As usual, I'm behind

Hopefully I'll get some of this posted this weekend, but currently my To Be Written About list includes 4 anime series, 1 manga, 1 short story, and 1 book.

I'm still on the fence about whether to post about the short story - I don't usually write whole posts about short stories, but it's a standalone thing I read on my Nook, and it's the reason I caved and bought a book by the author.

The lone book (Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves) has been in my To Be Written About list the longest, mainly because I needed a bit of mental distance before I could feel comfortable writing about it. It's one of those books that, if I were still part of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy book group, I would probably be recommending (as long as no one in the group minded a bit of gore) - I think it would make for an excellent discussion.

The 4 anime include Special A, Ghost Hunt, the second season of Maria Watches Over Us, and Antique Bakery. Out of them all, Ghost Hunt was the biggest surprise (it was better than I expected), and Antique Bakery was the one I was anticipating the most.

By the way, as far as my Nook goes, I'm still liking it overall (despite some of the things I've written below). It's going to come in really handy over the next few days. I finally got wireless Internet set up in my apartment, so I've been able to use aspects of the Nook that I couldn't before. Here's a quickie update on some thing I've learned and some things I think B&N should work on. If I'm wrong about any of what I write below, feel free to correct me.

• Shelves: I was excited to learn that I could arrange my e-books into Shelves. I was less excited to learn that simply plugging my Nook into a USB port in my computer destroys those Shelves as if they never existed. I now have two very small, simple shelves (Reading and Finished), which lessens the frustration, somewhat, when they are destroyed. Still, I hope B&N fixes this problem in the near future.
• Books have to be put on Shelves one at a time. That, combined with the "little" glitch mentioned in my first bullet point, makes me very sympathetic to those who already have many e-books, well organized using calibre or something else, who can't get that lovely organization and usage of metadata (like series titles!) to carry over onto the Nook. Well, I've read that some people can, but it sounds like their methods might invalidate the Nook's warranty.
• Feeds: There's a section on the Nook called "The Daily" that appears to be an RSS feed reader. There's only one problem - you can't choose what feeds you're subscribing to. You get what B&N gives you. This would be an absolutely awesome feature if you could subscribe to feeds and read text-heavy blogs (like, for instance, mine) on the Nook.
• Downloads not allowed: Once I got my wireless connection set up, I tried going to Project Gutenberg and downloading a book, just to see if I could. I couldn't. Downloads aren't supported, meaning that books from anywhere but from B&N have to be side loaded. Which kills the Shelves.
• Until B&N makes it clear which books in their store have DRM and which don't, I refuse to pay for any e-books from them. If it's not possible to get something without DRM, I'll either do without it or get the print version. So far, I have bought 3 DRM-free books directly from the publishers. The two I could have gotten from B&N cost slightly more directly from the publishers, but they still cost significantly less than if I had bought print versions.
• I'm annoyed that, while the My Library section of the Nook, which holds all books bought from B&N, is able to show covers on the touch screen, the My Documents section, which holds just about everything else, can't. I can't think of a single good reason why this is so.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar (book) by Maurice Leblanc

Read this for free via Project Gutenberg!

Synopsis:

This book contains 9 stories about Arsene Lupin, a thief who is so awesomely good at what he does that people just assume he can't possibly have left any clues at the scenes of his crimes. If Arsene Lupin is caught, it's because he wants to be caught. If he says he's going to steal something, he'll steal it, even if the job looks impossible. He's an expert at disguises and is more than a match for most of the great detectives of the world (except maybe Sherlock Holmes).

In several of the stories, he tricks people into giving him the exact information and openings he needs. In one story, it is revealed that his amazing exploits began when he was only 6 years old. His only weakness appears to be his complete confidence in his abilities - in a couple stories, this confidence allows people to actually get the better of him.

Commentary:

As part of trying out the Nook, I downloaded several Project Gutenberg books. I probably have never read, or possibly even heard of, many of the books available through Project Gutenberg - I ended up browsing subjects and downloading anything that caught my interest. I tried a few pages of several different books, but this was the first book that caught my interest and wouldn't let go. Even as I rolled my eyes and imagined the name "Arsene Lupin" said in melodramatic tones, I couldn't stop reading. Since I finally caved and ordered a Nook for myself, I imagine I'll be downloading the rest of the Arsene Lupin books on Project Gutenberg in the near future.

Less than satisfactory response

I received an emailed answer from Barnes & Noble about DRM-protected books on their site. The response basically boiled down to "all publishers require this of us, and no, it's not a security risk." I don't know enough about how the whole thing works to say anything about the security risks, although I'm still skeptical. As for the whole "all publishers require this of us"...I'm not sure I buy that answer. For one particular book I looked up, it seems like Barnes & Noble sells it with DRM (if I assume that the emailed response is correct and all books they offer, except possibly self-published books, have DRM), Fictionwise sells it DRM-free, and the publisher itself sells it DRM-free. Why would the publisher require Barnes & Noble to sell the book with DRM, but not Fictionwise?

The emailed response did not tell me how I would be able to judge, prior to buying an e-book via Barnes & Noble, whether it was DRM-protected or not. I already know that not all books available via the Barnes & Noble site are DRM-protected - I wasn't asked for my credit card number in order to open DEAD(ish) on the Nook, and I got that one via the Barnes & Noble website. Does that mean that I can assume that self-published books on the Barnes & Noble website are DRM-free? That books that say "Sold by SMASHWORDS" are DRM-free? I don't know, and the email didn't say.

If anyone out there more experienced with e-books has more information they'd like to share about any of this, feel free to share.

The Nook: the verdict

I liked it. A Nook of my very own is due to arrive any day now.

That's the short response. Here's the long one:

It's possible that, if I had gotten to try the Kindle or another reader the way I got to try the Nook, I might have decided I liked something else better. I like knowing what I'm getting into, though. Reading about the pros and cons of a product isn't the same. I like personally experiencing those pros and cons, so I can get a better feel for what I can live with and what I can't.

For instance, whether the software on the Nook I tried was up-to-date or not, I learned that, as annoying as I first found the page refresh rate to be, I got used to it. The start-up time turned out to be significantly more annoying. I also learned that I missed being able to quickly flip through a book - I'll have to remember to add bookmarks to my favorite parts of e-books, the best thing I can think of to simulate being able to flip to and reread my favorite parts in print books.

The cover on the Nook I was trying out opened up so that it was a little like holding a hardback book. I liked that cover so much that I looked for a similar one for my own Nook. The cover wasn't so stiff that I couldn't fold the front part back. Although my tendinitis has healed to the point that I feel like normal, my hand and wrist is wimpier than it used to be. I learned that, if I'm not careful about how I'm pressing the button to go to the next page, the tendons in my wrist hurt after a while. I discovered I could fold the front cover back and use the buttons on the left instead - good to know.

I put a variety of things on the Nook, just to see what they would look like. I downloaded a couple free e-books from the Barnes & Noble website. One was DEAD(ish) - although I wasn't a fan of the book, appearance-wise it looked great. I tried the Nook's Notes feature on it - I was really unimpressed with that. Typing the letters was so annoying that I resorted to text message-like shorthand. It's a good thing that I'm used to writing any notes about books into a notebook I keep on hand.

Another free book I downloaded was a Harlequin romance. I ended up never even looking at it, but I still learned something from it - I learned I really dislike DRM. "Buying" the book (for $0.00) and adding it to the Nook worked just the same as it did with DEAD(ish). I don't have wireless Internet, so I first downloaded any book I planned on adding to the Nook to my computer and then plugged the Nook into a USB port and added the books that way. Then, with DEAD(ish), all I did was find the book on the Nook and start reading - nice and easy. The Harlequin book was more annoying. When I found it and went to read it, I was prompted to input my credit card number.

I'm assuming that I would only be asked to do this the first time after I added the book to the Nook, but one time was one time too many. Even if I had been using my own Nook instead of borrowing one, I wouldn't have liked being prompted for my credit card number. I plan on making a special effort to avoid getting DRM-protected e-books.

There are tons of options for getting e-books. As far as free e-books go, I learned that Baen has a few available, and I downloaded a couple by some of my favorite authors. If I like the look of them, it's possible I might buy some of Baen's e-books in the future. I also downloaded several books from Project Gutenberg. Just like when I check books out of a library, whether I think I'll like a book or not does not have to be a primary factor in whether I choose to download it from Project Gutenberg. Three of the four books I tried didn't grab me, but the fourth (the first of Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin books, which I will be posting about soon) was a lot of fun.

As I started to warm to the Nook, I began to wonder whether I should more seriously consider the Nook Color. The higher price tag bothered me, especially since I knew I would be adding the cost of a cover and the Barnes & Noble Protection Plan. I was able to take a look at the Nook Color at Walmart, but I really wish I could have tried it out for a more extended period of time. Because of my job, I spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen. On a bad day (massive, multi-hour record-editing projects, for instance), the eye-strain can give me a headache, and then when I get home I don't even bother to turn my computer. I worried that a Nook Color might only increase my chances for eye-strain-induced headaches. And, again, there was still the price to consider. The Nook Color would let me look at pictures, comics, and more, but I decided to wait until either the Nook Color or similar products dropped in price enough that I wouldn't mind it if I couldn't use it all the time, or some company put out an affordable color e-ink reader.

One of the Project Gutenberg EPUB files I downloaded had images, and they looked fine on the Nook. I had previously downloaded some PDFs to the Nook and was horrified at what happened to their formatting - the PDF with images in it was particularly mangled. The perfectly nice looking EPUB file got me to wondering, and my wondering led me to download and install two programs on my computer, calibre and JPEGtoPDF. From what I could tell, calibre can't take a JPEG image and turn it into an EPUB file (I could be wrong), so I turned a bunch of JPEGs into a PDF and then turned that into an EPUB file. It worked beautifully. I created an EPUB file of images of my niece - on the Nook they were grayscale, of course, but didn't look that bad. I also created an EPUB file of a fan comic I downloaded several years ago. This, I learned, works best when the comic has fairly large text - the screen size of the Nook is quite a bit smaller than, say, a page from a Tokyopop manga, so the text ends up being a lot smaller, too. At the moment at least, the Nook does not allow you to zoom in. This became especially painful when I turned a picture-riddled journal article PDF into an EPUB file - the text was so small it was impossible to make any of it out.

I'm not sure I would have ordered a Nook for myself if I hadn't gotten a good-sized check as a Christmas present, along with orders not to use that money on bills or groceries. I'm cheap, and I cringed at the cost when I hit the "order" button. However, I've bought several print books in the last year that cost 2-3 times more than what the e-book versions (these were from small publishers, NOT the Agency 5). With a Nook that book money will be able to go a little bit farther. Aside from that, I also like the idea of being able to download and read something from Project Gutenberg whenever I get the urge, and I was hugely excited when I figured out how to make my own EPUB files - I'm sure I'll think of lots of ways to use that skill. I'd like to experiment more with reading work-related articles on the Nook.

I don't expect or plan for my Nook to replace my print book reading, but I do expect it to expand my options.

Ratha's Creature (book) by Clare Bell

I haven't included any cover art, because the library book I read didn't have a book jacket, just boring green cloth.

Synopsis:

I'll make this easy on myself and start off by saying that all the characters in this book are cats. Some of them can talk to each other and are intelligent. I read somewhere that the setting is prehistoric Earth, but I wouldn't bat an eyelash if someone told me the book was actually set on another planet that just happened to have similar wildlife.

Ratha is one of the Named, a group of intelligent cats that survives by keeping herds of hooved animals. She's young and still in training, but her teacher, Thakur, believes she will one day be one of the best herders in the clan. When she's older, her job will be to help the herd grow and protect it from the Un-Named. Ratha has always been taught that the Un-Named are stupid and unable to speak, but Thakur seems to think this might not be true.

The clan has enough to worry about, protecting the herd from Un-Named raiders, but then lightning causes a fire. After the devastation is over, Thakur has developed a fear of fire, while Ratha, on the other hand, has developed a fascination for it. Through trial and error, Ratha figures out what causes the remaining small flames, the fire's "cubs," to grow or die. She wants to use her new knowledge to help the clan, but the clan leader, Meoran, is resistant to change and chases her away.

Unable to keep her little flame alive, Ratha is now without a clan and without her fire. Her herding skills can't help her now that she's on her own. Somehow, she has to remember how to hunt before she dies of starvation. Life outside the clan reveals things she could have never guessed about the Un-Named, herself, and the clan ways she always thought were best, but what will she do when she learns that her former clan is under threat?

Commentary:

I first read this book when I was younger, and the only thing I could remember about it was that all its characters were cats and that one of the prominent characters died horribly and tragically of a crushed ribcage. I made the mistake of trying to hunt the book down via Google searches, and, after turning up nothing but veterinary information and things too horrific for me to want to remember clearly, I finally turned to the catalog of the library I used when I was younger. By searching for "cats fiction" and limiting my search to the library's young adult location, I found the book in a couple minutes.

My younger self had a greater tolerance for tragedy than I do now. Although I wouldn't say that this book ended very badly for Ratha, the main character, there was still more death and pain in this book than I remembered. By the end of the book, Ratha has experienced being an outcast on at least two occasions, her clan has nearly been wiped out, several cats have died horrible deaths, and Ratha's children turned out to be a huge disappointment to her. My younger self lapped this kind of stuff up. I, as I am now, had to push myself to make it to the book's ending. I had originally planned on reading the second book in the series, but now I'm not so sure. It's not that Ratha's Creature was a bad book, it's just that I don't think books like this are a good fit for me anymore.

DEAD(ish) (novelette) by Naomi Kramer

Synopsis:

Linda is dead, but she's not gone. Still able to interact with the physical world, she torments Mike, who was her boyfriend when she was alive. Linda is obsessed with finding out where her body is and, although Mike knows exactly where it is, he's not telling, despite the abuse heaped upon him.

Linda hires a private investigator named Trent to help her find her body. There's a lot Trent doesn't know, though, and it's not long before he learns that all that missing information is really important. The location of Linda's body turns out to be tied to the truth about how she really died.

Commentary:

Remember the post I wrote about getting to try out the Nook? One of the things I did was download a free e-book off of the Barnes & Noble website, and this was that free e-book. Well, although I call it an e-book, I think it might be more accurate to call it a novella, or maybe even a short story. The whole thing isn't even 100 pages on the Nook (I'm not counting the excerpt at the end), and that's with the font size set to Large. However, until someone tells me otherwise, I'm going to call it a book and use "books" as one of this post's labels. [On Amazon.com, DEAD(ish) is referred to as a novelette.] If I start reviewing more short works like this, I may see about coming up with a new label.

I downloaded this because the cute, visually appealing cover art led me to believe it would be a funny book in the same vein as Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job, or possibly even MaryJanice Davidson's Undead and Unwed or Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. Yeah, I read a lot more into that cover image than I should have. It really is a nice-looking cover, though.

I'll get this next part out of the way quickly: If you're easily offended by swear words, don't even touch this. I think there are maybe 1-4 per page. Also, if the idea of gay sex, voyeurs, or a heterosexual couple trying to form a foursome with a gay couple offends you, don't touch this. I don't remember the book containing graphic descriptions of anything, though - in this area and in others, this book is more "tell" than "show."

Especially in the beginning, that was my primary problem - readers are told more than they're shown. The book starts off in the first person, from Mike's perspective, and it's quickly clear that, as awful as Linda's treatment of him is, he deserves it. Mike is not a pleasant person, and Kramer communicated that well.

Mara, Daughter of the Nile (book) by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Synopsis:

This book takes place in ancient Egypt. Hatshepsut is essentially the pharaoh, and there are people who are not happy about this and would prefer to see her brother Thutmose on the throne instead (I have read that there are great historical inaccuracies at work here, but I don't know much about Egyptian history myself and this is what happened in the book.).

Mara, a clever, blue-eyed slave, could care less about any of that until she is sold to a scary guy who works for Hatshepsut. He promises her eventual freedom if she will act as a spy and uncover the plots and people working against Hatshepsut. Inanni, a Canaanite princess who is supposed to marry Thutmose, is arriving soon, and Mara will be acting as her interpreter - in this way, Mara will be in the perfect position to observe the goings on in the palace.

Before Mara even gets to the palace, however, she winds up with a second master: Sheftu, the young man leading the rebels. Sheftu thinks Mara is merely a runaway slave. He and Mara are attracted to each other and appreciate each others' cleverness, but they both have more important things to think about. Sheftu believes that the only way Egypt can be saved is if Thutmose is put on the throne. Mara has to figure out how to serve two masters and come out of it all with both her life and her freedom.

When Mara and Sheftu start to fall in love, the goals they're working towards end up at risk. Can everything still work out, and can their feelings for each other survive all the lies and danger?

Commentary:

I first read this book when I was a teen. For the longest time, all I could remember about it was that the main character got whipped within an inch of her life near the end and that her shoulders were still healing when the romantic storyline was wrapped up. I also remembered not quite liking Sheftu, but I couldn't remember why. A comment on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books reminded me of the book's title and author. My first thought was, "Must request this via ILL!" So I did.

Even though it's dangerous, I like taking the occasional trip down reading memory lane - sometimes I still enjoy the books I loved when I was younger, and sometimes I can barely finish them. For the most part, I enjoyed this one. Although I think I disliked Sheftu a bit more than I would have when I was younger, all the intrigue was a lot of fun, despite some bits that strained my suspension of disbelief, and I still thought Mara was an awesome heroine.

Spice & Wolf, Vol. 1 (book) by Isuna Hasekura, illustrated by Jyuu Ayakura

Synopsis:

This book takes place in a time and place very much like Europe in the Middle Ages. Lawrence is a lonely traveling merchant who dreams of making enough money to be able to open his own shop and finally settle down.

His life is complicated by the discovery of a beautiful naked girl sleeping in his cart - a girl who just happens to have wolf ears and a tail. The girl's name is Holo, Holo the Wisewolf, and she has been the wolf goddess of the harvest for generations in one of the villages Lawrence passes through regularly. However, that village no longer needs Holo, and Holo, as lonely as Lawrence, wants nothing more than to travel back to the forests in the north where she was born.

Holo and Lawrence strike up a deal: Lawrence will accompany Holo to the north, as long as Holo helps him profit more than he would have alone. Holo is by no means an inexpensive travel companion (she likes wearing high quality clothes, and she has an obsession with tasty food and drink), but she's as good at bargaining and detecting lies as she claims to be, and she does negotiate more profit for Lawrence than he could have on his own.

Then Lawrence and Holo learn about a particular deal involving depreciating silver currency. If they can figure everything out and make the right deals, they could stand to make an amazing profit - but it eventually becomes clear that, if they're not careful, they might just as easily end up turned over to the Church, where Holo would be seen as a demon-possessed girl and she and Lawrence would be burned as heretics.

Commentary:

This light novel and the ones that come after it inspired the anime, but I saw the anime first. I had actually heard about this book long before I saw the anime, mainly because of the controversy over the cover. The cover image you see in my blog is not the cover the original Japanese version of this book had, and, from what I can remember, it was extremely difficult to get the version of the cover with the original artwork. I remember assuming that the cover re-design was an attempt by Yen Press to market the book to a wider audience. In my opinion, the new cover is hideous. Also, what was point, when the original cover actually matched the illustrations inside the book?

This book is almost exactly like what I remember of the anime, up to the resolution of the story arc involving the silver trenni coins. The primary difference is that a character who was female in the anime is male in the book - I'm assuming he was turned into a she in the hopes of attracting more male otaku.

As is usually the case with light novels, I found myself preferring the anime to the novel the anime was based on. I didn't find all the financial scheming any easier to understand in the novel - in fact, I think more of it went over my head this time than when I was watching the anime. I found the interplay between Lawrence and Holo to be more charming and clever when I could actually watch and hear the two of them. That said, just as their relationship was the strongest part of the anime, it was also the strongest part of this book, and I really enjoyed reading about the two of them getting to know each other and learning how to work and live together.

Taisho Baseball Girls, Complete Collection (anime TV series)

Synopsis:

It's 1925, and times are changing in Japan. New and traditional views sometimes conflict, however.

Akiko is upset when, at a party, her arranged fiance, Iwasaki, says that women should be housewives and therefore don't even need to go to school. Knowing that he's a baseball player, Akiko decides to challenge him on that front - but there are lots of problems with her plan. For one thing, girls' baseball teams don't even exist.

Akiko and her friend Koume find more members for their team. It's an uphill battle: trying to keep everyone on the team, worrying about what their parents will think, getting uniforms, equipment, and a place to practice, and trying to find teams that will even play against them. Can Akiko, Koume, and the other girls prove that they should be taken seriously?

Commentary:

I kind of bought this series on a whim. I had read a review that made this series sound pretty decent, but I hadn't really had any intention of buying it until RightStuf had a sale on Sentai Filmworks products - and, even then, I only bought it so that I could buy another anime series without having to pay shipping.

At first, I was a bit disappointed by the show. The girls seemed like the kind of stereotypes you'd find in harem anime like Negima or Love Hina, only without the copious amounts of fanservice (unless you count costume fetishes - this show not only has girls in traditional dress and sailor suits, there are also maids, although they're not played for titillation). For example, one girl, Tomoe, is the Tall, Cool Girl Who's Good At Sports.

Early on in the show, there is a point where Koume bumps into a male student from another school, accidentally dropping her handkerchief (after saving her lunch with a really fantastic catch, which turns out not to be foreshadowing for catching awesomeness in baseball). The guy stares at the handkerchief, blushing, and it's clear he's got a crush on Koume. Considering the number of girls who seem like harem anime stereotypes, I started wondering if this was going to be the kind of show where the girls find touching romance while learning to play baseball.

Then came the girls' practice game against the Asaka Middle School baseball team, Iwasaki's team. I have never wanted to smack so many male characters in such a short period of time. I went from being somewhat bored by the girls to hoping they'd make the guys eat every last one of their condescending words - and, unfortunately, the girls completely sucked. I would have been completely unbelievable if they hadn't sucked, but I still hated it that the guys left feeling like their condescending attitudes were justified.

Nook trial time!

I'm so excited - someone is letting me borrow their Nook!  I've only used it a little so far. I had forgotten how bad its responsiveness is (although possibly this Nook is an older version than what's being sold now? Are there older versions of the Nook, beyond one being Wi-fi, one 4G, and one color?).

I downloaded a couple PDFs to see how those would look. I had thought that pictures in a PDF would just be changed to grayscale once on the Nook - but ohhh no, instead they were stripped out and the formatting of the document was extremely wonky, almost unreadable in areas. The other PDF I downloaded had no pictures. The formatting was also a bit off on this one, but the result was much more readable.

My plan is to try some Project Gutenberg books and some of the free books the person I'm borrowing this from already has on there. This will also give me a chance to see how I feel about it after reading on it for a while. And, yes, I have already said many thanks to the person who's letting me borrow it - I thought it was very nifty of her to offer to let me do this.

DNF: Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled

Truthfully, I abandoned this book several weeks ago - I've only gotten a few pages further into this book since the last time I wrote about it. However, I've still had it in my apartment, bookmark in place, taunting me. I've now officially decided to abandon it and move on to something else, guilt-free. However, before abandoning it, I wanted to write a little about it.

I've finished a third of the book. I hate not finishing books, especially ones I've gotten as far into as this one, but I have a steadily growing pile of ILL books, used and new books I've bought, and unwatched anime - all of it is capturing my interest more than this book.

I originally started reading this as a palate cleanser - I desperately needed a break from romance novels, and this book fit the bill. It's a strange story. The protagonist, Mr. Ryder, is an exhausted and confused pianist who has been invited to give a performance in a European city still recovering from some sort of disastrous event. What that event was,  Mr. Ryder doesn't know. In fact, he doesn't know much at all - he supposedly has a packed schedule, but he can't remember what's in that schedule, and he doesn't even know exactly what it is he's supposed to be doing at the performance. Because everyone else seems to know what he's supposed to be doing and assumes he does too, he feels too awkward to ask any questions.

Despite his supposedly packed schedule, Mr. Ryder gets sucked into one ordinary and incredibly time-consuming errand after another. It becomes evident to the reader that there is something not quite right about Mr. Ryder's memory, or perhaps there's something off about his entire time in this city. In one scene, he seems to be a complete newcomer to the city, while in another he might be chatting with people he knows intimately, who he seemed not to know at all only a few pages earlier. He might observe other characters and suddenly seem to be able to know their thoughts - without ever thinking it's strange, he'll know things about other characters' pasts that one would think he shouldn't know, only for it to later be revealed that he actually had known those characters for years but somehow did not remember. All throughout this, Mr. Ryder is incredibly, deeply exhausted. He needs a good night's sleep, but things keep getting in the way.

At first, I found this all fascinating. I could have cared less about the town and its big event, but I really wanted to know what was going on with Mr. Ryder. I thought the strangeness was all just due to fatigue - sleep deprivation can mess with your memory. Then I got to the part where Mr. Ryder is attending a dinner of some kind and must give a speech. Even though he is wearing a dressing gown, and even though that gown falls open when he first attempts to give his speech, no one reacts the way I would have expected people to react. The location itself becomes a bit fuzzy - it seemed clear, at first, that it was taking place somewhere Mr. Ryder had never been, but then it turned out to be taking place in the very hotel he (and I) thought he had left.

It was at that point that I decided the only plausible explanation for everything going on was that Mr. Ryder was having a dream. I think that's part of the reason why I lost interest. There's no point in trying to figure out what's going on if the author can make anything happen. It could turn out that I'm wrong, and something very different is going on, but, to be honest, I'm no longer interested enough in the book to want to find out.

Some might find the gradual unwrapping of the town's residents and past interesting and keep going just for that. I did find it all interesting, at first, but then I just got tired of the way it was all written. It's hard to tell, sometimes, what information is important and what isn't - characters can talk for pages at a time about very little. Paragraphs that are anywhere from one to four pages long are a regular occurrence, and they became more annoying to me as the book progressed.

According to some Amazon.com customer reviews I read, I'm not the only one to find this a difficult book to get through. It sounds like Ishiguro's other works are not necessarily like this, so I might try one of his other books one day. It's possible I might try this book again one day, but I kind of doubt it. It's an exhausting book - I'd rather devote my energy to something more immediately enjoyable.

Big Windup!, The Complete Series (anime TV series)

If you remember, I wrote a post about this series back in December of last year, after I saw it on Hulu. The post includes a synopsis, watch-alikes and read-alikes, and a commentary. This post will mostly cover what I thought about the Japanese language track and English subtitles, although I will also write a bit more about the relationship between Abe and Mihashi (sorry, I just can't help myself). A watch-alike is also included at the end of this post, but see my first post if you'd like more.

I love this show so much. If I could, I'd beg more people to buy it, and then use the sales numbers to convince FUNimation to license the rest of the series. It was just as exciting the second (and third) time around as it was the first - I was at the edge of my seat during the final two episodes of the game against Tosei, because I couldn't for the life of me remember the details of how things ended and the show did an excellent job of making things look very bad for Nishiura.

My reading life (sort of)

I downloaded Open Office many months ago, but, beyond typing up a list of books I'd like to request via ILL sometime, I haven't really used it much. I decided it was time to try something new with it.

For some reason I've been thinking about a story my mom told me several years ago. My mom works at a public library, and she had a patron come in, a mother who was upset that her son only wanted to read Star Wars books.  My mom helped her find other books for her son, but both my mom and I couldn't help but think that this mom should have been happy her son was a voracious reader, period. Who knows what books his Star Wars habit would lead him to next? I only hope that her efforts to get him to read something else didn't turn him off of reading entirely.

Thinking about that led me to thinking about my own reading. Below is a very simplified picture of my reading over the years ("Mysteries" is missing. Whoops). I did it using the Open Office Draw program - is that equivalent to MS Publisher?

So, as you can see, I started off as a big-time fantasy reader. I know there was one point where I read anything with unicorns and another point where I read anything with horses - I can't remember which came first. Same goes with the gryphons and dragons - I know I had periods where I read anything with either animal on the cover or in the title, but I don't know which came first or if the obsessions were mixed together.

I briefly got hooked on Goosebumps, which led to an addiction to Christopher Pike. I secretly raided my parents' bookshelves, sure that they would not want me to read their Stephen King novels. I'm pretty sure my first "book for adults" was King's Firestarter.

At some point, I had a teacher who forced everyone in class to read a certain number of science fiction novels. I wasn't happy with the assignment at first, but then I realized that "science fiction" did not mean "boring," like I thought it did. And I learned that sometimes the fantasy authors I loved had written science fiction, too.

The first book I ever read that had "romance" listed on the spine as its genre was Fire Dancer by Ann Maxwell. I loved it and the books that came after it, but now, as someone who's been reading romance for a long time, I'm a little peeved that this series ever got marketed as romance (I believe it was originally marketed as sci-fi, but then repackaged as romance). It has strong romantic elements, but the romance is never resolved. I don't think the series has ever been finished.

It took me ages to admit that I was really a romance fan long before I ever read Maxwell's books - the fantasy and sci-fi (and even, in some cases, horror) books I enjoyed the most tended to be ones with romantic elements. Everything gets a little intertwined - I think my love for paranormal romance has its roots in my old love for fantasy and horror, and my love for fantasy and futuristic romance definitely stemmed from my love for fantasy and science fiction. I'm not really sure how the historical and contemporary romance fits in.

My tastes have changed over the years, but I don't think my interest in any of the genres I've enjoyed has ever really gone away. I read a lot of romance, but that doesn't mean I stopped reading fantasy or science fiction (or even horror, although it's rare I read the really scary stuff anymore). And sometimes the genres do tend to blend together, or it wouldn't have been possible for Maxwell's book to be considered sci-fi in one printing and futuristic romance in another.

There are all kinds of things missing from my picture. Somewhere in there should be the period of time I spent reading nothing but Babysitters Club books. And then there were Lurlene McDaniel's terminally ill teens. And those random YA historicals (ooh, maybe that's the root of my love of historical romances!). And all those books with cats.

Ok, so my picture is really simplified.

I know, this was a pretty random post, but I had fun putting the picture together. Anybody else have reading stories you'd like to share?

The Shy Duchess (book) by Amanda McCabe

This post has several spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Synopsis:

Lady Emily Carroll is a blond, green-eyed beauty who should have more suitors than she knows what to do with - unfortunately, she's so shy that most of the eligible men are convinced she's not interested, so she's been dubbed the "Ice Princess." The only person who appears even the slightest bit interested seems somehow "off" to Emily. She doesn't want to have to marry him, but she might not have much of a choice.

Emily may not have many suitors, but there is one person she finds herself interested in: Nicholas, Duke of Manning. He's perfect for all sorts of reasons, but he thinks she dislikes him. Then, at a masked ball, Emily gets a bit tipsy and shares a very passionate kiss with him. Later on, Emily and Nicholas confess that, despite the masks, they each knew who the other person was. Circumstances then result in Nicholas having to publicly declare Emily his fiancee. It's either that, or Emily's ruination.

Emily and Nicholas make a good match, but they're both hiding things from each other. Emily has been secretly teaching at a school for former prostitutes, and, although Nicholas tells Emily about his secret deceased wife, he doesn't tell her what caused her death. Can their marriage survive all these secrets and Emily's insecurities?

Commentary:

I just realized that I used the word "secret" three times in the last paragraph of my synopsis - that's probably a good sign that those who hate Big Misunderstandings with a passion should steer clear of this one. For those who are more tolerant of that sort of thing, I can assure you that Emily, at least, had understandable reasons for keeping her secrets.

I had no idea about the Big Misunderstandings when I picked this book up. I've been gravitating towards Harlequin Historicals lately, because they're cheap grocery store buys and their covers and titles tend to be less embarrassing than the covers and titles of other Harlequin books (I swear, that tiara is covered up by a sticker on my copy, and, although the details are wrong, the necklace is in the book). Although I have two ILL books I should have been reading instead, this book grabbed my attention because I'm a huge fan of "shy heroine" romance stories. The title and back cover description told me that's what I'd be getting.

Unfortunately the back cover didn't say that this book contained one of my top least favorite romance novel tropes: a widower hero. However, my enjoyment of McCabe's writing style, several great moments (an OMG "the birds and the bees" talk, for example), and the delicious anticipation of getting to see how everything would manage to turn out all right despite the Big Misunderstandings were all enough to get me past my problems with the book. This isn't going on my "keep forever" shelves, but I'm not selling it to a used bookstore the first chance I get, either.

Emma (manga, vol. 10) by Kaoru Mori

It's the last volume! So sad...especially since Hans didn't get his own side story. I'm sorry, but the short, funny comic strips, while nice, don't count.

Of the three side story volumes, I think volume 9 was my favorite, volume 10 my second favorite, and volume 8 my third. If you were a fan of William and Emma's story (volumes 1-7), you really, really need to read volume 10, though - it's in this volume that they finally get married.

As I've done with the other side story volumes, I plan on just writing synopses and commentary, no read-alikes. If you'd like Emma read-alikes, take a look at my posts for the main story volumes (in my Titles drop down list, choose "Emma"). Since writing those, the only thing I'd add would probably be Deeanne Gist's Maid to Match, a Christian romance starring a maid and a footman.

Before I start writing about the side stories, I'd like to address something that came up in my post for volume 9: the Molders/Moelders being called the Merediths. I had thought it was a typo in the back cover description of the previous volume, but, when I did some searching online, I learned that "Meredith" is supposed to be the name chosen for that family in the English version of the manga. Except for one thing. I checked my posts for some of the earlier volumes, and I referred to the family as the Molders. I wouldn't have done that if they had been called the Merediths, which means that the switch to "the Merediths" happened in the final two volumes. Does anyone know why? Because I really don't get it. As I said in my post for volume 9, "Meredith" is not a German name. At all. I thought translated manga had moved beyond senseless name changes.

Ok, moving on.