Ursula K LeGuin spoke in Olympia tonight. Though I'm way behind in stuff I made to time to see this. She mostly read from "A Wizard of Earthsea". But she also commented on her thought processes and answered questions. I always have loved her writing, knew she was brilliant, and even that she had a sense of humor. But in her writing her humor is mostly low key. In person she is witty! Must have been a wonderful teacher - funny on top of everything else.

I picked up several books today, including The Graveyard Book. I read the first chapter because I couldn't HELP myself after the first page, and then I patted it lovingly and put it away to savour later. Meanwhile I'm reading Charlaine Harris's Grave Sight (having inadvertently read the second book in this series, Grave Surprise, before this first one). I like this series quite a bit more than the Sookie Stackhouse books, so far. It's a little reminiscent of the early Anita Blake books (you remember? The ones that actually had plots, and dealt with Anita's interesting day job of raising the dead?). Only the protagonist is on a neverending roadtrip, in the manner of Sam and Dean. Only her crappy childhood wasn't as crappy as the Winchester boys' by a long chalk. Crappy like a crappy thing, but at least there were no yellow eyed demons. Mind you, she has that whole endless-motel-rooms-with-Wincestuous-sibling thing going on...only Tolliver's a stepbrother, so it's not going to scare the horses.

(There are, blessedly, far fewer of the tedious descriptions of dull and ugly clothes that characterise the Sookie books. And the cover art is infinitely better - I know that shouldn't matter, but it does. I still find the references to how skinny the protagonist is a little jarring, when it's all in the first person and I know that the author is herself fairly rotund, but I realise that's a bit silly of me. Still, overall I've come to think that Harris is an enjoyable storyteller when she's not distracting me with knit tops or inverted whitetrash snobbery.)

The Graveyard Book is just wonderful. And it may be even better when Neil reads it to you.

Mind you, wtf is up with The Graveyard Book having a recommendation from Laurell K Hamilton on the back?

I mean (1), it's a book pitched primarily at younger readers, who, one assumes, are not going to be all that familiar with the throbbing purple pwp prose LKH churns out, and (2) it's surely akin to trying to get people to watch Judy Dench performing on the basis of a positive review from Paris Hilton, in terms of, you know, talent?

(Holly Black's rec, otoh, seemed entirely reasonable.)

Have wolfed through Grave Sight and An Ice-Cold Grave, and enjoyed both of them. Am wondering whether to give Harris's Lily Bard mysteries a crack...but the blurb did rather put me off. Hmm. Anyone out there read them?

And on another note entirely, I was struck by how much professional fanfic there is out there, as I perused the shelves of my favourite bookshop. Within a few feet of each other were shelved Mr Darcy's Diary, Rhett Butler's People, Lydia Bennet's Story, Mirror Mirror and Son of a Witch. I rather wanted to pluck all of them off the shelf and bludgeon Lee Goldberg insensible with them.

I mean (1), it's a book pitched primarily at younger readers, who, one assumes, are not going to be all that familiar with the throbbing purple pwp prose LKH churns out, and (2) it's surely akin to trying to get people to watch Judy Dench performing on the basis of a positive review from Paris Hilton, in terms of, you know, talent?

Hee. Yep.

The Grave books are ok, although I don't find the protag supercompelling and frankly, I find the burgeoning bromance rather squickly. I know it's not technically incest, but it sur feels like it -- they've been brother and sister since they were single digits. It's too much a Flowers in the Attic, we've been mommy and daddy figures so long, let's buy a house-ness.

Speaking of YA, and way late to the party as usual, I just started Charles de Lint's The Blue Girl and I LOVE it. Can anyone tell me which of his other books are Newford novels?

Oh, lots! Um...

Forests of the Heart, Memory & Dream, The Onion Girl, Widdershins, all the short story collections (which are really great collections, and very intertwined, and all published together in a 1999 anthology called "The NEwford Stories), Trader, Spirits in the Wires. I may have missed some.

He's also a really nice guy -- I'm on his e-newsletter list and have written him and he wrote very nicely back.

I would look at the publication dates and read them chronologically. He'll take a major character from a SS and they'll be a secondary character in a novel, and vice versa, and in several of the later novels, it's better to have a solid understanding of the characters and past events.

Erin answered first-- I have no idea if read them exactly chronologically -- but close. He is my favorite short story writer --mostly because someone will show up other places later . It helps make his stories feel like a story of someone's life -- not just an incomplete bit.

Awesome! Thanks!

I am Erin with regard to the squick. I was okay until it became overt, and that was pretty much it for me.

I think the Lily Bard books are Harris' best. Lily is dark but not so bent that you can't identify with her. She had something terrible happen to her and she's coping as well as she can. Her other series, the Aurora Teagarten ones, are definitely cozies and Aurora Teagarten got on my nerves after a few books.