Books, Books, Books

[stoutfellow]

I went a little overboard with Amazon last month...

Most of what I ordered has now arrived, to wit:

Graphic novels: Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602 and The Kindly Ones.

Fiction: Timothy Zahn, The Green and the Gray; Janet Evanovich, One for the Money; Dorothy Dunnett, To Lie with Lions; R. Meluch, The Myriad; Laura Joh Rowland, The Perfumed Sleeve; and Elizabeth Peters, Die for Love.

Nonfiction: Jim Wallis, God's Politics; John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato's Letters; and the BradyGames guide to Civilization IV.

I'm still waiting on: Michael Hammond, The Phonology of English; Penny Lee, The Whorf Theory Complex; and Steven Mithen, After the Ice.

I've already read and commented on The Green and the Gray, and will shortly have something to say about Marvel 1602. (I believe it was jeriendhal who recommended that one, for which my fervent thanks.) Evanovich and Peters have been repeatedly recommended on the Bujold list, so I decided to give them a try. The Dunnett is the next volume in the House of Niccolo series; Rowland's is another Sano Ichiro mystery; and I've been waiting a long time for a new Meluch. On the nonfiction side, my thanks to sunlizzard for recommending the Wallis (and I will get those books off to you soon, I promise); to pompe for the Mithen; and to sraun tygerr for his, admittedly left-handed, recommendation of the BradyGames volume.

I am continually grateful to the various online communities for the wonderful books they've set me onto.

Comments

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

Yeep! Die for Love is not what I'd start reading Elizabeth Peters with. I sent all my non-Peabodys to Elizabeth Holden, so I can't look up which plot it is, but would you like me to send (as a loan!) Crocodile On The Sandbank, the beginning of the Peabody series? I have a very old copy with the original cover, written as a stand-alone.

[mawombat.livejournal.com]

The Vicky Bliss Elizabeth Peters are the best. John Smythe is like Lymond is like Roland Otton is like Aral, it's all good. Smythe is a bit lighter tho' then the others. No dead sisters or mothers or lovers.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

Please pass on a review of the Civ IV guide if it strikes your fancy. I doubt I'd buy it anyway, unless it was filled with interesting historical or game theory information, but I'd like to know if it's helpful.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Mm. I wouldn't call it a great value, no. It does give some useful gameplay tips, but most of them are implicit in the game manual (especially the afterword), and some of the others I'd figured out on my own - e.g., the use of Great Artists to bolster new or newly-acquired cities (the 4000 culture points of a Great Work do wonders for boundary issues). Somehow the guides I bought for earlier versions seemed more useful, although I don't recall whether they were BradyGames books.

[sraun]

How did I recommend the BradyGames Civ book? I don't play any of the Civ games!

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Oops. It was tygerr. Must learn to check things...

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Someone - and I forgot to note who - specifically recommended Die for Love and Naked Again to me.

Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll hold off for the moment.

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

Since I don't have Civ IV (yet), and have only briefly leafed through the BradyGames guide, I wasn't really in a position to make a strong recommendation one way or the other. But I did recall that the Civ III guide was both useful and error-ridden--odd as that may sound.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I should clarify my previous comment. There is some interesting material in the guide; I used its suggestions in my most recent game, to eke out a Cultural Win (which I'd never even tried before). I don't regret the purchase (for whatever that's worth, spendthrift as I am when it comes to books).

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

The LMB List had a thread about books with librarians as a main character. The two you have are Jacqueline Kirby books, Peters' third series. The other two have as protagonists Amelia Peabody Emerson and Vicky Bliss. The Peabodys are set between 1885 and 1922, focussing on Egyptology; the latest is just out. The Bliss books are set circa 1980-1990; Vicky too is an archeologist but curates a museum in Germany. I can't remember the title of another book similar to _Die for Love_ set at a romance writers' convention, but the title is a takeoff of the Rosemary Rogers series, like Sweet Savage Love. Sweet Savage Murder? I prefer the Peabodys to the Blisses.

[filkferengi]

Yay for lots of new books!

That being said, may I remind you, you're, like, a professor, and stuff? You so *own* the library; shouldn't you be checking out [;)] their copies?

Just sayin'.

Sometimes the frugal side gets a few words in edgewise.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

The problem there is that my desire for a book and my opportunity to read it are often not in synch. Translation: I tend to keep library books well past the due date. Our library is complicit in this; faculty get a "courtesy notice" when books become overdue, and we can renew online with a few keystrokes.

I checked out a volume of James Barrie's plays a year and a half ago and haven't gotten around to reading any of it. This makes me feel guilty; buying books has no such ill effect. (It can cause other problems, of course...)

Once, as an undergrad, I wanted to check out a certain advanced text in mathematics. The card catalog said that the library had three copies. All of them were out, and had been for years. Two of them had been checked out by the same faculty member. Needless to say, I felt no guilt whatever at filling out a recall request for one of those two.

[filkferengi]

Most of the libraries in the state of Georgia [except for the 3 largest Metro counties, of course; they don't want to share] are on a state-wide system, so I can potentially borrow stuff for free from far away. This is cool. The bad part comes when I try to borrow something newish, & the particular system has a policy of not lending books out until they've been in the system a month--by which time I've usually forgotten about the request & already bought the book.

Maybe I should send the Professora [local LMB-fan] to university with a list? But then, she's an hour away from my house, whereas half.com delivers right to the door [no small consideration, given the current price of gas; it averages out to something like .10 per mile].