(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

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!!