure to get it out to you asap. my e-mail address is nemequittepas@gmail.com.

how exciting this is!

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

<off-topic>
Hi!

You are one of my mixees for the Audiography Mix CD Trade, so if you could email me (cscottd @ livejournal.com) your postal information, I'll get your CD out to you as soon as it's done.

Thanks!
</off-topic>

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you're reading The Worm Ouroboros out loud? That must be lovely (though the language requires one to take it very seriously, or else one is somewhat liable to start finding it absurd, which is not so good if it isn't what you're going for).

At Swat we had 24-hour Tolkien readings for a few years: one book in one sitting, taking turns with chapters.

I also need to reread the space trilogy at some point; it's been a very long time. Alas, I haven't managed to find significant reading time in a while.

Tirerim Echoes

[eredien]

You're reading The Worm Oroborous out loud?

I'll understand if you want to keep it a Ruth-and-you thing, but if you don't or don't mind my occasional listening-in, I'd love to hear it.

[sovay]

You do realize you were in the same TOC as one of these writers, yes? There should be some transitive property that makes you therefore fair game for being bookblogged yourself.