While I was waiting for a long video to download tonight, I went to the bookshelf next to my computer desk for something small to flip through. I found Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman, a collection of essays about being a reader. My sister found this online, and immediately knew she had to give it to me after reading the following from the preface:

[T]here is a certain kind of child who awakens from a book as from an abyssal sleep, swimming heavily up through layers of consciousness towards a reality that seems less real than the dream-state that has been left behind. I was such a child.

So was I. My sister is also a reader, but she's never been one at that level. I remember reading Alcott's Rose in Bloom at my grandparents in Hot Springs and laughing over some scene or another. That laugh took me out of the book enough to have me look up from the page a few seconds later, only to find my mom and grandma looking at me with smiles on their faces. "What?" was my response, and Mom just shook her head and said, "It's nice to see you enjoying your book." I never understood people who can't get into books deep enough to enjoy them like that.

Fadiman's first essay has a wonderful paragraph about shelf organization, including this crime against nature and biblioholics:

Some friends of [friends] had rented their house for several months to an interior decorator. When they returned, they discovered that their entire library had been reorganized by color and size. Shortly thereafter, the decorator met with a fatal automobile accident. I confess that when this story was told, everyone around the dinner table concurred that justice had been served.

Definitely recommend this book!

Oooh, I have that book, and I did experience a wicked schaedenfreude about the interior decorator's untimely end.

And the way she knew she was really married was when she and her husband finally combined their libraries, with all the attendant angst.

Oh, that reminds me! I was thinking the other day about a book that was discussed here a while ago. Actually, I think someone just linked to a review on someone else's website. Anyway, the book was clearly awful (possibly self-published) and involved a protagonist who embodied nearly every current bad fantasy/romance cliche: he was a telepathic alien elf pirate, or something, and the review was fantastically snarky and funny. Is this ringing a bell for anyone?

Yes! I think but am not positive that it came up in a discussion about What Makes A Mary Sue A Mary Sue - the elf pirate's girlfriend was a red-haired Mary Sue, IIRC. It was a couple of years ago, I think, in this thread.

I haven't read here in over a year - it's fun to read the book recs.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, is my favorite from 2005. It's beautifully written and the whole story doesn't really hit you until you've finished it.

Hee. KristinT and I were just discussing ExLibris on Monday!

Hee. KristinT and I were just discussing ExLibris on Monday!

Namedropper.

Yes! I think but am not positive that it came up in a discussion about What Makes A Mary Sue A Mary Sue

Okay, so I'm not crazy! I'll try searching the old thread. Thanks, Java cat!

Hey, anyone want to give me some good manga recs? I just read Fullmetal Alchemist (for my Young Adult Literature class, which is pretty much the awesomest class ever) and now I want to explore further.

So, any short story fans? What makes a short story good? Is a mysterious/ambiguous/unresolved ending desireable?

I like short stories from time to time, and I wouldn't say that desireable is the term I'd use for mysterious/unresolved/ambiguous ending. I think that a short story can support such an ending much better than a longer work can; in a longer work, that kind of ending can feel like a cheat, given the investment we've put into reading the story. Conversely, a resolved ending to a short story can seem pat and contrived, especially if the events leading to the resolution have to be crammed in to a too-short space.

I'm going to have to think about why I like the short stories I do and come back to this one.

Is a mysterious/ambiguous/unresolved ending desireable?

That sounds way too much like formula for me. It can work, in good hands. But it doesn't need to be there.

I agree with Anne that those endings work better in short stories. A novel, unless mightily well done, will leave me thinking "I've been here how long, and I don't know what happened!"