Last night I stayed up until 4 finishing Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Hegemon. In a way I should have reread some of the earlier books before reading it, but it didn't take that long to get back into the flow of his future world. I enjoyed this one enough to order Shadow Puppets today. I'll just need to make sure not to pick that one up after
midnight. (4.5 stars out of 5)

The night before last I was up late finishing Neil Gaiman & Gene Wolfe's A Walking Tour of the Shambles which was a short but entertaining travel guide to an imaginary (I think) part of Chicago. (4 stars out of 5)
posted by kristin at 5:23 PM

2 days in San Francisco. 1 book finished. 1 book purchased as a gift. 6 books purchased for me. The numbers aren't pretty.

I finished He, She and It by Marge Piercy. I'd picked it up based on a discussion about books that involved a golem that happened while we were discussing The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon in book group. It started out a little rough but got much better as the story went on. Two plots progress in parallel. One is the story of a future world into which is created a cyborg that has feelings, needs and desires. The other is a history of the Golem created in Prague in the middle ages. If you pick it up, force yourself past the rough beginning because it's worth a read.

Purchased:
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Wet: More Aqua Erotica edited by Mary Anne Mohanraj
Rubicon Beach by Steve Erickson
Slaughtermatic by Steve Aylett
Africa Zero by Neal Asher
A Year in the Linear City by Paul di Filippo

The last two I was convinced I'd need to purchase from amazon.co.uk so they were a nice find at Borderlands. I just wish I'd been able to remember more of what was in my UK wishlist.

On the plane on the way back (after finishing He, She and It) I read the first story in Charles Stross' Toast (which was originally purchased based on the recommendation of the owner(?) of Pulp Fiction in Vancouver, BC (or "VeeCee BeeCee" in He, She and It) in January.
posted by kristin at 10:44 PM

Lois McMaster Bujold books have an amazing ability to keep me awake far too late at night. I keep forgetting that I really shouldn't read them on weeknights. Ethan of Athos was not an exception, though it was an exception for the series in that Miles was only mentioned in passing.
posted by kristin at 9:43 PM

must... stop... buying... books

arrived today from amazon:
The Arabian nightmare by Robert Irwin
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
posted by kristin at 12:53 PM

Friday's Powell's tent sale purcheses:
Designing with Wood by Carol Soucek King (for my dad)
Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen (oops, duplicate)
DK Travel Guides Amsterdam
Native in a Strange Land by Wanda Coleman
Daemon in Lithuania by Henri Guigonnat
Armed Response by Ann Rower
Louis' Children by Leslie Gourse
Gone Tomorrow by Gary Indiana
The Cassini Division by Ken Macleod
The Philosophy of Humanism by Corliss Lamont
Musichound Swing! by Steve Knopper
The Day of Creation by J.G. Ballard

(all for $26)

from Seattle:
The Barbary Coast by Herbert Asbury
posted by kristin at 9:54 PM

I finished 4 Fantastic Novels by Daniel Pinkwater while in Seattle this weekend. Well, actually, I finished the 2 novels out of the 4 that I hadn't previously read. I really wish I'd discovered Pinkwater when I was younger, not because I'm too old for him now, but because I'd have really appreciated them when I was in about junior high. If I ever have kids, they'll be exposed to Pinkwater. When my friends' kids get a little older, they'll probably get Pinkwater as a gift at some point.

I didn't hit most of my usual book spots in Seattle while I was there this weekend, only 1 bookstore I hadn't been to before and only 1 book there. I did however stop by the Powell's tent sale again before I left town on Friday. This of course made me hit even worse traffic than I would have otherwise, but I think it was worth it.

arrived from half.com:
Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley

arrived from Barnes & Noble:
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn

posted by kristin at 8:56 PM

Purchased tonight at Powell's tent sale for $46.50 total

Erroll Selkirk - World War II for Beginners
Paul Cobley and Litza Jansz - Introducing Semiotics
Philip Holmes and Gunilla Serin - Colloquial Swedish (just the cassettes)
Berlitz Norwegian cassette pack with phrase book
Steven Barnes - Blood Brothers
Robert Hellenga - The Fall of a Sparrow
Hal Clement - Half Life
Sean Stewart - Galveston
Franz Kafka - The Castle
Nicholson Baker - Room Temperature (1st edition hardcover)
Salmon Rushdie - The Ground Beneath Her Feet

posted by kristin at 10:49 PM

Purchased over the weekend in Minneapolis and/or at Powells:

Tom Holt - Falling Sideways
Robert Rankin - Waiting for Godalming
Banana Yoshimoto - Lizard
Judd Winick - The Adventures of Barry Ween Boy Genius 4
Alison Sinclair - Legacies
Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen
Sten Nadolny - The Discovery of Slowness
Steve Aylett - Atom
Steve Erickson - The Sea Came in At Midnight
(the next 4 boxed together as Writers from the Other Europe)
Milan Kundera - Laughable Loves
Bruno Schulz - Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
Tadeusz Borowski - This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
Danilo Kis - A Tomb for Boris Davidovich

posted by kristin at 10:24 PM

I stayed up awhile last night finishing Sputnik Sweetheart (Haruki Murakami) after my houseguests went to bed last night. As always, I love Murakami's work. I'm not particularly good at figuring out why I like a particular author's work however. Murakami's characters never quite seem to fit in to the world around them. This one reminded me more of Norwegian Wood than his other more bizarre (and in some ways better) works.

Did you know that sputnik means "travelling companion" in Russian? I might need to adopt that into my English, since there isn't a word for it already (that I'm aware of).

I started a Pinkwater collection before finally crashing. It should be good bizarre light reading.
posted by kristin at 9:18 AM

I read Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton over the weekend while traveling. Amazingly enough, that's ALL I read over the weekend. I'd picked the book up out at the coast awhile ago because it looked interesting but hadn't gotten around to it until now. It was interesting. I'd really had no idea that the Dutch and British sailors making the runs to the spice islands turned into pirates along the way (much of the time but not all), nor had I known that England got the island of Manhatten from the Dutch in trade for a very small island named Run.

Parts of the book were very unpleasant reading however as various torture performed by these merchants and sailors were described.

posted by kristin at 11:38 AM

I put some quotes from The Marriage of Sticks on my quotes page.

posted by kristin at 10:35 PM

I finished The Marriage of Sticks Monday night and as usual for Jonathan Carroll loved it. His stuff is always just slightly out there and not quite classifiable. It's too normal to really be fantasy, and too weird to really be standard fiction. I don't want to give away any of the weird stuff so I won't say much except it's a good novel of self-discovery.

I started Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami last night and expect that I'll like that as well.
posted by kristin at 5:01 PM

I finally finished A Game of Thrones last night. While I liked it, I was a bit annoyed with the ending because there wasn't really one. It just stopped. Now I'll need to go buy the next book in the series, which is probably also 800 pages. He did a good job of making me care about the characters though which is more than a lot of fantasy novels have done.

Next up (I think): The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll.
posted by kristin at 10:32 AM

I stopped in the Beaverton Powells mostly to use the bathroom last night and walked away with a second copy of Barry Hughart's Eight Skilled Gentlemen (perhaps for my mom) and Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence. I've been more interested in history lately, though I'm still not quite sure what caused that interest.
posted by kristin at 8:42 PM

I'm so predictable sometimes. I was driving home from the gym last night and see a sign that was new in the shopping center across the street. "Giant Book Sale", it read. So I stopped. They were closing 10 minutes later, but I did a quick run-through and picked up 4 books (2 of which were even on my wishlist):

Gabriel's Gift by Hanif Kureishi
Mendel's Dwarf by Simon Mawer
You Bright & Risen Angels by William T. Vollman
Patience & Fortitude by Nicholas A. Basbanes

As for reading, I've not done as much this usual since I've been going to bed early due to jetlag. I'm still working on A Game of Thrones though.

posted by kristin at 8:24 AM