If not the worst romance novel cover, ever, then at least in the top 20:
28.2.10
2.2.10
Is It Wrong to Love a Book Box?
I order a lot of books. I ship a lot of books. I have a lot of bubble wrap, envelopes, cardboard, kraft paper, packing peanuts, and tape. Lots of tape, but that's another blog.
I say all that to say this: I am very, VERY picky when it comes to how my books are packaged, both thems what I sends and thems what I gets. Good, bad, ugly--I've seen 'em all, or at least this is what I thought before this morning.
I'll spare you the rant on bad packaging for now, Gentle Reader, because this post is about the bit of bookish joy I just experienced at receiving a book that was actually shipped--mostly--properly. This is always a nice surprise in itself.
I say all that to say this: I am very, VERY picky when it comes to how my books are packaged, both thems what I sends and thems what I gets. Good, bad, ugly--I've seen 'em all, or at least this is what I thought before this morning.
I'll spare you the rant on bad packaging for now, Gentle Reader, because this post is about the bit of bookish joy I just experienced at receiving a book that was actually shipped--mostly--properly. This is always a nice surprise in itself.
But--the paradigm-shifting part--was the book box used. Amazon, eat your heart out. This puppy uses some sort of tessaract/fractal valmorphanizing technology to SNICK! flap instantly into a shape perfectly adjusted to fit nearly any size of book, and then SNICK! flip back into a flat single sheet, all from merely receiving one's thoughts of boxness or flatness toward the cardboard miracle (well, nearly). I'm enchanted and have wasted several minutes trying to fit my feet into the thing in hopes that it will heal my limp, too. No dice yet in that department, but I remain optimistic and will soon be trying it on my head as well. Oh, and don't worry--I, too, have watched Tron, Dear Reader--I tested it with an orange, first, and am pleased to report no inside-out peely masses of gory fruit goo here.
(re-posted from the myspace blog)
1.2.10
Recent Reads
Reading a few books again, finally--this is something I've decided heck or high water to start doing, work load notwithstanding. I used to read voraciously, but have not recently had the time. Still don't, but whatever. What's the fun of having a bookstore if one can't read the durn things? So. Current reading list:
The Down-Home Zombie Blues,
Clicking,
Death on Demand,
Mind Hunters,
Read-Aloud Handbook,
The Road
Death on Demand was...oh...say a 2 out of four (lion) paws. Mmeh. I love bibliomysteries, so it was already in the plus column there, but it was too easy to figure out, and some of the book shop nittygritty didn't strike me as realistic. I'll be reading the rest of the series, though, so it was fair enough to make that cut.
Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook is a classic. I pick it up off and on for inspiration when I'm working on the children's section. Literacy and the love of reading has been on my mind recently, hence this book choice.
Sinclair's SciFi zombie romance was recommended to me by a customer. Sorry, whomever you were, but I haven't yet been able to get into this one. I'll give it another chapter or so, though.
Mind Hunters was one I picked up to give to someone else, then after reading a few pages decided to read. It's been okay, I guess. I like some romances, but I can't really get into this one's love story. The action and detective parts are okay, though. One paw.
What else...oh. Clicking. Just barely started this one. Looks interesting.
Finished The Road. Hm. I have mixed feelings on this one. Pretty sure I would have enjoyed it more if I were a man. Frustrated with some of the choices made by the protagonist, but I suppose they were in keeping with his character. Not the best post-apocalyptic book I've read, but a very quick read and some great imagery. 2.5 paws up.
Also picked up a Native American cookbook yesterday. It has a recipe for yellow jacket soup. Yes. As in, the bug. Yech.
TTFN.
-S.
The Exeter Book
The Exeter Book is the largest collection of Old English writings, and contains the oldest surviving colletion of riddles written in O.E. Its other works such as the religious poems and elegies are certainly literary and historical treasures, but the riddles--an earthy mix of conundrum poems ranging from humorous to haunting--are unique.
The book itself is a riddle. It currently resides in the Exeter Cathedral library, probably donated originally by Leofric, the first Exeter bishop, c.1050 AD. Before that, however, it's provenance is a mystery made all the more curious by clues left on its binding: beer mug rings and cheese and bread smears in knife scores, to name a couple of odd markings.
This is one of my favorite riddle-poems from the Book of Exeter, as translated by Crossley-Holland:
An enemy ended my lfe, deprived me
of my physical strength; then he dipped me
in water and drew me out again,
and put me in the sun where I soon shed
all my hair.
After that, the knife's sharp edge
bit into me and all my blemishes scraped away;
fingers folded me and the bird's feather
often moved over my brown surface,
sprinkling meaningful marks; it swallowed more wood-dye
(part of the stream)
and again travelled over me
leaving black tracks.
Then a man bound me,
he stretched skin over me and adorned me
with gold; thus I am enriched by the wondrous work
of smiths, wound about with shining metal.
Now my clasp and my red dye
and these glorious adornments bring fame far and wide
to the Protector of Men, and not to the pains of Hell.
If only the sons of men would make use of me
they would be the safer and the more victorious,
their hearts would be bolder and thei minds more at ease,
their thoughts wiser, and they would have more friends,
companions and kinsmen (courageous, honourable,
trusty, kind) who would gladly increase
their honour and prosperity, and heap
benefits upon them, ever holding them
most dea.
Ask what I am called,
of such use to men.
My name is famous,
of service to men and sacred in itself.
Not the hardest riddle, and much wordier than most, but nevertheless one I enjoy. Here's another:
When I heard of that wonder
it struck me as a strange event:
That a worm should swallow the song of some man,
a thief gorge in the darkness on a great man's
speech of distinction. The thievish stranger
was not a whit the wiser for swallowing words.
Happy riddling!
The book itself is a riddle. It currently resides in the Exeter Cathedral library, probably donated originally by Leofric, the first Exeter bishop, c.1050 AD. Before that, however, it's provenance is a mystery made all the more curious by clues left on its binding: beer mug rings and cheese and bread smears in knife scores, to name a couple of odd markings.
This is one of my favorite riddle-poems from the Book of Exeter, as translated by Crossley-Holland:
An enemy ended my lfe, deprived me
of my physical strength; then he dipped me
in water and drew me out again,
and put me in the sun where I soon shed
all my hair.
After that, the knife's sharp edge
bit into me and all my blemishes scraped away;
fingers folded me and the bird's feather
often moved over my brown surface,
sprinkling meaningful marks; it swallowed more wood-dye
(part of the stream)
and again travelled over me
leaving black tracks.
Then a man bound me,
he stretched skin over me and adorned me
with gold; thus I am enriched by the wondrous work
of smiths, wound about with shining metal.
Now my clasp and my red dye
and these glorious adornments bring fame far and wide
to the Protector of Men, and not to the pains of Hell.
If only the sons of men would make use of me
they would be the safer and the more victorious,
their hearts would be bolder and thei minds more at ease,
their thoughts wiser, and they would have more friends,
companions and kinsmen (courageous, honourable,
trusty, kind) who would gladly increase
their honour and prosperity, and heap
benefits upon them, ever holding them
most dea.
Ask what I am called,
of such use to men.
My name is famous,
of service to men and sacred in itself.
Not the hardest riddle, and much wordier than most, but nevertheless one I enjoy. Here's another:
When I heard of that wonder
it struck me as a strange event:
That a worm should swallow the song of some man,
a thief gorge in the darkness on a great man's
speech of distinction. The thievish stranger
was not a whit the wiser for swallowing words.
Happy riddling!
Bradbury on Burroughs, and the Shepherdess on a Soapbox
"A number of people changed my life forever in various ways.
Lon Chaney put me up on the side of Notre Dame and swung me from a chandelier over the opera crowd in Paris.
Edgar Allan Poe mortared me into a brick vault with some Amontillado.
Kong chased me up one side and down the other of the Empire State Building.
But--Mr. Burroughs convinced me that I could talk with the animals, even if they didn't answer back, and that late nights when I was asleep my soul slipped from my body, slung itself out the window, and frolicked across town never touching the lawns, always hanging from trees where, even later in those nights, I taught myself alphabets and soon learned French and English and danced with the apes when the moon rose.
But then again, his greatest gift was teaching me to look at Mars and ask to be taken home.
I went home to Mars often when I was eleven and twelve and every year since, and the astronauts with me, as far as the Moon to start, but Mars by the end of the century for sure, Mars by 1999. We have commuted because of Mr. Burroughs. Because of him we have printed the Moon. Because of him and men like him, one day in the next five centuries, we will commute forever, we will go away...
And never come back.
And so live forever."
--Bradbury, in the intro to Porges' Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan
This was written in ‘75, back before talking with animals became an anthropomorphic faux pas, a time when even the greatest living sci-fi writer couldn’t imagine a future in which we didn't reach Mars by '99, or '00, or ‘01, or.... We live in a society where the night sky is a harbinger of fear, not wonder; we erase it with street lights whose wavelengths are--coincidentally?--those most hostile to human night vision. Primitive man had fire to ward away the demons, but he also had the stars to guide him home.
Why is this? When did our commutation change into an ostriching of heads under the ground? Even the moon seems dimmer. And though we talk endlessly about saving the jungle and its creatures, we do our damndest to isolate ourselves from anything that chitters or whispers or smacks its lips to say, I'm wild. What's worse: we do so under the guise of care, of human-ity. Really?
And yet, and yet...those wild things creep among us as we stumble around in night-blind bliss, and Mars still bides its time. We're not safer, just oblivious. To wit: I have a picture on my phone, showing what my street lamp conceals at night from apes afraid of trees. The heart of town, and here, a deer, invisible sans camera. I’ve no doubt she saw me well before I heard her rustlings and squinted uselessly into the bright yellow darkness with my dazzled eyes.
In daylight I find her hoof prints, dainty compared to the coyote tracks in my mud-filled gutter in the center of town.
Mars still waits.
Lon Chaney put me up on the side of Notre Dame and swung me from a chandelier over the opera crowd in Paris.
Edgar Allan Poe mortared me into a brick vault with some Amontillado.
Kong chased me up one side and down the other of the Empire State Building.
But--Mr. Burroughs convinced me that I could talk with the animals, even if they didn't answer back, and that late nights when I was asleep my soul slipped from my body, slung itself out the window, and frolicked across town never touching the lawns, always hanging from trees where, even later in those nights, I taught myself alphabets and soon learned French and English and danced with the apes when the moon rose.
But then again, his greatest gift was teaching me to look at Mars and ask to be taken home.
I went home to Mars often when I was eleven and twelve and every year since, and the astronauts with me, as far as the Moon to start, but Mars by the end of the century for sure, Mars by 1999. We have commuted because of Mr. Burroughs. Because of him we have printed the Moon. Because of him and men like him, one day in the next five centuries, we will commute forever, we will go away...
And never come back.
And so live forever."
--Bradbury, in the intro to Porges' Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan
This was written in ‘75, back before talking with animals became an anthropomorphic faux pas, a time when even the greatest living sci-fi writer couldn’t imagine a future in which we didn't reach Mars by '99, or '00, or ‘01, or.... We live in a society where the night sky is a harbinger of fear, not wonder; we erase it with street lights whose wavelengths are--coincidentally?--those most hostile to human night vision. Primitive man had fire to ward away the demons, but he also had the stars to guide him home.
Why is this? When did our commutation change into an ostriching of heads under the ground? Even the moon seems dimmer. And though we talk endlessly about saving the jungle and its creatures, we do our damndest to isolate ourselves from anything that chitters or whispers or smacks its lips to say, I'm wild. What's worse: we do so under the guise of care, of human-ity. Really?
And yet, and yet...those wild things creep among us as we stumble around in night-blind bliss, and Mars still bides its time. We're not safer, just oblivious. To wit: I have a picture on my phone, showing what my street lamp conceals at night from apes afraid of trees. The heart of town, and here, a deer, invisible sans camera. I’ve no doubt she saw me well before I heard her rustlings and squinted uselessly into the bright yellow darkness with my dazzled eyes.
In daylight I find her hoof prints, dainty compared to the coyote tracks in my mud-filled gutter in the center of town.
Mars still waits.
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