Years ago, when I was working in the instructional resource center for the education department in college, I read a lot. Like, all the time. I had shelves and shelves of good YA lit at my disposal, and new books coming in all the time. One of the first books I picked up didn’t seem to fit in too well - it was a mass market paperback that looked pretty un-YA, and the back cover copy made the book seem more adult-ish than YA-ish. I picked it up to read anyway, since it still sounded like a good read.
It was. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. Literally. My boyfriend of the time, who was used to my nose being stuck constantly in a book, was complaining about my not putting it down. I just pretty much devoured the book without even stopping for dinner.
A few years later, I started hearing about the book again, as well as the two sequels that completed the trilogy. It was getting fantastic reviews, and now I was seeing it in trade paperback format, with redesigned covers that made the books look more like the YA they were.
Well. I finally got around to reading the sequels. I re-read The Golden Compass early last week (again, could not put the thing down). I finished The Subtle Knife last Friday (started it that morning and finished it that night), and will be to the end of The Amber Compass very soon. They’ve all been a treat to read, but I think the last of the three is the weakest of the trilogy, based soley on my ability to put it down. I know I’m probably the last to tell you, but if you haven’t read the trilogy, or at least the first of the three yet, well, get thee to a library already!
So, today was a Monday in the worst ways. Work was fair-to-sucky. The rain is coming down harder and longer than before (which sucks b/c my raincoat only covers my upper half - my legs always get wet on the scooter) and it just feels gloomy. Basically, nothing interesting happened today at all, leaving me precious little to write about.
Instead, I’ll tell you more about yesterday.
Near the train station, we found a bookstore that had a decent selection of English-language literature (by which I mean they had about 12 or so titles). I bought a couple books (yay!) just because I could.
The first one I picked up was Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross. I hadn’t been particularly yearning to read this particular book, but I remembered reading Stross’s name on John Scalzi’s blog, and I figured it couldn’t be too terrible. I haven’t unwrapped it yet (almost all the English-language books come wrapped up in cellophane, making it even more difficult to know if you’ll like a book), as I’m working on another book that Lindsay (my sister, for the unaware) sent for my birthday.
The other book I got was Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chief among it’s virtues was the low, low price of $110NT (~$3.50 US), and that it was unwrapped, revealing the beautifully tiny lines of text crammed onto the pages. I might go blind reading it, but it’ll at least last longer than a breath mint! Oh, and guess that fact that it’s a classic that I’ve never read helped some, too. I mean, the fact that it’s a classic doesn’t mean it’ll be good, but it might make me sound smarter the next time I’m around some lit nerds who think my love for adolescent lit means I’m not a real English major (never mind the fact that usually, these guys are losers) (also, nevermind the fact that I don’t really run in the same circles as these guys since I’m not in college) (whatever, I just like to be able to spout arcane facts and make really lame, overly obscure references) (sheesh, my brain is going - I just said to Seth “What’s that word that describes when I make a refernce that you won’t get unless you’ve read the same 27 books I’ve read?” “Obscure?” he says. “Yup. Thanks”) (okay, this is now the 5th parenthetical aside in a row; it’s probably time to stop).
So, if you’re reading both our columns of bloggyness here, you know Seth got pink eye (they call it red eye here). Suprise! I got it too. I think the automatic, unquestioned tranmission of illness from one of us to the other is surely one of the less wonderful things about being married. My eyes are super gross. I came down with it on saturday, the day the super typhoon hit (”How was your typhoon?” “Super!”), so no doctor visit then. That meant I couldn’t get to the doctor until Monday night after class, aroud 9pm. So, about 3 days of untreated pink eye. Yummy. My eyes are a lot less pink to the casual observer now, but if I lift my right eyelid, it’s completely red. Like I got punched. Also, they hurt when I yell, or squeeze my eyes shut, or lean over and talk (these are all things I find I need to do on a fairly regular basis in at least on of my classes every day). And, because of all the drops and nightly goop I’m putting in them, my eyes seem to have lost their lubricatal balance (is that even a real phrase?) - they feel all dried out and out of focus.
Bah. Enough of that. It’s boring, listening to a person whine about their aches and pains. Unless I’m doddering and senile, I don’t really have any reason to think anyone would be interested.
I find that one small thing I really miss is reading material for the bathroom. Before, Bathroom Reading Material (henceforth to be called BRM) was supplied through the mail, random bookstore purchases, and in a pinch, one of our numerous bookshelves. Now, BRM is pretty much nonexistant. Oh, sure, I’m reading the GURPS Characters books there, but really? It’s not the light, easy-to-put-down sort of fare I’m looking for. So, you know, if you’ve got any old magazines laying around that don’t weigh anything, ship them my way, mmkay?
Strange fact: I’m only nervous about tornadoes when it’s dark outside. I’m convinced for some reason that if I can see a tornado coming, there’s no problem. Immaterial since no twister touched down this evening, at least none of which I’m aware.
I say yay though, because I was too busy last night to finish reading The Man Who Folded Himself, and tonight it seemed like the best use of my time on the floor of the shower. The ending, if you already know it, is as anticlimactic as the second viewing of Fight Club, but on the whole it was a great experience. Not as moving as my periodic re-reading of The Bridge to Terabithia, but since that was the book that introduced me as a child to reading for meaning rather than simply entertainment, I doubt anything else ever will be.
If it’s processed and ready to check out when I go in tomorrow, I’m planning next to read Brasyl, otherwise I’ll probably check out again Love is a Mix Tape, a book that fell victim at the beginning of spring to my inability to limit myself to a quantity of books I can actually read. Or maybe Cryptonomicon. Trying to choose just one book is difficult, but I have to choose before I leave work tomorrow, since I’m imposing a strict one-book-at-a-time policy on myself until we leave. There’s not much time left, I don’t want to leave a bunch of titles sitting around unread.
I started reading The Man Who Folded Himself last night for the first time since high school. Unlike most things I enjoyed in my youth, it’s every bit as good as I remember, possibly even better.
The other thing that seems better: my graduating class. I found out Monday evening that my ten-year reunion is less than two weeks away. Under the circumstances I thought it prudent to find my year books and reacquaint myself with people’s names. As it turns out, there were far fewer jerks in my class than I remembered. In fact, as I looked at senior pictures, in several cases I remembered the specific incidents that caused me not to like one person or another, and laughed as I recalled I had actually been the instigator in most cases. I was the jerk then and it amuses me now, so I guess I still am.
Seriously though, I seem to recall not liking most of my classmates, but couldn’t find a single person in the yearbook I actively dislike now. I guess that’s potentially subject to change once we all meet up, but we’ll just have to wait to find that out for certain.
Years ago, when I was working in the instructional resource center for the education department in college, I read a lot. Like, all the time. I had shelves and shelves of good YA lit at my disposal, and new books coming in all the time. One of the first books I picked up didn’t seem to fit in too well - it was a mass market paperback that looked pretty un-YA, and the back cover copy made the book seem more adult-ish than YA-ish. I picked it up to read anyway, since it still sounded like a good read.
