Category: Books

reading

Thursday, 26 June, 2003 at 4:05 pm

We went to Waldenbooks. We got the Harry Potter book for $20. Mommy said Hidek’s gonna read it first. Oh pooh. :b

Blegh, I already have loads of books to read … even though I complain that I have nothing to read. I’m reading The China Garden by Liz Berry right now. I also kinda started Count of Monte Cristo (wanna read it before I watch the movie again). And then there’s War and Peace which Mommy got for me a year and a half ago during Christmas. I think I’m on page 80 thereabouts. ^_^;;

I also yoinked Daddy’s copy of The Other some time last year because Mommy and Daddy were watching the movie (made by Disney o_o) and they were saying how good it was. I’m up to the part where the kid is talking about a big stain spot on his ceiling. Like a page after that. About 5–10 pages in. Ahaha. And I forget when Mommy gave it to me, but I also have The Haunting of Hill House.

And there’s these two books I’m thinking of giving away, but I want to reread them before I actually do, just to make sure I don’t want them. Plus I have Moll Flanders and The Diary of Anne Frank on my to read list. I’m also thinking about rereading A Tale of Two Cities. Just because I got about 1/5th out of it the first time around. ^_^;;;

Aaaand, for the finishing touch, I bought Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere today. Eeeee!!! :D:D I saw American Gods there, and I would have bought it, but the corner of the back cover was bent. :( And it wasn’t a nice crease, either. It looked like it had been folded one way (while being put back on the shelf, maybe), and someone folded it back, but in a slightly different area, so there’s this … thing in it. Yughy. I also saw The Sandman! :D But it was book two. So I no buy. I looked through it though. Looks so goood. *wants*

Oh yeah. The guy at the cash register said to me, “They say this is good,” when he scanned Neverwhere. XD Mommy asked me how I find out about these books. I said, “I dunno” ’cause I didn’t want to think. ^^;;; Well, I heard about this book … okay, I was at thefanlistings.org, and I saw that someone made a fanlisting for Coraline. I thought that sounded interesting, so I went to look, and it looked cool, so I went to the official site (and it is amaaaazing *.* go see!) and really got interested then went to Amazon.com to read more and found out it’s for kids. Hah.

I would read it, regardless, but I’m trying to improve my reading skills. >.> Or something. Oh yeah. Mommy said kids in Japan aren’t reading novels anymore. They’re reading nothing but manga now. I can’t believe that. I mean … sure, manga is uber cool, but still, it’s like … I don’t know. Not as good as books. Nowhere near good as books. Even Paradise Kiss, which I looove (and Waldenbooks didn’t have volume 4, grrr), it just doesn’t compare to, say, Sabriel (another book I’m thinking of reading again XP). I dunno. Anyway. Back to the story at hand.

People on Amazon were talking about how good Neil Gaiman’s other books were in reviews for Coraline so I went to look at his other books. Actually, I just clicked on his name and scrolled through all the titles he’s done and I noticed one called Death: The Time of Your Life, and it had a neat looking cover :b so I looked at it, and they said it was a substory of his Sandman series, so I went to look at that, and that looked cool, and then I went to look at the books he’s written (’cause I was really curious by then) and, yeah, that’s how I found out about it. ^__^ I also realized that he cowrote Good Omens, which I’d read about a while ago because someone was crowing over it in their blog. So … yeah. Hehehe.

Time Enough for Love excerpts

Wednesday, 4 June, 2003 at 1:53 am

Finished Time Enough for Love a little while ago. Stuff I liked and typed up. ^^’

“Although long life can be a burden, mostly it is a blessing. It gives time enough to learn, time enough to think, time enugh not to hurry, time enough for love.” –Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

  • Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinion about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.
  • Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
  • $100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000—by which time it will be worth nothing.
  • Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
  • Everybody lies about sex.
  • Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic fidelity.
  • Another ingredient for a happy marriage: Budget the luxuries first!
  • And still another—see to it that she has her own desk—then keep your hands off it!
  • And another—In a family argument, if it turns out you are right—apologize at once!
  • Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
  • Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money—but long on hugs.
  • Natural laws have no pity.

books books books!

Thursday, 29 May, 2003 at 11:08 pm

ADVANCE NOTICE FOR PREFERRED READERS

Start your SUMMER OF SAVINGS at Waldenbooks® and Brentano’s®! May 30 through June 15, BUY ANY 4 BOOKS AND GET THE 5TH BOOK FREE! This amazing offer includes EVERY BOOK IN THE STORE — Fiction, Non-Fiction, Kids, Bargain Books, and more!

Ahhhh!! *is in trouble* ‘Cause I know I want ParaKiss 2–4 (yaaay! Waldenbooks has 2 in finally! might not have 4 though … ¬_¬) so that’s three books. But they probably wouldn’t have Flower Drum Song. The one at Westside Pavilion didn’t. And … I just never really went in a book store looking for a specific book unless it was part of a series. ^^;; And I’m not reading any series right now. So … if I go in … ahh!! I spent all my money?!?!

Yeah. :x Or maybe I could buy Kare Kano. Or … that other manga I was looking at. *can’t remember* Or I could buy more X/1999. The publisher is selling a newer edition of that. I don’t really understand why. It’s all more uniform, though, I gotta admit.

Oh. On Tuesday I bought Sailor Moon volume 11 aaaand … Megatokyo volume 1! XD Ish sho cooool. :D I’ve already read that part online (haven’t read the rest though ^^;;), but the printed version has a commentary by Fred. Yaaay. :) Is very cool. ^_^

random: Simpsons, songs, Parakiss, Time Enough

Tuesday, 27 May, 2003 at 8:42 pm

It r hot, yo. (Forgot how to say very. Uhh … muy XD atsui.) Atsui, yo.

“Wow. Trowa‘s usually quiet, so it must be a good idea.”

O_o Anyway. I’m being random. I’m in a random mood.

For some reason while watching Simpsons I started reciting the lines along with the characters. “Oh, I’ve created Lutherans!” “Must Kill Moe. Wheee! Must Kill Moe. Wheee!” XD *ahem*

“I’ve been taunting them, singing off key … mah mee my moe, mah moo my may— AGH!” Incorrect line. But you get the idea. Chief “Piggum.” I forget which episode. Apparently so do Hidek and Adam. Darn. Darn is a real word. I forget what it has to do with dragonflies, though.

I like this chorus. “I know you are wrong. Headstrong. Headstrong. I’ll take you on. I’ll take on anyone.” Or something.

I also like the chorus to Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter.” >.> Don’t tell anyone that. “Make me that much stronger. Makes me work a little bit harder.” Or … switch that around.

I also kinda like the music video. Don’t tell anyone that either. I don’t like the Asian-ness of her outfit, though. Adam says maybe it’s because I feel like people are wearing it as a fad, and they know nothing about the culture. Yeah. That makes sense, no? But I don’t like the rest of the song, funnily enough. It’s nothing special, and for the life of me I can’t remember what it sounds like. All I remember is the chorus and her smashing the glass and her fluttering her eyelashes and her black outfit melting away.

Anyway. I think I like weird indie stuff. Probably not, though. It’s still hot. Yo La Tengo is in my mind.

I bought the first volume of Megatokyo. Yaaay. No one has Paradise Kiss. Well … that BnN in Ventura had 3 and 4. The Waldenbooks here has 3. The Waldenbooks at the Westside Pavilion has none. Or maybe they have 1 and 4. BnN at WP has NONE. They have Abhorsen though. Hardback still. T-T There’re a lot of books I could possibly fall headfirst into.

Time Enough For Love has gotten kinda draggy lately. >.> Although it was rather funny how he said they wear clothes all the time, even while they sleep. Hah. Funnay. Yeah. And he said clothes say a lot about your social status and what you do and your education. He’s in 1916 right now.

Last I read, he was attracted to his mother, so he cut his trip short. Or … that’s what he told himself, anyway. Time paradoxes, either you have or you haven’t. And his mother hadn’t been unfaithful to his dad, and he hadn’t had an eighth sibing.

That commercial, I guess it’s a car commercial. For the Passat? Can’t recall. He called hmself from the future. But don’t you think, if he’s in the future calling himself, then he’s in a trillion other places at other times, and so would that time or whatever have to lead to himself calling from the future again? Bad wording. ._.

Um. “Regardless of warnings the future doesn’t scare me at all. Nothing’s like before.” Utada Hikaru

I also like Amy Lee when she sings, “Look, here she comes now. Bow down and stare in wonder.”

I wish I could sing. Mommy had this theory that tone-deafness influenced your music tastes. Tone-deaf equals heavy metal. Something like that. ‘Cause Mickey likes tuneful pop stuff and plays cornet, and Mommy likes tuneful stuff, and plays cornet … and other instruments, and Auntie G is tone-deaf, and always liked the harder stuff. That was interesting. But then I pointed out someone I know of online can sing and wanted to be an opera singer at one time, and she likes Evanescence. Then Adam says he can’t sing and he likes metal and classic rock, but he played trumpet before.

I’m bored now. I forget what I’ve said. My brain died. I can’t recall what I’ve done today. Major stuff, yeah, but not small stuff …

Fried Green Tomatoes; Citizen Kane; gravestones

Friday, 23 May, 2003 at 6:58 pm

I think I am too old to be a carefree child, and too young to be anything else. :b Intead of “too old to be young and too young to be old” as said by Evelyn Couch. I finished that yesterday. Did I say that? I liked it.

I don’t know if I ever saw the ending to the movie. ^^;; Sat through the beginning and middle like three times, and I can’t ever recall the ending … like I saw Joy Luck Club two or three or four times, and it wasn’t until the fourth time that I remembered the ending long after I saw the whole movie. o.o;;

Today I watched KTLA News (Jennifer what’s-her-name kept laughing while she was looking at the Fox 11 copter pilot …), VH1/MTV stuff, uh … A.I. (the last half O_o), parts of Kikujiro XD, then watched Citizen Kane with Mommy. Fell asleep at one part. *falls over*

At the beginning, I kept laughing. And it’s all The Simpsons’ fault. XP But anyway. Good movie. Really bad tape. Mommy said we’re gonna get it on DVD. Yay, maybe then I’ll understand whatall they’re saying.

That reminds me. Not to spoil the book or anything (don’t think it’s much of a spoiler, I think the thing afterwards is more surprising … but then again, what do I know? I read things differently from other people. >.>) but when Evelyn visited the cemetary and saw the double headstone (or whatever they’re called … for couples) and I thought, gee, isn’t that a nice thing to have? One dies, the other just sits around knowing there’s something with his/her name on it, just waiting for the final date, then the people who made the gravestone in the first place have got another job over and done with. That was rather cynical, ne? ^^;;

Anyway. I also thought, what’s it like, to be expected to lie next to this person for eternity…. You know, to be tied in such a way … like, there’s the man’s name, there’s the woman’s first name, the man’s last name (legally her last name, but blah), and uhh … I’m just being weird. But still. It’s a thought.

Another thing, are their graves closer to each other than any others? Or is there like a certain distance away they have to start digging, so as not to hit any other caskets … which reminds me, I always wondered, like in X-Files when they dug up bodies, how did they do that? Would’t it be rude to strike the casket? Would they use that same marred one when they rebury the body? Or is it already marred by whatever’s going on in the ground?

Something I just thought … what if someone has their partner die, then remarries (respectably), where are they buried? Together? Separate? The first person with the second person? Or is it all in the prenuptials or something? Ahaha. Now I’m really being weird. What’s worse? Having two headstones or two grave plots? Two partners to choose between, or two families? And how did they do it in the past? Wife goes in the guy’s family cemetary, I guess. ^^;;

Family cemetaries give me the creeps. Ever since I saw that Nightmare Gallery episode. EEEEE!! *runs away with her hands thrown over her head at the thought*