Am I weird if I think writing a comparative essay between Holly Black and Melissa Marr’s urban fantasy series sounds like a fun way to pass my time?

(I suspect hormones are to blame, but… Well, hormones and procrastination on the essay I should be writing. My brain seems to think focusing on one that’s more fun means it doesn’t have to think about the one I’ll actually get graded for.)

New Acquisition: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett. I may have mentioned getting it already. It’s my “I read my 30th book!” book, so I’m allowed.

I have to admit that apart from the “Argh! Book buying block!” I had for days and days and days, this time my ban seems to be working nicely. I haven’t (yet) bought a single book I wasn’t allowed to in all of November. Better yet, I don’t feel the urge/need to buy any! Well, sometimes I do, but it’s not so strong and easily ignored. *knocks on wood*

Hope everyone is doing well! *waves*

English Title: The Complete Fairy Tales (LT)
Original Title: Contes des fées
Author: Charles Perrault
Series?: Nope.
Basic Reason for Beginning: Fairytales! Actually, for all I like fairytales, I’ve never come across Perrault’s originals, only the Grimm and Andersen and folktale-style anonymous ones.
Basic Reason for Finishing: Fairytales! Also, with fairytales being an interest of mine, I have to have some idea of what Perrault’s fairytales say, right? With him such a prominent figure and all…
Blurb: Wherein we find a translation of the fairytales Perrault wrote/adapted that we now all know and love.
Book Rereadability: For research/comparison purposes, sure. But he’s a little too strong/obvious with the morals for me. (And, of course, some of them I plain disagree with. Hi, Bluebeard moral!)
Author Rereadability: *points up*
Recommendation: Okay, if you have an interest in fairytales and the development thereof, you probably cannot pass Perrault by. Either in the original French or this translation. If you’re not particularly interested in fairytales, though, skip it. And, I can scarce believe I’m saying this, don’t use this edition for bedtime stories. It’s a scholarly edition with scholarly notes and introductions, and I’m fairly certain you want to stick to the adaptations that leave out the heavy (out-dated) moralizing.

First up: a vlog!

It’s short, possibly inaudible and some of the lighting is a little bright. But it’s 22:40ish in a badly lit room. There is one book: The Complete Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault, which I have a review ramble for you for shortly.

That’s… It. I just felt like doing something silly/crazy. And the cat agreed. ^-~

Beyond that… We had a power outing earlier today. We have no idea why, but dad fixed it. (Dad is awesome. When he wants to be.) And so now I am writing a blog post! There’s a nice strong wind out. I like wind. Last time I tried to go out in the wind (which is even more awesome than wind on its own) it was pouring. So I didn’t go.

And, uhm. Yesterday my train had trouble. Supposedly. They’re very nice about train trouble. It reads “There will be no train traffic due to collision with a person” on the noticeboards. Which is the polite, euphemistic way to say “A person jumped in front of the train”. These delays usually take around two hours, so imagine my surprise when I got to the station before mine and… the notice board read “Trains will gradually resume” an hour before it should’ve.

I hope that means no one jumped in front of the train after all…

Genki is past his weird five minutes, by the by. In case you were curious.

My essay for class is going apace. Of sorts. Meaning I did reading and made notes and have the vaguest of ideas what I want to do with it. This is always useful when you want to write something. *nods* I guess that’s sort of bookish… There’re more books in this post than I thought there’d be. Hm. Anyway… Just rambling a bit. Thought I’d be a little weird. (Well, I’m always weird, just… weirder?)

I’ll… go work on my ‘review’ posting now…

I… don’t know how many people are interested in such things, but I thought I’d compile a small and nowhere near complete list. Also for my own reference. See, the thing is, whilst I’m native to the Netherlands and read plenty of children’s books in Dutch, I started growing out of reading Dutch pretty early on in life. (I recently established that I made the step towards English Disney movies somewhere around the age of 10/11.) I read several Dutch books throughout secondary school – most of which, I’m sad to say, remain untranslated – because I had to. The point of this short ramble is: whilst I’m Dutch, I have read bitterly few Dutch novels.

I’ve read about half of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. I’ve read The Canterbury Tales, The Waste Land, Alice in Wonderland, Tristan, The Romance of the Rose, The Crying of lot 49, The Great Gatsby, A Clockwork Orange, The Odyssee, The Histories of Herodotus, Seeing Things, Wide Sargasso Sea, Gulliver’s Travels… I have, on my pile, The Tale of Genji and Ramayana, Midnight’s Children, Omeros, The Shadow of the Wind…

But you notice something about those titles and that name?

On umbrellas. Of all things.

As you probably know there are all sorts of umbrellas out there. Big ones, small ones, collapsible ones, lopsided ones… Ones with cute print on it and ones in a single colour, ones in gradients, ones in rainbow-colours… Lots of choices.

What you may not know – although I presume you do – there are practically only two kinds of umbrellas: those that work and those that don’t. Or, if you’re near-enough bird-boned like me: Those that don’t work and those that threaten to turn you into Mary Poppins with the slightest breeze.

So I don’t use umbrellas. Either it’s a waste of money because the wind breaks them on their first use – honestly, I envy those people who seem to be able to get those cheap umbrellas that break at first use to last a long time – or they’re so big you can fit three of me under there and I go “Whoosh” into the air if I’m not very careful. (In contrary to what it may look like in the Mary Poppins movie, it is not fun. It is thrilling, but also very terrifying.) Probably not very far, but all the same.

So I get stuck with hoods and all that wonderfulness. I have yet to find one that doesn’t fly off with a little bit of wind or doesn’t severely hamper my vision because – guess what – the hood is actually too big for me to fit snugly around my head! (Although I suspect this may actually be a common symptom of the things… I have too little data to compare with.)

So this is a long-winded way of me saying “I am soaked! *sob*”

And I have to go out again today. T-T May it have stopped with the pouring! T-T (Or, you know, may my dad be home early and drive me to work. T-T)

Or maybe I’ll just ramble on…

Might I just draw people’s attention towards this?

‘This’ is a link to a news post at Literary Escapism. It has links to several other posts and articles around the blogosphere. What these have to do with one another?

They deal with Harlequin’s new *ahem* ‘publishing venture’. It is a Big Deal in the author and publishing world. So far, in the space of about three days, three of America’s professional writer’s associations (RWA, SFWA, MWA) have spoken up against the venture. (Chiefly, from what I gather, against the way it’s marketed.) Which may just tell you how big and controversial it is, or it may have you scratching your head going “I’ve never heard of these organisations” (because you don’t live in America.)

Anyway, it’s Big.

I’m tempted to call it that, but it’s not, really. I don’t think I’m really cut out for weekly anythings. Anyway, I thougt I’d share some music with you. You know, in the interest of having a “Everything but books” month. Not that I’ve not talked about books…

This is the instrumental version of Mio Nemico, the opening of Fantaghiro, also known as The Cave of the Golden Rose. Don’t panic if you’ve never heard of it. It’s a fairly unknown Italian fantasy series from the early 90s. (See?)

It was on tv during my last few years in ballet class. Unfortunately, at the same time as aforementioned classes. We didn’t quite know how the VCR worked at the time and, thus, I missed large chunks until reruns. They quit those when I quit ballet, go figure.

Anyway, this theme is another one of those horridly annoying songs where my brain tries to do two things at the same time: supply the Italian lyrics (not that I speak it, but that’s never stopped me singing along before) and figure out the textures. Except worse because here I keep going “Oh, I have i– #snatch of lyrics#“.

It is pretty, though. Listen to the melody line. Isn’t that gorgeous? All silvery, if you’re curious. The background instrumentation kind of reminds me of a shadowy sunrise seen through a frame of (leafless) branches. (Kind of, I suppose, like that first picture there, but with less snow, a more central sun, no clouds, more darkness and more branches in immediate sight. ‘Framed’ really is the best word for it.

And there’s dancing. Did I mention the dancing? That silvery line? It’s dancing. I wish I could choreograph the whole thing, but it’s just snatches. The silver changes into gold as the melody rises, by the by. Ah, around the 1:16 mark – that’s a pirouette.

And you know those notes rising swiftly? (1:58-2:00) Spinning top. Only winding down, not up, I think, from the speed of it. (Which doesn’t match the tones, I know. It’s confusing.) And then it falls over. Silvery spinning top, really, so maybe just something spinning really fast. *sigh* I don’t know. There’s a lot of spinning in/at the end. Pretty much all it is. I’d say it’s a yoyo only yoyos don’t go in sideways circles. Flares out a bit when that happens. All cut to ribbons.

*rubs temples* Now I remember why I don’t do this very often.

If you’re curious this leads to a version with the lyrics (and switches to another half-way through the video).

So I’m curious… What goes on in your head when you hear this?

Title: Seven for a Secret (LT)
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Series?: Second in her New Amsterdam series. Works as a stand-alone, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Basic Reason for Beginning: EEEEEEEEEEEE! More Abby Irene! (Also, more Bear! Creeping up on reading the lot!) More Abby Irene!
Basic Reason for Finishing: Uhm, actually this has me a little stumped. ^-^;
Texture: Like most of Bear’s work, it feels like a kind of barrier going up between me and the characters.
Blurb: Prussia has successfully invaded Britain, giving Abby Irene a chance to return to London to die in her home. However, things aren’t quite so simple when they find out the Prussians are intending to create their own kind of wolf-man creature, a creature that would be near-unstoppable.
Book Rereadability: It’d probably be good for me, but I don’t know…
Author Rereadability: Still interested in more of Bear’s work. For all the (personal!) issues I have with her work, she writes some compelling stories.
Recommendation: Er, I wouldn’t suggest this as introduction to Bear’s works? (Sorry. Stumped.)