Death is your art. You make it with your hands day after day. That final gasp, that look of peace. And part of you is desperate to know: What's it like? Where does it lead you? And now you see, that's the secret. Not the punch you didn't throw or the kicks you didn't land. She really wanted it. Every Slayer has a death wish. Even you.

Spike ,'Conversations with Dead People'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


zuisa - Oct 08, 2010 11:56:19 am PDT #12590 of 28350
call me jacki; zuisa is an internet nick from ancient times =)

Ooh, those are some pretty fantastic book covers!


JZ - Oct 08, 2010 11:57:07 am PDT #12591 of 28350
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

I haven't read Winter's Tale in about twenty years, but the last time I did it made me cry repeatedly. Parts of it are still vivid in my dreamscapes -- all those turn-of-some-other-century-that-never-quite-was New York winters. And I'd know the Lake of the Coheeries the second I saw it, if I was ever fortunate enough to find it.


Deena - Oct 08, 2010 11:58:10 am PDT #12592 of 28350
How are you me? You need to stop that. Only I can be me. ~Kara

I love this site for book shirts: [link]

The kids have already outgrown their pigeon t-shirts, but Kara still has a Viola Swamp sweatshirt.


-t - Oct 08, 2010 11:59:18 am PDT #12593 of 28350
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I did (read a Winter's Tale ), a long time ago, and loved it. On the strength of that, I read Memoir from an Antproof Case when it came out and was disappointed.

Edited for context


JZ - Oct 08, 2010 12:06:32 pm PDT #12594 of 28350
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

If you read Ellis Island, his early short story collection, you won't be disappointed, not even one tiny bit. And IIRC the novel A Soldier of the Great War is also very not-disappointing; it's not up to Winter's Tale or Ellis Island, but it's much more engaging than Memoir (which I started but had to abandon).


Scrappy - Oct 08, 2010 12:06:50 pm PDT #12595 of 28350
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

LOVE Winter's Tale.


Steph L. - Oct 08, 2010 12:08:45 pm PDT #12596 of 28350
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine

Those book shirts are tempting, but I already have Attack of Literacy (which I have been photographed wearing in many, many locales), the semi-colon (goodness, I never noticed what a little potbelly I have in that picture!), and El Vetica. I already have the wordnerd trifecta.

(I also now have Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman t-shirts. I can literally get my geek on almost every day of the week.)


-t - Oct 08, 2010 12:13:24 pm PDT #12597 of 28350
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I just looked at a synopsis of A Soldier of the Great War and I think I've read it, probably in between Winter's Tale and Antproof Case, so I must have liked it well enough to pick up the last one. Which I kind of wished I hadn't finished, it actually made me retroactively like his other books less, though I think I have finally gotten over that.


zuisa - Oct 08, 2010 12:13:27 pm PDT #12598 of 28350
call me jacki; zuisa is an internet nick from ancient times =)

I will have to check out Ellis Island!! I haven't read anything else by him.

Do any of you know of books that are comparable in any way? Someone recommended "Little, Big" by John Crowley, which I also enjoyed, but nowhere near as much as I loved "Winter's Tale".


Scrappy - Oct 08, 2010 12:35:53 pm PDT #12599 of 28350
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

100 Years of Solitude? Master and Maragarita? Carter Beats the Devil? The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay?