books read (with bonus wee penguin)

[mrissa]

My niecelet was a penguin for Halloween. She may not be the absolute cutest niecelet ever, but it is certainly a near thing if she is not.

This has not been a half-month for reading a large number of books, but here's what I read in late October:

John Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: the Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. This ended up feeling like an overview. One can certainly see why -- there's a lot of ground to cover, and as scholarly tomes go, it's not very tomey. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want a detailed book on the abandonment of children in Rome and then another about oblation in France and so on. Interesting, footnotey, depressing but not as depressing as it could have been, given the subject matter. In fact, rather cheerful, given the subject matter.

Piers Brendan, The Dark Valley: a Panorama of the 1930s. This one really was a bit of a tome, and -- unsurprisingly -- depressing. If I had to pick an early 20th century decade, I'd take the Twenties...or the Teens...or...well, okay, let's go with "not the '30s." But I don't like gaps. The panorama in the title was a bit limited: he covered Germany, Japan, Italy, USSR, UK (but really England), US, and France. With a long digression to Spain. I think that's it. And I have this habit of being more interested in what was going on in the places that didn't have themselves labeled on the map with stars. It's good to know what the "big kids" were doing, but I ended up wanting to know more about the bits I wasn't seeing than the bits I was.

Steven Brust (skzbrust), Taltos. Reread. I try not to go all squealing fangirl on people I know. Then they go writing books like this one and making it hard on me. I'm not even sure why it clicks in with bits of my brain in times of upset, but when there's a funeral or something of the sort, I reach for Taltos. (I also like it at other times.) Also it is sometimes fun to watch people get better at what they do, especially when they start good enough that it's fun to begin with.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Beguilement. I liked this one. It was pretty gentle given some of its subject matter. But -- and this is not a big but -- if it had been the first Bujold I picked up, I would have been less intent on picking up anything she happened to do next, no matter what, than I have been starting with Miles. I will still pick up anything she happens to do next -- not even with flagging enthusiasm -- but I suspect this is not the Bujold to start with, is what I'm saying.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens. Reread. This was an accident. I tripped and my head fell on the open pages. (Seriously, I was talking to timprov and wanted something to read with lunch, and it was right there to hand in his room, so I read it.) It was still funny, but I think both of them have gotten better since writing it. And less in the "fun to watch them get better" way, for some reason.

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith. Snow and witches and Feegles. Very fond.

Rex Stout, Before Midnight. Nero Wolfe goes on Nero Wolfeing. I go on reading about it. So.

Comments

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

re: Niecelet: Aw!

re: "This was an accident. I tripped and my head fell on the open pages." You made me laugh out loud, and I really needed that. Thanks.

[lutin.livejournal.com]

One of the Morris dancers dressed up as Antarctica and had hot glue gunned a bunch of "counting penguins" from her preschool onto a white shawl, and had hot glue gunned a bunch of larger counting penguins into a crown. Somebody called her "Aunt RCTica" and the name ...stuck.


Also, so! cute your niece :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

One of my college friends, with whom I have lost touch, went as a pond one year, gluing a frog and a fish and so on to her blue sheet. Another year she went as the moors of Scotland with wee sheeps hot-glued to her green and brown sheet.

[lutin.livejournal.com]

Are there pictures?

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

1. Your niece is positively adorable. She definitely looks like a penguin, if I've ever seen one (and I have, you know, at zoos and things).

2. I completely agree with your Good Omens thought. It's usually easy for me to notice the gradual change in Pratchett's writing style, but Gaiman is a bit harder. My problem with GO is I can't hardly tell who is writing what, it all leans toward Pratchett for me.

3. Wintersmith! Eeeee! :)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm really impressed with how cute your neice is! Those eyes are SO BIG!

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

That is a mighty fine wee niecelet you have there. She makes a perfectly snuggable penguin.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

One of the things I love about Good Omens is giving it to people. It's always one of the first things I reach for when I'm buying books for someone who doesn't read speculative fiction. I know they won't have read it, because they won't have encountered the authors outside of their genre, but it's accessible. It's a gateway drug! Ahem.

Must read Wintersmith. Must acquire and reread all Brust Vlad books. Must read new Bujold.

Oh, how nice to have things I must read.

I was shocked when I discovered that /none/ of the Vlad Taltos books are available from audible.com as audiobooks. On the other hand, several Bujolds are available, mostly pretty mediocre, with the stunning exception of Paladin of Souls, read by Kate Reading. Anyhow.

Your niecelet is adorable. The costume is nice, too.

(AUGH. I'm going to have a niece or nephew. AUGH.)

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

She's definitely the cutest niece-penguinlet ever. :)

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

Cute niecelet!

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

...the moors of Scotland...

*glee*

That does it. Next Harry Potter-themed thingie I go to, I'm going as the Hogwarts lake. Complete with squid and toast.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

So Cute!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas, not digital ones, and I'm not sure about the analog.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alternately you can be the ocean after a showing of RHPS. Really, your call, at that point.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about having my brain -- well, a nice thing about having my brain -- is that I've heard skzbrust talk and read enough that I can have his voice reading the Vlad books to me in my head whenever I want it.

This doesn't help when one is driving, of course.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

Um. Not a "near thing." Definitely the cutest niecelet ever.

I can say this with great authority, not having a niece. :-)

[everyonesakitty.livejournal.com]

Aw, I think she surely must be the very cutest neicelet ever!

[aszanoni.livejournal.com]

Mediocre as in adaption, in who did the reading, or in some other way?

Whoever did the _Deep Wizardry_ audiobook for Diane Duane was just marvelous. I don't listen to audiobooks normally. This reader was able to do everyone superbly. (Even the shark, which is especially impressive.) I ended up listening to the audiobook because my library didn't own the actual book.

My library got me the actual book as interlibrary loan, eventually. I re-read that in an evening.

But the audiobook reader was so PERFECT that I listened helplessly to all [eight??!?] CDs anyway. Mesmerized.


Wow. It's her eyes that create the automatic AWWWW. -smile- Definitely a cute niecelet.

- Chica

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I may have to look up Deep Wizardry, then. I'm a little 'enh' about Diane Duane, but that's my favorite of the Wizard books (that I've read), and the prospect of a good reading is very alluring.

I listened to Curse of Chalion read by Lloyd James, and a couple of the Miles books read by Grover Garner. With the Miles books, part of the problem for me is selection - mostly they've got the earliest ones, which in general I think are less good than the later ones - and part of it is Garner, who I find mostly competent but really uninspired as a reader. Curse of Chalion was much worse - I love the book, but the reading of it was simply awful. Lloyd James not only didn't sound as though he had a grasp of the characters, he didn't sound as though he had a grasp of the sentences. He stumbled over words, and regularly seemed not to know where a sentence was going - his sentence melody would start out like that of a short declarative sentence, for instance, and then, when the sentence had more clauses, he would get beached and stranded on it. If I hadn't wanted to get to Paladin of Souls, listening, and felt like I wanted to listen to all of Curse of Chalion first, not even the fact that I'd paid for it could have kept me listening.

I only ever buy unabridged books,* so it's not about adaptation. It's about the performance of the reader.


*Actually, that's not 100% true. I never buy abridged books - the idea makes me go faint in horror - but I have a few times gotten full cast radio performances which have been adapted for that medium. That was the only decent Lord of the Rings recording I could find, a couple years ago, for instance, even though their Aragorn lisped slightly.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

No, it wouldn't, but I'm jealous anyhow.

[aszanoni.livejournal.com]

-nods- Performance. That makes perfect sense. Thank you.

I listened to an audiobook with a friend who enjoyed them when driving. I was struck then at how _To Ride Pegasus_ wasn't abridged. I hadn't known that was typical.

Although I enjoyed that version of _Deep Wizardry_, I don't want to listen to audiobooks. I want to read a book myself. I realize that some people find it easier when travelling, or prefer being read to, or whatever's applicable. :>


Mrm. I read _Ivanhoe_ as a Classic Comic. Later, I couldn't get past the beginning of the first paragraph of the actual book. Of course, I already knew Ivanhoe himself wasn't too brilliant. -grimace- Now, had the book been called _Rebecca_, I could have forged on! :D

- Chica

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I think on abridged books are more common, just not in my library. I abominate abridgements.

One of the few unalloyed good things my parents did in raising me was read to me every night until I was 12 or 13. It was great. Quite often, they read me books that were /just/ past my comfort zone in reading level; after hearing them, I could (and did) read them for myself. This is how I was reading Pride and Prejudice when I was 9, although my English-professor-father's repeated efforts to turn me onto Dickens never did succeed.

I like to listen to audiobooks when I'm driving. They keep me calm and patient in bad traffic. But it's not just that. I love to read books on paper, and I love to listen to books being read or performed well - often the same books. I like to reread, and quite often I'll have reread a book to the point where I just can't read it again - the stage where at the bottom of every page, I know what the next few words are before I turn it - but listening to it is different enough that I can enjoy it all over again. I think it uses slightly different pathways in my brain.

But for me, knowing what happens is never an obstacle to enjoyment, although I cherish not knowing what happens and am annoyingly rabid about avoiding spoilers to things, too.

And it's not just that, either. Listening to stories is one of my biggest comfort things. It's like a cup of hot sweet tea, or a big soft shirt, or a beautiful and really familiar view, or the scent of bread baking. It's soothing to me in a way which bypasses everything analytical and goes straight to the belly. When I'm having a bad day at work, I slip into the ladies' room and listen to a carefully measured, jealously hoarded 3.5 minutes of whatever book I have on my iPod, and come out feeling steadier.

It's personal, not a reaction I expect other people to share. It works out well for me, though.

[aszanoni.livejournal.com]

:>

No, I do agree with you. When it's done well, listening to a story is a pleasure.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Last week one of my friends asked when I'd first read LotR, and I said I read it to myself the first time in mid-grade school, but my dad read it to me the first time in early grade school. My friend asked how long that had taken.

I thought about it, and the honest answer is, forever. In a very real sense, somewhere in my head and my heart, I am still curled up with my dad reading me LotR, and we always will be.