book list, March 2006

[edenfalling]

I made three resolutions this year. First, get a job. (Done.) Second, exercise more regularly and lose weight. (In process.) Third, keep a list of the books I read.

These are the books I read in March, 2006:

New: 24
---Petshop of Horrors, vols. 1-9, Matsuri Akino (manga: awfully pretty, weird mix of moral lessons, horror, and relatively blatant subtext between D and Leon)
---YuYu Hakusho, vols. 1-8, Yoshihiro Togashi (manga: ghosts, demons, and lots of fighting; lacks a certain amount of coherence, but is way too much fun for me to care!)
---Trigun Maximum, vols. 6 & 7, Yasuhiro Nightow (manga: cracked-out sci-fi, gunfights, weird humor, and more angst than you can shake a stick at)
---Transmetropolitan: Dirge, Warren Ellis, Darick Robertson, & Rodney Ramos (comics: vaguely dystopian cyberpunk future -- but alive in a way most such futures aren't -- with an overarching story about an outlaw journalist taking on a corrupt politician)
---Transmetropolitan: The Cure, Ellis, Robertson, & Ramos (comics: ditto; both volumes here are from near the end of the series, which I still have yet to read despite it having been finished for a couple years now. *sigh*)
---Runaways: Pride and Joy, Brian Vaughan & Adrian Alphona (comics: a group of teens discovers that their parents are supervillains; what I like best is that the leader is black and the group is composed of 4 girls and 2 boys, and nobody makes a big deal of it.)
---Daisy Miller, Henry James (fiction: understated novelette about cultural misunderstandings)
---Solstice Wood, Patricia A. McKillip (fantasy: a sequel to Winter Rose, oddly enough, set in a place that's almost-but-not-quite modern America; would work better if it were about three chapters longer or dealt with one or two fewer viewpoint characters)


Old: 4
---Song for the Basilisk, Patricia A. McKillip (fantasy: a beautiful story, about revenge and magic and music; like lucid dreaming)
---The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia A. McKillip (fantasy: the first of a trilogy involving riddles, wizards, history, music, the sea, and an oddly beautiful land)
---Heir of Sea and Fire, Patricia A. McKillip (fantasy: in which we learn how Morgon's problems have affected others, most specifically Raederle, the woman he's kinda-sorta engaged to)
---Harpist in the Wind, Patricia A. McKillip (fantasy: the conclusion of the trilogy)


March Total = 28 books (plus a bunch of fanfiction, quite a lot of newspapers, and several magazines)

Year to Date = 62 books (40 new, 22 old)

...

You know, I've noticed that my habit when rereading books is normally to pick a book off the shelf and kind of skim through to the 'good' bits instead of actually reading the whole thing straight through for the second, third, or twenty-seventh time. So there's a good number of books that I've kind of thumbed through but not actually read, and which therefore didn't make it onto this list.

Comments

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

i've either read or am reading five out of the nine series you've mentioned here. you = good taste!

[edenfalling]

*grins*

*bows*

*goes home to read a book about designing gardens to attract butterflies*

[ladylisse.livejournal.com]

YYH is reads like caffenated crack, but it's so much fun that I'll ignore the plot holes. Plus Kuwabara's a great big woobie and I kinda want Botan's oar thing. I'm gonna have to plow through the rest of it once I finish with FMA and beat off those plot bunnies.

[edenfalling]

I have a nagging feeling that as I read more YYH, I'm going to end up wanting to write fic just to fix or explain away some of those gaping inconsistencies. Because the characters deserve better, they really do.

Kuwabara is love. :-) I also fell in love with Yusuke/Keiko, somewhat despite myself (I don't do ships, damn it!), and I've always had a thing for good fight scenes and the importance of friendship among groups, so I adore the whole lot of them. Well, not some of the fuglier villains, but still...

*hugs the cast*

[deralte.livejournal.com]

I regret the fact that I'm now reduced to reading YYH very slowly in the original Japanese *pouts*

I adore the Riddlemaster of Hed. I found it at the back of my mum's library when it was still out of print over ten years ago and thought it was the coolest trilogy ever (and I could not, for hte life of me, figure out why it was out of print). I reread it again a few years back and while I have to say it does have it's flaws, it still thrills me and is a great read:)

[edenfalling]

The thing about Patricia McKillip is that she sucks me in. I don't notice the structural problems with her books until several hours after I finish them, when I come up out of the dream state she puts me into.

This always makes me feel a bit weird, because normally I don't like atmospheric writers -- I want plot, characterization, and logic. I really don't know what it is about her writing that overcomes my predisposition to dislike dreamy, description-heavy stories, but somehow she overcomes it every time.

The Riddle-Master trilogy has been reprinted in a combined edition -- all three books in one -- which is the edition I own. It is, unfortunately, a paperback, but I will take paperback over not having the books any day. :-)

Villains

[(Anonymous)]

But even the ugly villains often have their good points. Gonzo Tarukane, for example, is a perfect illustration of some of the worst aspects of humanity: greed, self-indulgence, and callousness.

In my opinion, the best YYH villain is Shinobu Sensui. He's not in the first eight volumes though so I won't spoil it for you.

Re: Villains

[edenfalling]

Oh, Tarukane's a good villain, I'm not denying that! But he's meant to be off-putting -- and he's extremely successful at that -- so I don't like him the same way I like the 'good guys.'

I am more or less thoroughly spoiled for the rest of the series, though I've never read it, and I almost never mind being spoiled anyway. I figure that any good story has more going for it than just the surprise of 'what happens next.' :-)