Today's confessional, I've finished three books finished since I last posted an update.

Robert D. Kaplan's Soldiers of God covers the war in Afghanistan, not the recent bombing of the Taliban, but their war with the Soviet Union in the late 80's. He does a good job of showing what he saw there as he travelled with the various Mujahidin groups. I'm way too much of a wimp to be a war journalist, especially in a war where covering it meant hiking for days up and down mountains to get into the country. He's doing a reading tonight at the UW bookstore for his latest book, Imperial Grunts, and I'm planning to go.

We had to read a chapter of David M. Levy's Scrolling Forward for class last month. It discusses the changing role of documents in the modern world. The subject was interesting and the chapter was well-written, especially compared to a lot of the other readings we did for that class, so I checked it out of the library and finished it yesterday. I'll probably never look at a cash register receipt the same.

Michael Bishop's Brittle Innings had been my transit/waiting room/etc book for some time. I'm not really into baseball but I enjoyed it. I now need to read Frankenstein. (If you want to figure out how those last two sentences relate to each other, read the book).
posted by kristin at 1:56 PM

Yesterday's mail included from L:
Henry Petroski's The Book on the Bookshelf

Today's mail included from amazon:
Eric Wagner's An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson
posted by kristin at 12:34 PM

Diane Asseo Griliches' Library: The Drama Within is primarily a book of photographs of various libraries from around the world. It's nicely done though with bits of commentary on the libraries, and quotes from other people about libraries.

Jonathan Carroll's Glass Soup is, in one way, a departure from his earlier books. I usually describe his work as saying that they start out seeming like straight realistic fiction and then something goes weird. This one is weird from the first chapter. I probably should have reread White Apples before reading it, but I couldn't wait.

The Devils in the Details is a slim book of short stories by James P. Blaylock and Tim Powers, both written separately and together. Enjoyable, but very short.

Judith Henry's Overheard at the Bookstore is actually reminiscent of Library: The Drama Within with the exception of bookstore photographs instead of libraries. Unfortunately, it is much less interesting overall since the quotes are simply things that were actually overheard in bookstores rather than commentary on them, etc.

Tom Robbins' Wild Ducks Flying Backward is a collection of short works: reviews, poems, stories, essays. I enjoyed it.
posted by kristin at 1:04 PM

Arrived today:
A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
posted by kristin at 1:03 PM

Finally arrived from amazon today:

Jonathan Carroll - Glass Soup
Paul Di Filippo - The Emperor of Gondwanaland
Tim Powers - Strange Itineraries
posted by kristin at 8:20 PM

Thought Contagion by Aaron Lynch was a mediocre book about memetics. A quick read, but not as indepth as I'd have liked.

Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten was far from mediocre. I read it in one sitting last night, while sick no less. I liked it quite a bit better than The Well of Lost Plots. He wrapped things up from the series pretty well, but fortunately left room for more Thursday Next books. (And perhaps Friday Next ones as well?)
posted by kristin at 3:11 PM

What all else has started playing with library thing?
posted by kristin at 12:04 AM

Apparently even when I finish a book of short stories fairly quickly I don't remember the first few by the time I'm done. Suffice it to say that if you like China Mieville's other works, you'll like Looking for Jake.

Tuesday night I went to see Neil Gaiman do a reading (finally!). The place was packed so it was 11pm before I was out of there with my signed copy of Anansi Boys. I read it over the next few nights. Definitely not as large in scope as American Gods, but I enjoyed it. To round out my Neil Gaiman week, I went to see a matinee of Mirrormask yesterday afternoon.

I drove up to the main Third Place Books store (as opposed to the closer Ravenna one) on Friday just to check it out. I think I like the feel of the Ravenna one better, but it was definitely a nice store. While I was there I picked up The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction. At some point I might make a list of all of the authors in there that I've not read.
posted by kristin at 10:23 PM

I read Terry Pratchett's Where's My Cow? at the bookstore last week. I'm really not quite sure what the target audience is, since it likely won't make sense to children that would normally read pictures books, but it was cute enough.

Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron is a nice piece of slightly-dated near-future (so basically now) cultural-study SF.

Thud! is typical Pratchett, so good, funny and worth reading.

I believe I picked up Luis Fernando Verissimo's Borges and the Eternal Orangutans due to a Nancy Pearl recommendation, but it was before I met her last week. It's short, surprising, and fun for someone who likes Borges (liking Poe would work as well).
posted by kristin at 12:58 PM