A Fan's Playground

Back in the days after I'd started keeping a list of all the books I read each year but BEFORE I started posting reviews of them, I kept desultory personal notes (ranging from a single word to quite a few paragraphs) on some of the books. And I always vaguely forget I have, and forget where exactly to find them, and I'd like to just have them on my dw so they're FINDABLE again for me. And also some of you might find these interesting/amusing? (N.B. some of these contain what I would now classify as INCORRECT OPINIONS.)

SO HERE'S THREE YEARS' WORTH OF BOOKS IN ONE POST, OKAY GO.

( expand this cut to see nested cuts listing all the books )

This weekend I was internetless! (see my post on tumblr for more? LOOK, IT'S EASY TO UPLOAD PHOTOS ON TUMBLR......)

So I READ STUFF.

First of all, I finished rereading North & South, by Elizabeth Gaskell! AN EXCELLENT BOOK. I, um, don't appear to have anything else to say about it. Except that now I also want to rewatch the miniseries.

Then I finished reading Sarah Rees Brennan's Unspoken, which I started reading, um, MONTHS ago, I think? It's a very good book, but it's...idk, it's not for me? I enjoyed SRB's Demon Lexicon trilogy because the bits of her id she was writing for in that series spoke to me super hard, but the bits of her id she's writing for in this book do not. I am not into the Hot Blond Aristocratic Death thing, or Intrepid Lady Reporters. I loved Rusty the most out of anybody, and Holly and Angela second. But.... the stuff the book was actually ABOUT didn't speak to me. Which, I want to make it clear, does not mean anything except that it's not what I'm personally into!

Then I started reading All Men of Genius, by Lev A.C. Rosen, which on the surface sounds AMAZING: Importance of Being Earnest crossed with Twelfth Night, starring a lady who is into science? Sign me up! But it turns out it is extremely super much part of the steampunk genre, and while I can live with that it is not a particular draw, and the first fifty pages just read like Oh Look This Is Certainly A Steampunk Novel and I was just.... I have preferable ways to occupy my time. So I closed it and put it away. I am very proud of myself! I have this terrible tendency to be like "but I heard this book was good! So I need to KEEP SLOGGING THROUGH IT to make sure I don't miss out on its amazingness!" But not every book is for everyone and it is OKAY to give up on books that are not for me! AND I DID THIS TIME.

Then I read The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman, which is mostly a very good book, but it made me uncomfortable. ( Cut for spoilers. The non-spoiler version: I am uncomfortable with how racism was handled. )

Then I began to read The Count Of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (père) because apparently I am into 19th century french novels now. Okay then! I am a quarter of the way in and it is thus far VERY different from Les Miserables in feel. ( Cut for spoilers for the first quarter of Monte Cristo and a wee bit for Les Miserables )

ugleblurgle okay I am writing a post because I cannot currently work on my NaNo becaues there are people talking and I cannot write when there are people talking! It is a problem.

I read The Demon's Surrender today, and I keep on having to keep myself from spelling that word with a "u" in the last syllable. SCHWA, MY NEMESIS. Okay usually I think schwas are pretty awesome but sometimes they are problematic when it comes to spelling. English should have a letter schwa; it would make certain things far simpler, probably.

ANYWAYS why am I getting diverted by discussion of linguistics? Oh right because I am a) easily distracted and b) a fan of words and things about words.

OKAY TALKING ABOUT SURRENDER NOW. ( No actual spoilers )