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Canada Day Serendipity
We recall that there's a difference between the pleasure of buying books to read and the pleasure of buying books to buy books, yes? This may be the latter, but time will tell.
As I walked forth this Canada Day- which is being uncharacteristically blue-skied, sunny and cool- intent only on exercising my poor poor knees, I passed the Blue'n White Used Bookstore at Bloor and Brunswick, and of course went in to browse, and of course hauled my poor poor knees up their vertiginous stairs to the fantasy and language section. The latter as dangeorus as the former: I suffer from the common belief that all that's needed to learn languages is to buy textbooks and dictionaries. The more you buy the better your mastery of whatever. This is why I had to go back to university to learn Japanese: they actually test you on your kana and kanji.
Bypassing the languages entirely (though momentarily tempted by a hardcover book on Chinese armies and weapons from ancient times to 1830, including a colour pic of a Yue suicide soldier up against a Wu spearman with a shaman in the background-- and where were the shamans in Woxin, I ask me? cause these are tattooed barbarians, right?) I came away with
Mort
Pyramids
John M Ford's The Princes of the Air
Christopher Priest's The Prestige
John Crowley's Engine Summer
Patrick O'Brian's The Wine-Dark Sea
& The Commodore
and Hornung's Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman
TO bookstores never have used Pratchett except when they do, when it's all witches or Tiffany, and they never ever ever have Crowley. Trust me: I've been looking for a year. (Nor Holdstock either, though I found one two months ago.) The library doesn't have Crowley except in non-circulating copies. O'Brian is hit-and-miss, especially later in the series, and the chances of finding anything else interesting is minimal.
So this was a day of good hunting for me.
And now I return to Kurotsubaki 8.
As I walked forth this Canada Day- which is being uncharacteristically blue-skied, sunny and cool- intent only on exercising my poor poor knees, I passed the Blue'n White Used Bookstore at Bloor and Brunswick, and of course went in to browse, and of course hauled my poor poor knees up their vertiginous stairs to the fantasy and language section. The latter as dangeorus as the former: I suffer from the common belief that all that's needed to learn languages is to buy textbooks and dictionaries. The more you buy the better your mastery of whatever. This is why I had to go back to university to learn Japanese: they actually test you on your kana and kanji.
Bypassing the languages entirely (though momentarily tempted by a hardcover book on Chinese armies and weapons from ancient times to 1830, including a colour pic of a Yue suicide soldier up against a Wu spearman with a shaman in the background-- and where were the shamans in Woxin, I ask me? cause these are tattooed barbarians, right?) I came away with
Mort
Pyramids
John M Ford's The Princes of the Air
Christopher Priest's The Prestige
John Crowley's Engine Summer
Patrick O'Brian's The Wine-Dark Sea
& The Commodore
and Hornung's Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman
TO bookstores never have used Pratchett except when they do, when it's all witches or Tiffany, and they never ever ever have Crowley. Trust me: I've been looking for a year. (Nor Holdstock either, though I found one two months ago.) The library doesn't have Crowley except in non-circulating copies. O'Brian is hit-and-miss, especially later in the series, and the chances of finding anything else interesting is minimal.
So this was a day of good hunting for me.
And now I return to Kurotsubaki 8.
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Are you saying that's not how it works?
I must make a "no such thing as too many books" icon.
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True, having the books lying around may lead you to open them in stray moments and pick up the odd snippet. Is why I keep the books lying around. Concentrated study still works better.
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If it fails, obviously the solution is bigger dictionaries.
That reminds me, I really do have to track down some Crowley.
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Little, Big has gone beyond 'interesting curiosity' and even 'cult classic' into some kind of rarefied atmospheric level of Literature.
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Me too me too! >.< ... I am sadly exactly the same but hey books! BOOKS!!!
and I know Mort...but but OHhhh
"Princes of the Air" and "The Wine Dark Sea" -*smiles fondly* I don't think I was disappointed by these. ^_^ I hope you enjoy them too!
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Although the copy I picked up had a much prettier cover. (again it was more my habit of picking a book with an interesting cover more than anything)
I have read a lot of sea faring books but somehow never picked up those. I think it is odd. Although I could have picked an odd one here or there and not known it was part of a series. *is sheepish* I read a lot in my uhmm mis-spent (spelling?) youth. Sadly not all of them stick in the mind. Some do though. So I don't think I do too badly. ^__^