More from the '80s

If you need a friend, don't look to a stranger

Happy birthday stolen_tea! Hope it's a good one.

...completely random people trying to be my friend on Facebook?

Stolen from stolen_tea: the Litany of Beer

"Take the news by the horns." --NY1 (local TV news)

I recommend this book heartily to all storyreaders, wherever you went to college. It really should be a Yale SR long, although it might be a little too long for that. Anyway, that's what I was thinking when I dashed off the following Goodreads.com review:

This is one of the most imaginative works I've read in a long time. Whimsical, dark, frightening, hilarious... mash up a late Harry Potter book with The Phantom Tollbooth and Terry Pratchett's DiscWorld (w/ a dash of Patricia A McKillip). Did I mention it's set in a world where books and authors are venerated? Eh, just read it!

From the Publishers Weekly review, for those who like a little plot summary with their recommendations (edited to remove MASSIVE spoilers):

German author and cartoonist Moers returns to the mythical lost continent of Zamonia in his uproarious third fantasy adventure to be translated into English (after 2006's Rumo)... Optimus Yarnspinner, a young saurian novelist, embarks on a quest to track down the anonymous author of the most magnificent piece of writing in the whole of Zamonian literature.

Description from Goodreads.com: The author of 13 1⁄2 Lives of Captain Bluebear transports us to a magical world. Optimus Yarnspinner finds himself marooned in the subterranean world of Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books, where reading can be dangerous, where ruthless Bookhunters fight to the death.

I'm not giving anything away by telling you that the Fourth Crusade is the one where the crusaders sack and loot a series of Christian cities, most famously Constantinople (capital of Byzantium). Knowing that, you might expect this book to be depressing. It's actually highly entertaining--a "rip-roaring adventure yarn" (tm)--with lots of action, suspense, and humor. It is, in fact, very like an extended, well-plotted D&D campaign, or better, module with pre-gen characters thrown together in a contrived situation and sent On a Quest. The two protagonists are a bard/assassin and a paladin. Watch them not get along! and then learn to appreciate one another! There's another rogue, a fighter, a tyrant or two, some spineless clerics, and a kickass woman posing as an Arab princess who is rescued by the party (I mean, the main characters). Still, there is character development here. ANd the history is pretty accurate, tho it's the My-Characters-Made-EVERYTHING-Happen school of historical fiction. Essentially, this is shallow fun that's well paced and won't leave you with a toothache.

 Last embed, I swear!

Deeply imaginative and always fascinating, this novel imagines a Noah's flood scenario in which a (wait for it)children's hospital becomes an ark. Preserved by angels for some unknown purpose, the colorful cast of characters include a medical student who receives strange healing powers; your typical roster of doctors, residents, fellows, nurses; and a colorful set of child patients. Did I mention angels, a vampire, a mysterious man who washes out of the sea? Wonderful, horrifying, and complex, this novel is a must for lovers of The Stand, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, or Cloud Atlas.

(resonance42 , you especially)

 They beat me to all the good post titles. 

okthxbai

W00t! Guess who I'm going to see in The Scottish Play next month?

Happy birthday, resonance42! Hope you get some time to celebrate.

OMG. If you are or ever have been overeducated, a faculty brat, bookish, socially awkward, or in high school (preferably two or more of those): read this book. If you're into thrillers, conspiracy theories, postmodern prose, the movie Heathers, and/or Wildean wit: read this book. Blue van Meer has spent her life traveling the country with her widower dad, a professor. She has her sights on Harvard (I can forgive) but no idea about the world. For her senior year of high school, she attends a prep school where she's drawn into the orbit of a charismatic teacher and the uber-popular kids who are her proteges. A series of strange events culminates in the teacher's death--and our heroine determines to uncover the truth, no matter the cost. Have I mentioned the fact that the table of contents is a syllabus, with each chapter named after and thematically linked to a famous work of literature? The entire novel is that self-consciously clever... but it really is clever.

Read it before they make a half-assed film version like The Golden Compass, which I saw last weekend with M, matt_rah, and someone whose LJ username I don't know. I'd give the movie a B-. It's not howlingly bad, it's entertaining, it's reasonably faithful to the book (the solution to the religion issue works pretty well). The daemons and bears are done very well. But there's no character development, and we're basically rushing around for two hours with too much Stuff happening to really make Sense.

I'm just waiting for the animated film of Persepolis that comes out on Christmas. That's actually gotten some good buzz, I hear.

...from amethyst73. List 10 things that have made you happy recently. You're supposed to tag 10 friends and ask them to do the same, but amethyst73 didn't do that, and I won't either.

I usually have to take time out to notice the good, happy things in life--the annoying, negative things are easier to recall. So this should be a good exercise.

1. Seeing havenstone in the Times. Duh.
2. Getting to sing a solo at choir rehearsal and for our upcoming first gig.
3. Having the chance to gossip with matt_rah after rehearsal. (Dude, seriously, they're going to *Montreal* together.)
4. Taking the new girl at work to lunch and finding out that she's a singer too.
5. Getting some unexpected advice on BIGSCARYPROJECT at work.
6. Actually finishing a couple of subsections of the above this week.
7. Making plans to go home for Thanksgiving... and plans to see friends while we're all in town.
8. Getting over a cold in under 24 hours.
9. Being invited to coffee by someone very cool (no, not a potential romantic interest).
10. um... weekend almost here? sure, that counts!