No books for me

All I've been reading lately has been student assignments.  I want to be reading The Left Hand of Darkness, which I found at a used bookstore and am looking at for a course I'm helping a professor prep.  A course I should be helping my professor prep.  I would be helping if I weren't so buried.  (I would much rather be prepping it!!!!!)

If you can't tell, I'm pretty down about this class taking over my life so unexpectedly, which is weird, since I usually set my expectations so low that anything other than a disaster seems rather pleasant.  My expectations about the teaching resources that would be provided for me for this class were set too high.  The class is a huge, time-consuming disaster for me.  See what happens when you don't set your expectations low enough!  :)

The essay about science fiction in the introduction of my copy of The Left Hand of Darkness was so elegant and clear and simple and LeGuin that it was excellent.  It was especially stunning after the essays I've been grading lately.  Who knows?  Some day, one of my students could be writing as beautifully as LeGuin.  I wish I could help them all improve without killing myself in the process, but that is another example of an expectation that will probably only hurt me.

This too shall pass.  There will always be books to look forward to.  So for now, onward.

New Terry Pratchett Book!!!!!!!! (I'm a little excited.)

Yes, it's another Tiffany book, no doubt chock full of Wee Free Men and hilarious regional dialog!  It's called I Shall Wear Midnight, and it comes out September 28th!  Eeee!

You might want to pre-order it now.  You can get it for a smidge over $9 at Borders and a couple of other places (and if you go to the store and pre-order it, you can get free shipping), but that won't last very long.  Oh, I'm so happy!

Any fall releases that have you giddy?

It's ALIVE!!!!

So, once again I dropped out of sight.  In honor of my first anniversary of blogging, my computer died.  Eventually a kind friend resuscitated it, and now I am almost caught up enough to get back to blogging.  So you'll likely hear from me for real this weekend.  Until then . . .

The joys of a poor memory

I am the kind of person who forgets
what I just read, so I can read it
and love it again sooner.

(Sorry for being out of sight [site] for a bit.  My online course didn't get set up with enough time for me to prepare, and I am not-quite-treating water yet.)

I hope to be caught up soon.

Join the Library Wars

I just finished reading the second book in a series that appeals to me on many levels.  It's a bit hard to describe the book, since it's a mashup of many genres.  Part romantic comedy, part social commentary, part combat movie, part political drama, part compelling and harrowing near-future science fiction, Library Wars is really all over the place but in a good way.  It's actually hard to describe what makes it so delightful because if someone tells you the premise and the world it takes place in and the nature of the conflict, you are likely to think they are crazy. 

I mean, what kind of near future involves actual physical combat over library books?  What kind of funny odd-couple comedy is set in a world where national and local governments and a ton of other shadowy political bodies manipulate the press and jockey for position using freedom of  expression as their hot-button issue?  Is it more important to protect people from the bad expressions than to allow the freedom to have differences (and smut and pornography and dangerous ideas)? When was the last time you saw Library and War used in the same sentence?  This isn't Fahrenheit 451, but it might be distantly related (and much more fun since the focus isn't really on the heavy drama, though there is a small sense of dread about that drama always lurking in the background).

It's true that I really like clever premises that work and make me think (enough that sometimes I don't even care if everything else is a mess), but from the number of times I found myself laughing at interactions between the two clueless romantic leads and thinking really hard about how far I would go to defend freedom of expression, I'd like to think this is actually a well-executed story overall.  I just really enjoy it all the way through.  It's a delightful experience to read and enter this bizarre but not-so-different world.  At least I think so.

What do you think?  How far would you go to censor the bad for the public good or defend free access to it all?  (It's really not a trite and easy issue, especially not as it's presented in Library Wars.)  If you love books, you might want to give this series a read to see how much you really love them and how much you would be willing to sacrifice in their defense . . .

More words of wisdom on revision

These particular words are brought to you by Patrick Rothfuss, a man who wrote a book that's like reading a song.  He's a real craftsman, so if you've ever wondered what a writer's personal revision process is like, check his out.  He takes good notes.  I particularly like the way he talks about making every word work for its place in the book.  I also like the way he revised the fan's letter that spawned the post as an example.  Kind of priceless.

His next book (The Wise Man's Fear)is allegedly coming out in March (for real this time), and I hope it's worth every hour of revision he's put into it.

(Once again, I am baffled at the lack of awards for this book.  There are over 740 reviews for it on Amazon.  Seriously.  Was it even nominated for anything?  Ah, well, I'm no critic.  I guess I should be glad it won that short-lived people's choice Quill Award and was a bestseller.)   

Reader's Famous Last Words

I'm only going
to read one chapter, just one . . .
Morning already?!