Read or Die

Like many people here, I used to use Livejournal a lot. My usage really dropped off about five years ago, once I started using Facebook on a regular basis, but my account still existed (if somewhat dormant) at Livejournal.

However, since Livejournal has recently decided that it doesn't recognize the legal and rightful existence of my LGBTQAI* friends, I don't want to have anything to do with it, and so I'm here.

It's possible, now that I've been reminded of it, that I might even post here on occasion. Because, slammed as I am with work, I need another place to spend my time. Har.

Recently read: Game of Cages by Harry Connolly; City of Fire by Lawrence Yep; Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews. Am now laughing my head off at Harry's original title for Game of Cages, Everybody Loves Blue Dog, as I get it now and it's hysterical. Completely not good as the final title, but very very funny.

New Plan! I have a lot of very cool books in the house which I am not reading because I buy them and then get distracted by the latest hold to arrive at the library for me, and so on. My New Plan is to read one book I've already bought and have sitting on my bookshelves for every book that I bring home (including from the bookstore and the library). I'm experiencing Total Fail in this department so far, but I have hopes that it might catch on.

I have, because I Love My Husband, and he is experiencing general lifesuck, given him first crack at I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett. He was reading it in the bath, earlier in the evening. The book did not hit water, nor did water hit it. My husband still lives. Did I say that I Love him? I must.

I've been working in the bookstore (one day a week) for about three months now, and it is a Good Thing. I'd forgotten how much I like recommending books to people, talking away about this or that with that boingboingboing...read this! feeling of fun. I'm starting to get my book-selling feet under me again...it's been a long time since I worked in the bookstore and I was feeling that I had missed out on all the trends of the last seven to ten years, but it's getting better. Now I can tell myself that my reading at home is work-related, which it is, really, because how else can I recommend books but by reading as many as possible? I love having a justification beyond simple greedy book lust.

And how are you?

Life and circumstance have dictated that I need to sell a number of books. Most of it is fairly common; some of the books are scholarly, and I know where I can best sell those.

This leaves me with some books that are a little more unusual, and that I think that I could get more money for if I sold them online than to a used bookstore.

Does anyone have any experience or advice for selling books online? I have no presence on eBay or other sites, and would like to know how that might influence how much I might get for these titles. I'm also trying to figure out if it's worth my while to try and get what these books might be worth, or to just let them go.

Advice? Comments? Offers to buy? :)

We went to visit my mother at Christmas, at her house in [city I no longer live in]. My mother has at least six IKEA bookcases of my books in her basement, as I didn't bring most of them with me when I moved to Toronto about sixteen years ago. I had originally intended to store them for a couple of years, while I did my grad work, but life intervened and they are still there. My mother is patient.

Every time I go to visit her, though, I bring a few back home. This time, I filled three bags full of books that I'd been thinking I'd like to reread, but only had room for one bag (the car was as full as it could be with books, presents, necessaries, and one guitar, and the guitar had precedence over the books. It's a 1963 Gibson; there is no way it's not coming with me). I'm rereading the Jhereg series, inspired to give the later books another go after papersky wrote some thoughts about them on the Tor website, and found all my copies except for Yendi. I have no idea why that one in particular is missing... I also found my Fafherd and the Grey Mouser books, and my six-volume Elric reprints from the 1980s. Last year, I put aside six boxes of paperbacks and other books for selling, but haven't sold them yet; the space I cleared still isn't anywhere near enough for the books I had before, let alone the books I brought back home, but that's beside the point.

Going home and browsing through my old bookshelves is like being able to take home anything I want from a bookstore I like, and intensely nostalgic at the same time. I think I'd save a good deal of money if I "went shopping" at my mom's more often...

To quote the quotable Inigo Montoya, "I hate waiting." Why? Because I would really like to have any of the following three items NOW, plsthxbai.

1. Lessons in French by Laura Kinsale, February 2010. She is one of the few romance novelists who makes me want to read everything she's ever written. It had been so long since her last book (Shadowheart, 2004), and I'd heard that she'd burned herself out quite badly, that I had no expectation of her ever writing another book. And here one is, coming my way! Yay! That'll keep me distracted briefly, however, from thinking about
2. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner, March 23, 2010. I actually squee-d aloud when I heard it was coming out. And look! It's actually being released (according to Amazon.com) on my *birthday*. Ahem. Thank you, universe!

However, we have until the fall of 2010 to wait for:

3. Super Mario Galaxy 2, because my five-year-old wants it yesterday and OMG has to wait a WHOLE YEAR. We may buy a Japanese Wii just so that he can play it when it's released earlier in Japan. Well, probably not, but we'll wish that we did.

There are rumours of a new Pratchett as well, Unseen Academicals, that might come into my hands sooner than later, if I can beat my husband to it. But he's tricky. And it's a Pratchett. I hope that I don't have to break a tooth again to get it (see this entry for an explanation...).

I've been getting more reading done in the last few months than I did last year at this date. As of the end of last month, I've read 38 books so far this year, which means that I'm more than on target for the 50-book-a-year challenge. Yay! This makes me very very happy.

I've been enjoying the books that I've been reading, too. I'm working my way through the Merchant Princes series by Charles Stross (1 and 2 down, 3 under way) and started the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs (totally fluffy, totally tasty), finished a Meg Cabot novel (Boy Meets Girl) and read Michelle Sagara's new Cast novel (Cast in Silence).

The second Mercy Thompson book just came into the library for me, and I'm going to use it as a very tasty carrot to help me to finish off a project sitting on my desk.

Reading makes me happy. Obvious, but still worth performing a happy dance over occasionally.

Yesterday, at the bazaar at my son's Japanese school, I found someone selling old magazines [ETA: in Japanese] and such (old to a value of published within the last year or two and in good condition). I picked up two children's magazines--one devoted to Miffy the Bunny (complete with Dick Bruna interviews at the back), and another a more literary magazine, with short stories and lovely illustrations. I also found two books on science at the grade three level, which I didn't realize were grade coded at the time (despite the big 3 on them; I was in a hurry), and a large board book by Gomi Taro, who is my favourite Japanese children's author right now for the 5 and under set.

The win for me, however, was finding a magazine entirely devoted to daytimers, called Minna no Techou. Yes: entirely devoted to daytimers. Not just brands or types, but containing discussions and examples of different list-keeping methods for use in your daytimer, at least 8 profiles of different people and the ways in which they use their daytimers, and so on. Some people use books designed for the purpose; some people repurpose other books or use blank books. There are PICTURES. Everything is lovingly detailed to the nth degree. The design, needless to say, is lovely.

This is stationery porn. Seriously. I love this issue. I can't even read most of it, but I love this issue. Somewhere in the house we have an issue of the same magazine (I think; I'll have to look) devoted to cucumbers (my husband bought it in New York, I think). When my husband wakes up, I'll get him to translate more of this issue for me and I'll share the good bits if I can.

It's so *cool*, people!

I've been looking into the differences between romance, literature, and women's commercial fiction, and was wondering if anyone out there has any opinions on the matter. Yes, women's commercial fiction is a horribly vague category, but there are a lot of books sold using this term as a marketing category. I do believe, as well, that there are certain conventions in women's commercial fiction (e.g., the heroine must be, somehow, better off at the end than at the beginning), but would be interested in knowing what other people think that they might be.

I forgot to post this list at the time, but I want to have it here for the sake of completeness:

Pole to Pole by Michael Palin
Victory by Susan Cooper
The Tears of the Salamander by Peter Dickinson (these three were library castoffs)
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
Jane on Her Own by Ursula LeGuin
365 Unplugged Family Activities by Steve and Ruth Bennett
AIrborn by Kenneth Oppel
The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (a double! D'oh!)
Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Nornby

Books bought to date (April 2009): 39
Books read to date (April 2009): 22

I'm not allowed into any more bookstores, anymore.

The ratio of books acquired to books read is still out of whack, but it was my birthday last month and that always throws things off.

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