Random Ramblings

Bueno, ejemplos de foreshadowing en La sombra del viento durante la introducción. Es decir, ( spoilers. )

Algún día voy a leer la secuela. =w=

Day 30 - What book are you reading right now?

Well, since I finished that last one by Gaarder last Sunday, I haven't picked up another one because RECKLESS COMES OUT TODAY dkfjalkdja.

So, I'll be reading that later today. |D

And the meme is done. Finally.

/rolls around waiting for the time to come

Also, I'm very hungry D:

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More doodles by beyourwings! 8D

Manly Harry is manly.
The bit with the shield.
The batmobile vs the Blue Beetle. Sorta.

Day 27 – If a book contains ______, you will always read it (and a book or books that contain it)!

Words. :D/

/GOES INTO HIDING

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I need to stop neglecting the 30 days on books meme. I could say that the Batman/Dresden Files crossover I posted yesterday ate my life... which would be true, since it made me angst for the past couple of weeks--with an overdose of cosmic angst at the last minute because, if there's something I'm not good at, it's choosing a title. So I sort of lost two hours last night just looking for one that wasn't "The Amazing Adventures of the Wacky Wizard and the Cape Crusader" (which yes, beyourwings, it's an awesome title, but it'd be more fun if Harry himself--or probably Thomas--were to drop it within the story, but I digress).

As I was saying regarding the meme: I'll re-take it one question at a time again. Hopefully, I'll manage this time. There are only five questions left, anyway.

Day 25 – Any five books from your “to be read” stack

That should be easy. :D/

- Memoria  de Dragón by Javier Negrete (That'd be Dragon Memory, I guess)

- A book about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Margo Glantz (who recently won an award for her literary work in a Romance language)

- An anthology of short stories about the traditions surrounding the death of children in the Mexican countryside. This one has a story beyond both the morbidity and anthropological interest, and it has to do with how I learned about it and how I got my copy. For free. 8D I may tell it later after I read it.

- Luna cara de conejo by Teresa Valenzuela (Rabbit-faced Moon, again, would be my guess). A collection of theatrical plays for children. It's published by the Secretaría de Educación Pública (Mexico's Department of Public Education), so I'm being all judgemental about it and wary of the literary quality of this work. The SEP tends to favor stories with a strong moral they approve. Hey, I don't blame them, but their books also tend to be rather dull. So, yeah.

- Tales from the White Heart by Arthur C. Clarke.

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Like last entry, rinse and repeat.

Day 20 – Favorite kiss

Since, I've said previously, romance tends to bore me, and therefore it's absolutely not why I read anything, well... I can only remember two kisses in particular o.O: Westley and Buttercup in The Princess Bride and [Spoilers]Percy and Annabeth in The Last Olympian, because it's recent and [Spoiler]I found it amusing that it was underwater, because it was so fitting. :p[/spoilers]

Day 21 – Favorite romantic/sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)

...Huh... See the answer above. I do ship stuff, but I don't recall any particular pairing. Although I'm tempted to say Mo/Dustfinger just to troll the meme. xp

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* I don't know why I hadn't seen Hot Fuzz before. I'm not one to watch buddy cop movies, but this one is just amazing. It's funny and dramatic and the climax was just freaking brilliant. Enough to even warrant the extra html to the very least. :D
Now I want to watch Shaun of the Dead again. XD; But I promised kalligeneia I'd see The Silence of the Hams first, and I haven't finished watching the second season of Pushing Daisies. And there are a few other things in that queue.

* I got the Dead After Dark audiobook and I finished listening to chapter 3 a while ago. I don't have much contact with Southern American English, so it's a good listening exercise. I'm understanding practically everything. \o/
Also, this is so anti-Twilight it's not funny. No, wait, it is! Starting with the fact that the prose doesn't want me to take my eyes out--although that could be said about most printed fiction. :x
Other than that, so many details in this book are the exact opposite of Twilight: Dead After Dark happens in the south; Bill has a "faint glow" only Sookie can see; Sookie is the one who can read minds and I don't want to strangle her she rescues Bill first from danger; Bill is sympathetic and I don't want to strangle him tender and sweet and at the same time, Sookie and the reader are reminded constantly of how dangerous and terrifying he actually is.
So far, I'm liking it. 8D

Day 16 – Favorite poem or collection of poetry

Again, having to decide just one drop from a very vast ocean. /o\ But I told danly I would give an answer this time, and here it is.

CORRESPONDANCES
Charles Baudelaire

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarité,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
--Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies,
Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
Qui chantent les transport de l'esprit et des sens.



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Day 13 – Favorite childhood book OR current favorite YA book (or both!)

I'm going to go with a) this time. As a child, I do remember being quite smitten with:

The Call of the Wild

I did read it several times, and I hereby formally accuse Jack London for my undying, never-fading love for dogs. Also, from what I remember from that novel and what I've observed in the behavior or my own dogs, his descriptions are quite accurate. /nostalgia googles off.

Also, because it's an unfair and cruel question, I'm going to cheat again: I was a big Jules Verne fan as a pre-teen, so most of his work goes here too. And let's no forget Nils Holgersson nor Tom Sawyer nor... Well, you get the picture. :p


Day 14 – Favorite character in a book (of any sex or gender)

...why.

I mean, I love so many characters so much and it's so hard to decide on just one. D: I mean, I could say Samwise Gamgee because I already answered with him a few entries ago, but where would that leave Bastian or Momo? Or that lovable drunkard clown Jojo? Or the several incarnations of King Arthur and Robin Hood? Or even Karrin Murphy and that stupid wizard Harry Dresden? Or the blue stone in Jimmy Liao's picture book? And what about Don Quijote and the little prince and his rose and his fox?

I officially hate this question. :|

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Day 11 – A book that disappointed you

Other than this one? >>;; Then I'll go with the title that's jumping up and down in my head once more.

Magos y guerreros

Mages and Warriors I think it'd be a translation as good as any. It's originally in Spanish and I dread to look if it's been translated to any language. I don't even remember the name of the author, but I do remember that at the very page of the book it said it was a pseudonym for two sisters whose names I don't remember either.

I bought it because the cover looked sort of neat--a Nosferatus-like creature in an aggressive pose in front of a Mayan-like temple--and the back cover promised an adventure rooted in Mayan mythology with Veracruz as the setting. I must say that I stopped reading way before finding out how much of that was true--except for the Veracruz part. It does begin in a fishermen town somewhere in that state, where everyone is Poor But Happy.

I do give a lot of points to the book for having an elderly man as a protagonist, which I don't see often in this kind of fantasy except when the author is a middle-aged man sorting out the issues of his own mortality. But all the points I take for having the worse prose I've read outside of badfics make the numbers thread into negative territory. It's like that book never saw a competent editor. I remember I reached out for a pencil when I was reading it and crossed many unnecessary lines, while writing "WTF THIS MAKE NO SENSE" in the margins several times. There was also at least three out-of-the-blue, not-sense-making switches between past and present tense in less than five chapters which happened in the middle of a paragraph.

Other than that, the pacing was awful and it wanted to go all bucolic but it just came out patronizing.

So, yeah. I was disappoint. :|b

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Day 09 – Best scene ever

Only one? This question is so decidedly unfair that I'm going to answer with TWO SCENES. No, wait, I'm going to cheat further than that:

1) Everything Samwise Gamgee does (specially when in Mordor).

2) Lt. Karrin Murphy + Chainsaw. Enough said.


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Day 07 – Least favorite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise

Uh. I think that's got to be when romance overshadows the actual plot, when everything has to include romance for be of any worth, even when it wasn't necessary at all. Sometimes, romance--and the human connection it entails--adds depth, but most of the time it's handled very badly and just included there for the sake of drama or to prevent a reading of the character as non-heterosexual, which doesn't usually work, heh, ugh.

Also, the Everyone Must Hook Up With Everybody Else irritates me so, specially when it's a Last Minute Hook Up and there's no build up whatsoever to it.

That applies to all media, not just books, btw.

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