Bookshelf tetris
Dinotopia by James Gurney has been on my wishlist for ages, but I hadn’t bought it yet because it’s so much more expensive than the books I usually buy. And if I was going to spend that much on a book, wouldn’t it make more sense to just fork out a bit more for the hardcover? Or is that just being extravagant?
I have to ask myself these questions, otherwise I would just buy ALL THE BOOKS, and then I would have no room. And also no money.
So I was delighted when I walked into an op shop and there was a hardcover copy of Dinotopia staring out at me from an otherwise empty shelf.
It was a surprisingly successful book-hunt: These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart, Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and a copy of Strong Poison that matches all my other Sayers. (They had Five Red Herrings, too, but I never finished that one.)
I also bought a handful of picture books, too. Then I came home and played Bookshelf Tetris, trying to find space for them all, and was glad that I hadn’t bought any more books.
*
I haven’t watched any of Jane the Virgin this year, and after stumbling unexpectedly across unexpected spoilers, now I don’t think I’m going to.
If the show wants to go in that direction, that’s… well, it’s fair enough, and I don’t have any reason to assume that it will suddenly cease to be a warm, engaging story. I’m sure a lot of people will be on board with this turn of events.
But I am not. Not now.
I don’t know if I reach this point - the point of Oh, wait, you’re not interested in telling the story I thought you were telling / the story I’m interested in - with TV series more frequently than I do with book series or not.
Perhaps because TV series assume you’ll be tuning in for the next episode next week/month, whereas book series can have a year or more between installments, TV episodes tend to be less self-contained than books. If I abandon a TV series, I have a stronger sense that I am walking away from an unfinished story than I do with book series.
Or maybe it’s because of the airing schedule of TV series pushes me to deliberately, consciously, make a decision about whether I’m continuing or not . Whereas with book series there can easily be a very murky line between “I’ve decided to abandon the series” and “I just haven’t made a point of tracking down the latest book yet”. Like with Maria V. Snyder’s Study series. I read the first three books years ago, when it was just a trilogy. I was aware that Snyder had recently written a follow-up, but it wasn’t until I was in the bookshop the other day that I realised she’d written three more. Am I going to read them? I don’t know. The same way I don’t know if I’m going to read Garth Nix’s latest Abhorsen books (another series that was a complete trilogy when I read it), or Philip Pullman’s just-announced forthcoming books about Lyra.
My feelings about Jane the Virgin mean that, since I’m not thrilled with Poldark right now and am very uncertain if the final episode (which I still haven’t seen) is going to change that, my favourite TV series is currently The West Wing. Last week I bought a bunch of ex-rental West Wing DVDs, so I now have ⅓ of season one, ½ of season two and ⅔ of season three.
*
I suspect that The Henry Girls’ song “Sing My Sister Down” has to be inspired by Margo Lanagan’s short story “Singing My Sister Down”, but I can’t find any confirmation of this online.
No coming unstuck from this one / You couldn’t let that handle lie / We knew you’d be angry once the glitter wore off / We knew that he had to die
versus“Oh yeah, well and truly stuck,” said Mumma. But then, you knew when you picked up that axe-handle you were sticking yourself.”
“I know.”
“No coming unstuck from this one. You could’ve let that handle lie.” That was some serious teasing.
“No, I couldn’t, Mumma, and you know.”
“I do, baby chicken. I always knew you’d be too angry, once the wedding-glitter rubbed off your skin. It was a good party, though, wasn’t it?”
(Unless “Sing My Sister Down” is older than the 2011 album it appears on and actually it pre-dates the short story? Or they’re both drawing from a third, unacknowledged, source?) Anyway, I am here for Irish folk bands turning speculative fiction into music.
Other recent discoveries: Antje Duvekot, Niamh Parsons, and I Draw Slow.
And it’s just this moment occurred to me that I haven’t looked for Clannad music on Spotify…
I have to ask myself these questions, otherwise I would just buy ALL THE BOOKS, and then I would have no room. And also no money.
So I was delighted when I walked into an op shop and there was a hardcover copy of Dinotopia staring out at me from an otherwise empty shelf.
It was a surprisingly successful book-hunt: These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart, Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and a copy of Strong Poison that matches all my other Sayers. (They had Five Red Herrings, too, but I never finished that one.)
I also bought a handful of picture books, too. Then I came home and played Bookshelf Tetris, trying to find space for them all, and was glad that I hadn’t bought any more books.
*
I haven’t watched any of Jane the Virgin this year, and after stumbling unexpectedly across unexpected spoilers, now I don’t think I’m going to.
If the show wants to go in that direction, that’s… well, it’s fair enough, and I don’t have any reason to assume that it will suddenly cease to be a warm, engaging story. I’m sure a lot of people will be on board with this turn of events.
But I am not. Not now.
I don’t know if I reach this point - the point of Oh, wait, you’re not interested in telling the story I thought you were telling / the story I’m interested in - with TV series more frequently than I do with book series or not.
Perhaps because TV series assume you’ll be tuning in for the next episode next week/month, whereas book series can have a year or more between installments, TV episodes tend to be less self-contained than books. If I abandon a TV series, I have a stronger sense that I am walking away from an unfinished story than I do with book series.
Or maybe it’s because of the airing schedule of TV series pushes me to deliberately, consciously, make a decision about whether I’m continuing or not . Whereas with book series there can easily be a very murky line between “I’ve decided to abandon the series” and “I just haven’t made a point of tracking down the latest book yet”. Like with Maria V. Snyder’s Study series. I read the first three books years ago, when it was just a trilogy. I was aware that Snyder had recently written a follow-up, but it wasn’t until I was in the bookshop the other day that I realised she’d written three more. Am I going to read them? I don’t know. The same way I don’t know if I’m going to read Garth Nix’s latest Abhorsen books (another series that was a complete trilogy when I read it), or Philip Pullman’s just-announced forthcoming books about Lyra.
My feelings about Jane the Virgin mean that, since I’m not thrilled with Poldark right now and am very uncertain if the final episode (which I still haven’t seen) is going to change that, my favourite TV series is currently The West Wing. Last week I bought a bunch of ex-rental West Wing DVDs, so I now have ⅓ of season one, ½ of season two and ⅔ of season three.
*
I suspect that The Henry Girls’ song “Sing My Sister Down” has to be inspired by Margo Lanagan’s short story “Singing My Sister Down”, but I can’t find any confirmation of this online.
No coming unstuck from this one / You couldn’t let that handle lie / We knew you’d be angry once the glitter wore off / We knew that he had to die
versus“Oh yeah, well and truly stuck,” said Mumma. But then, you knew when you picked up that axe-handle you were sticking yourself.”
“I know.”
“No coming unstuck from this one. You could’ve let that handle lie.” That was some serious teasing.
“No, I couldn’t, Mumma, and you know.”
“I do, baby chicken. I always knew you’d be too angry, once the wedding-glitter rubbed off your skin. It was a good party, though, wasn’t it?”
(Unless “Sing My Sister Down” is older than the 2011 album it appears on and actually it pre-dates the short story? Or they’re both drawing from a third, unacknowledged, source?) Anyway, I am here for Irish folk bands turning speculative fiction into music.
Other recent discoveries: Antje Duvekot, Niamh Parsons, and I Draw Slow.
And it’s just this moment occurred to me that I haven’t looked for Clannad music on Spotify…