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it feels like years since it's been here
Jun. 29th, 2006 10:17 pmI went to the library this morning; I am particularly excited about this because I have a week and a half that I can pretty much devote to catching up on my reading, so I got a whole stack of new stuff and only one re-read and I am very much looking forward to sitting down and just reading them. I used to do this a lot and since I've been at university I've lost the habit of reading in favour of spending every waking moment on the internet, which is a lot of fun but I miss books.
( things what I done borrowed )
Interesting things (well, to me) about Upper Riccarton library:
-it is modern and shiny and has natural light and a comfortable noise level (slightly above the normal library level, of which I personally approve)
-it shelves all its comics either under the YA section or in non-fiction. Now, I can kind of deal with Alan Moore and Sandman and so forth in non-fiction, but there's something a little incongruous about seeing Gotham Central there (although I love Half a Life more than The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, like, a lot.)
-it shelves its genre fiction - SF, F & H - and its short stories in with the other fiction. I can't decide whether I love this or hate this. On the pro side, SF&F sections often reek of the ghetto, tainted by "Asimov, you are not good enough to sit next to Austen"; putting it all together is egalitarian. All Neil Gaiman's stuff is shelved together: this is such a plus for me, because every time I visit a new library I have to figure out where they keep American Gods, and where they keep Neverwhere. Similarly, a lot of the stuff I like tends to be stuff which people aren't sure whether to shelve in SF&F or in fiction; this is a handy way of working around that. Also, I like to read both fiction and SF&F&H, so this is cool for me. On the con side, for people like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sixth_light, who read fiction basically never, I can imagine this being absolutely awful, and it does take some getting used to. Stuff that is normally really obvious, like the M's (McCaffrey) or the W's (Williams) suddenly aren't clearly marked by a large number of recogniseable covers This is more an indictment on the size of their SF&F&H collection, I suppose.
And on the topic of reading, f-list, I am looking for recs. Particularly, I am looking for three specific types of recs, although other sorts of recs are always appreciated. Firstly, urban fantasy; Charles de Lint and Alice Hoffman are recent favourites, I really, really like this. Secondly, metafandom fiction. This is a little more difficult to define, but I'm thinking specifically of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition and the secondmost recent episode of Doctor Who, Love and Monsters, which both feature fans acting fannishly and portraying them in a non-negative way (I am specifically not looking for anything fanbashing.) Nonfiction in this area could also be good, actually. And thirdly: comics or graphic novel trades that might be readily available. Specific trades would be good.
Friendslist! I choose you!
( things what I done borrowed )
Interesting things (well, to me) about Upper Riccarton library:
-it is modern and shiny and has natural light and a comfortable noise level (slightly above the normal library level, of which I personally approve)
-it shelves all its comics either under the YA section or in non-fiction. Now, I can kind of deal with Alan Moore and Sandman and so forth in non-fiction, but there's something a little incongruous about seeing Gotham Central there (although I love Half a Life more than The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, like, a lot.)
-it shelves its genre fiction - SF, F & H - and its short stories in with the other fiction. I can't decide whether I love this or hate this. On the pro side, SF&F sections often reek of the ghetto, tainted by "Asimov, you are not good enough to sit next to Austen"; putting it all together is egalitarian. All Neil Gaiman's stuff is shelved together: this is such a plus for me, because every time I visit a new library I have to figure out where they keep American Gods, and where they keep Neverwhere. Similarly, a lot of the stuff I like tends to be stuff which people aren't sure whether to shelve in SF&F or in fiction; this is a handy way of working around that. Also, I like to read both fiction and SF&F&H, so this is cool for me. On the con side, for people like
sixth_light, who read fiction basically never, I can imagine this being absolutely awful, and it does take some getting used to. Stuff that is normally really obvious, like the M's (McCaffrey) or the W's (Williams) suddenly aren't clearly marked by a large number of recogniseable covers This is more an indictment on the size of their SF&F&H collection, I suppose.And on the topic of reading, f-list, I am looking for recs. Particularly, I am looking for three specific types of recs, although other sorts of recs are always appreciated. Firstly, urban fantasy; Charles de Lint and Alice Hoffman are recent favourites, I really, really like this. Secondly, metafandom fiction. This is a little more difficult to define, but I'm thinking specifically of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition and the secondmost recent episode of Doctor Who, Love and Monsters, which both feature fans acting fannishly and portraying them in a non-negative way (I am specifically not looking for anything fanbashing.) Nonfiction in this area could also be good, actually. And thirdly: comics or graphic novel trades that might be readily available. Specific trades would be good.
Friendslist! I choose you!
