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rhythmiaDrank too much tea when I met with my statistics study group tonight. Borders does tea service! Yum, but I wasn't expecting the caffeine to affect me so much. ^^;;
Stolen from all over the internet, I'm sure, but most recently from the lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nicocoer.
Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- list the first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes. Don't take too long to think about it. Tag 15 friends (& while it is easy to tag more, part of the challenge is to think about which 15 friends would have the weirdest or most interesting book list), including me. If you don't want to play, no sweat. Feel free to go about your business. Here are mine, in no particular order (and these are just the 15 for today, at this moment):
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I love the story, the battle of wits, and Elizabeth Bennett is a character I really enjoy, though her family drives me batty. I have three versions, one of which in Chinese I bought while I was studying abroad. The five-hour A&E movie version owns my soul, haha.
2. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey. The link is to the audiobook, but that is the cover that I discovered it under. In the seventh grade, we had Sustained Silent Reading, and I didn't bring a book one day, and had to pick one. This opened up the world of science fiction and fantasy to me, because before I only read mysteries and children's books. Menolly's triumphs and tribulations, her hard work and growing up attitude, and of course dragons and harpers! :D
3. The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. LeGuin. I got my copy from a little used bookstore a year or two ago, and I've read and re-read it so many times it's ridiculous, and even more falling apart than when I bought it. It's a bunch of her short stories, and she excels in the medium. Sci-fi and fantasy, but they're really...people and politics stories, ways of getting at things sideways. Her stuff always makes me think, and she likes to make people uncomfortable. :D
4. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Her writing is beautiful and so approachable. I gave it a try at the library because I'd heard her name tossed around, and the premise seemed interesting. Post-apocalyptic, story of a young woman traveling north in California to try to survive, and becoming a sort of preacher because she realizes/learns these very human truths. I'm not religious and hardly spiritual, but what she writes really appealed to me. Also, yay sci-fi with non-white characters! \o/ She wrote a couple of books that go after this one as well.
5. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, the first book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Cimorene is my hero. She's smart and spunky and takes a very common sensical approach to idiot knights and so forth. Also I'm in love with the chapter titles such as "In Which Cimorene Discovers the Value of a Classical Education and Has Some Unwelcome Visitors." XDDD
6. Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex by Olivia Judson.erjika had this on her bookshelf and graciously lent it to me. It is hilarious and highly educational. Nature is weird and gloriously so. :D Some of her language sometimes bothers me, because she's writing in that advice column style, but it's still a good read.
7. The Ballad of Mulan by Song Nan Zhang. Before Disney came around and did some...interesting...things to it, this was one of my favorite childhood books. My maternal grandmother taught me part of the tune of the folksong. Did you know that Mulan had a little brother? And she was never discovered while she served, surviving the war long enough to become a trusted general? Mulan is awesome. :D And the illustrations of this book are gorgeous.
8. So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane. Can you kind of see a theme in my book choices? :D I live in the YA Fantasy section, really, because coming-of-age stories are my kink, if you will. Character growth, hardship and change, with only the slightest sprinkling of romance. Adventure and new worlds! The first of series, Nita and Kit are the partners of my heart, haha. Also the Tom and Carl household is hilarious, though they don't show up more than a couple times each volume. She wrote this *before I was born*. So who she chooses to be characters really struck a chord with me, when most of fantasy tends towards boys, and if girls, they are entirely too...blond and blue-eyed for me anymore. Yay to the misfits!
9. Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. My big weakness is retelling of legends and fairy tales. I reread this one about once a year. I don't really like her newer stuff, but this one, this one is beautiful. A Beauty and the Beast retelling, the style is just this side of...soft, you get the feel of being in fairy tale while also being part of Beauty's daily life.
10. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Also borrowed fromerjika, this book makes my stickler heart dance with glee. ^_^ Not that I don't break a lot of the rules from time to time, but even so. :P Yes, I am this geeky. :D
11. First Test: Protector of the Small by Tamora Pierce. I've read everything she's published, because her characters really speak to me. My favorite's gotta be Kel though, because she's a girl who's one of the first who wants to take the opportunity a previous woman opened the door to, to be a knight. She doesn't have any special powers, she just has her common sense, ability to work hard, a keen sense of justice, and her fear of heights. Mmm, coming of age, but with swordfighting, haha.
12. The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce. First of a trilogy. Her writing style is gorgeous, I love the feeling of a legend/tale in the making. I totally couldn't predict where it was going, and all three together...it kind of blew me away. I cannot recommend this trilogy enough. Aeriel's cool. I like her attitude. And her gargoyles are awesome, though that's in the second book. :D
13. Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. The novels of Discworld are, hands down, my favorite series ever. A flat world of magic and trolls and tourists and suspicious meat pies, that manages to spoof and gently (or not so gently) mock anything and everything in our world. Monstrous Regiment is about Polly, who disguises herself as a boy to enlist in the army and search for her brother. Adventures ensue. The ending is AWESOME. I kind of shrieked in a whole lot of glee. :D I dunno if that's spoilers, but oh well. :P
14. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Not for the faint of stomach, but a really fascinating read about the uses, through history and today, for human cadavers and body parts and what people do with them, decomposition, etc. etc. I liked it a lot, so I guess that tells you something about me. ^_~
15. The Sandman - Volume 6: Fables and Reflections by Neil Gaiman. The Sandman comics series is mindset-changing. The storytelling, the art, the way this so different from the superheroes comics. I have this volume of short stories, so if you're not ready to dive into the world of Sandman, this is par to the universe without having to worry about continuity. There's ten collected volumes with a bunch of related side stories, about Dream of the Endless, an anthropomorphic personification of life's essentials. He's kind of Byron-esquely emo. His older sister Death rocks my socks and I've been her for Halloween twice because she's that awesome.
Haha if you made it to the end of that congratulations! I wanna see what other people's lists are, I could use some more nonfiction, or good reading in other genres. Geez, it's late now, I took so long to write that out. ^^;;
Stolen from all over the internet, I'm sure, but most recently from the lovely
nicocoer.Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- list the first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes. Don't take too long to think about it. Tag 15 friends (& while it is easy to tag more, part of the challenge is to think about which 15 friends would have the weirdest or most interesting book list), including me. If you don't want to play, no sweat. Feel free to go about your business. Here are mine, in no particular order (and these are just the 15 for today, at this moment):
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I love the story, the battle of wits, and Elizabeth Bennett is a character I really enjoy, though her family drives me batty. I have three versions, one of which in Chinese I bought while I was studying abroad. The five-hour A&E movie version owns my soul, haha.
2. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey. The link is to the audiobook, but that is the cover that I discovered it under. In the seventh grade, we had Sustained Silent Reading, and I didn't bring a book one day, and had to pick one. This opened up the world of science fiction and fantasy to me, because before I only read mysteries and children's books. Menolly's triumphs and tribulations, her hard work and growing up attitude, and of course dragons and harpers! :D
3. The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. LeGuin. I got my copy from a little used bookstore a year or two ago, and I've read and re-read it so many times it's ridiculous, and even more falling apart than when I bought it. It's a bunch of her short stories, and she excels in the medium. Sci-fi and fantasy, but they're really...people and politics stories, ways of getting at things sideways. Her stuff always makes me think, and she likes to make people uncomfortable. :D
4. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Her writing is beautiful and so approachable. I gave it a try at the library because I'd heard her name tossed around, and the premise seemed interesting. Post-apocalyptic, story of a young woman traveling north in California to try to survive, and becoming a sort of preacher because she realizes/learns these very human truths. I'm not religious and hardly spiritual, but what she writes really appealed to me. Also, yay sci-fi with non-white characters! \o/ She wrote a couple of books that go after this one as well.
5. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, the first book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Cimorene is my hero. She's smart and spunky and takes a very common sensical approach to idiot knights and so forth. Also I'm in love with the chapter titles such as "In Which Cimorene Discovers the Value of a Classical Education and Has Some Unwelcome Visitors." XDDD
6. Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex by Olivia Judson.
erjika had this on her bookshelf and graciously lent it to me. It is hilarious and highly educational. Nature is weird and gloriously so. :D Some of her language sometimes bothers me, because she's writing in that advice column style, but it's still a good read. 7. The Ballad of Mulan by Song Nan Zhang. Before Disney came around and did some...interesting...things to it, this was one of my favorite childhood books. My maternal grandmother taught me part of the tune of the folksong. Did you know that Mulan had a little brother? And she was never discovered while she served, surviving the war long enough to become a trusted general? Mulan is awesome. :D And the illustrations of this book are gorgeous.
8. So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane. Can you kind of see a theme in my book choices? :D I live in the YA Fantasy section, really, because coming-of-age stories are my kink, if you will. Character growth, hardship and change, with only the slightest sprinkling of romance. Adventure and new worlds! The first of series, Nita and Kit are the partners of my heart, haha. Also the Tom and Carl household is hilarious, though they don't show up more than a couple times each volume. She wrote this *before I was born*. So who she chooses to be characters really struck a chord with me, when most of fantasy tends towards boys, and if girls, they are entirely too...blond and blue-eyed for me anymore. Yay to the misfits!
9. Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. My big weakness is retelling of legends and fairy tales. I reread this one about once a year. I don't really like her newer stuff, but this one, this one is beautiful. A Beauty and the Beast retelling, the style is just this side of...soft, you get the feel of being in fairy tale while also being part of Beauty's daily life.
10. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Also borrowed from
erjika, this book makes my stickler heart dance with glee. ^_^ Not that I don't break a lot of the rules from time to time, but even so. :P Yes, I am this geeky. :D11. First Test: Protector of the Small by Tamora Pierce. I've read everything she's published, because her characters really speak to me. My favorite's gotta be Kel though, because she's a girl who's one of the first who wants to take the opportunity a previous woman opened the door to, to be a knight. She doesn't have any special powers, she just has her common sense, ability to work hard, a keen sense of justice, and her fear of heights. Mmm, coming of age, but with swordfighting, haha.
12. The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce. First of a trilogy. Her writing style is gorgeous, I love the feeling of a legend/tale in the making. I totally couldn't predict where it was going, and all three together...it kind of blew me away. I cannot recommend this trilogy enough. Aeriel's cool. I like her attitude. And her gargoyles are awesome, though that's in the second book. :D
13. Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. The novels of Discworld are, hands down, my favorite series ever. A flat world of magic and trolls and tourists and suspicious meat pies, that manages to spoof and gently (or not so gently) mock anything and everything in our world. Monstrous Regiment is about Polly, who disguises herself as a boy to enlist in the army and search for her brother. Adventures ensue. The ending is AWESOME. I kind of shrieked in a whole lot of glee. :D I dunno if that's spoilers, but oh well. :P
14. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Not for the faint of stomach, but a really fascinating read about the uses, through history and today, for human cadavers and body parts and what people do with them, decomposition, etc. etc. I liked it a lot, so I guess that tells you something about me. ^_~
15. The Sandman - Volume 6: Fables and Reflections by Neil Gaiman. The Sandman comics series is mindset-changing. The storytelling, the art, the way this so different from the superheroes comics. I have this volume of short stories, so if you're not ready to dive into the world of Sandman, this is par to the universe without having to worry about continuity. There's ten collected volumes with a bunch of related side stories, about Dream of the Endless, an anthropomorphic personification of life's essentials. He's kind of Byron-esquely emo. His older sister Death rocks my socks and I've been her for Halloween twice because she's that awesome.
Haha if you made it to the end of that congratulations! I wanna see what other people's lists are, I could use some more nonfiction, or good reading in other genres. Geez, it's late now, I took so long to write that out. ^^;;
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 09:40 pm (UTC)But, yes! Dragonsong (and Dragonsinger, which I liked even better, because I loved the idea of the harper's guild), belong to my favourite Pern-novels. ^-^ Actually, as I grew older, I started to like those books even better than the dragonrider-focused books, because they depicted the life of ordinary people and not heroes. But since I read Dragonflight 33 times before my fifteenth birthday, I'm pretty sure that it tops the list of "books that they with you". ^^"
And I absolutely agree with you and Flange about Kel being awesome BECAUSE she's normal. &hearts Also, I absolutely love her no-nonsense approach to life with all those boys around her (and especially life with both Owen and Neal in it, who always did their best to get themselves into trouble by talking - one of my favourite scenes in the series is when Owen notices her boobs and asks her when she turned into a girl XD).
Actually, I think we definitely both love awesome women, because I absolutely LOVED "Monstrous Regiment" too! It's such an amazingly witty book and like a lot of PTerry's fiction it just feels real to me. I always imagine that country to be like one of those European states/areas that have been in wars for so long and that really has the kind of problem that the book's about. (Btw, have you read "Thud"? Even though it's different, it somehow hit me in a rather similar way to MR.)
And continuing with strong women, you have a novel by Ursula LeGuin on your list! *__________* I adore her as a writer and an awesome woman and I'm pretty sure that her "Left Hand Of Darkness" (my absolute favourite by her) did more to shape my view on sexuality than any other book ever did.
I don't really know most of the other books, except by hear-saying, but most of them sound really, really awesome too, so I might check them out some time. ^-^
Yummy books
Date: 2009-06-13 06:38 am (UTC)Yes, Dragonsong and Dragonsinger as a pair. The Harper Hall books I enjoyed so much more than the EPIC EPICNESS of the others, though I devoured all of it anyway. :P And I liked it pretty much for the same reasons you did. I'm going to guess that Lessa is your girl? XD I kind of shipped F'Nor and Brekke hardcore, haha.
Re: Kel-- SO MUCH YES. AHahaha the Kel+Owen dynamics are hilarious. So I've figured out, my favorite characters are usually the ones who are normal and a touch dreamy like me (like Menolly) or normal and no-nonsense and practical (and thus kickass, like Kel). :P
Re: strong women. I think a lot of it is that SF/F is so full of tropes of the guy being a hero and the girl being the princess in the tower, and I've been there, done that. The ones that really stick with me are the ones with fascinating, flawed, cute, multi-layered girls and women. I posted a comment during Racefail to the effect of, I love sci-fi and fantasy, but the books that I've ended up reading in my ongoing quest for reading material have probably seriously skewed my expectations. The vast majority of what I've read have kind of skewed my outlook towards defaulting characters to something vaguely blond/European/American unless explicitly stated otherwise, and in the beginning other than Dragonsong everything seemed to be all white guys. It palled after a while and so I started looking for stuff with girls in it who were more than 'the hot chick' or 'the helpless princess.' Did I mention that Cimorene is awesome? ^^
I'm sorry, I blathered on there, and I'm not entirely sure where I was going. But there's a lot of intersections going on, but ultimately awesome women who are independent and also interconnected are the kind of characters that I'm drawn to. :D
Anyhow! I have not read Thud! or the other recent Pratchett offerings, though I did go through all of the Tiffany Aching books. :D Little blue men!
Hmmm, I have not read Left Hand of Darkness, despite hearing a lot about it and passing it on the bookshelf at the library. Clearly this needs to be remedied. Also I read Changing Planes (another set of short stories) in March/April and it is highly recommended. They're interconnected by premise, of being able to travel to other worlds when you're miserable and bored out of your mind waiting in airports. :D Very thinky.
Mmm, I love discussions like this. ♥
Re: Yummy books
Date: 2009-06-13 10:25 pm (UTC)I have to confess, at the moment I'm wondering whether my feet will ever stop hurting. ^^"
But it was fun anyway. ^-^ And I got to know all the big names that I usually read books by, so that was great.
Anyway, on to the books! ^-^
I'm going to guess that Lessa is your girl?
Actually, not really. ^^" Lessa was always too bitchy for my taste. As a person, I always liked Brekke much better. But I really liked Lessa's strength (even if her pig-headedness got a bit too much, sometimes) and I enjoyed the relationship she had with F'lar. (I like the kind of "Benedict/Beatrice" relationship where the two partners enjoy verbally sparring with each other.)
Plus, and this might sound really, weird, but I always loved Mnementh. ^^" He alway struck me as the most sensible character in the whole book. XD
I liked Brekke and F'nor, too, but I hated what happened to Brekke's queen. :(
It put me off the book pretty much for good, because I couldn't stand the thought that Brekke had lost a part of herself forever.
So I've figured out, my favorite characters are usually the ones who are normal and a touch dreamy like me (like Menolly) or normal and no-nonsense and practical (and thus kickass, like Kel). :P
Exactly like me! ^-^ Well, I tend towards the "normal and no-nonsense" people more than the dreamers, even though I'm a huge dreamer myself. But I just like someone like Kel, who gets the job done, instead of making a big fuss about it.
The vast majority of what I've read have kind of skewed my outlook towards defaulting characters to something vaguely blond/European/American unless explicitly stated otherwise, and in the beginning other than Dragonsong everything seemed to be all white guys.
I know what you mean. Fantasy and Science Fiction especially has a huge northern European slant in general - and a nearly equally big slant towards men. I didn't notice that as much when I was a teenager; partly because I am northern European, and partly, I think, because I was lucky enough to discover Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword And Sorceress very early on in my life, and not only were those all about interesting and kick-ass heroines, but even though a majority of the stories' heroines still belonged to the northern European stereotype, a lot of the stories that I found most interesting were about non-European heroines (like the two stories about an African amazone that I really enjoyed).
Thinking about it, I consider myself also lucky in the way that I was introduced to the Dragonriders books by my father (who had the habit of telling me summaries of the books he was reading at the time as bedtime stories...^^"), so I kind of grew up with strong heroines through my father's stories. There were still a lot of heroes, but it wasn't until I was much older and buying my fantasy/science-fiction books myself that I noticed just how male-dominated the fantasy field truly is.
Tiffany Aching! I love Tiffany Aching. ^-^ And I love it just as much that Terry Pratchett got complimented by his local girl-scout squad (of which he's an honorary member, apparently, for helping them out once) for writing "a real girl". XD And the Wee Free Men are really, really hilarious. (And I like the way they reproduce...)
Re: Yummy books
Date: 2009-06-15 06:25 am (UTC)Maybe go sit with your feet soaking in hot water for a while? That helps my mom, who has poor circulation in her feet. :/
Books now!
I like the kind of "Benedict/Beatrice" relationship where the two partners enjoy verbally sparring with each other.
YES. SO MUCH YES. I am alllll about the verbal sparring and sarcasm and witty conversation. That's probably why I'm so fond of the Nino+Jun interaction in fic. :P And why a lot of my book choices are what they are. :P It's not verbal abuse, it's healthy exercise of one's mental faculties!
And no, I don't think it's weird that you like Mnementh when she put so much trouble towards making it clear that the dragons were sentient and have personalities. I'm really fond of Menolly's brown fire lizard trio. :D
Oooh, Sword and Sorceress! I've read I think two or three volumes of those anthologies, that was how I was introduced to writers like Mercedes Lackey and Elizabeth Moon. Entertaining stuff. I also liked the Chicks in Chainmail (http://www.amazon.com/Chicks-Chainmail-Esther-Friesner/dp/0671876821) anthologies edited by Esther Friesner. :D
I learned that 'classic' SF/F was very male-dominated early on when I would browse my library shelves, but the styles and content tended not to attract me very much, so I stuck with more of the stories involving women when I could. It limited me more, perhaps, but I didn't feel it at all. That's really awesome of your dad. So a whole family of SF/F geeks? :D?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-13 09:55 pm (UTC)I can't wait to see your lis&hearts
The Harper Hall was awesome! I was really kind of frustrated withthe Masterharper of Pern, because I loved Robinton so much and McCaffrey's writing was so uneven in that one, so I ignore it and stick to the Harper Hall trilogy.
Owen! One of my favorite characters in that series&hearts
Boy has been trying to get me to read Thud! and Night Watch, and I was just so swamped when they came out and I should by I really want to reread all of the Watch books so I can really get the impact of Night Watch first ^^"
/book squee
no subject
Date: 2009-06-13 10:40 pm (UTC)Yeah, The Masterharper of Pern" wasn't her best book, really. :( But I didn't really like many of the later books all that much. They were OK, but I like most of the earlier books better. ^-^
Owen is SO awesome. XD Actually, even though I know that TP writes about girls as protagonists and I enjoy that a lot, I kind of wish there was a novel - or at least fanfiction - about Owen's time as Lord Wyldon's squire. They're so different, the two of them, that I just can't help but think that there must be a lot of comedic potential lying in the two of them working together. XD
I loved both Thud! and Night Watch. ^-^ Especially Thud with its commentary on people fighting over something that doesn't really have any relevance anymore, is very interesting, I think.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-15 06:06 am (UTC)*___* *raises hand* I would totally be down for reading that, if someone were to write it. It feels incredibly like a manzai duo waiting to happen. Owen is obviously the one who gets slapped upside the head and Lord Wyldon is the straight man who's the slapper. XDDDDD
Also, watching you and flange go crazy here with the comments and book flail is making me really happy, haha. ^___^<3
I need to reserve those books! There's hardly ever any Pratchett on the shelves of my library. Good that they're so popular, boo that I can never have one to hand when I'm in the mood for 'em.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 02:01 pm (UTC)*smacks forehead*
Do you know that we donated something like 15 Pratchetts before we moved? Auugh. I could have sent them to you :P We had 3 of most of them for forever--the Roc covers, the newer simpler US covers, and the British covers. They all made the first two cuts, but that last 500-800 book culling before we moved was vicious :( I'm already regretting much of it.
Because I am clearly a horrible comment-stalker--Elizabeth Moon! I loved Sheep=farmer's Daughter! I have mixed feelings about the other two and was not really all that jazzed about the prequels, but Sheepfarmer's Daughter&hearts The Boy was surprised it didn't make my list, but it just slipped my mind ^^" Though I probably had enough girls+swords in my list ^^"
And Mercedes Lackey! She has written so much that I actually only followed her Free Bards and the Victorian Elemental Masters series (I remember enjoying the Black Swan, too), but the Boy follows the Vaaldemar (sp?) world. He's more of a Jennifer Roberson fan, though ^^
I kind of want to read everything on my shelves right now. It's obvious that I have lots of work to do, right? ^^"
no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 01:53 pm (UTC)Me too! After Dragonsdawn, I kept reading, but . . . it never really grabbed me the same way again . . .
And I would totally read about Owen's time with Wyldon! Sadly, it looks like her Boy-centered Tortall books are going to be Numair-centered--from the time he was a boy in Orzone's court. At least, that's what was suggested a year or so ago on her website . . . she has a book release timeline for the next 10 years or so *___*
I really need to read both of those. Maybe I should just go through all the Watch books. And I never read the Tiffany Aching books. Apparently, this was a huge oversight?
Not to shamelessly comment-stalk or anything, but your conference sounds amazing and also very exhausting >_< I have just made it through my hyper-scheduled busy time, and now am moving into the holy-crap-now-there's-all-the-stuff-I-should-have-been-doing period of the summer T__T And in 4 weeks, I'll be doing it all on the road, since we're driving from southern TX to Illinois (conference and family), to New Jersey (friends and research), to Massachusetts (baby shower), and back to Texas (home!), after which I'll have about a week and a half to prep for my fall classes. I should be working right now T__T
And yet, your schedule boggles me much more. I hope you're getting sleep! (Zan calls me the sleep police, btw^^")
*waves*