(no subject)

[oyceter]

Yay!!! I got the Buffy musical soundtrack hermionesviolin sent me ^_^. Just listening to it makes me much, much happier about the entire moving situation.

I also saw the new Harry Potter movie. It was much prettier than the first two, I still really love Emma Watson's version of Hermione, and Scabbers is such an animatronic rat. What did they do with his ears anyway? Rats don't have funny floppy ears with hair tufts! Ok, maybe I imagined the hair tufts. My rats are cuter anyway /brag. Haha, I liked it, but have no intelligent thoughts (as one can probably tell).

Other things to cheer about: rheanna27 has been doing the DVD commentary thing on her fic "Vivere," which is quite possibly my favorite piece of fanfiction ever (here, here, and here so far).

melymbrosia has been posting on feminist lit theory here with more reading suggestions in the comments, and now I want even more books! You know, reading all those posts on the feminism in sf/f during Wiscon makes me realize just how much stuff I've missed. Not just that, but several recent conversations with people who read lots of sci-fi also made me realize how I am not a sci-fi reader. I feel bad because I haven't read so many of the classics/canon. I feel I'm a little better off in fantasy, but I'm probably not...

I've read Le Guin's Earthsea books (well, except the most recent), but none of her sci-fi, except Four Ways to Forgiveness. I've read a scattered of Arthur C. Clarke (mostly the 2001 books), a fair amount of standard Asimov (Robots and Foundation) and Dune. The scary thing is that I don't even really know what the canon is -- I figure Stanislaw Lem and Heinlein and Bradbury and HG Wells are in there, right? And this is just normal sci-fi, not even feminist sci-fi. Anyone have suggestions? Sci-fi, fantasy, all good.

The boy has suggested that I make some sort of computer database categorizing all my books and what shelves they are in. Hahaha... little does he know he has unleashed a demon! If it were up to me, I would have a giant database full of all the books I've read and the ones I own, down to ISBN and edition and condition (for the ones I own) and hopefully linked to LJ reviews and dates read, etc. Luckily, right now the book collection is still at a size in which I can remember everything. Actually, I don't particularly remember a time when the book collection has ever been too big to remember. Either that, or a very frightening percentage of my brain is dedicated to this.

And for purely gratuitous reasons:

Books I plan on reading (for fun):

- Emma Donoghue, Slammerkin and The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits
- Barbara Samuel/Ruth Wind's backlist
- Laura Kinsale's backlist
- Jane Eyre
- more Sean Stewart
- Jennifer Stevenson, Trash Sex Magic
- CLAMP's Clover (because everyone on the FL has!! I succumb easily to peer pressure, particularly when said peers give such good reviews)
- Nausicaa, which is still sitting on my shelf...
- Judy Cuevas, once I actually manage to find her books...
- Peter S. Beagle, A Fine and Private Place, Innkeeper's Song, Giant Bones
- Gaiman's 1602
- Astonishing X-Men
- Laurie Marks' Fire Logic and Earth Logic
- the rest of McKillip
- Tales of Slayers/Vamps
- Megan Lindholm
- more Maureen F. McHugh
- R. A. MacAvoy
- EL Konigsberg (non-Secret Files or Saturday something or the other)
- other books by the person who wrote The Westing Game (Ellen Rankin?)
- Edith Pattou, East (because it's a fairy tale story)
- Pamela Dean's Hidden Country trilogy
- Adele Geras' Egerton Tower trilogy (well, I read the second book)
- Blood and Chocolate
- Sorcery and Cecelia (as soon as that person stop renewing it and finally returns it to the library!!)
- Kara Dalkey's books, particularly The Nightingale
- Jennifer Crusie's backlist, provided I can find it, ugh
- all the Windling/Datlow Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies

And then there are all those books I feel like I should read, because everyone's read them, or because everyone talks about them, or just for personal edification...

Academic theory type stuff:
- The Celluloid Closet
- Judith Butler
- Foucault (I feel vaguely guilty even talking about theories of sexuality -- not that I really do -- without having read these two. Actually, I read bits freshman year but don't remember anything.)
- Imagined Communites (reread)
- Room of One's Own
- Joseph Campbell, just because he gets tossed around on AtPO so often
- ditto with Ayn Rand (not often, but enough so I feel I should know what she's talking about)

EAS stuff:
- Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (it's fat, and I haven't been in the right mood, but it's sitting there on the shelf... well, actually on the floor now)
- John Dower, Embracing Defeat (post-WWII Japan!)
- Dream of the Red Chamber
- Heike monogatari
- The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

Stuff everyone has read that I should to feel vaguely cultured, instead of reading all my genre stuff ;)
- Margaret Atwood
- Michael Chabon
- The Catcher in the Rye
- A. S. Byatt (I read Possession, but didn't quite take to it... might be because I was ibanking at the time)
- Iliad/Odyssey

Genre stuff everyone has read:
- Heinlein
- Philip K. Dick
- Heyer
- William Gibson (don't remember Neuromancer at all)
- Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles V---- series
- Silmarillion

Personal edification stuff:
- Crossing the Chasm (sigh, marketing)
- What Color Is Your Parachute (might as well)
- Godel, Escher, and Bach
- Chaos
- Stephen Pinker on something
- Feynman's lectures on physics

Sigh, I haven't read a lot of stuff...

Comments

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. Chaos is good light reading, I found Feynman incredibly depressing (as in, I'm too stupid to understand this past the first 5 pages, I might as well give up--but I imagine you're oodles smarter'n I am! and it's very rich, very rewarding stuff even in those first 5 pages), the Hofstadter is a splendid commitment and a work of art that requires dedication, and "book" is too small a word for it. Uh, yeah.

At first I read your 1st paragraph as referring to a Buffy musical...please tell me I'm wrong...

[oyceter]

Haha, I somehow doubt I will be even able to make it past page 2 of the Feynman lectures, but might as well try! The last time I did anything resembling science was... back in high school -_-;;.

And hee, yes you read that right. There's a Buffy musical episode. Somehow, I am getting the impression that you are not a musical lover? ;)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Dude, the Buffy musical is absolutely brilliant. Joss plays with the whole concept of musicals: the characters are actually questioning why they're constantly breaking into song. The songs are terrific, and the episode stands on its own even if you have no background in Buffy.

Random bookish babble

[ericaceous.livejournal.com]

Godel, Escher, Bach is a GREAT book. I loved it. The Mind's I (by the same author, Douglas Hofstadter) is also good, but I didn't love it the way I loved GEB.

If you want to narrow down where to start with LeGuin's massive body of works, I would say:
1. Always Coming Home (my favorite LeGuin world building, it's kind of like anthropology with descriptions of rituals, songs, and stories, etc. I found it really easy to read and really rewarding despite this)
2. The Dispossessed
3. Left Hand of Darkness (which the Wiscon people have talked about)
4. Her assorted essays

If you haven't read Donoghue's Kissing the Witch, that is my favorite of her stuff (or maybe that's what made you put her other things on there?)

Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time and He, She, and It.

Ok, so those are my semi-random recs for today.

Re: Random bookish babble

[oracne.livejournal.com]

She's right about the LeGuin. I might also add FOUR WAYS TO FORGIVENESS, which is recent and a collection of four shorter pieces.

You could try to find Cuevas on half.com--I really wish they would reprint BLISS and DANCE.

Re: Random bookish babble

[oyceter]

I actually have Four Ways to Forgiveness -- well, someone gave it to my sister for her birthday, and she never read it, so I sort of, um, appropriated it.

I'm still waiting for a lower price, sigh sigh. Well, lower price + better condition... I recently just caved and got Crusie's Cinderella Deal online, because someone was selling loads of like new ones.

Re: Random bookish babble

[oracne.livejournal.com]

CINDERELLA DEAL is the Crusie I DON'T have--figured I would read it at mely's one of these days.

Re: Random bookish babble

[oyceter]

I really need to read Left Hand of Darkness now! It's popping up everywhere and seems to be some standard of feminist and/or scifi that deals with gender issues.

I did actually read Kissing the Witch and absolutely loved it! Which is why I need to read the rest of her stuff...

And thanks!!

Oh, and I for got to mention

[ericaceous.livejournal.com]

Suzette Hayden Elgin's Native Tongue and the other ones in this series that come after. Really, really interesting linguistics and world-building stuff in there in addition to being great narratives.

Elisabeth Vonarburg's In the Mother's Land. The original is in French but the English translation I read was really good. Might be OOP though. Try the library? Actually, according to Amazon, a new edition is called "Maerlande Chronicles" and is in print.

And how could I forget Octavia Butler! Go for the Xegenosis ones (these are available in a one-volume called "Lilith's Brood" or in 3 separate novels: "Dawn", "Adulthood Rites" and "Imago").

Re: Oh, and I for got to mention

[oyceter]

Oh yeah, need to add more Octavia Butler! I think I read the first Xenogenesis book... have been planning on reading the other two, but got somewhat distracted by, uh, the other giant stack of books ;).

[veejane.livejournal.com]

On the theory front, The Celluloid Closet is highly readable and very entertaining, but also kind of depressing. Get the 2nd edition, if you can, because although the author died some years ago, he lived long enough to (grudgingly) give kudos to the last 10-15 years of gay filmmaking.

Judith Butler is not so much in the readable department. Goodness knows I've tried.

Skip Ayn Rand entirely. She was a crackpot of the highest order.

[oyceter]

I tried a Butler paper back in freshman year and it went waaaay over my head... guess she doesn't get much better. Huh.

And I keep hearing Ayn Rand is a crackpot, but she's a crackpot everyone keeps referencing... argh.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Oh, that reminds me. I stopped Jane Eyre halfway through 'cause i got too busy and i really should finish it.

Butler and Foucault are very difficult. I've struggled through some of their writings and am not sure i've retained much of anything. I suggest a CliffNotes of some sort.

I really should read Joseph Campbell.

Ayn Rand's fiction is just propaganda for her philosophy, but it's interesting. I read The Fountainhead and have been meaning to read Atlas Shrugged though i hear it's rather hard to take with just pages and pages of speechifying.

I hate Catcher in the Rye with a passion.

I should probably reread The Odyssey. The Iliad is deathly boring, though, just lots and lots of battles.

I keep meaning to read Byatt's Possession but it's hella long.

I have never heard of Michael Chabon.

Have you read Emma Donoghue's Hood and Kissing the Witch already? I think they're her best work, though i can't remember now if i ever did actually get around to reading Slammerkin.

[oyceter]

Chabon's the one who wrote Wonder Boys and The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Summerland (most recently)... he's just been floating around the bookstore a lot.

I've read Kissing the Witch and loved it... is Hood a version of Little Red Riding Hood, or something completely different?

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I tend to be oblivious to what's new/popular except when i'm actually working circulation at my library, so that explains why i haven't heard of Chabon. Wonder Boys sounds vaguely familiar.

Hood has as epigraph a piece of Olga Broumas' poem about Little Red Riding Hood, but mostly it's a wholly original novel. Was my introduction to Emma Donoghue and i've actually read it 2 or 3 times (rereading is deeply unusual for me).

[oyceter]

Yeah, generally I'm pretty oblivious too, but working in a bookstore has partially cured me of that ;). I think Wonder Boys was made into a movie a few years back, with Michael Douglas (?) and Tobey Maguire.