Starting in January, I will be participating in the Abandoned Books Challenge posed by BookCrosser Secretariat. So here is my list of books that I have abandoned but would like to try again. I am sure I won't be able to get through all of these in a single year, but I will update this post as I finish them.
The Quincunx
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Cryptonomicon
Anna Karenina
Nineteen Eighty-Four
New Moon
My Life in France
The Monkey's Raincoat
21 Great Stories
Flowers in the Rain and Other Stories
Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories
Botchan
The Madonna Companion: Two Decades of Commentary
The Audacity of Hope
The Lord of the Rings
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Gargoyle
The Amber Spyglass
The 9/11 Commission Report with Related Documents
Night of the Big Heat
Shadows of Chaco Canyon
God Save the Sweet Potato Queens
Nature Via Nurture
Vikings: The Battle at the End of Time
Touching Tomorrow
Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls
The Uninvited Countess
Organizational Communication for Survival: Making Work, Work
The Merchants
Night Music
From the Darker House
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy
King Solomon's Mines
The New Jackals
Twain, Plains & Automobile
Master and Commander
Dragonsdawn
What's the first exhibit you visit at the zoo?
I head for the big cats.
What's the longest you've ever waited in line?
I think that would have to be the line to get into the Obama rally in Española in September 2008.
And I forgot to wear sunscreen. That sunburn literally scarred me for life.
What was your favorite class in high school? (And no, lunch doesn't count.)
French. Super-easy but also interesting, and the class size was always so small that we were able to have a lot of fun with it.
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This is the second John Rebus book I have read (listened to). As with the other one, it seemed to be a good book, but I couldn't really tell you what happened. The narrator did a good job, and I adore his accent, but too much of the time I didn't quite get what he was saying. I think Scottish English is just enough different from American English that it actually requires a bit of translation effort. And it didn't help any that my listening time was kind of choppy. With a 14-disc book, that makes it hard to keep track of who is who and what is what. And maybe I should try reading the series from the beginning and get a better sense of the characters.
Do you plan to be buried, cremated, cryogenically frozen or something else?
Submitted by aynge.
I want to be turned into diamonds. So cremated, at least. I most decidedly do not want to be embalmed and buried. That has to be one of the most freakishly horrid traditions our society has ever come up with.
I have been given two later books in this series, and my understanding is that this is a series that must be read in order. So I picked up the series debut's audiobook at the library and listened to it. After reading the cover blurb, I was not expecting great things. And I did not get great things. I will admit that this was better than I anticipated. But that isn't saying a whole lot.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas is a New York cop in (IIRC) the year 2057. She is assigned to the high-profile homicide of an expensive whore whose grandfather is a conservative prude of a Senator. (You now have enough information to solve the case.) Real coffee is even rarer than firearms, and when billionaire and prime suspect Roarke offers Eve a steaming cup of joe, she tumbles for him and compromises the investigation. That's mostly what the book is about. It fails as mystery or science fiction, but if all you really want is some Nora Roberts soft porn, this is the book for you.
Who have you lost touch with that you'd love to talk to again?
Lots of people, actually. But if I had to pick one...Vanessa Breig. We were at Drury together and even shared an apartment for a little while. Last I saw her, she was planning her wedding and had asked me to be a bridesmaid. And then she just completely dropped out of my life, no warning, no explanation, no nothing. I heard through the grapevine that things weren't going well for her, and the marriage didn't work out. I actually worked with her ex-husband at OTC, and I asked (very carefully) if he could put me in touch with her, but he had no idea where she was or what she was doing. So Nessa, if you read this, drop me a line. I hope you are having a good life.
Do you believe in ghosts?
Not actively, but I try to keep an open mind. I've never experienced any kind of ghostly phenomenon myself, and I've heard plenty of ghost stories that are obviously bullshit, but I have also heard accounts of ghostly encounters from people I consider honest, respectable, and intelligent. Maybe they are simply not thinking it through completely before deciding they've met up with ghosts. Or perhaps today's science does not yet know everything about how our world works. What would people hundreds of years ago have made of today's technology? Even something as simple as a radio would appear magical to them. And some of what we have now would have been the stuff of science fiction only decades ago.
So, I don't claim to know what a "ghost" actually is, and I don't have sufficient scientific training to even speculate intelligently. But perhaps someday, some quantum physicist will unravel the mystery and bring it into the realm of science. Until then, I am content to consider them excellent fictional devices.
