Adventures In Bookfinding
Jul. 26th, 2005 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisabetI finally finished "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (and man, I felt like - forced to read it as soon as possible just as a defense mechanism. Also, I kinda am enjoying the insanity at fandom wank). I have this to say about the book: I liked it much more than "Revenge of the Sith" but not as much as "The Empire Strikes Back." Freeze someone in carbonite and then we will talk, JKR. Actually... the carbonite freezing is only effective if it is Han Solo who is frozen so, yeah. Those books need Han Solo. Of course, I've thought everything needs more Han Solo since I was five years old, so this is not news.
In other book news, I went to the library yesterday after work and this woman followed me in from the garage and started talking to me, remarking that I was bringing back a lot of books (I had 4 - which I actually consider a model of checking-out restraint) and I said that I was actually gonna renew Anne Applebaum's "Gulag: A History" as it just wasn't the quick, feel-good beach read I was expecting. She then asked if any of the books had been good and without hesitation I handed her "American Gods" and so she followed me to the return desk to grab it once I had it checked back in. She then looked it over and asked me if it was "a mystery or a thriller or..." and I was kinda stumped. I mean - I didn't know how to describe it in terms that would actually make this woman give the book a chance and so I just said that it was difficult to summarize but very very interesting. I compared it to really early, well thought out Stephen King. In hindsight this is probably a disservice to both Stephen King and Neil Gaiman but I am not that great thinking on my feet and this is why I surround myself with all of you. You guys would have been much better dealing with strange woman and their fiction demands.
I then used the internet computers for a bit and then failed to find Harlan Ellison's "Deathbird Stories" where the computer said it would be located at in Sci Fi. So I went to the desk where I had to convince the Younger-Than-Me-Librarian that there is actually a writer with the last name of Ellison who is not Ralph and he actually wrote a lot of books, several of which this library is supposed to carry and there are 3 actually in the Sci Fi section but none are the book I want.
She then did a search on the book's history and it turns out it has been checked out one time. This made me really sad. She didn't note my depression (which was probably more internal and also the state of my emotional well-being is not a responsibility of the Lexington Public Library System, although the two can be closely linked) and suggested that maybe the book had been misfiled in regular fiction. So I looked and success! She then caught me on the way out with the book and put a SciFi sticker on the binder so it won't be incorrectly filed when I return it.
Which is possibly *why* it has only been checked out once since 1996. It never found its way back home to its people. But now, once I've read it, it can -- you know -- make that leap home.
*Sniff*
This book is either "Homeward Bound" or "Quantum Leap" or something else that gets lost and returned, only sinister and not so much with the cute dogs and cat or Sam.
I appreciate the warning not to read this book in one sitting. Again, I do think my emotional well being is my own responsibility, but it is so nice when a book cares.
In other book news, I went to the library yesterday after work and this woman followed me in from the garage and started talking to me, remarking that I was bringing back a lot of books (I had 4 - which I actually consider a model of checking-out restraint) and I said that I was actually gonna renew Anne Applebaum's "Gulag: A History" as it just wasn't the quick, feel-good beach read I was expecting. She then asked if any of the books had been good and without hesitation I handed her "American Gods" and so she followed me to the return desk to grab it once I had it checked back in. She then looked it over and asked me if it was "a mystery or a thriller or..." and I was kinda stumped. I mean - I didn't know how to describe it in terms that would actually make this woman give the book a chance and so I just said that it was difficult to summarize but very very interesting. I compared it to really early, well thought out Stephen King. In hindsight this is probably a disservice to both Stephen King and Neil Gaiman but I am not that great thinking on my feet and this is why I surround myself with all of you. You guys would have been much better dealing with strange woman and their fiction demands.
I then used the internet computers for a bit and then failed to find Harlan Ellison's "Deathbird Stories" where the computer said it would be located at in Sci Fi. So I went to the desk where I had to convince the Younger-Than-Me-Librarian that there is actually a writer with the last name of Ellison who is not Ralph and he actually wrote a lot of books, several of which this library is supposed to carry and there are 3 actually in the Sci Fi section but none are the book I want.
She then did a search on the book's history and it turns out it has been checked out one time. This made me really sad. She didn't note my depression (which was probably more internal and also the state of my emotional well-being is not a responsibility of the Lexington Public Library System, although the two can be closely linked) and suggested that maybe the book had been misfiled in regular fiction. So I looked and success! She then caught me on the way out with the book and put a SciFi sticker on the binder so it won't be incorrectly filed when I return it.
Which is possibly *why* it has only been checked out once since 1996. It never found its way back home to its people. But now, once I've read it, it can -- you know -- make that leap home.
*Sniff*
This book is either "Homeward Bound" or "Quantum Leap" or something else that gets lost and returned, only sinister and not so much with the cute dogs and cat or Sam.
I appreciate the warning not to read this book in one sitting. Again, I do think my emotional well being is my own responsibility, but it is so nice when a book cares.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 08:16 pm (UTC)See, you are the kind of person I could talk to about books in a library parking lot. I mean, for one thing, you wouldn't expect me to be concise.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 08:30 pm (UTC)"Well, there is this schoolboy who is actually a demon slayer and is actually not 15 but 1000 and also? Not a boy. So he is attending class when his former lover, who has now been reincarnated as his demon counterpart, destroys the building and his twin sister who he may have been having sex with. So he goes on a quest and this is the first 3 pages. Oh, and he meets Angel."
and then I'd say "Oh, brilliant!" and we'd laugh and go get coffee.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 08:58 pm (UTC)