Jellyn's Collection of Curiosities

I can't remember how Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books caught my attention, but it's clear why it did. It's a book about a little town full of used/antiquarian bookstores. And that town is in Wales! It's Hay-on-Wye, and I'm afraid now any trip to the UK is not only not going to be complete without a trip to the Platform 9 3/4's sign and an even geekier trip to Cardiff, but now I need to at least spend an hour or two in Hay-on-Wye.

It's easier to describe this book before you've read it. Like, I probably would've called it a travelogue, except... for 'travel' there's the assumption that you're going to a place for a finite amount of time and then going home, or alternatively, traveling on to another place and another in a continental or world tour. But in this book, the author and his wife and small child pack up to sell their home in San Francisco and move to Wales. Without, apparently, a whole lot of research. They supposedly know the UK and Hay-on-Wye in particular, from relatives born there and from past trips, yet they're surprised that they don't get a real estate agent because they're buyers, not sellers? Even I knew the real estate market there was rather goofy. And then they're also rather surprised when all the cool, old buildings they're interested in need a lot of upkeep, and they realize they're not prepared for that. Heckuvan expensive and time-consuming learning experience, if you ask me.

But the book is full of random bits of information, gleaned from old books. Facts, anecdotes, quotes, and just interesting little tidbits. So you really get a sense of this town just from the way he's written the book. A couple really stood out to me. Right at the start, we learn that the Harry Potter printruns used up most of the publishing industry's paper for a brief period of time. Logical, amazing, amusing, and something I hadn't heard before. True? Or just something that should be true?

Because when I finished the book, I wasn't sure what was true and what wasn't. Yes, this is a real town, so you might assume names have been changed to protect the innocent, but he doesn't say this up front. And how do you write about such a small town and mention it by name and still disguise the identities of the people you're talking about? At the end, he tells us some of the names of people and places are made up. But we don't know which ones!

There are other parts where I questioned the honesty of what I was being presented. Where there's a bit of dialogue in which a vital bit of information is shared in an amusing way. Did he really not know that information before that moment? Are the conversations all really that pithy and eccentric? My disbelief has trouble being suspended when I'm supposedly reading a nonfiction book, so my credulity was strained.

Interspersed with talk of the UK, Hay-on-Wye, and books, is mention of his own books. He's in the middle of the publishing aspects of his first book. We hear about his first reading, sort of. We hear about his proof edits. We also hear about a couple of his novels that weren't published.

Which leads into a quote I wanted to share.

... that twee little fable that writers like to pass off on gullible readers, that a character can develop a will of his own and "take over a book." This makes writing sound supernatural and mysterious, like possession by the faeries. The reality tends to involve a spare room, a pirated copy of MS Word, and a table bought on sale at Target. A character can no more take over your novel than an eggplant and a jar of cumin can take over your kitchen.

He's dead wrong here. Not all novels are written this way, and some are more about plot, setting, or theme than they are about three-dimensional characters, but many are. Once you know a character well enough, you know what they'll say and do, and what they won't say and won't do, even if you need them to for the purposes of the plot. This topic is probably an essay in itself, involving references to psychology and neuroscience and our mental constructions of other people. Suffice it to say that I feel sorry for him that he doesn't grasp this essential truth, and that it didn't surprise me to learn that his novels had yet to be published.

At the end of the book, I rather wondered what the whole point of it was. It was like a journey without a destination. You may say the whole point is the journey, but there's still something unsatisfying about not arriving anywhere at the end of it.

It was an amusing, entertaining read, and made me wish I cared more about old books. Unfortunately, the science fiction genre is relatively new as far as old books go, and I prefer modern fantasies to very old ones, so I have trouble coming up with any topic or author I'd be seeking out in old bookstores in Wales. Honestly, I don't care to own an old copy of a book I already have a new copy of. It's still the same book. So if I was seeking anything out, it'd be obscure books. How do you find obscure books of quality?

For the readability and entertainment, I'll give this three stars. For the ending and the author's low, for lack of a better word, likeability factor, I'm only giving it three stars.

I need to remember what books I buy, so I don't go reading them from the library or buying them again. I really, really need to do this. Finally sprung for a lifetime membership at LibraryThing. It's not that expensive, and I like their payment options (as in, it's optional how much you pay them), but it was an expense I couldn't justify when I wasn't working fulltime.

Anyhoo, I'd forgotten I'd bought Doomsday Book until I finally pulled all the books out of the collection of Borders bags I'd been accumulating. Not only that, but I read it! The first non-library book I've read in quite awhile.

The basic premise is it's the future and time travel is an academic thing. An undergraduate student goes back to the Middle Ages, meanwhile back at future Oxford, people start to get sick. So as you might imagine, there's a lot of Oxford academia, Medieval history, and medical information packed into this book.

It seemed a bit of a long read, not that any parts dragged particularly, but I was ready for it to finish before it actually did. I thought it was good, and interesting, and funny. Rather like the other couple of Willis' books that I've read.

However, it was frustrating in parts. There's a tech who has vital information, but he's sick. So between his disorientation, his periods of unconsciousness, and the hospital barring people from seeing him and whatnot, it takes a long, freaking time for the information he knows to finally come out and be put to use.

Also, one of the two main characters, the history professor, is the sort of protagonist who is running around all over the place, juggling a billion different balls, and basically being responsible for keeping everything together. At least, everything that matters to the main plot of the book. It's a tiring sort of book to read. Some of Robin Hobb's Farseer books are like this. You're left holding your breath. Is he going to forget something? Drop the ball? Collapse?

Meanwhile the second main character is running around in the past, eventually doing much the same thing. Is she going to slip and say something wrong and be hung as a witch? Is she going to drop one of her balls? Is she going to collapse?

So basically there's two types of reader suspense and tension going on that, while effective, also bug me. Though I will say Willis kept me guessing, and second-guessing myself, right up until the end.

Finally, on top of parts of the book being frustrating, parts of it were depressing. It could certainly have been more depressing, and would've been without the humor, but it's definitely not a light read.

Still, I can see why it won the Nebula and the Hugo Awards, and I'm glad it did. Well-written and well-researched, it deserved it.

The Five Habits of Highly Successful Slackers by K. P. Springfield caught my attention at the library. I thought.. hey, I'd like to know how to slack more effectively! Unfortunately, this book really didn't deliver.

A lot of the book was taken up with why you should slack, and some stories of people who did it badly. The rest of the book was ideas that would work well in a sales job, but not in most other jobs.

It was really disappointing, because he opened the book talking about how he was writing the book at work. I thought he'd give me some tips on how to do that myself. Does he sneak down to the copy room? Take long lunches? Have the book open in one window and an important-looking spreadsheet open in another? Well, no, none of that. And none of the things I hadn't thought of, which would've been actually useful. He just pretends to be on the phone making sales calls while in his fully-fledged office with walls and everything.

Seems to me if you have the autonomy already granted to sales associates, you can already easily figure out ways to slack. I'd like to see him try it in other jobs.

The tone of the book also seemed to be making fun of other business books and not treating the subject with quite enough seriousness. And the term he coined 'slackism' never does roll off the mind's tongue. I kept wanting it to be 'slackerism'.

Finally, whoever edited the book (quite possibly him) definitely slacked. There were mixed up words and missing words enough to be annoying by themselves. The main issue, however, was the paragraphs were inconsistently indented.

And I never did learn how to write a book while at work.

I may have gotten around to reading this book eventually. I had seen Ha'Penny was on the list of novels being considered for the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards and borrowed it from the library, before realizing it was book two of a series. So I may or may not have been motivated to track down Farthing and read it, except that K had this idea of all of us reading and reviewing the same book, and M suggested this one.

Farthing is a British mystery set in the 1940's, but it's also an alternate history. Then there's a dash of gay interest thrown in. Taken separately, I wouldn't have been interested in this book, but all together, there's enough there to make it worth a read.

How well does it work as a mystery? I don't read a lot of mysteries, but it seemed to me to be rather dull and also rather obvious. We have two point of view characters, only one of which is the detective, so the other character has rather more access to information than the detectives usually get. Which means the reader knows more, and this reader is not an idiot.

In particular, there are a couple of chapters where the detective is just driving here and driving there and tracking down this bit of information that's needed and the writing there is quite uninspired.

How does it work as an alternate history? Again, I don't read a lot of alternate history -- or real history for that matter -- so I found it a little confusing. How much of the situation was true and accurate and how much was a what-if? The basic premise though, I believe, is that the UK signed a truce with Hitler to let him go on doing whatever he wanted elsewhere as long as he stayed out of Great Britain. Which, you may imagine, is not good news for the Jewish people in Europe. But on the face of it, it seems a good thing for the Brits. No more bombings, no more evacuations. The political climate is changing though. I don't think you'll be seeing socialized medicine in this UK.

How does it work as gay interest? Not interesting enough. One of the primary bi characters in the story is dead years before the story begins. The main character's lover never makes it on screen. He barely even spares a thought for him. So the gay interest is all political. Which is fine and all, but it would've been nice to see some affection, no matter how non-public and discreet it would need to have been.

So all in all, rather disappointing on all fronts. The two positives I will say about it are, one, that it was very readable, even in the more uninteresting of the chapters. It didn't feel like a slog. And, two, I found the two point of view characters interesting and likeable. I would read more with either of those characters, though I would be fervently hoping for some more interesting plots and scenes to come along.

If I were to give it stars out of five, I'd give it a very middle-of-the-road 3.

Blog still looks all weird since I upgraded Opera, but I am not motivated to try to fix it. Especially as it could just be all Opera's fault. I need to do a clean install of the newest version. Not motivated to do that either.

92 books so far this year. 2/3rds of the way through. 50 left to beat my record. I have to keep up the pace and read another 4 books besides. As you can guess, that 250 goal was given up on months and months ago.

The Return of Jezebel James? Or something like that. I started watching for a few minutes and was about to turn it off when I saw the scene change to HarperCollins. Okay, so the show's about a children's editor... with a publishing house product placement. Well, it got me to keep watching anyway. Still not quite sure what the premise is. Is the sister pregnant or having the editor's baby or what? And why'd she hide from her father? Or is he just the father of the first sister? So, yea, bit confused. Might watch it again if it's not opposite something else.

House. Rerun, but it sucked me in before I realized what was happening and found it was too late to try turning to Celebrity Apprentice, which may or may not have been an episode I saw yet.

And the capper has until I wake up in the morning to post Torchwood ep 11 at the very least. Then I'm finally bailing and acquiring 11 and 12 elsewhere.

Brainiac Science Abuse series 6, episode 9. I'll take this opportunity to say I don't like Vic Reeves' characters. The gasbangwallop thing and the Russian guy. They talk slowly, they're rather offputting, and their segments are pretty boring anyway. Just blowing things up or setting them on fire.

Biggest Loser Couples episode whatever. This was the makeover episode, so was overall pretty boring. Makes one rethink the strategy for winning though. Don't reach your ideal weight before the show ends or you'll lose.

The Jane Austen Book Club. I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish watching this. Good movie and makes me want to read the book. Though I probably would've eventually anyway! It even almost makes me want to read Jane Austen. But don't hold your breath on that one.

Worlds of Fantasy episode 3, which I believe is the last episode. This is a short UK documentary series on fantasy fiction. The first episode was about children protagonists and talked about C. S. Lewis and Philip Pullman and E. Nesbit and etc. Sort of the history of child protagonists in British fantasy.

The second episode was about Middle Earth and Gormenghast, which I may have misspelled. I like the Lord of the Rings movies okay, but I never did get through one of the books. Zzz. And I'd heard of Gormenghast, but didn't know much about it. Can't say as this episode made me want to rush out and read it either.

This third episode was sort of about fantasy in the last 40 years. It was sort of all over the place. Terry Pratchett, Tolkien again, Neil Gaiman, movies including Pan's Labyrinth, and online fantasy games, which brought it back around to Middle Earth again again.

Notable is that they had interviews.. or whatever you want to call it, where you get a bunch of experts being talking heads.. that included some fantasy writers: Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman, and China Miéville.

I finished my Spectrum Award List, which you can get to with the handy link over to the right. Now to finish reading everything on it!

I was going to add the Carl Brandon Society Awards, but then I could only find awards from 2006. And that, from what I understand, is those awarded in 2006, rather than those published in 2006. I couldn't find 2007. Did they decide the award was bi-annual? (Really, if anything was going to be bi-, it should've been the Spectrum Awards) Have they not awarded them yet? Were they awarded, at Wiscon or elsewhere, but just didn't make it up onto the website? So I think I'll hold off until I can find the 2007 list, if there is one.

I thought there were other awards I meant to add, but now I can't remember what they might've been. It's no good having an awards reading list that's too broad, as I'm less likely to find them compelling. So I think the Lambda's might be too much mainstream. Except now I see they do have a subcategory for sf/f. So, okay. Lambda it is then.

Is there an award for disabled sf/f? Sf/f portraying differently-abled individuals? Methinks I may have to Google.

I have some lists of awards that I'd like to read all of the winners, and even the short lists, of. I'm adding some new lists to my erm.. list of lists. It takes longer than I think for and is rather tedious. So for right now, here's an incomplete Spectrum Awards List. I stopped at 2004, so it's a few years short.

And here's the Spectrum Awards Official Website.

Basically, check out my 2008 Books list and my 2008 Goals list.

In a week, it's time to vote in the primary! I better do some more research so I know who I'm voting for! Only one more year of Bushy!

Uggggh. One more year of Bushy....

My official books read total for 2007 is 161. This beats the year before by 75 books. o.O And that was with Clarion in the middle for 6 weeks, where I only finished reading one book. (HP7, of course.) Boggle with me some more.

That means my one and only New Year's Resolution for 2007 was done and done! See the old post for reference.

I've put the 2008 page up. Need to get cracking, since Jun set me a challenge of 250 books!

Now how about those psychic predictions for 2007?

I should've been paying closer attention to the news all year and perhaps checking them off as I went along. Here's the ones I know for sure. Feel free to comment to help me prove my psychicness on the others!

* There will be controversy surrounding the release of Harry Potter book #7. Not to mention problems with the American edition.

Rowling was a little late on this one, announcing Dumbledore's 1337 gay status well after the book was out. Are there problems with the American edition? Probably.. anyone know for sure?

* A new bestseller may threaten to eclipse Harry Potter.

I Am America (And So Can You?)? Well, probably not. :)

* Torchwood will show up on the Sci-Fi Channel, but they'll edit it.

BBC America, not Sci-Fi. Though I hear it's edited anyway. (Moment to squeal for impending Torchwood Series 2!!! Squeeeal!)

* 7th Heaven STILL won't be cancelled, but Veronica Mars will. (Sorry, Jun!)

Well, I wouldn't hold my breath, but it looks like 7th Heaven finally bit the big one. Hurrah. Sorry about Veronica Mars though, Jun!

* The UK show Fortune Million Dollar Giveaway will have a US version. Probably on NBC, but possibly ABC.

Just pause a moment while I ponder why it was Million Dollar anyway. Eh? Did my America brain translate it when I was posting this? Bad American! No biscuit! No cookie either!

Anyway, I haven't heard anything yet, though they've gone and stolen a French game show in the meanwhile.

* The news media is going to salivate over a court case that'll drag on forever. It'll involve a pretty white girl who's been victimized or killed.

*coughAnnaNicolecough*

* Violence in schools will hit public attention again.

Been there. Done that. I mean.. not me personally..

* A new superhero movie will be announced. A gay superhero.

If so, they didn't announce it very loudly. Heck, there isn't even one on Heroes as far as I'm aware.

Anyway. Goodbye, 2007! I'll miss you with your lucky number 7 and your googly eyes. (Moment as I go look at Google's logo for the day.) And now we speed ahead into the future!

Rather than a list of resolutions, here is a list of 2008 goals.

In no particular order:

* Be able to recognize all 1945 Joyo kanji so I can read a manga in Japanese.
First step: Buy Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig because the library doesn't have it.

* Read books 1-6 of Harry Potter in Spanish. (As I can't find book 7 at the library)
First step: Borrow the Spanish Reader I found from the library.

* Read 250 books, at least 10% of which are nonfiction. Non-English books count double though.
First step: Start reading on Tuesday!

* Watch 12 movies in French without subtitles.
First step: Find a good movie in French to start with.

* Score 100 in the Clarion Submission game.
First step: Write a story.

* Be 1*0 pounds by December 31st. (Which means 5 pounds leeway for Christmas fudge. ;) )
First step: Find a class.

* Get a yellow belt in a martial art.
First step: Make some phone calls.

* Acquire tickets to Japan. (Note, not necessarily buy, and not necessarily for 2008.)
First step: ?????

* Make $100,000.
First step: Make $1,000 in non-wage income.

* Volunteer for an organization.
First step: See if Room to Read has anyone local to hook up with.

* Go to 3 cons.
First step: Pre-register for Readercon and Albacon.

* Learn shorthand.
First step: Pick up the library book on my floor and open it. :)

* Take a drawing class.
First step: Find a drawing class.

Edit: Fixed the categories for this post. And created a goals page.

My last month total was awesome. Yea, there's a lot of manga there and some children's books and YA, but even so, I read a massive amount of books! As I was counting up my year's total, I was thinking "Man, it's a shame I probably passed 100 and didn't mark the occasion." But then when my math gave me 114, I was like.. wow. So now I need a new goal. I'll try for 150 by the end of the year.

In other related news, I broke down and bought a book. Even though I completely forgot about the library booksale, I went and bought a book at Borders Express, for full price and everything. Naomi Novik's 4th in the Temeraire series. And yay for it being in paperback! Though I think the cover is different from the previous three.

Got more books from the library. Picked up 'The World of Narue' because it was volume 1 and it said it was "A Sci-Fi hit". It was a little confusing and disjointed, it seemed to me. Which instantly made me suspicious that there were pages missing. I don't think that was why it seemed disjointed though. I think it just was. Though, later on, there was a page missing. And, surprise surprise, the guy is nosebleeding on the next page that's actually there. But I will never get to know exactly why!

And then I get to the end and there's a bunch of pages missing. Some of them would have been adverts, but I can't tell how many pages I actually didn't get to read. :P

Seriously, guys, is a manga-naked chick so exciting that you have to ruin it for everyone borrowing the manga after you? Borrow your parents' credit card and buy some actual hentai manga if you're so desperate.

I'm not going to bother reading the rest of this manga anyway. CPM Manga (Central Park Media) apparently doesn't know how to proofread. There's an "it's" that should be "its", a "loose" that should be "lose", a Japanese word broken up in the middle of a syllable to run to the next line, and a few other typos and misspellings. I might have lived with one or two, but there were too many and that 'loose' was just taking it too far. I HATE 'loose' and 'congradulations' more than anything!!!!