Reading Choices

Lotus and Book, originally uploaded by littlemiao.

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I'm having such trouble deciding what books to take along on my little spring break adventure. A hard-covered book might be too much of an effort to hold while I'm vacationing. A short book would be easier to hold, but not last as long. If I bring more than one book, I might not finish a single one and then I would have wasted valuable packing space. Ah, tough choices.

In other news, my camera case will most certainly not arrive in time. Perhaps I will have to wrap my precious camera in a fleecy pillowcase. It's only just shipping today or tomorrow.

little study nook

little study nook, originally uploaded by littlemiao.

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I miss little study nooks like this one. I miss being in a place where the library was open on Sundays during breaks.

Oooof, must get back to work.

Colorful poetry

Some of Saki's satirical poems are kind of funny. Like this one, composed by the recurring character Clovis - a color painting of "the dawn coming up over the Brahma-putra river":

"The amber dawn-drenched East with sun-shafts kissed,
Stained sanguine apricot and amethyst,
O'er the washed emerald of the mango groves
Hangs in a mist of opalescent mauves,
While painted parrot-flights impinge the haze
With scarlet, chalcedon and chrysoprase."

I did not know the hue of chrysoprase until I looked it up on wikipedia, though I had a vague suspicion that it was greenish.

And that is all I have to say. Though if I get my act together, there is one story I want to comment more extensively on... perhaps this weekend.

* "The Recessional" in The Complete Saki, p. 202

Thought for the day

"[W]hen once you have taken the Impossible into your calculations its possibilities become practically limitless."

Saki did not mean this in an inspirational, motivating sort of way.

* p. 189 The Complete Saki (Penguin)

The book is due back at the library soon. I am reading at such a languid pace, it may take me all year to finish. Only 700 pages to go.

Why am I not outside enjoying the beautiful weather and the late sunset? Because I am inside finding 1,001 ways to avoid studying for tomorrow's exam. My final final of the term. I just want to get it over with, but since I can't take it this instant, I am obligated to fill the intervening time with studying.

Glareful Prince Tantra punishes the unworthy

Glareful Tantra, originally uploaded by littlemiao.

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Because it was ever so much more important to finish reading Sandman Vol. 4 than to study for one of the four exams I have coming up in the next three days.

My Miao Brothers are ever so disappointed in me.

(Actually, I expect that with the exception of the stern Prof Tash, they don't really care how much or little I study because it won't bring me home any sooner. Alas.)

A book meme

Stolen from Fatcat (on vox) and first posted on the Miao Brothers' Vox.

1.) Which author do you have the most books by? Marion Zimmer Bradley. My mother gave her entire MZB collection to me. Otherwise maybe P.G. Wodehouse or Rex Stout, but those books are technically my father's though I borrow them often.

2.) What book do you have the most copies of? One of each, more or less.

3.) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? What comes to mind first is Professor Radcliffe Emerson of Elizabeth Peters' Egypt series.

4.) What book have you read more than any other? Hard to say. Probably any of the Ramona books. I read those a lot when I was little.

5.) What was your favorite book when you were ten? Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. I re-read that one a lot too. I loved and still love A Little Princess and Secret Garden. The Little House on the Prairie and all the other Laura Ingalls Wilder books were/are some of my absolute favorites.

6.) What is the worst book you've read in the past year? A couple disappointing young adult novels that I won't bother to mention. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon on audio book (another case where I chose the book because of its length and not much else - maybe I should have read reviews).

7.) What is the best book you've read in the past year? Like Fatcat, I'm having a hard time picking one. I began reading Sandman this year and I love it immensely. The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett was marvelous. I just finished Upon the Head of the Goat by Aranka Siegal - I'll call it a haunting memoir of ww2 Hungary because it has haunted me ever since I finished it.

8.) If you could tell everyone you know to read one book, what would it be? Another hard question. I feel guilty if I recommend a book to someone and they don't like it. And I'm not quite sure there's a single book everyone should read. Except maybe this one:

The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out

9.) What is the most difficult book you've ever read? Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian. I read it in Chinese. He got the Nobel prize in literature a few years ago and I made the mistake of thinking that made it worthwhile. Maybe I ought to re-read it and give it another chance. It was difficult because it was pointlessly and deliberately frustrating.

Soul Mountain

10.) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? No preference, really. But I guess I read more French authors than Russian ones. Russian books are so daunting in length...

11.) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? Shakespeare

12.) Austen or Eliot? Austen

13.) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? I claim to love Shakespeare but I still haven't read all of his plays or sonnets. I haven't read much poetry. I should read more Chinese language literature - I haven't read much for at least a couple years now. I don't have much of a selection available, and I'm just not in the habit any more.

14.) What is your favorite novel? Impossible to answer, but for now let's say Little Sister by Kara Dalkey. And always, Dream of the Red Chambers by Cao Xueqin.

15.) Play? I would be lying if I said that I liked Hamlet more than A Midsummer Night's Dream, but it wouldn't be a very big lie.

16.) Poem? Like I mentioned, I don't read much poetry. This is something I'm working to remedy.

17.) Essay? Um, "Of cannibals" by Montaigne? Maybe.

18.) Short story? Not sure. I'm reading and sort of enjoying Saki's short stories right now, but I wouldn't call any of them favorites. Lu Xun, perhaps the greatest Chinese writer of the 20th century, wrote many short stories. It has been a few years since I read any, but "A Madman's Diary" stuck with me (it has a cannibalistic theme).

19.) Non-fiction? Walden.

20.) Graphic novel? I just began Sandman. In fact, I've spent most of the day reading Vol. 4 rather than studying.

21.) Science Fiction? Not sure. I do read sci-fi, though sometimes I'm unclear on the line between sci-fi and fantasy. And my italics won't unitalicize themselves.

22.) Who is your favorite writer? Shakespeare.

23.) Who is the most overrated writer alive today? Not sure.

24.) What are you reading right now? Saki's short stories. Sandman Vol 4. How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis, which I began months ago but can't stand. I still intend to finish it, though. I'm also reading Jorge Luis Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings.

25.) Best memoir? I just finished Upon the Head of the Goat by Aranka Siegal, a memoir of her childhood as a Jewish girl in wartime Hungary. Very haunting.

26.) Best history? The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling the Smallpox Epidemic by Jennifer Lee Carrell. Very thoroughly reasearched, but written like a medical thriller. Anything by Jonathan Spence. esp., The Death of Woman Wang.

27.) Best mystery or noir? Nero Wolfe.

28.) Best romance? I don't usually read or like romances, or maybe my idea of a romance is too restrictive.

A delicate balance

"Tell me a story... One just true enough to be interesting and not true enough to be tiresome."

--- Saki

From The Complete Saki, "The Story of St. Vespaluus (p.166).

I'm working my way slowly through Saki's short stories. I'm not entirely convinced that the book (Penguin edition) is complete, having seen references elsewhere to writings of Saki's that don't show up in the book. Or maybe they do.

A volume such as this, in my opinion, needs an introduction. The lack of an introduction leaves me feeling unanchored.

There is something fascinating and disturbing about these stories. Maybe it has to do with the variety of ways women can be killed by wild beasts.

Brighten your Monday with unicorns and rainbows!

Ping, cornified, originally uploaded by littlemiao.

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King Ping gazes benevolently at the world through a wreath of rainbows and unicorns.

Click here to cornify your Monday too!

It was waiting for me all along

I finally have a copy of The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out. It was sitting in the rental office for two weeks because I was under the impression that UPS couldn't deliver it, owing to the fact that I received an email from amazon.com to that effect. It took me two weeks to call UPS and ask what's up, only to find out that the book was waiting here for me all along. If only I hadn't been too scatterbrained to check the UPS tracking number online. Sometimes I wonder if I have any brains left to scatter.

I still need to ask for a signed bookplate, if there are any left.

The book is beautiful, to say nothing of the comics themselves, which are genius.

Goal for this evening

Mani's reading time, originally uploaded by littlemiao.

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I'm going to finish reading The Wee Free Men tonight.

Mani is going to nap.

Fictive shelves

I find it intriguing that the Sandman comics are shelved under adult non-fiction at the local library.

The fourth volume is waiting for me. I'll pick it up tomorrow. yay!