#271 - Links and books.

[reileen]

An interesting article about how Obama seems to be dealing with his fame.

The music video for "Path" by Apocalyptica, featuring the band having a rock-off with their shadows. Badass - and it's an awesome song too. (Thanks, dantaron!)

A look at hacker slang and hacker culture. I have to admit that I haven't fully read this yet, but it looks interesting.

In more loltastic news, here's a Neuro AMV set to a Dane Cook skit about wanting to be a fireman as a kid and learning how to talk. Hilariously perfect.

***

For the past few years, I've recorded the books I've read in a notebook, just to see how much I read and what I read.




Beka Cooper: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Burke
Ember by Bettie Sharpe
Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler (NONFICTION)
A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton
New Moon by Midori Snyder
Not Flesh Nor Feathers by Cherie Priest
Like a Thief in the Night by Bettie Sharpe
Midnight Predator by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Mistress by Anita Nair
Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner (NONFICTION)
Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Artemis: Virgin Goddess of the Sun and Moon by Sorita d'Este (NONFICTION)
Pagan Meditations: Aphrodite, Artemis, and Hestia by Ginette Paris (NONFICTION)
The Shining by Stephen King
The Iron Tracks by Aharon Appelfeld
Letters to a Young Artist by Anna Deavere Smith (NONFICTION)
In the Forests of Serre by Patricia A. McKillip
The Gods of Reason by Timothy Jay Alexander (NONFICTION)
Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
13 Clues For Miss Marple by Agatha Christie
Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast (NONFICTION)
The Regatta Mystery by Agatha Christie
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Flipped by Wendolin van Draanen
Under My Roof by Nick Mamatas
The Last Don by Mario Puzo
Venus of Dreams by Pamela Sargent
Mercy, Unbound by Kim Antieau
The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Frank Rich (NONFICTION)
The Stranger I Married by Sylvia Day
Mommy Millionaire by Kim Lavine (NONFICTION)
How to Start a Home-Based Craft Business by Kenn Oberrecht (NONFICTION)
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Lost in the Labyrinth by Patrice Kindl
Boy Kills Man by Matt Whyman
Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis
Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black
Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
Omerta by Mario Puzo
Flights edited by Al Sarrantonio
The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchadt
Transformation by Carol Berg
The True Darcy Spirit by Elizabeth Aston
Contract Killer by Donald Frankos, as told to William Hoffman and Lake Headley (NONFICTION)
Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
Death Masks by Jim Butcher
Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer
Firebirds: An anthology of original fantasy and science fiction edited by Sharyn November
Feminist Fairy Tales by Barbara G. Walker
The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron (NONFICTION)
Dancing in Moonlight: Understanding Artemis Through Celebration by Thista Minai (NONFICTION)
Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing by James Walker (NONFICTION)
White Night by Jim Butcher
Snake Agent by Liz Williams
Greek Folk Religion by Martin Nilsson (NONFICTION)
Another One Bites the Dust by Jennifer Rardin
Biting the Bullet by Jennifer Rardin
Bitten to Death by Jennifer Rardin
Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Small Favor by Jim Butcher
Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick
The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel by Michael Scott
The Bookseller's Daughter by Pam Rosenthal
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Red by Jordan Summers
The Glasswright's Apprentice by Mindy L. Klasky
The Complete Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (NONFICTION)
Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong
Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
The Glasswright's Progress by Mindy L. Klasky
The Glasswright's Journeyman by Mindy L. Klasky
The Glasswright's Test by Mindy L. Klasky
The Glasswright's Master by Mindy L. Klasky
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters by Peter Vronsky (NONFICTION)
The Elder Gods: Book One of the Dreamers by David and Leigh Eddings
City of Tiny Lights by Patrick Neate
Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti




TOTAL: 90, with 15 of the books being nonfiction. A modest count.




The book cover for Red features one of the hottest chicks I've ever seen on a book cover. And it's a pretty decent read, too.

Mindy L. Klasky's Glasswrights' saga is a very well-done coming-of-age story. Highly recommended.

I seem to have a decent amount of multicultural stories on this list:

*The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer is a fantasy/sci-fi story set in a futuristic Zimbabwe, with the titular characters being mutants born from some nuclear accident or other that happened a couple of decades earlier. (It's been a while since I've read this, so I'm getting the details wrong, but that's the gist.) Together, they run a detective agency, using their abilities to help people out with their problems. Their current case: find the kidnapped children of the current military dictator. I didn't care too much for the coming-of-age story of the eldest child, but nevertheless, the characters and story are well-written, and certainly refreshing.

*Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale is set in a fantasy land based on the Mongolian steppes. A princess is locked into a tower with her maid after she refuses to marry the man that her father wants her to marry. The story is told from the POV of the maid, who is keeping a diary of their days locked in the tower and then later keeps a diary of their days when they finally escape from the tower. Recommended, though perhaps not quite as strongly as The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. The maid is a likable character, and the princess, who starts out very much the spoiled, pampered girl, does get character development throughout the book.

*Mistress by Anita Mair is set in India. Uh...crap. I can't really remember what this one was about, though I remember that it felt like a novel trying for "literary" aspersions, whatever the hell that means. It had some interesting interludes about the philosophy and nature behind traditional Indian dance, though, and the style of those particular interludes did partially inspire a mythology that I wrote for one of my fandoms earlier in 2008.

*The Iron Tracks by Aharon Appelfeld is the story of a Holocaust survivor who constantly travels from place to place in Europe. He doesn't really have a permanent home: he lives on the trains, occasionally staying at an inn or at a friend's house. His life's goal is to find and kill the SS officer responsible for killing his family (or something like that). Uh...I guess you can check this out if you wanted to.

*Lost in the Labyrinth tells the story of Theseus and the Minotaur from the POV of one of the Minotaur's sisters. I think I was kind of underwhelmed by this book, though if you're interest in Greek mythology, it's a pretty quick read.

*Boy Kills Man is a coming-of-age story of a teenage boy, Sonny, set against the gang-ridden slums of Medellin, Colombia. Unsettling and a bit disjointed at times, but highly recommended - the title is a lot more resonant with the story than it first appears.

*Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis consists of a series of short vignettes revolving around the life of 12-year-old Nenita, the eldest of six children born to destitute parents in a small Filipino village. The vignettes, themed on various traditional Filipino foods, reveal the changes that sweep the inhabitants of the little village, including Nenita herself. An easy but engaging read. Recommended.

*The Silver Wolf is a werewolf story set in the Roman Empire. Uh...I liked it well enough?

*Snake Agent by Liz Williams is a noir-ish fantasy/sci-fi story set in a futuristic Singapore. Highly recommended.

*City of Tiny Lights is a mystery set in London and narrated by Tommy Akhtar, an Ugandan-Indian-British mujahideen. A simple case of searching for a prostitute's missing friend turns into something far more dangerous. I don't think I cared much for the story, but Tommy has a very interesting narrative voice, both because of his sentence structure and because he uses a lot of British slang. And, er, talks about cricket a lot.

The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron, Letters to a Young Artist by Anna Deavere Smith, and The Complete Artist's Way by Julia Cameron are like my personal Bibles now. For most of this year - and even now to some extent - I've frequently felt like I was too "crazy" to ever be worth anything in normal, productive society, but too "normal" to just be locked up and/or medicated. (Or to, you know, just kill myself.) These books have helped me try to get a grip on the kind of person I am and to accept and work with that person.

I ♥♥♥ The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. I can't wait 'til the next book comes out this April. Highly, highly recommended (although I have to admit that, starting with the later books in the series and then working my way back to the earlier ones, I kind of prefer the later books).

The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Burke and The Bookseller's Daughter by Pam Rosenthal are both well-written historical romances. I'm not sure which one I like better...I think I lean more towards The Bookseller's Daughter because the heroine is a total bookworm (in case you didn't already figure that out from the title). But I totally forgot that I read The Stranger I Married until I looked through my notebook to type up my book list in this entry.

After following his blog for a while, I finally got around to reading John Scalzi's Old Man's War. Definitely liked it, and would recommend it.

Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti is another recommended read. It's set in a steampunk-inspired world, which means that there's mechanical stuff ahoy running rampant in the worldbuilding, but the main story actually revolves around someone trying to hack the main computer that runs the city of Ondinium. True, the computer is a gigantic, steam-powered metal thing, but it's still a pretty interesting contrast in many ways. The main character, Taya, is also very likable and well-written, and develops a nice romance with Cristof, a noble who has self-exiled himself from his caste.




Ugh, damn, it's late as hell and I don't feel like writing anymore. I actually tried to go to sleep earlier but couldn't, so that's why I stayed up to write this entry. Boo.

-Reileen
waiting for my thoughts to fade