NYC and book loot from the Strand and B&N

[oyceter]

Argh, have just found out that LJ is still not emailing me all my comments! Grrrr.

But... Yay! I have made my very first gingerbread house ever, with much help from cychi, who I made do the icing. It is ugly and lopsided and completely, disgustingly packed with candy, but now I feel all holiday traditional! Well, as much as you can get with a prefabricated gingerbread house kit from Costco. But I care not! Plus, have never made one before ^_^. (Also, the front has a frightening resemblance to a spider's face. I am not quite sure how this happened.)

Am still somewhat missing New York and visiting people and crashing at my sister's apartment, and all that happy holiday stuff. It was also just nice being in the city itself again; four years of college in New Jersey, and I'd grown to think of New York as The City. I didn't get to go there as often as I liked, just enough to pretend that I actually knew where I was going and the like. Also, I just like cities. I like figuring out the subway and the bus systems, and I like digging around in all the nooks and crannies.

New York was grey and dirty and much taller than San Francisco, which is cloudy but pastel and ornate. There's more honking and more biting wind. And I don't care, because I love it, from the clanking subway cars that come to screeching halts to the crowded streets. I seriously contemplated moving there for a few hours (mostly while I was at Chikalicious and the Strand and coffeeandink and my sister's apartments), but promptly reconsidered the second I stepped outside. I don't deal well with the cold.

I felt all happy because after a day being completely confused by what was where, I went around and felt all New-Yorker-y because I was walking around really fast and dodging people and avoiding eye contact! Of course, the fact that this excited me probably already disqualifies me from New-Yorker-dom ;).

And now... book loot!

• Peter Dickinson, Eva - Mely made me. Well, ok, and I've heard it was really good. Not that I didn't get a ton of books anyway just because Mely said they were good.


• Scott Westerfeld, Evolution's Darling, So Yesterday, and Pretties - Pretties I got new because I am impatient. But... yay, more Scott Westerfeld! I sat amazed listening to coffeeandink and geekturnedvamp talking about meeting Westerfeld and Justine Larbeleister and etc.


• Caroline Stevermer, River Rats - totally overlooked this at the Strand first time round, but luckily, after seeing geekturnedvamp snatch it, I ran back up and got the last copy, muhahahaha!


• Sakura Tsukuba, Land of the Blindfolded, vol. 1 (manga) - Mely's rec ;). I suspect "Mely's rec" will be a very common theme going forward, which is why LJ is such a wonderful, wonderful place to be.


• Diana Preston, The Boxer Rebellion - mostly I want to know more about this because of "Fool for Love" and "Darla." TV very good for education ;).


• Marguerite Yourcenar, A Coin in Nine Hands - Mely's rec (also, the whole thing about people's stories united only by a coin and the setting of Mussolini's Italy rocks)


• Shimizu Aki, Qwan, vol. 1 (manga) - Mely's rec. Also, ancient Chinese fantasy!


• Emma Donoghue, Life Mask - because I adore Kissing the Witch and haven't read any other Donoghue.


• Evangeline Walton, The Island of the Mighty - Mely's rec.


• Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim, vol. 1 (manga) - Mely's rec. Also, it was one of the only few English language manga rachelmanija recced.


• Adele Geras, The Tower Room and Pictures of the Night - two YA novels based on fairy tales, set in a boarding school. I already have Watching the Roses and have been looking for these for a while! I suspect they will be horribly depressing and really cracktastic, but who cares! Fairy tale retellings!


• Gillian Bradshaw, The Beacon at Alexandria - Mely's rec. Also, I remember rilina going on a Bradshaw streak a while back.


• Roger Zelazny, The Dream Master - Mely's rec. I am woefully underread in sci-fi, mostly because people used to just rec me hard sci-fi and I got a bit bored with Asimov (I know, I know...).


• Watase Yuu, Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, vols. 1-2 (manga) - both Mely and Rachel mentioned it, and I have very little willpower when confronted with pretty manga.


• Mary Jo Putney, Dancing on the Wind - attempt #6 at getting a Putney that I am a) not lukewram toward and b) do not want to chuck against a wall.


• Arturo Perez-Reverte, The Queen of the South - I was going to say "historical fiction for a dollar" until I just read the back and realized it might not be historical fiction. Um... right.


• Jeff Vandermeer, Veniss Underground - Sort of Mely's rec... she didn't like it, but her review was so interesting that I got it anyway.


• Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber - because I haven't actually read any of Angela Carter, despite hunting down tons of fairy tale retellings. I am woefully underread?


• Gardner Dozois, Strangers - the poor thing almost made its way to my cull pile, despite being a Mely rec (many things were randomly culled because my wallet was getting too thin and my basket was getting too heavy), until oracne jumped in and seconded it.


• Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Corner That Held Them - Mely rec! Plus, nuns.


• Yazawa Ai, Nana, vol. 1 (manga) - I support my favorite mangaka! And my favorite series! Everyone else should too!


• Ed. John Ferrone, The Armchair James Beard - food essays for five dollars!

Wah, now that I have typed this all up, all I can think about are the poor books that made their sad way to my cull pile =(. Oh well. The library calls!

After seeing coffeeandink's book-filled house, I am now inspired to fit in even more bookcases! fannishly and I sort of went through the living room and figured that we could fit in three more bookcases or so, and I think I can fit more shallow media cases for manga or mass markets in my bedroom. Ha! And! I shall copy Mely and use my kitchen cabinets too!

This is probably a good thing, because I just found out that the library sale is this weekend! My public library always has things in pretty good condition. I am planning on going twice, once for stuff I actually want and once for the bag sale.

Why, yes, Bob, I did indeed buy over twenty books this weekend. I do not understand what this has to do with anything ;).

Comments

[gwynnega]

Yay, The Bloody Chamber!

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

.....I could use my kitchen cabinets! GENIUS!

[oyceter]

I know! Isn't it? I was in coffeeandink's kitchen, and oracne opened one of the little cabinets up high that never get used, to reveal stacks and stacks of romances!

This makes me so happy ^_^.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

I just posted photos in my LJ of using my kitchen cabinets to store books. And also on top of the cabinets. And...

:-)

[cofax7]

Yay Bradshaw, Zelazny, Walton, and Stevermer! I regularly push River Rats on people with the announcement that it's the best post-apocalyptic punk rock-and-roll steamboat YA novel ever. Oddly, that works. *g*

Mely recs are good things! I hope you had enough room in your bags to get them all home...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

River Rats got me to go back to 1crowdedhour's work after I disliked the first one I tried (When the King Comes Home just didn't hit me right.)

[oyceter]

That is a great description. I love Mely recs too ^_^. I amazingly did have juuuuust enough room in my duffel bag to stuff everything in (mostly because I brought over the afghan I finished to give to my sister), but it ended up weighing 30+ pounds!

[cychi.livejournal.com]

you have a Roger Zelany book that is not of Amber?!?! WAHHHH!!! *contenplates breaking into your place and stealing it... or at least breaking in, reading it , and then running away* ;P

[oyceter]

Mwahahahaha you have no car! Neener ;).

Though you can totally borrow it!

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Yay for the Bradshaw! Have also read the Walton; my memories of it are vague, but I mostly remember liking it.

[oyceter]

I am very glad to have completely new authors to read! Quite exciting ^_^.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Veniss Underground is very, very gruesome in places - far more horrific than the earlier Vandermeer stuff I've read.

[oyceter]

Hrm. Gruesome bloody?

Oh dear, I don't deal well with horror...

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Blood, torture, mutilation, hideous biotech experiments. Intermittent but at times quite intense.

comment notification

[qiihoskeh]

So, do you want a list of all those comments I made to old posts recently? :)

Also: I can't imagine you overlooking something with "Rats" in the title!

Re: comment notification

[oyceter]

Nah, it just means that I have to use http://www.livejournal.com/tools/recent_comments.bml more.

Re: comment notification

[qiihoskeh]

At least I'm getting reply notifications. I guess because I get so few, compared to some people? BTW Thanks for that recent comments link; it's hard to find via the site map and I can't save links on the library's computers. I can use it to see who I've been spamming where I've made comments.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

The Beacon at Alexandria! Love that book. One of my favorite Bradshaws. (She's not always spectacular, but she is definitely reliable, and a few of her books are great.)

[oyceter]

Oo ok, good! This makes me happy!

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Marguerite Yourcenar, A Coin in Nine Hands

This one sounds really interesting.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Please please please photograph the spiderbread house and post it here before you eat it!

So Yesterday is a really fun read, but I ended up not liking it that much because I have a personal dislike for characters who are overly cool, and the entire premise involves everyone in the book being incredibly cool. You'll see what I mean when you read it. The premise, incidentally, is based on a chapter of a nonfiction book by Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

All your stories of going around with Oyce and recommending things made me a wee bit jealous. I may have gotten a bit competitive.

... Except I'm not sure that actually changed my behavior, as wandering around the Strand and pushing books into other people's hands is actually my modus operandi with out-of-town guests.

[oyceter]

Hey, all the better for me! More books! Joy!

[oyceter]

Will do! Mwahaha, I have decided to name spiderbread house Shelob. It seems appropriate.

I just read the back of So Yesterday, and it completely sounds like that chapter of The Tipping Point and some other articles I've read about trendsetting and teh like.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Also, a very fun Jet Li movie, Once Upon a Time in China II, is set during and is about the Boxer Rebellion, if I recall correctly.

[oyceter]

Oh cool! Those are the Wang Fei Hong movies, yeah? I keep meaning to watch them.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yep. I and II are the best.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

*cough* This is the part where I admit I haven't read The Corner That Held Them yet myself, but thought it was worth recommending because of the general wonderfulness of Sylvia Townsend Warner.

[oyceter]

Hee! That's ok... I keep reccing all these EAS books that I've only read chapters of for class. -_-;;

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Scott Pilgrim is... odd. I am amused by its mishmash of American teen drama, fashion, manga, and Bollywood. If you like it, check out Hopeless Savages, which I adore and which has bits by the same artist. (Alas, it is not in the little manga-sized books.)

Here's how we built our bookshelves. It was way easy and I love them. Teresa Nielsen Hayden's bookshelf recipe (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/msg/29ecbc662eb930f?output=gplain), which we altered slightly in ways I will witter on about if asked. They fit MMPBs perfectly, and some little hardcovers and TPBs work well enough. We got about 50 feet of shelf space for about $100.

[oyceter]

Oooooooo bookshelves.....

Ooooooooooooo.

Thanks ^_^.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Happy to share the bookshelfy goodness. hattifattener insists that I mention our main alteration, which was putting the shelves on pegs instead of screwing them in. We beefed up the corner joins with brackets to compensate. No major earthquakes yet, but they're bolted to the wall and ought to be okay as long as the house stays intact.