Books & Library
I've been utter crap at remembering this booklist thing. Ah well. No one cares except me. Since last I wrote, I reread 2 trilogies:
1) Philip Pullman's Sally Lockheart Trilogy: The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, and The Tiger in the Well, a set of young adult mysteries set in Victorian times. While not nearly as epic or enthralling as Pullman's His Dark Materials series, I enjoy these books. They've got hints of the fantastical about them, and the protagonist is a smart, independent female in a time when such things were frowned upon.
2) William Gibson's "Bridge" trilogy consisting of Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties. Technically, this was a reread since I know I've read them before, at least once, but it might as well have been the first time for all I remembered of them. I have this problem with most of William Gibson's writing-it flows through my mind and right out again, elusive and impossible to retain. I like his stuff. When I'm reading it, I enjoy and am engaged and impressed by it. But within a day or two of putting the book down, I'd be hard pressed to tell you what it was about. Same thing happens with Neuromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive. I've read them twice, possibly even 3 times, but I could only give you the sketchiest idea of the plot of characters. (something about Artificial Intelligence?...and a satellite?...a woman named Molly?...that's all I got) It's very strange. I don't have this issue with any other author. In fact, I pride myself on my ability to retain text well, but Gibson just doesn't stick. His book Pattern Recognition does, though, for some strange reason. Maybe because it's set in the modern world, as opposed to the near future setting of his other stuff. I don't know. It's weird.
In other book related news, Josh and I have entered all but a handful of our books into library thing. Total count: 1311 books. Awesome! Not high enough to be in the top 100 libraries (must..buy..more...) but still a respectable number. Every book has at least 1 tag, often more, so you can get a sense for what our library contains by looking at our "tag cloud" (from the profile page, click "tag cloud" on the right). Browsing the library using the "graphical shelf" option is fun.
Our Library
Our Profile
There's still some work to be done on the tagging, and we want to scan the covers for books where amazon didn't have one, put overall we are pleased. This project has caused us to reorganize our library physically, in addition to digitally, a task that has needed doing since we moved in and threw our books onto shelves semi-randomly. We filled in the cases in the living room last night, but still have towering stacks of books that need to get reshelved in the office. It's fun!
1) Philip Pullman's Sally Lockheart Trilogy: The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, and The Tiger in the Well, a set of young adult mysteries set in Victorian times. While not nearly as epic or enthralling as Pullman's His Dark Materials series, I enjoy these books. They've got hints of the fantastical about them, and the protagonist is a smart, independent female in a time when such things were frowned upon.
2) William Gibson's "Bridge" trilogy consisting of Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties. Technically, this was a reread since I know I've read them before, at least once, but it might as well have been the first time for all I remembered of them. I have this problem with most of William Gibson's writing-it flows through my mind and right out again, elusive and impossible to retain. I like his stuff. When I'm reading it, I enjoy and am engaged and impressed by it. But within a day or two of putting the book down, I'd be hard pressed to tell you what it was about. Same thing happens with Neuromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive. I've read them twice, possibly even 3 times, but I could only give you the sketchiest idea of the plot of characters. (something about Artificial Intelligence?...and a satellite?...a woman named Molly?...that's all I got) It's very strange. I don't have this issue with any other author. In fact, I pride myself on my ability to retain text well, but Gibson just doesn't stick. His book Pattern Recognition does, though, for some strange reason. Maybe because it's set in the modern world, as opposed to the near future setting of his other stuff. I don't know. It's weird.
In other book related news, Josh and I have entered all but a handful of our books into library thing. Total count: 1311 books. Awesome! Not high enough to be in the top 100 libraries (must..buy..more...) but still a respectable number. Every book has at least 1 tag, often more, so you can get a sense for what our library contains by looking at our "tag cloud" (from the profile page, click "tag cloud" on the right). Browsing the library using the "graphical shelf" option is fun.
Our Library
Our Profile
There's still some work to be done on the tagging, and we want to scan the covers for books where amazon didn't have one, put overall we are pleased. This project has caused us to reorganize our library physically, in addition to digitally, a task that has needed doing since we moved in and threw our books onto shelves semi-randomly. We filled in the cases in the living room last night, but still have towering stacks of books that need to get reshelved in the office. It's fun!