A stocking full o' books

Here's the books I got for Christmas. That's the German translation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which I know so well that it's easy to read in German even without a dictionary handy. That copy of Emma is also in German. Quite a German themed stack, given Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, which I'm about to start reading. A new Connie Willis to look forward to, and Miss Marple just for fun.

I'm super excited to finally own Sam Starbuck's two novels, and one of them is signed! I've already reread Charitable Getting since Christmas, so I'll have a review of it soon.

A quick book meme

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - most of middle school was devoted to these, and I still have a whole shelf of Tolkien and related books.

2. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice - One of my very favourite books, which will probably always be able to remind me of high school.

3. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff - I've talked about this recently enough that I needn't say why it's on this list, but it is a lovely book.

4. Tam Lin by Pamela Dean - my favourite book of all.

5. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - The whole trilogy, really, but I probably remember this one the best. They're thoroughly wonderful.

5. Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce - All of Tamora Pierce's novels, especially the earlier ones, stick with me, but I always loved this one especially well.

6. Emma by Jane Austen - need I say more? I've spent enough time on this one lately.

7. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - I'll always be glad I had the good timing to grow up with these books, and they really are wonderful stories.

8. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - I need to reread this, but it did have a big effect on me when I read it, and I remember it extremely fondly.

9. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell - I don't even know why I love this one so much, but Elizabeth Gaskell has an indefinable quality that makes me love her.

10. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - I read this a little too late to have a childhood fondness for it, but I love it nonetheless.

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - this used to have fights with Tam Lin over being my favourite book, and I still love it.

12. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder - I had to include a favourite children's book, and this is the one I was always fondest of.

13. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom - I loved these when I was a child, and they are some of the few books that I love in exactly the same way as an adult.

14. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh - this just has some really rather magical qualities to it.

15. The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt - it's enormous and vivid and lovely, is all.

So many books, so little space

I just got my dorm assignment for the fall, so now I'm really starting to think about what I'm bringing with me. I'm not going very far, so I'll be able to come home for anything I want, but sometimes you just want to have things there to hand exactly when the thought first occurs to you.

In terms of books... They tell you not to bring anything apart from a few favourites because you'll be too busy reading for classes, and looking at the stack of books I bought the other day for just one class I totally believe this.

I've come up with the brilliant plan that I will bring nothing that is in the public domain, since if it is it can be found in the Great Holy Place of Literature, Ridiculousness, and Geekery We Call the Internet. Plus in virtual form it will be easily searchable thanks to the wonders of Ctrl+f, and I doubt I'll be looking it up for anything but reference.

So I won't bring reference books. And let's face it, I'm sharing an 11' by 15' room with two other people, so unless I want to sleep with books in my bed like stuffed animals (which, er, isn't unheard of in my world) I won't have room for very many.

What books do I think I'll have a sudden desperate urge to read and not be able to wait the half-hour bus ride to get them from home? They'll be comfort books, ones I've already read countless times. Tam Lin, no doubt, will be a necessity. I suspect the His Dark Materials trilogy will make the trip. I might also consider Harry Potter, a couple of Tamora Pierce books, and maybe the most compact copies I have of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. This is already taking up a lot of space. And I should probably bring that Barack Obama book I'd forgot about, which we're all supposed to have read. And maybe a couple of the books left on my to-read pile after the summer's over. And where am I going to put my shoes?

We'll see how this pans out. I'm already looking at that list and making cuts.

Summer reading pile

When I was cleaning my room a couple weeks ago, I finally got around to pulling out all the books that are scattered here and there that I know are on my to-read list, and stacking them up. Most of these are books on my list for the summer; I know there are others I mean to read but they're a little further off. Seven of them I've already started (some long enough ago that I'll probably just start over); Tam Lin of course I've read several times, but I'm due for a reread. Two are library books, most I own, a surprising five are nonfiction, four are children's books. Also in the picture, my stack of Dorothy L. Sayers that I mentioned the other day. Those, really, are rather longer term than just this summer, but I'd like to get in a couple more of them. The Barack Obama book is the UW's common book for all freshmen; in theory we'll all have read it and can thus meet people by starting conversation about it. Many of these books I've talked about before, so I won't go over them in detail again, but you can expect to hear more about them in the near future.

Funny, apparently the French tilt their heads to the right instead of the left when browsing the bookshelves, because I had to turn that copy of the French translation of Harry Potter face down so you could read the spine.

Three Short Books

In the spirit of the year's ending, I've been trying to finish as many books as possible, for various reasons. The last three books of the year (there's really no chance I'll finish another before the end of the day; I have a New Year's party to go to) are all quite short, but I enjoyed them all rather a lot.

We begin with King Lear, which I suppose doesn't really count as a book; it's a play, written by a nice fellow you may have heard of. I read it mostly because the third season of Slings and Arrows sees the New Burbage Festival putting it on, but also because I am on quite the Shakespeare kick. I watched the BBC's Derek Jacobi Hamlet yesterday, which was quite good (though ridiculously long, at three and a half hours). I had not been previously acquainted with the story of King Lear, apart from a vague recollection that oh, yeah, that's the one where they pull the guy's eyes out. Anyway, it was very enjoyable, and I was rather surprised to find several very familiar quotes in it ("O, reason not the need"). Apart from that, it got me thinking about how susceptible I am to dialect in books and films. I don't know if it's more than most people, but every time I watch Monarch of the Glen I start thinking in Scottish, I watch Torchwood I think in Welsh (not the language, obviously). Reading Storming Heaven, or The Beans of Egypt, Maine, I started thinking in those dialects to a rather alarming degree. I read Shakespeare or watch it, and for about twelve hours afterwards can't stop my syntax from going Shakespeare, or my word choice. Funnily enough, I watch a film with English dialects, I don't usually start thinking in English. I think it's because I watch so many English things (very nearly to the exclusion of all else) that it sounds almost completely normal to me.

Discussing the various essays I wrote for college applications with my Senior Lit teacher, she mentioned that the way I write is very distinctly influenced by Victorian literature. I know this is true, especially in writing a formal essay, and frankly I rather like it. It would be interesting, I think, to compare how much literature has influenced the way I write and speak with how it has influenced someone else.

Yesterday, I got The Tales of Beedle the Bard from the library, J.K. Rowling's new book. On one glance at the margins I said to my mother, "I'll have this finished in an hour," and I was almost exactly right. It was very short, but rather pleasing, and the stories all rang true as proper fairytales--it is possible to write a fairytale and have it come out sounding like something else.

I've been reading Five Children and It for months, on and off, ever since I brought it home from the free book table at school, and just today have I finished it. The funny thing about reading E. Nesbit is that I never read her as a child, but I did read Edward Eager, who is so alike E. Nesbit, but who came after her. In my mind Edward Eager came first, but I feel as though actually I did read E. Nesbit just because I might as well have. I have the same sentimental attachment to her writing as I do to books I read when I was young despite having never read her, because she's so like other books I did read, Edward Eager's and even to some extent Arthur Ransome's, which all epitomized what I always wanted my childhood to be like. I wanted to be an early 20th century English child, with about three siblings. I still want that. It's a lovely book, anyway, because it plays to everyone's childish wishes; even adults still subconsciously wish for all the sorts of things the children ask of the Psammead.

This was a very rambling post; I shall now end it.