Member: readhead

Oh, the other book I read in the last 6 months or so that was super was Girl in the Glass by Jeffrey Ford. I see the site says you are "currently reading" The Shadow Year. How was that? Girl in the Glass was wonderful. From the description I thought it would be a "ghost story" kind of book, but in the end it wasn't. But it was a great mystery, and a great "period piece," and it brought me very clearly to a world most people never knew. Plus the characters are great, with real lives. And I loved the ending. For a mystery, it was an incredibly good ending - they tend to just fizzle out and you're left with nothing at the end but the feeling you just went through some intellectual exercise. No so here! And the book wasn't even all that long, either, which is kind of a plus for me.
Jim

posted by bibliojim at 2:23 am (EST) on Oct 8, 2009

Hi,

I got your request on SFFWorld, and answered back. Good to hear from you. I am not over there much. Are you there rather than here ? Hope everything is OK.

posted by FicusFan at 10:52 pm (EST) on Jun 14, 2009

"THE LIGHT OF INTEGRITY

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts.
Think only on those things that are
in line with your principles
and can bear the full light of day.
The content of your character is your choice.
Day to day, what you choose,
what you think,
and what you do is who you become.
Your integrity is your destiny ...
it is the light that guides your way."

- Heraclitus, Greek poet, philosopher

----------------------------------------...

"ACCEPT

Be still--listen,
A small voice will
Speak to you.
Be still --hear,
That your challenges will
Be smaller, your path
Will be smoother.
Be still--accept,
The invitation from Spirit
To step into newness."

- Carolyn W. Darlington

posted by theoldman at 11:53 am (EST) on Feb 19, 2009

Hi,
Still looking forward to hearing from you!
Lately I read Neil Gaiman's 'The Graveyard Book'. I thought it was a good book. Some parts weren't very relevant to the plot - reminiscent of Harry Potter books, come to think of it - but it was a pretty good read, especially for a kid's book. It had a great message.
I started Michael Flynn's latest book, too! 'The January Dancer'. It seems extremely interesting. It promises to be a heart-pulling book, I think. I went to the bookstore for a few hours yesterday and sat down with four books, and this was the only one I liked, and I definitely had to buy it. I remember talking about his books with you before.
I took a look at Eric Flint's last book in the 1632 series, and couldn't make head or tails of it. Too many people, too many references to characters from earlier books in the series without knowing who they were, and skipping around from viewpoint to viewpoint and the plot seemed deeply buried in there somewhere. I read his TimeSpike book and loved it, and I've heard good things about 1632, but I guess it's not a good series to start in the middle of.
There was another book, which unfortunately I don't remember the title or author of; the author's first book, mass market paperback. I'm thinking the author's last name started with 'S'? Russian first name? It was an "alternate history" book, but it seemed primarily about the people involved in a military campaign in Alaska and not that much "story" to it outside of the military aspects, so I didn't buy it. But for people who like military stuff a lot, I bet it would be very good. It seemed like it hung together well, and it was an interesting scenario.
The fourth was Jo Walton's third and last book in the series that started with with Ha'penny. I bet it's a good book as a followup to the first two, but it seemed very much involved with politics and not so much with people, and it didn't seem like a good book to read out of context of the other two - which I didn't buy when they were out. So, I didn't buy that one. Have you read Ha'penny? What did you think about it?
I picked up Laird Barron's 'Imago Sequence', which is a short story collection. I started it a number of months ago, just reading one story in the bookstore and then buying it, but putting it on my "to read" stack. They are horror stories, which I normally don't read, but the first story was very good. I think the rest of the stories are also very good, but I find that in general they are very dense, and unlike the first story, they tend to be of the sort where much of the horror is by implication and insinuation. Because of that, you have to read every word carefully. But because they are dense and sometimes tedious, I find myself wanting to skip through the stories. It doesn't work very well for me right now. So, I probably won't finish 'Imago Sequence'. I gave it a good shot. I remember you don't like horror very well, so I don't suppose you'd have tried it anyway! Just thought I'd mention it.
I also started Goonan's 'In War Times'. It start out kind of slow, but it might develop well. I've heard some interesting things about it. Michael Flynn's book has attracted my attention more strongly, though.
Well, that's a little reading report. Hope to hear from you soon.
Jim

posted by bibliojim at 1:38 pm (EST) on Jan 11, 2009

Hey, I just realized you are intensityxx.-nice to see you here as well. :) The LT SFF group really does feel like a core sample taken from SFFWorld...

posted by arthurfrayn at 11:43 pm (EST) on Nov 23, 2008

Hi,

I see you added some books, and I realize it has been a while since I heard from you. Hope everything is OK. I bet your summer has been going better than ours here. It RAINS every day. Just amazing. Haven't been to SF World in ages, are you still active ?

Ficus

posted by FicusFan at 2:37 pm (EST) on Aug 15, 2008

Hi!!!
I'm in the middle of changing IP providers so my e-mail isn't working well now and maybe my Internet will conk out in a few days. But I should be hooked back up again with broadband in a couple of weeks. Yay! No more dial-up!
Bought a fish tank, and I'm pretty excited about getting it going. I remember you said you tried three times, right? Failure every time? Hope not me. I've been reading a lot about the failures, though - sounds like it mostly happens from high ammonia and nitrite within the first few weeks of stocking the tank. Is that when yours croaked? Anyway, I'll write you more about that by e-mail when it's hooked up again.
I wanted to say here, I finally finished The Jaguar Hunter. Oh my GOD, what a fantastic book that was!!!! Worth 6 stars, but I could only give it 5. I wrote a long review on it... Thanks so much for urging me to get it. It took me forever to read it, but I'm so glad I persevered.
What a social conscience Shepard has! Man, do I think highly of him. He practically stated his whole philosophy at the end of the last story - with protagonist named, mysteriously enough, "Lucius". Well, I'm preaching to the choir, I guess. But he has such excellent principles and sensitivities. It's so good to know there are people like him out there, writing.
Jim

posted by bibliojim at 3:18 am (EST) on Jul 2, 2008

Hi! I just finished "Paper Mage" yesterday, and I was thinking I'd have to email you to see if you'd read it already. I think you'll really like it: it does use origami as a magical focus, and it is a very nicely subversive feminist fantasy without being annoying. All the important characters are women, and it inverts the usual focus of fantasy stories: the external conflicts are minimized and the internal/interpersonal conflicts are emphasized. It's pretty darn cool.

I hope you're doing well - we're getting settled in here and I finally have wireless internet back. Yay!

posted by Archren at 9:47 am (EST) on Jan 21, 2008

Hey!

Cool to know you're on here...looks like you've got quite a library there. :) Sadly, I'm still in the phase of 'oh my god, look at my 'to-read' list. Put that book down, don't buy it, no no NO you bought it!' Maybe I could get to a place of equanimity too one day. Looking forward to checking out yer books.

K

posted by Severn at 6:02 pm (EST) on Jan 18, 2008

No I am sure you are warmer. I am in an old house that is not only very drafty, but when they made apartments and updated the heating, they put mine in the Attic. So I have forced hot air vents in my ceilings, which are 10 feet from the floor, and yes hot air rises. So I have to pump lots of heat in to make the tropical zone move closer to the floor.

But it was in the 50s here for a couple of weeks, but now, cold again.

posted by FicusFan at 9:35 pm (EST) on Jan 16, 2008

Love the new name! Thanks for staying in touch.

John and Carol

posted by JohnAdcoxCarolBales at 12:47 pm (EST) on Jan 3, 2008

Cool new name, and sweet avatar. Thanks for letting me know about the change.

Hope you are well, and had good holidays. We are really having winter. Been so spoiled with the last couple of years, no snow and mild temps. It is 6 degrees now and the snow banks are so high, driving into parking lots, its like driving into a white castle.

posted by FicusFan at 12:51 am (EST) on Jan 3, 2008

is there an easy way to take tags from other libraries that have been attached to a book and add them to one's own description? i think i'm missing something obvious.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 10:52 pm (EST) on Jan 2, 2008

Heard, and met, Lucius at Armadillocon five years ago. He was actually quite softspoken and eloquent; I behaved like a slobbering fanboy, I think, but not enough for him not to sign my hardcover copies of The Jaguar Hunter and The Ends of the Earth.

posted by derekajohnson at 11:01 am (EST) on Dec 25, 2007

The problem for me is that he writes faster than I can read. This is a good problem.

True dat.

And, if you haven't picked it up yet, you should also read Weapons of Mass Seduction, his book of film criticism.

Derek

posted by derekajohnson at 9:28 pm (EST) on Dec 24, 2007

Yeah, Silverberg has been a favorite ever since I began reading the late, great OMNI magazine. Wasn't much of a Heinlein fan in my youth, but that's because Philip K. Dick shared more of my concerns.

Ditto on Shepard. I've read the PS Publishing edition of Trujillo, which is one of his best. Were you aware that Subterranean is also coming out with a Best of Lucius Shepard early next year?

posted by derekajohnson at 11:01 am (EST) on Dec 24, 2007

right - got a lib. science degree while working on my phd in geography...i spent most of my research time in archive rooms in medical libraries and thought i wouldn't mind spending my life as an archivist in some sort of historical special collection. I wouldn't have (minded)..but ended up doing epidemiology instead; not a complete accident as most of the geography stuff i did was "medical"in nature. The sample i have of redheads is pretty small (and according to a couple of geneticists i work w/, it's a phenotype that's headed for extinction)..but they were/are all readers. My brother had a reddish beard...before it turned grey! I befuddled my mother one or two summers before the one when that photo was taken...my gfriend hennaed her hair regularly and one time, just before summer vacation, i used her henna which REALLY exaggerated the red highlights..My mother kept looking and asking if something was different and i kept saying "no." Oh well, kids can be a pain & i was no exception...We regret our son's gfriend having cut off his rather lovely,long, blonde locks a while back - ...If yr on facebook, bobmcconn, iirc, is my accnt. I waste too much time playing scrabulous there..getting regularly beaten by my son but doing pretty well otherwise.
cheers,
bob
(we, too, had the Eager books, Swallows & Amazons, and a little later (1960?) we got a Wrinkle in Time. Then in jr. high, our library had a lot of Clarke and Asimov so i got into more classic sci-fi @ that time.)

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 1:12 pm (EST) on Nov 29, 2007

welll...i'm the once-auburn haired guy...now pretty grey (albeit still w/ curls)..That's my kid brother (now a respectable pediatrician) in the middle. He and his housemate,Kim, on the right, had come down to Va Beach to hear my band play at the fine establishment in the background.
I'm trying to get 10-20 books in an evening; might finish in a couple of years. Though i'm not in the position my sister is in - we only have a couple of thousand books..she's up into the 10ks by now, i'm afraid. She was VERY lucky..she's been an AP reporter in NOrleans since 1978..and her old house is 8 ft above sea level, which was enough to save her collection (not to mention the rest of her household items).

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 11:02 am (EST) on Nov 29, 2007

maybe give Lisa Goldstein a couple of more chances...i think she's marvelous...along w/ emma bull, ted chiang, gaiman, mckillip, a good % of delint. Not many others are even aware of Vonarburg (sic). i've been diligently turning friends onto Richard Morgan's flood of recent excellent books.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 1:22 am (EST) on Nov 29, 2007

Hi,
I was looking at your book list. I saw you have a bunch of Kage Baker's 'The Company' series, but haven't marked any as 'read'. Hey, you've gotta start reading those! In the Garden of Iden is a really neat book - on that basis alone I have tried to get the whole series. Plus now I guess the official last one has been written, so it's safe to start them. ;-) I saw you have all of Sheri Tepper's recent novels, plus a couple of her older books. I read Beauty as you did, and would have to put it in my list of top books I ever read. I also read 'Plague of Angels' and 'Raising the Stones' and they are just about as good (maybe a 9.5 out of 10 instead of a full 10), absolutely great books. You should make a point of getting them! I haven't read any of the books she's written in the last, oh say, about eight years except for 'The Margarets', though I also bought all her more recent books. I just read 'The Margarets' and it was awfully disappointing, and I'm hoping as I read all those books I don't see them getting worse and worse down to the present time!
You sure have a ton of F&SF if you just started buying it in the last 3-4 years! And I thought I bought a lot of books...
Hope you're loving it!
I saw you rated quite of few books, and apparently loved all of them (all 4 or better). Or did you just not bother to rate the books you didn't like? Just curious. :-)

posted by bibliojim at 8:27 pm (EST) on Oct 23, 2007

Just took a look around your library - Looks like the affinity thingie is right.

posted by amberwitch at 2:53 am (EST) on Jul 23, 2007

I did it, I did it! I finally got all the books in the house (plus my eBooks) into LibraryThing! Now I can just update my catalog as I get new stuff. Yay! I've probably got an extra hundred books or so, but they're all textbooks and manuals and boring stuff. It gives me a great and geeky sense of satisfaction to be able to say that I've got (slightly) over 1300 books!

However, since I had previously guesstimated that I had 2000, now I feel like I somehow don't have enough. However, time will inevitably remedy that. This is such a great site. Thanks for recommending it to me!

posted by Archren at 5:48 pm (EST) on Mar 8, 2007

Thanks! I've added Dreams Underfoot to my reading list, so I'll keep an eye out for it.

I've finished adding all my reviews to my catalog, making sure all the covers are right, and adding all the books I own for my eBook. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to getting my barcode scanner. I have no idea how many books I actually have, and this will finally tell me.

posted by Archren at 5:45 pm (EST) on Feb 16, 2007

I noticed that you have a ton of Charles De Lint works in your collection. He's an author I've heard a lot about, but I don't know where to start with his stuff. Could you give me a few titles that might be good starting points? Thanks!

posted by Archren at 1:15 pm (EST) on Feb 16, 2007

Hey, I was showing my husband all the cool features of the site, and he's decided that he'd like to finally catalog our whole home library. So I'm headed over to get that USB bar code scanner they offer here. Shiny New Toy! So while I'll probably only post reviews of books I've reviewed for my site, there will probably be whole new reams of books tagged and rated over the next couple weeks.

That checking your library by mobile phone thing is SO freakin' cool. Someone was seriously thinking there. It'll be especially great for my husband, who has a sort of poor memory for lists and catalogs and yet still buys books at Cons without asking me if we already have them. (On the other hand, his memory for plot and prose detail is infinitely better than mine - that's why I write reviews, so I'll remember a book more than a month after I've read it!)

posted by Archren at 1:01 pm (EST) on Feb 14, 2007

Hi! I just joined yesterday after following the link from your blog. This is one heck of a shiny new toy, I have to say. Basically the first thing I did was go through your catalog and pick all the books I have as well, so you're top on my "books shared" list. Now I'm adding tags and reviews and stuff. This should keep me occupied in my spare moments this week!

posted by Archren at 12:43 am (EST) on Feb 14, 2007

I really enjoyed the Patternmaster books. You should start with Wild Seed - sometimes it's hard to tell which book comes first in the series. The only book by Butler I haven't been able to get my hands on is her novel "Survivor." It's completely out of print, and used paperback copies are priced at several hundred dollars online.

You have Elementals by A.S. Byatt, which I am in the middle of right now. Each story is better than the last.

I hope you'll rate your books as you read them :-)

posted by ThursdayHaiku at 1:09 pm (EST) on Oct 26, 2006

Nice collection! We're less than halfway through the cataloging process, too, so I feel your pain. Good luck!

posted by JohnAdcoxCarolBales at 11:40 am (EST) on Oct 26, 2006

Hi sfwench,

I spotted your librarything on Beyond Reality. Welcome to BR,
I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts about Spin.

Julia

posted by ThursdayHaiku at 11:15 am (EST) on Oct 25, 2006

Yes, I did get the limited-I've read most of it,-the Connie Wllis story is great,the Mike Resnick is fun-and actually takes place at WorldCon-some of the stories aren't as good-some of them seem sort of phoned in.
It was my fist WorldCon too-my boyfriend is a conrunner so he'd been to a bunch. If you'd like-you can leave me a private comment and I can help you figure out some cons fairly close to where you live..

posted by leennnadine at 12:15 am (EST) on Sep 4, 2006

glad you enjoyed Worldcon, so did I!

posted by Wolfcat at 12:52 pm (EST) on Sep 3, 2006

hi-I see you also bought the Space Cadets at WorldCon-did you like it?

posted by leennnadine at 8:24 pm (EST) on Aug 29, 2006

I did read Blood and Iron and finally got round to posting a review: http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/jun0.... It's not a straight retelling of "Tam Lin", but it does use it pretty heavily; I really liked it.

posted by gwyneira at 6:09 pm (EST) on Jul 24, 2006

Hi again! Yes, we ARE very happy, thanks! Although we'll be cataloging for the next 100 years....

J

posted by JohnAdcoxCarolBales at 2:17 pm (EST) on Jul 21, 2006