“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

Hi everyone,

This is an announcement saying that I’m going to post all book-related stuff to Dreamwidth now, where the rest of my journal resides. I am yati there; here’s the full URL: http://yati.dreamwidth.org/. If you decide to follow that journal, it’ll be a mix of posts about other things as well and not just books, though entry about books are tagged as “books“.

I like this site, and I like WordPress and being able to maintain a separate blog for books, but I’ve discovered that it’s taking up too much of my time.

(Here is where everyone frowns and wonders how just posting could take too much of my time.)

I have this bad habit of wanting to know everything, you see. While it doesn’t seem like I spend too much time posting about books, I do spend ridiculous amounts of time figuring out how things work — I keep poking the code and polishing the layout and taking it apart and putting it back together, and at one point I almost decided to write plugin because I couldn’t find something that worked the way I wanted it to, but I backed out at the last minute because it needed research and figuring things out and debugging, all of which needed time.

I do the same at Dreamwidth — I poke around and play with the code there as well, and I like doing it there more than I like messing with code elsewhere. Of course, there are other reasons why I like being on Dreamwidth, and I’ve also decided that I shouldn’t be trying to do so many things at one time. It’s not just this blog; I’m cutting off some other things I’ve been meddling with as well, because I think I’m losing focus on what I actually want to do.

I know some of you guys don’t like LiveJournal or sites that run on the same code as LJ does (which is what Dreamwidth is: the code is forked from LJ and improved on), but OpenID works there if you want to comment, and you don’t need an account just to read posts, so I think there’s really no harm in moving. :) This week’s Weekly Geeks entry on catching up on reviews in already posted there.

Hope to see you guys around.

Cheers
Yati

Happy New Year!

2008 was a pretty good year for reading, all things considered. I made new internet friends, got recommended new books and new authors that I had enjoyed, some of which I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own, and joined and completed (some) challenges.

I read 63 books, which I think is more than what I read in 2007. (See, this is the downside of not numbering lists. You have to go count the items each time.) The list of 2008 books can be found here. It doesn’t seem to be a lot when I really think of it — that only averages to 1.2 books a week, and within those weeks I read some really short books. So the goal this year is to read more books! And perhaps join some challenges to keep me motivated . . . I probably wouldn’t have attempted to read outside my comfort zone if it wasn’t for the challenges last year.

Book-blogging wise, I slacked off somewhere mid-year. I’ll probably have more success writing two-line thoughts of a book instead of pondering about it and eventually forgetting to write anything at all. I’ll only review whatever strikes my fancy this year (which will probably put me in danger of not writing anything at all) and we’ll see if that would work better.

So. Here’s the “best of” list, in no real order:

• The Game of Kings (and the whole set of Lymond books) by Dorothy Dunnett
  Historical fiction. Very well written. I am now a historical fiction convert. Also a definite Dunnett fan. I’m starting the Nicolò books this year and I’ll probably hunt down her Johnson Johnson mystery books. (What is with historical fiction writers and mysteries?)
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
  Fantasy. I would have thought that I would dislike the first person narrative, but this book actually worked — and it worked very well — for me. My brother agrees that it’s the best fantasy book we’ve read in ages.
• number9dream by David Mitchell
  I don’t know what this is. Literary fiction, I suppose, if it needs a label. Some might compare the book with Murakami’s work. I prefer Mitchell. He’s also one of my favourite authors for the year — last year I read all his books (only four, though I wish there were more) and am waiting for the next one.
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
  YA science fiction. Utopia has never been this disturbing.
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
  Science fiction, in a way. Dystopia has never been this disturbing. This book gave me weird dreams.
• The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
  YA fantasy. Surprising, since The Thief left me gnashing my teeth in frustration. Perhaps because this wasn’t in the first person like The Thief was.
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
  Fantasy. No elves traipsing around in this one. The gritty life of thieves in the city. With a lot of shenanigans.
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  Science fiction, sort of — I’ll just chuck this into the literary fiction shelf along with Atwood. Dystopia is rather disturbing in these parts too.
• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
  YA. I have three sisters. It really does get this rowdy, I swear.
• Temeraire by Naomi Novik
  Fantasy. Partly historical! The Napoleonic Wars with dragons!

That’s it! Recommendations for 2009 welcome!

Ah well. I don’t feel like making up excuses, so let’s just say I didn’t feel like writing anything the last, uh, two months. I did very badly in the reading department as well — I didn’t finish a single book in November. (Yes, I’m horrified too.)

So. I have a whole stack of books I finished that I haven’t written about — the full list for 2008 is here — and I don’t think I’ll ever get to writing those recaps/reviews/etc. So this is an amnesty post. For myself! So I won’t have to beat my head against the wall for not doing things the way I would have liked to (though I doubt no one aside from myself cares about this).

Uh. I should also declare here that it seems very, very unlikely I’ll finish the 888 Challenge. Which is a pity, since I really liked the way I got things organised for that one. Though I failed spectacularly in some of the categories I set for that one. Classics, meh. Oh well. I guess I could set a private challenge along those lines for myself next year.

I’m eyeing some of the 2009 challenges, wondering whether or not to participate. If nothing else, it’s a good way to meet other readers!

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I’ll need to tweak the layout a bit when I find the time. WordPress 2.7 introduced some new stuff I’d love to see implemented here (threaded comments!) and I want a new look. Except that I’m aesthetically challenged — I can code stuff just fine but I’m no good at making it look good. Woe. Let’s see if inspiration hits (though I wouldn’t count on that).

Promises to myself, hah. I should try harder to keep those.

Statistics — not terribly interesting!

It is now July! I still have a whole backlog of stuff from the beginning of May to post. I’m not entirely sure if I’ll ever get to those. It’s been a combination of lethargy and general disinterest in a lot of things (including books, imagine that) that’s been bringing me down lately, and I can’t seem to shake it off. Oh well.

OK. Just checking in here, then. At the end of June, I’ve read forty-two books this year, eighteen of those from April onwards. Not as much as the first quarter, but that’s not really surprising since I read only three books in June. Still, the one-book-a-week average that I’ve been hoping to achieve looks like it will be met (if I ever start sitting down and concentrating on a book again, that is) so this is a good thing!

There’s also a new page listing the books I’ve read since 2007, sorted by author’s name, here.

There’s still no clear favourite book of 2008, aside from the whole Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett (I don’t think I can pick a favourite book out of the whole series and it probably doesn’t really matter; aside from the first two books, there’s no way for the other books to stand alone and make sense) which still comes out at the top of the list. Other books worth noting from Q2: David Mitchell’s number9dream, John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Challenges updates

I don’t join many challenges, simply because fixed reading lists scare me. Sure, I have a “to read” list and I like having it around (very useful when you’re stumped and find yourself quite unable to choose a book from the library!) but I deviate from it all the time.

But anyway. I joined Renay’s 342,745 Ways to Herd Cats challenge, mostly because, well, it’s Nay, and when was the last time I said no to her crazy ideas?, and because it has an awesome list of book recommendations. I like rec lists. It makes you notice all sorts of new books you never even heard of before. And the challenge was simple, recommend ten books you love (my list is here) and read at least three books from the 632-item rec list. I actually finished reading and reviewing three books, but I think I’ll just go on adding books to the list until the challenge ends on 30 November.

For the 888 challenge, I’ve read thirty books out of the minimum fifty-six — a little more than half of the list. Which is good, I suppose, since we’re at the middle of the year, though it’s a bit embarrassing that the “Classics” category still hasn’t been touched yet. I’ve started books — I’m having problems finishing them.

For Dewey’s Man Booker Challenge, I’ve finished three books: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, number9dream by David Mitchell, and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Tentatively, the other three books for the list I’m planning to read are The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Possession by AS Byatt (currently reading and getting a little cross-eyed at the Victorian poetry) and possibly Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard (no, I haven’t given up on it yet). I’d very much like to throw in Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas into the list as well, but I can’t seem to find a copy.

Currently reading

I’m still reading the same books since the last update. Nothing much to say here. The library books are late — they were due on Friday and I was too tired and I hadn’t finished either (sigh), so I decided to go tomorrow instead, possibly renew both Possession (AS Byatt) and East (Edith Pattou). East I haven’t even started. Possession is something of a struggle to read when the Victorian poets make their appearances — I can’t quite concentrate on what’s going on. It leaves me in a sort of “oh, pretty language” kind of daze and I end up not really paying attention to what’s going on.

Game of Kings (the Lymond/Dunnett reading group on Yahoo!Groups) is planning to read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice starting next week as a break after finishing Checkmate (the last Lymond book) before starting Dunnett’s King Hereafter, so I’ll give both books a go, for the sake of following the discussion. I’ll have to admit I’ve never read Austen’s Pride and Prejudice before. Weird, isn’t that?

Another visit to the library (and this time I was actually stuck in the traffic jam and the rain, so I got there disgruntled and late), and I picked up their book suggestion form. I had wanted to fill it in then and there and return it to the counter, but after glancing at some of the fields, I gave up and took it home. Right now I am giving it The Eye.

Among other things, it asks for my phone number. Does it want to ask me out for a date, I wonder. I’m pretty sure the information is available in the library’s user database — it does ask for my library ID number; that should be enough. All the fields are in Malay, but suddenly the last line, under the section equivalent to “for office use”, is in English. This offends my sensibilities! Stick to one language, and use it properly! You are the library, for goodness’ sake! (Some of the notices posted in the library itself make my eyebrows climb up into my hairline and off my head. There was one new one about vandalism that totally violated like five precepts of the Malay language. And I still give the “SILENT PLEASE!” sign in the reading area an evil eye each time.)

It also asks for the book’s ISBN. I, uh. I suppose this makes things easier for them? I don’t know. It does make my life a tad harder, since I have to go about looking for some of the information (edition? what does it mean when it asks for the “edition”? first second third? hardback paperback audiobook? what are these fields?) and I wonder about things like whether they would they prefer the American edition? Or the British one? Or whatever’s easier to obtain from the local bookstore? I’m tempted to just fill the form in with the first hit I find on Amazon that’s still in print.

I wish they’d go paperless. And have a better website, when it comes to that. Put the suggestion form online and place those help buttons by the fields. Put up a section titled something like “information we need to help serve you better, re: book suggestions!” Tie the book suggestions to the patron’s ID in the system, make notifications easier.

I wonder if they have a general “Suggestions” form. Alas, the vicious cycle of paperwork.