telophase: (goku - reading)
telophase ([personal profile] telophase) wrote2006-03-25 10:04 pm
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A conundrum...

So I'll have this gift certificate to Amazon.com for winning the Seventh Sanctum contest. The conundrum is ... what to buy? Consider this your personal space to recommend books I should buy with it. There's a few guidelines:

1) I'll entertain non-book ideas, but nothing that I could buy at Best Buy (i.e. DVDs and suchlike), because I have a $50 gift certificate there. Part of which is earmarked for Howl's Moving Castle, when I get around to going.

2) Hardbacks will be looked on with more favor than paperbacks, just because I'd pretty much buy myself paperbacks without a second thought, but hardbacks are much harder for me to decide on, so a gift certificate would be more fun to splurge on them with.

3) Nonfiction is just as good a suggestion as fiction.

4) You don't need to recommend [livejournal.com profile] rachelmanija's book; I already have it. Plus, I bought a copy for a friend's wedding present.*

5) It'd be nice if you could give me a really short blurb as to what it's about and why's it so good, but that's not required.

6) Have fun! And if I don't reply to you, don't worry: I truly appreciate any suggestions. :D



* They'd been living together for years and had no need of anything traditional. So they signed up with Amazon.com for books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. [livejournal.com profile] rachelmanija's book wasn't on it, but I figured that they'd like it anyway (I was right). The other book I got them was Stiff, just so I could have the pleasure of saying, for the rest of my life, that I got someone a book on corpses for their wedding.

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2006-03-26 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
Some of these are paperbacks, but the pricey trade variety rather than mass market.

I highly recommend Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier's books, some of which are in hard cover. You would probably especially enjoy Peeps.

I liked Sarah Monette's Melusine a lot, but I'm not totally sure it would be up your alley.

There's always the intimidatingly enormous Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susannah Clarke; I've heard good things but I haven't read it.

If you enjoyed Mary Roach's Stiff, about cadavers, what about her Spook, about the afterlife? It's a bit slight but extremely funny.

Sharman apt Russell's Anatomy of a Rose is a scientific and cultural look at flowers, a subject which holds zero inherent interest for me, and yet I love this book because it's so well written that it actually makes me care about, for instance, why there is no such thing as a blue rose.

Michael Ruhlman's Soul of a Chef is a great, luscious read.

Or you could buy Venom Cock; that's still in hardcover.

[identity profile] rachel-renee.livejournal.com 2006-03-26 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
If you are interested in books about costuming and corsetry, I can make a few suggestions... other than that I read fantasy/scifi paperbacks! (with the exception of those that I can't wait that long for and grab the hardbound version as soon as it hits the shelf....)

[identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com 2006-03-26 07:05 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, why not? I haven't done costuming in a long time, but it's still an interesting subject. :D (And there's always interlibrary loan if I decide not to buy. XD)

[identity profile] rachel-renee.livejournal.com 2006-03-27 01:11 am (UTC)(link)
Medieval Tailor's Assistant: Making Common Garments 1200-1500 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0896762394/ref=wl_itt_dp/103-3977015-8255854?%5Fencoding=UTF8&colid=1WR0R3TVRTM6M&coliid=I2B3ZV46IZOQL0&v=glance&n=283155)

Character Costume Figure Drawing, First Edition : Step-by-Step Drawing Methods for Theatre Costume Designers (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240805348/ref=wl_itt_dp/103-3977015-8255854?%5Fencoding=UTF8&colid=1WR0R3TVRTM6M&coliid=I2DEGR5Y84YMAT&v=glance&n=283155) This one is focused more on the design portions, and I thought you might be interested in the visual references.

Medieval Costume in England and France: The 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486290603/ref=wl_itt_dp/103-3977015-8255854?%5Fencoding=UTF8&colid=1WR0R3TVRTM6M&coliid=I10XQMBC9KLZ0D&v=glance&n=283155)

They Have a Word for It : A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1889330469/ref=wl_itt_dp/103-3977015-8255854?%5Fencoding=UTF8&colid=1WR0R3TVRTM6M&coliid=I1O86D8GDLFE1R&v=glance&n=283155) Another paperback, but not massmarket. Really neat thing about languages!

Enjoy your Schrodinger's gift certificate moment!

[identity profile] wyrdness.livejournal.com 2006-03-26 07:24 am (UTC)(link)
This just highlights how boring my book collection is :-/ I only have a dozen non-fiction books and most of them are "we'll teach you to draw good, honest" types. The others are weird things like how to interpret your dreams, aliens and ghosts people swear they've seen, at least one book on hermetic magic (which I'm beginning to think is a fancy name for advanced maths) and a book on Atlantis and how someone is convinced it's the continent of Antarctica (which I thought was great and neatly stole for an ongoing story). Whilst I find them interesting (and often chuckle at them), it's not really something everyone enjoys.

The 48 Laws of Power

[identity profile] kulimar.livejournal.com 2006-03-26 02:23 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm currently half-way into a book that's both telling and titillating; exploring the deceptive psychology of human nature and the various way's it has been used to great effect throughout history. It's called "The 48 Laws of Power" It also serves as an awesome source for collecting story and character ideas.

I believe you can simply google up the short hand version of the 48 laws, but the book itself is so in-depth and exciting it's well worth the read. A word of caution however...By the time you finish reading this book, you may view the world and people's actions in it with a very different eye...

All the best,

-Sage


[identity profile] mistressrenet.livejournal.com 2006-03-26 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Do you have the Anthony Yu translation of Journey to the West yet? It's really excellent, beyond the head-trippiness of seeing 'Sanzo' crying all the time.

[identity profile] thomasyan.livejournal.com 2006-03-27 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl. Here's the opening paragraph and a brief description: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/6517753808739be4

Henry Fool by Hal Hartley.

Kissed by Lynne Stopkewich.

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler. Butler is at her best when writing series, but she's written some really good short stories, too. I expect you saw a whole bunch of tributes when Butler died.

P.S. If BestBuy can't beat DeepDiscountDVD.com's $22 for HMC, you should maybe use your BestBuy coupon on books instead....

[identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com 2006-03-28 12:44 am (UTC)(link)
Considering that Best Buy doesn't carry books...

[identity profile] thomasyan.livejournal.com 2006-03-28 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, yeah! As you can tell, I shop at Best Buy very often and am intimately acquainted with their offerings. Hm, what would *I* get at Best Buy? *thinks* Ink cartridges, digital camera, region-free DVD player, game console, or music CDs. If you're gonna watch lots of Asian or other foreign DVDs, the region-free DVD player might be a good choice? You can probably get one for under $50 these days.

region-free DVD player

[identity profile] thomasyan.livejournal.com 2006-03-29 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Apparently you can get a Cyberhome 300 for $40:

http://another-dime.livejournal.com/3696.html?thread=52848#t52848

I got my Cyberhome 5?? for $80 or so a handful of years ago.