Books and stuff!

[plalligator]

...Am I...allowed to make this, like, a weekly thing? Or, err, biweekly...or monthly? Or a whenever-I-have-time-for-it thing? I just like talking about books and things guys geez

Anyway! Ah, first thing, unrelated to books. I do now have an AO3! So if you want to access my writing without having to go through ramblings about books/ramblings about my life/my tagging system, that can be found here.

• I reread Dengeki Daisy a couple weeks ago, and God, do I love that manga. I...don't tend to really like shoujo in general, but I've pretty much loved everything I've read of Motomi Kyousuke's. (Especially all the stories in Penguin Prince, especially especially the titular story) Teru is a great heroine, and I love the snark with which the writing leans on the fourth wall to makes fun of its own cliches. And I ship Teru/Kurosaki with a ridiculous passion, so much so that I'll just sit in front of my computer literally going "MY HEART" and "UGH PERFECT" and similar phrases whenever they interact, to the consternation of anyone nearby. In one of the most recent chapters (44? 45?) where the eyelashes-guy tries to blackmail Teru and she just--snaps on him, which, yeah, she's never had any patience with bullies, but that scene makes me flail because her expression was Kurosaki's and it just struck me how much they've rubbed off on each other. Teru is more ruthless and impulsive than she was, and Kurosaki is slowly loosening up and becoming more goofy and the way they can work together and how utterly codependent they are is just brilliant.
• I read Watchmen! There's only a little to say about it that I didn't say about the movie--I did like Laurie's portrayal better here, in general, and I'm over the skimpy costume thing. Makes more sense now that I've thought about it, because Silk Spectre I was a costumed hero as a publicity stunt, for lack of a better word--not to imply she wasn't good at it--but she didn't do it out of a sense of justice, and so her purpose didn't lend itself to practicality. And she controlled Laurie's career and, by extension, Laurie's outfit. That's the point I completely missed with the movie, for whatever reason. Anyway! Yes, the comic was pretty much perfection, and while the art was not normally the style I would go for, I ended up really liking, especially the use of bright colors and the backgrounds and just the way the panels had this...flow, I guess. Precise is the best word to describe it. Everything significant. 
• I've also been slowly getting The Sandman comics through the inter-library loan program in my area because popular consensus appears to be that's it's fantastic and also NEIL GAIMAN. And, yeah, fantastic. They're quite a bit more...dark, violent than things I normally gravitate towards (yes I know I just mentioned Watchmen in the above paragraph) but they had that thing about them that some books have where they just draw you in, where you pick them up while you're trying to clean and then you end up sitting on the floor for three hours while it grows steadily darker and you know you could get up and turn on the light, and you know you'd been more comfortable in a chair, and you could use a drink of water, but you just can't put the book down. They're...engrossing. 
• Aaaand, let's see, I went to see the university production of the musical Chicago on Friday, and, God, it was phenomenal. Just amazing. I've been playing songs from the soundtrack all day, I've practically got "Cell Block Tango" memorized by now. And I think the next thing on my reading list (after--or maybe before--900 pages of John Le Carre novels that I need to read all in one go before the library wants them back) is The Girls of Murder City, which is about the true stories the musical is based on. But yes, other than the stunning dance numbers and the songs, I loved the moral of the play, if you can call it that--about the media, and corruption, and celebrities--will basically never stop being true. And it kind of takes some of the societal stuff happening at the time, like the whole sexual liberation/women's liberation movement and taking it Up To Eleven, because it's like these women have finally just snapped and it's not just that they're able to vote, but that there's this sense that they can do whatever the hell they want. Idk, it made sense in my head. 
• Everyone talking about Mad Men being back on the air made me want to read Murder Must Advertise (yes, I know, it's the 50s vs the 30s, US vs Britain, Mad Men isn't a detective story, etc etc) but I'll take any excuse I can get to reread that book. One thing I love about those books in general and that one in particular is how they go beyond just what's necessary for a good murder mystery and the characters and scenarios are compelling in their own right. I love the office scenes in that back even though many of them are only peripherally connected to the mystery.
• So then after that I had to reread Gaudy Night, because that's the only other Lord Peter mystery I own, sadly enough. But Gaudy Night makes for some strange reading after seeing Chicago, it really accentuates the both the similarities and differences. Obviously Harriet was also an accused "murderess" and she gained an extraordinary amount of publicity from it. But it's much more sobering, because the publicity did follow her, for years and years, even though she was innocent. 
• I have successfully begun the conversion of my parents to the cult of Terry Pratchett! All it took was forcing them into an enclosed space for eight hours round-trip (a car on our way to visit family a couple weeks ago) and the right choice of book, which in this case, was Going Postal. My mom's good for anything, but I knew my dad, at least, would only go for something where something else in the plot pretty much overshadowed the fantasy aspects. And this had the the bonus aspect of Pterry's take on Finance and Economics and how Management Doesn't Understand A Damn Thing About The Product and The Engineer Is Always At The Mercy of the Management. So I figure if I point him toward Making Money because More Finance and The Gold Standard and etc, and point my mom toward the witches and their penchant for Shakespeare (also Maskerade) and point them both toward Vimes because he's goddamn Vimes and I will disown them if they don't get around to Night Watch I'll be set.