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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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A more detailed reply to your comment~
Date: 2009-06-13 06:19 am (UTC)YES. YES YES SO MUCH YES. I mean, I'm thinking of the time span over which Pierce has been writing her Tortall novels, so by the time she got to Kel, the social climate's shifted a little. Kel's book came out...*goes to check* when I started high school. I was so excited in college when Lady Knight came out, like you wouldn't believe, haha. And it was great that Kel tried things out, but it's not like a driving force and it's not like she has to have a partner. I did think that the Daine/Numair felt kind of tacked on, even though I eagerly followed it anyway in the last book of Daine's series. :P
I...actually have only re-read the Alanna series once, I think. For some reason she didn't appeal as much to me, maybe I should re-read and pin it down. I was introduced to Tortall through Daine. Yay for animals that talk and aren't goofy mascots. For the most part. :P Though I adored the skeleton bird.
So what think you of the Circle books? Also, have you read the one that came out...what, last year or before that, with the step back in time with the Hounds? Beka Cooper and Pierce doing a turn at procedurals/mysteries. :P Still Tortall, and I really like Beka and her doggedness. *dodges bricks*
Bonk? Oooh, I'll have to look for that, thank you for telling me! ^__^
Hmm, I think I read Deerskin for the first time last year, but the details are escaping me. That just means I'll have to re-read, oh the hardship. ^_~ Spindle's End rocked my socks. The way she chose to tell the story, the plot twists, I couldn't predict anything and the ended owned me so hard. Mmmmm. ^___^
Work is blah, but reading your post and your comments make me happy.
Re: A more detailed reply to your comment~
Date: 2009-06-13 09:51 pm (UTC)YES \o/ I was so ready to be irritated by the 'now she's found her boy and we can wrap a little bow on her story and call it over' pattern that when this series didn't go that way and actually got into the difficulties of managing a refugee camp and how class plays into that, I about fell off my chair. I also kind of liked how Neal's story went and I loved . . . Yuki, was it? The *cough* Yamani girl he ends up with. And the way they wrote her friendships throughout the series was really awesome ^^
As for the Alanna series, I reread the first book and parts of the second and fourth books occasionally, but I tend to prefer the other Tortall series which I will read in their entirety at least once a year.
Hmm . . . the circle books didn't grab me as much as the Tortall books, but I still like them. The thing that really irritated me about the second series of Circle books is that each was essentially the same plot--find another magic user who needs guidance, solve serial murders, done. It seemed a little implausible to me, I guess. What's interesting about the last two in that series is that she's playing with time--we know terrible things have happened in the meantime, but we only get fleeting references to it, with the implicit promise of books later. I do like how this world has also gotten more politically and socially complicated, but I'm not sure where it's heading.
And the Beka Cooper books . . . for the most part I'm enjoying it, though I remember being really irritated with the first chapter and the kind of juvenile playing about with fonts. (and the unnecessarily huge font to make the book seem bigger and to charge more for it :P) I also see no reason why she has to be George's ancestor, which seems a bit pat. But hey, I'm a sucker for these things and, like I said in my post, pretty much put life on hold when they come out.
I haven't read Bonk yet, but may pick it up in a likely insane shopping spree at Borders tomorrow (sadly, very few independent bookstores in our are). Borders sent me a 25% off entire purchase coupon, and the Boy and I are considering some serious badness.
I need to reread Spindle's End, because I'm having trouble remembering it ^^" But Deerskin was pretty awesome, at least to me ^^
Book!flails pretty much make my day and give me the strength to contemplate more GRE class prep, which I hope to finish this evening :P
*waves*
Re: A more detailed reply to your comment~
Date: 2009-06-15 06:37 am (UTC)I went to the library today, and they didn't have anything by Connie Willis. D: Awesomely, my public library system is tied to the state university system, so I still have access to my beloved Link+. So I'll probably have Bellwether in my hot little hands in a couple weeks. :D
Also, I caught that link buried in your post, with the lexicographer! She is adorable! It's exactly the kind of geeky/awkward/dorkily funny presentation that I would think up, and I totally downloaded that sucker as soon as I finished watching it. And of course when she mentioned fishing I thought of our burned Maou. XD
Kel's series seems more...mature, to me, compared to the others. I agree, I liked that Pierce really developed Kel's relationships with a wide variety of people, that it touched on class and cultural issues and I really liked her Yamani friends.
Re: the Circle books. There, you've articulated something that was bothering me about the second series, where they're interesting but there was something missing or too predictable but I couldn't quite put my finger on it (ahaha pattern detection fail). I did like that there were...unspoken things, I think that's what I liked about The Will of the Empress, that there were references to time passing and adventures happening that are beyond our sight. So we have to play detective a little, and see how the characters have grown. Have you read that one? I squeed so hard about Daja. :D
...darn it. You're making me want to go find the Kel books, and I told myself I would finish reading what I got today before borrowing more, or things would be due before I could finish. ^^;;;
Re: A more detailed reply to your comment~
Date: 2009-06-16 01:41 pm (UTC)I can't wait to hear what you think of Bellwether ^^ It's really adorable.
I remember reading the Author's Note for Lady Knight where Pierce basically says that it was influenced by 9/11 and the aftermath, and I've notice that pretty much all the books after it are grittier, as well, and more sophisticated in terms of how she treats politics. It's interesting. I prefer it this way, though. I think it would be hard to go to the new books if she had softened the edges again.
Daja! Yes! Though I kind of hope the lets something work for her. It would annoy me a bit if she were (practically) the only female character who doesn't get a solid partner eventually. Apparently, Pierce took some flak for being too stereotypical in her choice of character to out, but defended her decision on her blog. I like that that was the discussion and not the one I was expecting to see ^^" Though I suspect parents with those axes to grind would have yanked the books form their kids' hands as soon as they realized they were in a fantasy world where there are magical birth control pills/amulets ^^"
GRE is done, which means I am now free from campus obligations until August \o/ I have so much work to do but am tempted to take a day off . . . bad flange, bad!
^^