Top Ten Books of Last Year

So...I'm not (irreconcilably) embarrassed to admit that it's not unlikely that the majority of books I've read this year have been by Georgette Heyer. Wince. Yes, the creator of the historical romance. What can I say, I like men in cravats and horse-driven carriages. I like books that use words like 'apoplexy,' 'reticule,' and 'bombazine.' I like happy endings.

However, I do, on occasion, read other genres, and so (without further ado), here's a list of my top ten - excluding all Regency - from the previous year(ish). Alphabetically by title:

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. Apparently I don't 'gush' - about anything - but Mom indicates that several times I recommended this book and stated how excellent I found it. It's a coming of age novel about a boy growing up in England in the 1980s where each chapter depicts an excerpt from each month in a year-in-the-life...if that doesn't particularly move you, think a voice comparable to (if not quite as enamored of itself as) the one in Middlesex.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. I quite like reading young adult fiction, although I don't know what that says about me...so this one is set in one of my pet eras, WWII, and the narrator is Death, so how can you go wrong. Some of it is beautiful, some of it dark, some both. A fantastic book.

Corelli's Mandolin, by Louis De Bernieres. This I read in France, and so I suppose that was more than a year ago...I believe this was very popular and trendy a good few years ago, so I'm coming to it late on several counts. Another WWII book, this time away from the major fronts of battle, I found this one gripping until the end. By which I mean I'm not sure I wouldn't have rewritten the final scenes. Beautifully told, however, and worth a try if you haven't already?

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Yes. I read this once every couple years, and it is tattered and dogeared and generally in pieces. It's about the apocalypse, and it combines Gaiman's sense of magic with Pratchett's quirky wit. Very funny, very good.

Great Tales from English History, by Robert Lacey. A bit of nonfiction, I actually listened to these in the car on audiotape, and possibly it was Mr Lacey's hypnotic voice, but history has never been so enthralling. Well maybe it has. But not more...quite exciting stories, though, and supposedly more accurate (if less juicy) than Royal Babylon.

Griffin & Sabine, by Nick Bantock. This is actually the first of a trilogy. It's more like prying through someone's mail than reading a book - this is one of those where envelopes are built into each page. The whole thing's a work of art, if the story is at times baffling and/or flimsy.

The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Ooh. A guy whose dreams alter reality. Into a dystopia. Very short, riveting science fiction, with a dash of ethics and psychology. Also, it contains one of my favorite quotes: "...pique, umbrage, and ennui. Oh, the French diseases of the soul.” If you like this, you might also like Einstein's Dreams, although I think they're different enough to prevent monotony.

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Sort of like a creepy, earthy, modern-day Alice and Wonderland? Not sure about that comparison, but a very good read. (Yes, it's fantasy. Get over it.)

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. More apocalyptic, dystopic landscapes, this is apparently McCarthy's most optimistic novel? What a guy...this is the most hair-raising on the list, be warned. I read it in one sitting, but I don't think I'll be watching the film.

Room with a View, by E. M. Forster. "It is fate; but call it Italy if it pleases you..." I suppose this one's a classic. It's slow-paced, but quite beautiful. Also, in my opinion, the film that corresponds to this book (contrary to some others) is definitely worth sitting through.

LOL

First of all, this whole post stems from a Skype conversation I had some time last term on French slang. I will probably have to post about that some time later. Also, all of this information I've snagged from wikipedia. So take it with a grain of salt.

Anyway, I like language, and I had (for a time) a bit of a foray into, well into Leet...and memes, and so on...so hooray. Let's talk about lol.

For you complete noobs out there, lol stands for 'laugh out loud', although it's come to mean so much more. There's lolz, lulz, lolwut, lolcats, and so on. And that's leaving out rofl, roflcopter, blah blah blah. I don't think I have ever really used any of these seriously, more as a type of sarcastic texty comment when something's particularly unfunny. Right. That's not the interesting part.

So how do people in other languages laugh out loud when no one's around to appreciate it? Expressing humor graphically is tricky and nuanced art...

In France, one apparently might write mdr, for mort de rire, something along the lines of dying laughing?

Meanwhile, in Thailand, 555 is used, as the number five in Thai is pronounced 'ha' (good, huh).

There's rs for risos, asg for asgarv, and simply g for griner; many languages that don't use an English alphabet, like Thai, Chinese, Arabic, and Russian take a rough approximation of a laughing noise and string that symbol together, or translate l-o-l into more familiar own characters.

Indeed, a lot of languages that share a common alphabet with English just take lol as an expression of amusement and leave it at that...

However, a select few (wikipedia tells me) actually have a word in their languages that is spelled, well, l-o-l. Fantastically, in Dutch, lol means fun, and in Welsh, it means nonsense. Wonderful? Wonderful!

So there you have it, straight from the internet to you. Spice up your texting and increase your Skyping vocab! Just be cautious, or you won't be understood.

Some Serious Drawings.

Meet Marc Johns.


Here are his drawings.

If you prefer something even more serious, here's Alan MacDonald.

Mr Fry

I've been doing a lot of not-physics, and instead have been indulging my Stephen Fry kick. He is a very clever man. Last night, after finishing the "Big Fat Quiz of the Year: 2009," I watched QI for far too long, which is Mr Fry's game show (short for Quite Interesting) in which the questions are impossibly hard and and the panel of British celebrity guests gets more points for an interesting answer than for a right one. The scores most often end in the negatives. Rather comical, and quasi-educational? And here's a clip - granted, perhaps a less-than-hysterical one - on one of my pet topics. Give it a watch.



Other fantastic Stephen Fry moments include his role in the final season of Blackadder, which is always worth a watch, and anything with Hugh Laurie (another one of my favorites)...Jeeves and Wooster, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, etc.

Right. Well that may not have been my most convincing sell, but I've got to get back to the mechanism of transverse waves, or maybe I'll warm up a bit with this last episode on electricity...

Beautiful Books

Ok, so I must have these! Particularly all of the hardbacks. Coralie Bickford-Smith is a genius.



So lovely...these will be the perfect instrument for initiating my 'William Morris meets Hildi Santo Tomas from Trading Spaces for a mall date at Anthropologie' interior decorating scheme. I may have to forgo eating for several months to afford these gorgeous volumes, but beauty is pain, right, and my future home shall be no exception. With added bonus of becoming (appearing) well-read.

Moses Supposes...

Well, it's Tuesday, which means I've been through all my classes for this semester. Fortunately, I'm not too bored with them not to write about them on this blog. Unfortunately, I haven't found anything interesting enough to write about. So. Let's talk about toes!

Apparently there are several types of toes to be had. And apparently I am a wide-toed Greek. Who knew?


What sort of toes are you?

Monday, Monday

Here's a little quotie to start your week off right:

"And a thousand slimy things lived on; and so did I."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

...What, you don't like that one??? Okay fine. An alternative quote for all you "normals"...But I will have to put it in the original French. You can't get it all your way.

“Le hasard favorise les esprits prepares [Chance favors the prepared mind].”
Louis Pasteur