hermitgeecko | Entries tagged with books

http://www.sandraboynton.com/sboynton/Introduction.html

I mean, she does more than just happy hippos. She does all kinds of stuff. Cute stuff. And my parents had the chocolate book when I was little. But I couldn't have told you who she was. In fact, I haven't remembered for a long time that I didn't know who the happy hippo lady was, because if I remembered, I would have asked my parents. They would've known. But I just occasionally mention the happy hippo lady in conversation and then people look at me funny and it's always under circumstances where I can't remember who she is or look it up and... yeah. Not so impressive.

Except

sovay posted a comment on

farwing's journal and now I know and now I have her site bookmarked and everything, and there will be no forgetting.

And I like Sandra Boynton and this probably means I'm going to go buy a coffee mug or something. Come Friday, when I have a paycheck.

Yay.

Current Mood: joyous

So, as many people have posted, there is concerning news about Terry Pratchett.

http://www.paulkidby.com/news/index.html

Like many others, I am dismayed to hear this and wishing him all the best.

Current Mood: worried

Not civilization, Civilization, as in Sid Meier's.

Steven Brust (the guy who wrote Jhereg, which is the first fantasy novel about Vlad Taltos) wrote a great Civilization parody on "Addicted to Love". You can see it at http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/66515.html. I was greatly amused.

However...

I encountered his LJ through

naamah_darling, who was using it to advise the world that he is having some financial trouble, not to show off his amusing parody, so I will pass along that he is having serious medical trouble and no health insurance. If you have any interest in helping out, you can do so by going to http://dreamcafe.com/donate.html. Or maybe just by buying a few more Vlad books. He's currently working on Iorich.

Current Mood: okay

I had a complicated dream last night in which, among other things, I was learning higher mathematics from Severius Snape.

I woke up annoyed because I realized that my dream had confused integrals with square roots... and then became significantly more annoyed when I realized that I have no idea any more how to figure x in an equation when it's featured in an integral.

I hit Wikipedia to make sure that I did indeed remember what integrals are good for (determining area under a function) and then let it go.

I haven't cracked a math textbook since I was 18. Beyond random curiosity, my life includes no good reasons to start now... and you know, I'm just not that curious.

Current Mood: annoyed

Another Ship of the Wall
(to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)")

We don't need no Mantie nation.
We don't need no Queen's control.
No Honor waitin, conquest fadin --
Manties, leave us on the Dole!
Hey, Manties, leave us on the Dole!
All in all it's just another ship of the wall.
All in all you're just another ship of the wall.

Current Mood: amused

lerite posted a list of some great books, so I'm following suit.

In no particular priority, with no more than one book by a single author included, here are ten of the best books that I've ever read. I fanned across the various genres that I enjoy instead of focusing entirely on my "default" genres (which are, indubitably, science fiction and fantasy!)

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Dragonsbane, Barbara Hambly
Watchers, Dean Koontz
Honest Illusions, Nora Roberts
Firestarter, Stephen King
Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, Dorothy Gilman
Steel Beach, John Varley
The Snow Queen, Joan Vinge
House of Zeor, Jacqueline Lichtenberg

I'm not sure that I can really call this a "top ten" list in terms of quality. I think, instead, that it's a list of ten great starting places, or maybe just ten books that I recommend to the world. All of these are forerunner books for me -- the first books I read that caused me to consider the merits of a genre or an author. Each of these is the first book of an excellent series or a stand-alone novel that shows off the author's best traits. (The exception to that rule is Reaper Man, but starting at the beginning of Terry Pratchett's Discworld is a poor idea, since the first book was pretty awful, and Reaper Man is readable and interesting on its own.)

I have indubitably forgotten books that I would want to include if I had thought of them. I'll think of them later.

On a side note, C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy is amazing, and I recommend it very highly. (Gerald Tarrant is one of my favorite characters of all time.) With that said, I feel that it really takes all three books to appreciate the series. Ditto for Lindsey Davis's Falco novels and the Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child collaborations, where I love the accumulated effect of the series, but don't feel inclined to praise any individual novel above the others.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Hey, it's banned books week.

Some stuff I've read and haven't read:

( Continue under this cut. )

Actually, finished 4 -- three by Daniel Pinkwater, one by Mercedes Lackey.

At this point, I have decided that I am too inconsistent a reader (as there have been many start-and-stops involved) to do short reviews. Oh well. Some other year, maybe.

Yay, honey and peanut butter and bread.

The good news:
My supervisor gave her consent for me to attend the UNC-CH Human Resources course in Intermediate Sign Language.

The bad news:
There are so few people signed up for this course that I think it's going to be cancelled.

The good news:
I'm buckling down, cleaning, and packing to move to a cheaper apartment in February. This is the most important part of getting my berserk financial situation under control.

The bad news:
I have no idea how we're going to pay the January rent. I suspect my grandmother is going to be involved, and then I will feel hellaciously guilty (or guiltier, considering the amount of money I owe my parents already.)

( Everything else is hidden under this cut. )

Geek, over and out.

I brought the wrong book with me to work today (Ode to a Banker, which I finished yesterday, instead of A Body in the Bathhouse, which I am currently reading) and also didn't organize well enough in the morning to pack a lunch. Between the two, I went off to buy hot chocolate and sit around the UNC hospital writing poetry for an hour instead of eating lunch and reading. (I had pancakes earlier, after all, so I wasn't terribly hungry.)

I buried the actual poetry under the cuts.

( For Someone Who Will Read This )

( The Girl in the Hospital Corridor )

( They Have Found Water On Mars )

I went to bed last night at 9:30 PM under the influence of Tussionex. I slept till 6:30 AM this morning, and I'm still dead. In terms of wakefulness, this is an improvement over the 12 hours of sleep I've been racking up nightly, but the exhaustion isn't a whole lot of fun. With 12 hours of sleep, I was feeling OK at work, and now I'm not.

Ever read Nancy Kress's Beggars in Spain? It's a marvelous novel. It involves people who have been genetically engineered so that they don't need sleep. I would give a great deal for that. The extra time would be so beneficial.

I spend 10.5 hours of every weekday at work. I spend 8 to 10 hours of every weekday (when I'm not on multiple cough syrups) asleep. All the rest of the time seems to get siphoned away by the tiny, day-to-day things that make up the life of the Geek... showering, eating, dishes, etc. etc. etc.

It can't be that bad, though, and I base that on the fact that I have time a) to notice that other people have LiveJournals, and b) to have one myself. On the other hand, I'm doing this from work in a slow moment, so my argument isn't all that strong.

I found out today that my husband won't be coming home for Christmas with me. (This is "home" in the sense of "where I grew up", not "where I live".) He has a grand total of three days off work for Christmas vacation, and, since it's seventeen hours home by car, there's no point to it. I still want to go home for Christmas, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to manage it. I've written home to beg my parents to arrange plane fare for me, and I'm pretty sure they will, but what if they don't?

The Geek wants to go home now please, but it's not even past noon. 5 PM seems awfully far off today.