Visitants

Nov. 12th, 2014 09:59 pm
heliopausa: (Default)
I've had horrid and disturbed nights the last little while, with a Scratching in the wall... at least, it sounded like it was in the wall, though at one stage Something ran across the floor.   :( 
(But where can it be getting in?  I can't see any hole in the wall anywhere.  There's a very small gap under the door.Or did it come in through an open door, and couldn't get out?)
A trap was set last night, but with no result;  I am hoping like mad that what came of its own accord has just gone of its own accord.

Oh well... to talk of less disturbing visitations - or at any rate less disturbing to me, because they're in books.  :)  I have started reading Lilith, by George MacDonald, a book I've started before, but didn't manage to finish- I can't remember why.  So far - which is to say, two and a half chapters in - I'm enjoying it; a haunted library, an old family retainer, a magical mirror/portal, a talking Raven...  it's stuffed full of goodies! 

And of course has set me wondering who has borrowed what... )
Talking Ravens of course have a long history!  But does anyone know of earlier false-book doors? especially with jokey false-book titles.

heliopausa: (Default)
Oh wonderful liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century, who invented (as far as I know - am I wrong about this?) free public lending libraries!

I was back near one last week, and dashed in and gathered up a semi-random collection of books - only semi-random, because what I mostly wanted to do was read some of the fantasy/SF which I have read about in various passing references in comments round about. Here's what I got:
Peter Carey, because he's an Important Novelist, and I felt I should- The Chemistry of Tears, which was clever, and structured around a wonderful conceit, but I guess I wasn't really in the mood for the workplace manipulations and undercuttings which threaded through half of the story.
Diana Wynn Jones, because she wrote the chilling and very, very good Time of the Ghost., and because I want to read Howl's Moving Castle, which I have heard is good, but have never come across when I had the time to read.  But what the library had in stock was The Homeward Bounders, which felt a bit mechanical to me, a bit by-the-numbers. 
oh, and also (how could I forget?) The Merlin Conspiracy, which aimed a little younger than Time of the Ghost, I guess, but was fabulous
Robin McKinley, because I have seen people speak well of her writing.  What the library had was Chalice, which was ... ummm... well-written, I guess, but a bit obvious, in the pretty romance line?  And the bads so bad, and the goods so good, and the humble people so usefully humble.
Margaret Atwood - because I thought The Year of the Flood was brilliant (I couldn't get into Oryx and Crake, though) - Maddaddam.  Coming soon!
and looked for Lois McMaster Bujold, so I could find out what the Vorkosigan saga is all about, but there wasn't any on the shelves, so that'll have to wait in hope.

And I bought two actual books from two actual bookshops, too, but they don't fit in a post which is mostly saying... oh, brilliant, brilliant wonderful idea, free public lending  libraries!  Thank you, all who work to make them happen and keep them happening.  :)



heliopausa: (Default)
I've been cut off the internet for nearly  week, and it's been both depressing and interesting to find how little I know, when I don't have that storehouse of information at my fingertips.  Also, of course, it means I've not been reading here much (apart from when I managed to get a short time in an internet cafe) so I expect there's much I've missed - and maybe new stories, too, on AO3 or fanfiction.net.  I'll look through and see what I can see!  :)

Without the internet, I've been consoling myself by spare-time reading of several Shakespeare plays I hadn't read, or hadn't read lately, or hadn't read with much attention, or just plain felt like reading.
From the list: )

In the meantime the fandom fundraising for the Philippines has raised over twelve thousand dollars, which I think is brilliant. :)

And tomorrow is the 22nd of November, which is the beginning of a C. S. Lewis week (since he died on the 22nd and was born on the 29th.  Sounds time-travelly, doesn't it?) in honour of which I will attempt to post a scrap of Narnian head-canon every day.  Stay tuned!  :)

heliopausa: (Default)
Still travelling,with lots of pretty strenuous family dealings (not financial dealings!) leaving me fairly worn. But there's the huge advantage of sleeping in different rooms with lots of different people's libraries.  So... recent reading:

A Lively Oracle, a collection of essays, interviews etc, relating to P. L. Travers, who turns out to have written much more than Mary Poppins... )

Tono-Bungay, ... wow. H.G. Wells does the nineteenth-century critique of capitalism novel.  whose terrible title has left it largely unread? )

And last, and timelily...All Hallow's Eve,  Charles Williams' best novel? ) 

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