thessalian: (shy)
When the calendar flipped over to 6/6/06, about half the Christian population decided that the End was Nigh, and a fair few of the rest told everyone to "be careful on that day". Apparently, some heavily pregnant women have been going to great lengths to keep from giving birth to their children on that date. And I'm sure various nuts have been watching the skies for rains of toads and such.

However, I say bollocks to rains of toads and other conventional signs of Armageddon. Apocalypse may well be coming, but its signs came, to me at least, in a form that no one expected.

Someone actually paid some attention to me in my Hollow City game.

That's right; after months of ST-free living, I finally have something that might represent plot in that game. On the one hand, I say "woo-hoo!" and celebrate the fact that I'm not just completely ignored on that board. On the other hand, given that I submitted my application in late February, the suddenness of my reintegration as a character in San Fran is ... well, kinda creepy. I really am starting to think I should be looking for rains of toads.

(Oh, and I don't have the heart to tell the evident East Coaster that he's not going to find a CVS in San Francisco and should instead be looking for a Walgreens. Do your research, people; do I play in RPs set in the US and expect to find a Boots?)

In other news, I finished the Dark Tower series at long last. I suppose the LotR comparison's been made before, given that they have similar themes and such, but while it has that epic sense, DT also has similar problems to LotR. Needlessly long descriptive passages, for one. Sometimes, no matter how good a story is, it really does just flounder under its own weight. Still, there are moments (Callahan in the Dixie Pig, the outcome of Susannah's last door) where my heart just sort of fluttered and, as I do with many books, I fell in love a little.

Then, of course, I read the ending. The worst part about reading these things on public transport is that you can't yell, "Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me" at the book you're reading for fear of being considered a loony. Not that it was bad; not even that it was unexpected, per se. Just that it wasn't fair. He can say what he likes about it being "the right ending"; it felt like a cheat. Much like King's own role in the series felt like a cheat. I suppose a bit of disappointment after an undertaking of that size is only natural, but this is just ... hate to admit it, but this is me saying, "Yeah, it really is time you hang up your jock, Mr King. I love your work but take a vacation, huh?"

*sigh* Anyway. Work. Feh.
thessalian: (bugger off)
Screw this. I'm counting the sourcebooks. It's not like I'm not reading them cover to cover. )

Just Finished
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Total: 34

In Progress:
The Bhagavad Gita
The Bible
The Name of the Rose
The Canterbury Tales
Labyrinth

Currently Reading:
Labyrinth

In other news, I voted. Took part in The Process. And I'm all for making my voice heard, but I don't recall my voice saying anything about "Give the Tories more seats in my borough". *groan* I can't even say, "at least my section of the borough isn't Tory", mainly because West Finchley, my constituency, had a Labour majority. Not sure which is worse anymore.

Look, I'm all for being active in politics. However, due to life stuff and a general desire not to spend my entire life beating my head against brick walls and ranting and raving in a slathering rage about how no one who actually wants to be involved in politics should actually be permitted to run for government because they're all a bunch of power-hungry, lying, cheating, backstabbing, headline-grabbing, blinkered scandalmongering morons, I don't pay very much attention to what's going on in government. When I do, it tends to be big stuff -- national and international, for the most part -- and stuff that touches me in ways I can understand. NHS mismanagement. Public transport mismanagement. Foreign policy. That kind of thing. And seeing that, I am well aware that local government, whatever it might actually try to do, will get nowhere with national government grinding it into the ground with its bootheel, saying "I don't care if it's best for your people; you will do what I think is best." So if voting in a local election, I would have to vote from a position of total ignorance bar a few vague ideas about party politics, probably derived from cheap tabloid press (Metro) and 'Wot I 'eard from some bloke down the pub', or as close to that latter as I ever get. I don't really like making decisions like that from a position of ignorance so, once again, I was pretty much determined that I wasn't going to vote this time around. I don't want to be a part of the real failure of the democratic process, which is not so much apathy as voting in ignorance. After all, people voted Tony in again. People voted Bush in again. Why? Because, I have to believe, they were either completely stupid or hopelessly naive. Possibly both.

However. I was not given the option not to vote this time. Well, technically I was, because it's my life and I'll do what I please, but ... ever had basically the whole damn world guilt-tripping you? I even had Michael wagging a finger at me and telling me to vote. Then I came home and complained to [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo and got that "Well, you should; it's a duty and blah blah blah". It's a duty if you choose to make it one; if you really believe in who you're voting for, of course you believe it's your duty to go and do your part to put them in the seat you believe they deserve. But I haven't got anyone to believe in. I barely know what the parties do in local government, or would do if they were properly funded and managed with even a little bit of common sense. Last brush I had with local government was a three-week stint with Leicester City Council about ten years ago. I don't believe, and I can't exactly feel like it's my personal duty to go into a booth and randomly put checks in boxes. I tried to explain but ... well, upshot was I stormed out of the house, went through the process, put my ticks in various boxes (not Tory or Labour, obviously) and left feeling like a complete and utter fake. And I still feel like a fake. I feel cheap. I feel ignorant. I feel guilty for having been pressured into making a decision in ignorance, even if it ultimately doesn't seem to have made any difference, because if I am going to take part in a process that guides the country in which I am, through circumstance, forced to live, I would like to do it properly, and as it happened, I was unequipped. I let people bully me into doing something I wasn't comfortable with. And why? So I could avoid the reproachful looks and the statment of "You have no right to complain; you didn't even vote".

Well, suck it, the lot of you. I voted, fat lot of good it did, I feel terrible about it and I don't even know what I voted for, so I'm in the same position as I would have been if I hadn't voted at all. But I fucking well voted, and will bitch all I like.

I want to go home. So not in the mood today. Want to sit somewhere shady and not talk to anyone. Feh.
thessalian: (bookish)
Previously read: )
Just Finished
The Sicilian
Total: 14

In Progress:
The Bhagavad Gita
Beowulf
The Bible
The Name of the Rose

Currently Reading:
The Name of the Rose

The Sicilian was by no means as good as The Godfather. Yeah, there was a certain amount of epic storytelling involved, but I didn't actually like any of the characters. They completely glossed over the attempts on Michael's life and his ill-fated marriage, which intensely sucked, and frankly the so-called 'hero' just left me cold. I think the best part of it was the machinations and plotting that kept me at that book.

So far The Name of the Rose doesn't look as if it will disappoint, but I'm going to have to get myself into Formal English Mode to read through this one.

I'd have read more this month, but ... well, I did read more this month. It was just all sourcebooks.
thessalian: (caffeine)
Bought a copy of The Name of the Rose while on lunch break. I'm coming to the end of The Sicilian now, you see. It's kind of a shame that I'm not counting RPG sourcebooks in the [livejournal.com profile] 50bookchallenge thing because I'd be halfway there by now, the rate I've been going. So far it's been The Shadow Court, Inanimae, The Autumn People, Nobless Oblige, Commoner's Luck (all Changeling), Spectres, The Risen (both Wraith) and Book of the Wyrm. That's an extra eight books I could add. But I'm not. Gah. Maybe I'm being silly about it, but they just don't seem long enough to count.

Most of the rest of today has involved sending out reminder letters to people who seem to delight in refusing to respond to requests to do reviews. It's probably about all I'm equal to today anyway, though I think I need to go out to get stamps. Or so Michael tells me. I hate going to get stamps. But maybe the cold air will wake me up a little. So anyway, it's looking like "Get this lot of reminders out, scan those decisions that have come in, send them off to Ham-Fisted Editor and Lady Competence, go and make up the list of stamps we need and then go buy them". Hopefully by then, it'll be time to get the hell out of here.

Plus somewhere in there, there must be coffee. I desperately need caffeine.
thessalian: (bookish)
Previously read: )
Just Finished
Dune
Total: 13

In Progress:
The Bhagavad Gita
Beowulf
The Bible
The Sicilian

Currently Reading:
The Sicilian

Next Up:
Unknown; either The Bridge by Ian Banks or Joyce's Ulysses. Maybe The Canterbury Tales, if we can find [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo's copy.

Dune ... got better. It was a pretty good read, when I finally got warmed up to all the new universe stuff that Herbert dumps his reader into headfirst. Don't know if I'd read the others, but it's nice to know where all that stuff comes from.

Tonight was fun. Not your standard St Patrick's Day mess for us, thank you; we stayed home, ordered in Chinese food and watched Amadeus.

In other news, still no bloody word from the people at The Hollow City. Wah. Want to play.

And it's late. And I'm tired. So I'm going to bed. *yawn*
thessalian: (bookish)
Read:
Devices and Desires
Holistic Herbal: A Safe and Practical Guide to Making and Using Herbal Remedies
Cunninghams's Encyclopaedia of Magical Herbs
House of Leaves
The Bloody Chamber
Tipping the Velvet
Furnace
Neutron Star
Neuromancer
Memoirs of a Geisha
Lolita
The Secret History
Total: 12

In Progress:
Dune
The Bhagavad Gita
Beowulf
The Bible
The Sicilian

Currently Reading:
Dune

Next Up:
The Sicilian

I really enjoyed The Secret History; my favourite recommended book thus far. Neuromancer and The Furnace weren't bad, but Neutron Star just really didn't do it for me and House of Leaves, recommended to me greatly by [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo, really did leave me cold. So thanks for the suggestion, [livejournal.com profile] weaselbitch.

I may have to put Dune aside for awhile. Herbert seems to have this thing about chucking you headfirst into the middle of this really complicated universe without so much as a how d'you do and lets you sink or swim on your own. I don't seem to be sinking too badly, but it's a bit of a slog and a trial. I'm sure I'll get into a rhythm with it eventually, though. After that I'm going to polish off The Sicilian, which I picked up from one of the local charity shops the week I was ill (yay, me), so I've got at least that long to decide what I'm going to read next. The listed books I see in front of me include Slaughterhouse 5, Catch-22, The Wasp Factory, Ulysses, Paradise Lost, Tales of the Cthulu Mythos, The Koran, The Bible and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The religious texts are probably not going to be read in one go. The Milton is a bit hefty for a commute read. I really should at least polish off Beowulf and The Bhagavad Gita before I read anything else, though. Maybe I can go back to those when I need a break from Arrakis.

The other thing I've read recently is V for Vendetta; don't know if that one counts, though. It's fairly long as these things go, but it's still a TPB and I promised I wouldn't count those. (If I did, I'd have to count Those Left Behind, the first of the Serenity comics, and it was really too short.) In any case, it was a fantastic story and now I'm looking forward to the film more than ever.

So many films coming up that I'm looking forward to. Well, relatively; this is coming from the person who only saw three films at the cinema in the last 12 months (Serenity, Saw II and Land of the Dead). But given that I have plans to see at least three films that are coming out in the next couple of months (V for Vendetta, The Proposition and Silent Hill), it's looking up this year. Note to self: stock up on painkillers. Cinema always gives me migraine.

Retrial

Mar. 7th, 2006 10:44 am
thessalian: (sucky day)
So now that I've been book shopping, another update on how the 50bookchallenge is going.

Read:
Devices and Desires
Holistic Herbal: A Safe and Practical Guide to Making and Using Herbal Remedies
Cunninghams's Encyclopaedia of Magical Herbs
House of Leaves
The Bloody Chamber
Tipping the Velvet
Furnace
Neutron Star
Neuromancer
Memoirs of a Geisha
Lolita
Total: 11

In Progress:
Dune
The Bhagavad Gita
Beowulf
The Bible
The Secret History

Currently Reading:
The Secret History

Next Up:
Dune

I've had to kind of revise the format for my "Books Read" list because, frankly, my literary mood swings are prodigious and legendary. I might start up reading one book, then find the next morning that I'm just not in the mood at that point and pick up something else. The best way to ensure that I get through a book is to take it with me on the commute and ensure that it is the only book I take on the commute. However, since I've been home for the last week, with tonsil-based lurgy and fever wrecking my attention span, I've now progressed partway through nearly half a dozen new books. That's not counting the RPG sourcebooks (Changeling!), graphic novels and rereads.

So I'm in the middle of The Secret History at the moment. I like the way it sets itself up, and I do rather feel for the narrator. So thanks to [livejournal.com profile] weaselbitch for the suggestion; that one's on my list of books that make me glad I took on the challenge (along with Memoirs of a Geisha and Tipping the Velvet).

In other news, I am going over the stuff that accrued over the week-plus that I was away. On the way, I found a couple of author queries from people to whom I sent decisions yesterday, but (thorough being the watchword) I checked anyway. Almost nothing I sent out yesterday went. Fifteen emails down the fucking drain that I now have to retype. Argh, argh, ARGH. So not only do I have to repeat everything I did yesterday, but I have to put together a bunch of papers for decision for Ham-Fisted Editor, who doesn't seem to understand that his request for six papers with referees' opinions rather depends on having six papers with referees' opinions, and that I cannot pull expert commentary out of my arse for him. Argh.
thessalian: (bookish)
So now that I've been book shopping, another update on how the [livejournal.com profile] 50bookchallenge is going.

Read:
Devices and Desires
Holistic Herbal: A Safe and Practical Guide to Making and Using Herbal Remedies
Cunninghams's Encyclopaedia of Magical Herbs
House of Leaves
The Bloody Chamber
Tipping the Velvet
Furnace
Neutron Star
Neuromancer
Memoirs of a Geisha
Total: 10

Currently Reading:
Dune
The Bhagavad Gita
Beowulf
The Bible

Next Up:
Lolita
The Secret History

I realise looking back that Neuromancer was not on my original list, though it was a [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo suggestion when I did the original list. I'm thinking that, in light of this kind of thing, my list needs to change a little. I'm not going to leave out any books that I read this year that weren't rereads, sourcebooks or manga / graphic novel stuff. So the list has expanded just a tad. Let's see how long it takes me to get to 50 on that basis. Doesn't mean I'm not going to read every single book that was on the original list of 50; I'm just going to be more thorough in my count. Anyway, Dune isn't so bad, as these things go. I mean, yes, it's throwing a lot of world at you in one big chunk without explaining a great deal, but these things happen. I'll keep hacking away at it and see how things develop.

I am not a very happy or well Thess at all. I hope I manage dinner okay. Lunch seems to have made me extremely nauseous.
thessalian: (need a hug)
I'm tired, I'm nauseous, I'm alternately hot and cold, I ache and the last thing I wanted to do this morning was get out of bed. I think I may have caught [livejournal.com profile] weaselbitch's lurgy after all. Blech. Oh well, it was nice to see her Tuesday, anyway.

Another day of going through T-cards and checking over to see what's going on with the referees. Mostly nothing. At least I'm getting to the newer ones now. I just want to go home, but instead I'm searching through old emails going, "That really did go to those people, right? I need to be able to prove it or I'm screwed". This is a ridiculous way to work but now it seems I spend more time making sure I can prove I did something than actually doing things.

Lunch hour is going to be hectic. As well as standard payday-related errands and eating lunch, I need to pick up at least one new book (finished Memoirs of a Geisha on the commute this morning, and is it just me or did the trailers etc for Memoirs of a Geisha turn that story into more of a romance than it actually was?) so I have something to do while eating lunch. A complicated life. Heh. Then out again to have a nice dinner out, which I think [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo and I both deserve. It's not been a kind week. But at least there are things to look forward to; like, for instance, the prospect of time off in just over a month's time. (Much like I did, [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo is booking the week of his birthday off and I think that sounds like a fine idea so I'll join him.) Seems so far away on one level, but on another it feels like just yesterday that the week started. So swings and roundabouts.

I want to go home, though.
thessalian: (fed up)
I'm not sure I get how judgement calls are made in this office. After the week I've had (with Michael checking over every goddamn thing I do every couple of days, which is a little frustrating but I suppose it proves that I am not the doofus here), you'd think that there was a zero tolerance policy on not keeping people informed on work-related matters. I really don't think this is the case, because James is getting away with murder.

James has a peculiar schedule; he comes in three days a week, generally whichever days he feels like, and tells no one which days he won't be in. This is irritating, but we cope. So a few weeks back, I see that Angela and James have both signed themselves off on the week of 13-17 February and remember that I meant to take the week of my birthday off. I talk to Michael (with James in the room), clear the leave time with Michael, and mark it on the board. James then says, "Oh, I'm off for most of that week too; I cleared that with you ages ago. I just forgot to write it on the board." Never mind the fact that a) he'd obviously remembered to write down the previous week, b) Michael obviously didn't know a thing about it and c) that left Michael with no cover on the admin side whatsoever. But Michael just let it go without saying a word. James has now been off for a week and a half and was supposed to be back Monday, as far as we knew. He did not show up on Monday. He did not call in on Monday. It's obvious to me that he took Monday as one of his two days off per week, but he never said as much to anyone else. He's not in today, either, and hasn't rung or anything.

Now, this is not the first time this has happened. James has booked off time, said, "See you Monday" and gone swanning out of the office for an already extended weekend, only to come swanning back into the office on Wednesday, two days after he said he'd be in, and say, "I did say ... oh, didn't I? Must have forgotten; heh." And Michael lets this slide. Wonder if it's going to be the same thing again when / if James comes swanning into the office tomorrow. Shame I won't be there to see, as he comes in an hour before I do. Well, he's supposed to, at least. I hope this doesn't reflect badly when I want to take time off in early April.

Anyway, today is yet more work, followed by drinks and basket food at the Oliphaunt with [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo and [livejournal.com profile] weaselbitch. I hope I'm in any kind of mood for drinks and basket food by the time I get out of here. I'm sure there'll be any amount of fun conversation and the company of good friends, though, so I should at least make the effort. Besides, given what I heard about the meet-up I shunned for Sims 2 last weekend, I should have many giggles from the idea of Skank and Lucius barricaded in a tiny room in Ceoris and Lucius turning around to Skank and saying, "You know, we never talk anymore..."

Also made a start on Memoirs of a Geisha. I'm quite enjoying it; it makes a change from the sci-fi that I've been focusing on of late.
thessalian: (bookish)
My 50-Book Challenge update goes as follows:

Read:
House of Leaves
The Bloody Chamber
Tipping the Velvet
Furnace
Neutron Star

Currently Reading:
Neuromancer
The Bhagavad Gita
Beowulf
The Bible

Next Up:
Memoirs of a Geisha
Tales from the Cthulu Mythos
Ulysses

I'm well ahead on this [livejournal.com profile] 50bookchallenge thing. 52 weeks a year = 1 book per week. Fine, I had a bit of catching up to do, as I started late, but even by that reckoning I'm at least a book and a half to the good. Go, me. If I focus on the way home I'll be two books up not counting the bits of the 'Currently Reading' stack. I really should buckle down to Beowulf, though. It's not as though it's long. The Bible, on the other hand, is going to have to be read in snippets. I'm a fair ways through Genesis, at least. As for the Bhagavat Gita ... it would help if I knew who the bloody hell they were talking about sometimes; it doesn't half throw names at you. I think I need associated text, or possibly Google. Hell, even Wikipedia might help.

Today's been a nightmare. Post run. Server crash. Tidy tidy tidy sort sort sort. Massive list of alternate referee requests sent to poor Lady Competence. Three papers sent to my favourite statistician -- the poor man's swamped, but he finished all the other stuff, so at least that's something. I will be so glad to be getting home ... which I will be doing any minute now, just as soon as I tidy some things. Yay.

Fair?

Feb. 17th, 2006 04:15 pm
thessalian: (column)
There's more to gripe about as regards work, but I'm getting a little sick of sitting here and grumbling how it's not fair. I mean, it's not fair, but that doesn't mean I have to bore people about it. Life's not fair, so I really ought to just suck it up and cope. Though admittedly, it does gall me how my predecessor's mistakes (like forgetting to give copy editing the hard copy of a paper that was accepted for publication in June, leaving it to sit in my file cabinets for the last eight months because I didn't know it was there) are accepted with a "no big deal" shrug. I know she's gone and everything, but at least it would have been a balm for my battered sense of self-worth to see Michael being marginally annoyed at someone other than me. But he wasn't, so I will just have to soldier on. For one thing, I desperately need this job.

Anyway, that's enough griping. I did a great deal of very hard, very good work today. Tonight I can go home, possibly cook dinner, maybe faff about with Sims 2 (that's if Mod the Sims 2's server will actually decide to work for a change) and definitely get some sleep. Gah. Knackered.

Oh, and I finished Furnace. As I was saying to [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo yesterday, I have a hard time empathising with characters who are ignoring the big scary problems in the hopes that they'll just go away, and that was my initial problem with the story as a whole. When the protagonist actually started doing something, instead of just having things happen to him, I got more interested. So another book bites the dust and it was more enjoyable than I thought it would be mid-way through. I should probably finish Neutron Star or Beowulf at least before I start in on anything else.

And there was a [livejournal.com profile] luciusmarwood column waiting for me when I checked up this afternoon. Yay! So to [livejournal.com profile] dodgyhoodoo and [livejournal.com profile] nadriel at the very least, I point out the icon. I really do have to make that text more legibile.

Update

Feb. 16th, 2006 01:51 pm
thessalian: (inspired)
My 50-Book Challenge update goes as follows:

Read:
House of Leaves
The Bloody Chamber
Tipping the Velvet

Currently Reading:
Furnace
Neutron Star
The Bhagavad Gita
Beowulf
The Bible

Next Up:
Tales from the Cthulu Mythos
Ulysses

And now I'm going to lunch, because I'm starving and if I don't get out of this office soon, I'm going to go completely insane. I've finally managed to get on top of the day-to-day stuff and now I have to sort out the other mess ... but after lunch. I'm going to be so wiped when I get home...

Probation

Feb. 15th, 2006 03:14 pm
thessalian: (need a hug)
The meeting went about as expected. Michael told me all the things that were going wrong (neglected T-card updates, which I started improving at least a month ago, papers that were 'stuck' because no one was responding and I was too busy trying to track down other stuck papers to notice those ones, missing referees for which I never got help with the address or author name from Ham-Fisted Editor etc), didn't listen to any of the improvements that I had already made to stop any of those things from happening again or the fact that I can't take back the fact that things didn't happen when I was trying to find my way around things and set up my own systems, and generally got a sound bollocking.

I also got told that, because of the stuff he brought up, Michael doesn't feel that my work is good enough to justify taking me off probation. So he's extending it to May. If things don't improve by then, well ... you get the picture. So because I don't generally have the time to file everything in triplicate when I'm trying to do three things at once, and because Ham-Fisted Editor can't get certain things right, and because of a learning curve that's only showing up problems now because of turn-around time, I may lose my job in three months. Needless to say, I'm not exactly happy. Lady Competence has had nothing but praise for me, and yet. Everything's on the computer, and it's not exactly rocket science to run a search and get all the details right then and there, but another thing that I got bitched out about is not having a copy of everything I ever send out about a paper in the folders. When they could just ask me to look in the Sent file, or do it themselves if I'm not there. But Michael doesn't seem to think that's a reasonable way of doing things, so...

The orders are as follows: I have to keep hard copy documentation of everything the editors send me, in chronological order and on file, and mark off what I've done on each after it's been finished, to be reviewed in May. I have to go over all the T-cards (going on a hundred) once a week to make sure no papers are 'stuck'. I have to print off not only everything that comes in, but everything I send out, and file it in the folder of the paper to which it relates. I'm trying but it's already slowing me down to the point where I think I'll be in a pretty bad position come the end of the week. (And no, I don't think the five minutes it'll take to type this will make much difference.) And of course, if I end up in a hole work-wise, it'll be pretty bad come May. Which will say nothing but bad things about my work performance, which will have me either on further probation or outright sacked. I just want to curl up and die.

In the only positive news of the day, I picked up a copy of Tipping the Velvet while on lunch. I'm enjoying it one hell of a lot better than Neutron Star, I can tell you. I guess I just don't get along with hard fantasy; not enough people dealing with people and too much people dealing with machines. I guess it's predominantly writing for geeks who don't like dealing with people and prefer machines (no offence, y'all). Not that I'm not going to finish Neutron Star; I said I would and so I will. It's just not my bag, and I guess it never will be.

One Down

Feb. 6th, 2006 01:47 am
thessalian: (bookish)
Finished House of Leaves. What an utterly bizarre book.

Cut for spoilers. )

One down, 49 to go. Haven't decided which one's going to be next, but I will admit to wanting something a little less difficult. I don't have anything against difficult books as a rule, but after all those fucking footnotes, I think I deserve a little light reading.

And now I'm going to go to bed, and wake up whenever the hell I feel like it, hooray!

Challenging

Feb. 2nd, 2006 10:54 pm
thessalian: (Default)
Hmmkay, so looking at my request for lit suggestions and the replies I got, I think I have my ten books to complete the 50-book challenge.

Cut for friends lists )

So that's all fifty books. That should keep me going for a few months.

Okay, now my challenge to you all. I'm going to list my ten all-time favourite books (of the moment, anyway). Pick one of them that you haven't read, letting me know in comments which one you've chosen, and read it. It seems to be a horizon-expanding exercise, this 50-books-a-year thing, and I'd like to return the favour a little.

So here's the ten I've picked:

Anne of Green Gables, by L M Montgomery
Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami
Dance Dance Dance, by Haruki Murakami
Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
The Godfather, by Mario Puzo
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Prozac Nation, by Elizabeth Wurtzel
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith


Is anyone game, then?
thessalian: (inspired)
Hate public transport. HATE IT. Trains to Morden via Bank, and trains to Euston via Bank, but the one Kennington via Charing Cross train that turned up in between six other trains was packed to the rafters. So eventually I got on a train upon which I could actually get a seat, only to find myself wedged between two men who felt it was their right and duty to keep their elbows a good three inches into my personal space. *sigh* Only one more day of this bullshit and then I get nine days where I don't have to think about it anymore. No just-past-rush public transport for nine whole days! Yay!

I was going to do sticky ribs for dinner last night (I am, I might point out, rather proud of myself for mastering sticky ribs on my first attempt) but work just sucked too bad for me to be keen on cooking. Actually, for the first hour or so of getting home, I was moving like something Romero would have come up with on a bad day. So we had curry instead. I am going to do the sticky ribs tonight, though, provided I can actually wake the fuck up at any point.

Still hacking through House of Leaves. The format is fucked up but the story's getting ... well, not more linear but at least a little more connected. Despite the distracting nature of the format, it's a hell of a mood piece if nothing else. It just requires perseverence. I suppose I practiced for that with Devices and Desires, so...

Ugh. Want to go back to bed now.

Lit Pimpage

Feb. 1st, 2006 12:11 pm
thessalian: (bookish)
In the spirit of the whole [livejournal.com profile] 50bookchallenge thing, here are 40 books I really want to read this year (because we all know I'm going to beat the crap out of 50 in 11 months).

Books! )

So out of the 50 books I'm challenged to read, I've listed 40, and will be checking them off over the course of the year. You'll notice that I'm 10 short, less if I count the books I listed last entry (and I'm not). I did that to leave some recommendation room from my friends. I know I'll never notice all the books out there, after all. So ... help? Any suggestions to fill those last ten spots? I know I'll fill them with something in the end, but I'd like some suggestions that aren't just my "I was too lazy to read that one" list...

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