The money was too good. I got stupid.

Jayne ,'Ariel'


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."


amych - Apr 04, 2007 9:03:32 am PDT #2474 of 28175
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

"No Sweat Solutions to Global Warming"

I like it. Nice play on "no sweat"="easy" and "no sweat"="not too warm".


Typo Boy - Apr 04, 2007 9:11:40 am PDT #2475 of 28175
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

OK - think I'll go with that. Thanks Ginger, and thanks everyone.


Volans - Apr 07, 2007 7:50:55 am PDT #2476 of 28175
move out and draw fire

Huh. Lifehacker had a list of sites for free books today, and one of the comments included a link to goodreads.com which looks like a good companion to LibraryThing. It's what you've read and what you'd like to read.


Volans - Apr 07, 2007 10:12:42 am PDT #2477 of 28175
move out and draw fire

OK, fine...pancakes.

Amanda McKittrick Ros, offering posthumous hope to badfic writers everywhere:

-------------------------------

Nick Page, author of In Search of the World's Worst Writers, rated Ros the worst of the worst. He says that "For Amanda, eyes are 'piercing orbs', legs are 'bony supports', people do not blush, they are 'touched by the hot hand of bewilderment.'"

Aldous Huxley wrote that "In Mrs. Ros we see, as we see in the Elizabethan novelists, the result of the discovery of art by an unsophisticated mind and of its first conscious attempt to produce the artistic. It is remarkable how late in the history of every literature simplicity is invented.... This is how she tells us that Delina earned money by doing needlework:

She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father's slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.

Her novel Delina Delaney begins:

Have you ever visited that portion of Erin's plot that offers its sympathetic soil for the minute survey and scrutinous examination of those in political power, whose decision has wisely been the means before now of converting the stern and prejudiced, and reaching the hand of slight aid to share its strength in augmenting its agricultural richness?

Page comments: "I first read this sentence nearly three years ago. Since then, I have read it once a week in an increasingly desperate search for meaning. But I still don't understand it."

The Oxford literary group the Inklings, which included such luminaries as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, held competitions to see who could read Ros' work for the longest length of time while keeping a straight face.

A poet as well as a novelist, Ros wrote Poems of Puncture and Fumes of Formation. The latter contains "Visiting Westminster Abbey," which opens:

Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here,
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust;
Royal flesh so tinged with 'blue'
Undergoes the same as you.

As of 2004, none of her works are in print. Her books are rare and first editions command prices of $300 to $800 in the used-book market. Belfast Central Library holds an archive of her papers, and the Queen's University of Belfast has some volumes by Ros in the stacks.


Atropa - Apr 08, 2007 6:31:58 pm PDT #2478 of 28175
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

It's perfectly reasonable to spend the hour-and-a-bit before I need to get ready to go out to Goth Night adding more books to my LibraryThing, right?


sumi - Apr 09, 2007 5:12:54 am PDT #2479 of 28175
Art Crawl!!!

Here is a piece on Tolkien and The Children of Hurin from The Times.


Steph L. - Apr 09, 2007 7:07:59 am PDT #2480 of 28175
I look more rad than Lutheranism

So, question: would I like the Miles Vorkosigan books?

I know, broad question. I'm nuts over good writing, regardless of genre. I just tend to read straight fiction rather than SF/fantasy. (Although, as I think about it, a lot of what I've read in the past year or so could be considered fantasy, or at least the bastard second-cousin to it: Harry Potter, Libba Bray's books, Sarah Monette's books.)

Anyway, what say you all? Should I give the Vorkosigan books a shot?


flea - Apr 09, 2007 7:11:36 am PDT #2481 of 28175
information libertarian

I don't like 'em, and expected to, as they were highly recommended to me by another online group I used to participate in, Dorothy Sayers fans. The group was always raving about Heyer and Vorkosigan, and I tried both and loved the Heyer and didn't like V.

I have a very limited interest in sci-fi/fantasy, though. I think the Space Wars thing put me off. I mean, my modern sff reading begins and ends at Connie Willis, and now Temeraire. I don't seem to do space.


Steph L. - Apr 09, 2007 7:14:43 am PDT #2482 of 28175
I look more rad than Lutheranism

Connie Willis

I've only read Inside Job, which is a novella, but still really enjoyable.


Ginger - Apr 09, 2007 7:23:55 am PDT #2483 of 28175
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I'd suggest starting with Shards of Honor and Barrayar , which are also found together in Cordelia's Honor. They're really a prequel to the Miles stories, but they stand alone, so you can get a sense if you like the writing and the universe. You'll also never look at the word "shopping" the same way again.

Bujold and Willis are my current favorite authors, although I read a pretty wide range of stuff. For Connie Willis, I always recommend Bellwether , which is really more magical realism. It's very funny, particularly if you've worked in a dysfunctional office.

(edited because I apparently haven't had enough coffee to do italics)