The lutel fowl hath hire will/ On hire lud to singe.

[flemmings]

Birds? I know my cherries are almost ripe oh joy oh happy feast feast feast. But also? It's 9:30 pm, the sun has set, it's growing dark, and you should be asleep, the better to wake the world up at 5 am tomorrow morning.

Not me, though. I've been sleeping great ten hour stretches as a result of a) a summer cold and b) having to work every day of my week off. Tomorrow I don't have to (barring the dolorous phonecall) but I do have an 11 am appointment that, well, I hope I'm awake for.

What have you just finished reading?
Karen Healey, Guardian of the Dead. Interesting and better than average take on the Urban Fantasy question of how the belief systems of new people arriving in a place interact with the belief systems already there. Liked the internationalism, given that's what it's like in the city where I live. Feel it should have grabbed me more, but I'm not the target audience.

Diane Wei Liang, Eye of Jade. Mystery set in Beijing written by someone born there. The setting more than the mystery was what kept me reading. Definite improvement on 'mystery set in China written by a westerner.'

What are you reading now?
Miyabe Miyuki, The Sleeping Dragon. See last sentence above.

Phillip Moffitt, Dancing with Life. In-depth reflections on the Four Noble Truths. Since the second Noble Truth is what keeps tripping me up ('The origin of suffering is attachment') I expect this will be useful.

Yoshiko Tagashira and Jean Hoff, Handbook of Japanese Compound Verbs. Bought some twenty years ago, looked at, despaired over-- largely because of the Nihon-shiki romanization system that drives a subvocalizer bats. My evening reading. As always, it's much easier to remember verbs you already know in some context (dakishimeru, damarikomu) than to do it cold.

What will you read next?
The last one in Livingston's Fae in New York trilogy, which does a better job with Irish/ English/ Welsh mythology in the New World than most. Fun reading.

The Miyabe in Japanese I got from the library. We shall see how far I get with *that*.

Comments

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

You share your cherries with the birds? Very generous of you!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I have no choice. The cherry tree is higher than my two-storey house. The birds do me a favour by eating the fruit before it can fall, rotting and worm-infested, all over three back yards.

Does mean no laundry hung out to dry for a month or so, of course.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Whoa! Miyabe in Japanese ... I'd like to know too how you get on with that ... I'm just curious. Having read her books only in English. Don't know if I dare try Japanese books in the original ... too daunting. Plus Oh my heavens ... I haven't hit the language books in years, the grammar alone with be a great stumbling block.

Happy reading dear.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Use it or lose it time. Also inspired by reading an article that says you must make a choice between reading for vocab (ie use the dictionary) or reading for practice (ie don't.) Being the obsessive I am, I usually look up any word or kanji I don't know, and thus never finish anything. But I know from experience (reading in Japan before I had a wordtank) that there's value in the other, even if you only grasp 30% which is what I was averaging then.

[yumiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, I shall have to try both of the books you just finished :D

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

They have their points, certainly. The Liang was her first book, and it shows a bit. But I liked it just because the heroine's backstory and character are highlighted as much as the mystery, instead of being slipped in on the side, 'hope the whodunnit fans don't see me writing maninstream themes' fashion, as in many mysteries. The ones that don't do stock characters.