4) The only part of the NY Times Book Review section I read religiously is the Crime Section, but there’s something about Marilyn Stasio’s style that annoys me to no end.
Twenty Best Cthulhu Tales–I’ve only read a fraction of the stories on this list, but I’m copying it here so I can reference it later. Mythos! I love it.
This next one is off the (accidental) book theme of this post, but I do hope you’ll all read it: Urban Farmer finds success. So cool.
As for items of a non-linking variety: Tomorrow I get one of my birthday gifts–reading time. Just like Father’s Day, I’m going to spend a significant amount of time sacked out in bed with a book. I still have Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott on deck, and I hope to make a sizable dent in it.
Also, I’m told that Child of Fire will have the opening chapter of book 2 at the very back. Now, this is cool news, but I should come right out and say that I never read preview excerpts in books. Invariably, I buy the excerpted book, put it on my shelf for a couple months (or years) and when I finally start it, I get a disturbing reader’s deja vu. “Have I read this already?” Since I’m terrible with titles, I can never be sure.
Eventually, I just swore off the practice.
And book 2, Everyone Loves Blue Dog, will soon have a new title. There’s a current front runner, but I don’t want to talk about it until things are settled. The happiest part for me is that I like this title and it doesn’t turn up in a Google search.
I know. You’re disappointed to be reading this one, aren’t you?
Let me salve your pain with links:
Want to go to a lawless state and murder desperately poor people? Now you can! For only 3,500 pounds sterling a day (plus weapon rental), you can cruise slowly along the coast of Somalia in a luxury yacht. If your luck holds, pirates will attack, and you can kill them.
(eta: I’m told this news report is a fake. I hope so.)
If killing Somalis in the real world is too spendy/morally bankrupt for you, you could always fight monsters on Hidlyda as a young Miracle Witch. It’s a free game, very Legend of Zelda old school, where you travel about fighting monsters, collecting loot and unlocking secret entrances until you finally come face to face with King Yeah Walusa. It’s pretty fun, even if I did have to reference the comment thread at Jay Is Games to find everything. And I scored a D. Huh. Save often!
But, if what you want is something beautiful and complex (complex for the internet, I mean), then look at this: Time Wastes Too Fast.
Why I read Savage Love. (Link NSFW, in case you didn’t realize. Check out the first letter). It’s not for the advice which is sometimes so-so but is absolutely perfect for that letter. It’s because those letters are a window into people’s private lives that I would never see otherwise–especially the crazy, twisted thought processes they go through.
Mother fails to recover custody of her children when she showed up for a psych evaluation with 13 beers in her. Apparently, the psychologist did not put much weight behind her claim that it was no big deal since she could “drink like a fish” and therefore wasn’t drunk.
Just as I was about to post about a single awful thing, I came across something to disturbingly awesome that I had to post about it. I leave it to you, the reader, to recognize a connection between the two.
First, the awful: Bacardi hits new lows of misogyny with its new “Ugly Girlfriend” ad campaign, which strangely seems to be targeted at women. Has to be seen to be believed.
Now, the awesomely disturbing–or disturbingly awesome… I can’t tell which this is, because it’s so freaking insane: Kid finds out his mom is cancelling his WoW account and goes nuts.
I can’t wait to show that to my family when I get home.
Second, I just finished The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. If you know the book already, you know why it’s great. If you don’t, you should definitely read it. Let me talk about something briefly, though.
Three days a week, I ride the bus to downtown for my day job. Part of the trip involves a fairly high bridge. Now, I have a thing about heights, so I sometimes sit on the right side of the bus so I will be right at the edge of the bridge (no sidewalk) looking down, hoping that I will get used to it and get over it. (There’s a name for that sort of therapy, but it escapes me for the moment and my google fu is weak today.)
Most days, though… no. I’m too tired, too stressed, too whatever. I tell myself I don’t have enough resources for that, so I ride on the left side, I close my eyes, I look up. Anything but look down while thinking of this picture.
But yesterday, I took the window seat. And by chance, I happened to read one of the final chapters in the book, about the difference between real fear and worry (a minor part of the book, really). And what Mr. de Becker said made so much sense to me that I closed the book in my lap and sat looking out the window during the bridge part of the trip.
Yeah, there was a little tingle of worry, but I have never felt such calm at the edge of a high place in my whole life.
I’ve been talking a bit here and there around the web about self-imposed limits, but this is a biggie. I’ve always been a worrier, but now I’m wondering if I’ve let my stress levels push me into self-indulgence. Fears are there to be conquered, right?
My self-directed training to learn to be insufferably condescending continues today, and the variety of texts to choose from is astounding. Thank you, internet!
I must say that I share Ms. Harris’s bemusment over the appeal of this subgenre. As a hetero male with an internet connection, I had no idea a person could thrill to same-sex carnal urges of their opposite gender. How baffling!
by Gavin de Becker. If you know the book already, you know why it’s great. If you don’t, you should definitely read it. Let me talk about something briefly, though.