lagilman: coffee or die (meerkat coffee)
Laura Anne Gilman ([personal profile] lagilman) wrote2008-12-04 04:48 am
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when a 20 pound cat sits on your chest at 4am -- might as well go to work

Have made an offer over on The Cosa Nostradamus on-line that might make your gift-giving a bit easier this season. Or not. Up to you to decide...

Did my bit for the publishing economy yesterday at B&N, including getting a membership card (I've already made back $5 of the $25 fee). Was somewhat dismayed to stand in front of the racks of books and realize that there were very few books I really wanted to buy... not because they weren't good, but because I'm burnt out on all my favorite genres. So I did what I always do in those situations -- I bought in different genres. In this case, hard SF and non-fiction.

If all goes well and chaos doesn't laugh, I'm going to use the last two weeks of the year to curl up and make a dent in my TBR cache. Mmmm. Pleasure-reading.

So, anyone want to suggest something Good that's not any flavor of fantasy? Just keep in mind that 'cozy' or 'cute' mysteries tend to make my teeth itch...


Cats have come out to join me at the desk, and the coffee's ready. Guess that means the day's begun.

[identity profile] fiction-theory.livejournal.com 2008-12-04 01:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Have you ever read "Memoirs of a Geisha"? Way better than the movie. Gorgeously written, compelling. It's a darn near perfect book if you ask me.

Also "The Island of Lost Maps" by Miles Harvey. It's a good non-fiction book about maps and thieves who steal maps and it explains a lot of things about libraries and history that I didn't realize before. I'm determined one day to use some of what I learned in his book in a novel of mine.

Also, "Queen Isabella" by Alison Weir (good historical author all around) is fascinating and changed a lot of how I thought of a historical figure I thought I knew, and taught me a lot about historical figures that I didn't!

"Curious Incidents of the Dog In the Night-Time" is really wonderful and unique. It is basically a murder mystery with a 15-year-old autistic boy as the detective in question. Of course, the victim is actually his dog, but the story is just wonderful and it's a brilliant book and I definitely would recommend this to just about anyone.

I think most of these books can be found readily, or at least readily on Amazon.com.

I hope they're helpful. Happy reading!