Acquiring Stuff + March Books Post
Apr. 8th, 2010 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwenfrankenstienOh man, I acquired so much neat stuff today, Internets!
- My mom found me a Playmobil figure wearing a red military jacket that looks scarily familiar. I am going to make him a tiny scarf & interesting glasses, it'll be great!
- I found a tank top with a glittery, rhinestoned octopus on. It's like it was made just for me! (A squid would have been better, obviously, but I do love all cephalopods.)
- The H&M lightweight military jacket that I've been in love with but too cheap for finally got put on clearance! (I got it in beige, because I have way too many black jackets/coats as-is)
- I found the JLU action figure three-pack with Green Lantern and Fire & Ice. I have all four human Lanterns! I have Bea & Tora! It was being cleared for eight bucks!
- Aaaaand I bought A Wizard of Mars! I have been waiting five years for this book. I fully recognise that I am abusing the italics tags here but I don't even care. I want to hide myself away in my room for a few hours 'til I finish it, but I promised myself I would do the what-I-read-in-March post first.
So. Books!
I'm not going to go into detail about these'cos nobody cares. They are all, of course, by Gordon Korman.
Go Jump in the Pool: This was the first one I ever read! Oh man, nostalgia trip like you wouldn't believe. I will never get tired of the ending/punchline. Of course he doesn't want the pool for himself!
War With Mr. Wizzle: This one just might be my favourite. It is kind of perfect, okay. Miss Peabody is a little creepily fond of Cathybut so am I, so it's all good. I can just hear the film-score when Boots comes back and joins the committee. Bruno is really into weddings.
Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood: I am genuinely not sure if I had read this before! Parts of it seemed really familiar (Die In The Woods, Bruno on the stunt bike) but most seemed new. Then again, it might be because it's not as memorable as the other books? I don't know! I liked it! But it is definitely not as good as the rest of the series.
Something's Fishy at Macdonald Hall: OR MAYBE THIS ONE IS MY FAVOURITE. This is the only one I owned when I was a kid, so I've read it more than the others. The surprise! Twist! Ending! Is still fucking amazing, even though I knew what it was. It's not the surprise that I love, it's the twist itself, if that makes sense. (Anyone who's read it knows what I mean, I guess.)
And then I ran out of B&B books and moved on to other things!
Bugs Potter Live At Nickaninny: Way less fun than the first one. Korman's humour tends to work best with double-acts. Part of what makes Bugs so great is seeing him from Adam's POV, and Adam isn't even mentioned in this one. Also, the whole "white kid finds lost native tribe" plot made me extremely uncomfortable. As did the bits with Elizabeth and the scientists, I mean, I thought she was a teenager, these men all have PhDs and they're like, stalking her, it is terrifying.
I Want To Go Home!: Can you believe I had never read this one?!! Ahhhh, nothing coherent to say about it, I just love it so much. Even if reading it did bring back a lot of buried summer-camp-related memories. If I had has this when I was at camp (....Daycamps, mostly, and a week of real camp with my middle school. Shut up, it was more than enough.) it might have been bearable!
Semester in the Life of a Garbage Can: This is the one that apparently nobody has read, which is weird to me because I must have read it at least three times from three different school libraries. I am running out of positive adjectives! It is great, okay, so great. It disappointed be greatly that (unlike with B&B and IWTGH) there isn't even a small fandom, 'cos I ship Sean/Jardine so hard.
Son of Interflux: The one without a central double-act where it actually works! I loved this one as a kid. And I still do! It is about wacky art school kids screwing over a massive corporation! Best part is Dave. Secondary characters in Korman usually have one-note personalities: Sydney is The Clumsy Kid, George is The Rich Kid, etc. Dave's one-note? He is obsessed with the worm store. (At the end he gets a job at a legit bait shop! Yay, Dave.)
No Coins, Please: Ahhhhh tiny ridiculous adorable eleven-year-old con man in a tiny ridiculous adorable tuxedo!! ....Yes, that is all I have to say.
Don't Care High: Pretty standard Korman fare, except set in a shitty NYC public school instead of a classy Ontario boarding school. We actually did elect a student council rep as a joke at my high school, it was less exciting & more obnoxious than in the book. It's a good book! Just not particularly exceptional.
...So yeah, I've basically come to terms with the fact that this is my fandom now. Obscure, out-of-print Canadian kids' books from the '80s.I have e-books that fell off the back of a truck, if anyone wants them? :D?
Indigara: This is basically a love-letter to awful sci-fi pilot movies. It was two dollars. I HAD to buy it! I actually feel like the idea would be better served as a full-length novel, but then again I am a weirdo who often finds worldbuilding more interesting than plot. I was trying to come up with a "It's like this meets this!" summary for it, but all I could come up with was "It's like if all the Neil Gaiman books had a party and invited all their friends, and then a Gibson book knocked up Neverwhere, and they raised the baby on trashy sci-fi, and Mirrormask was her babysitter, and then she grew up into a sullen gothy fifteen-year-old." Which is a pretty convoluted description!
Lolita: What is there I can say about this that has not been said by lots of people before? (My edition has a quote from a review on the cover. Vanity fair called it "The only convincing love story of [the 20th] century." That sentence is everything that is wrong with the woooorld D:)
Brave New World: I had clever words to say! But I finished the book like, a month ago, I don't remember them anymore. I should probably like, write things down. I don't know, I liked the book a lot, but I am a fan of dystopian SF in general, so. Certainly liked it better than He, She, And It last month.
GREAT. DONE. NEW DIANE DUANE BOOK TIME NOW.
- My mom found me a Playmobil figure wearing a red military jacket that looks scarily familiar. I am going to make him a tiny scarf & interesting glasses, it'll be great!
- I found a tank top with a glittery, rhinestoned octopus on. It's like it was made just for me! (A squid would have been better, obviously, but I do love all cephalopods.)
- The H&M lightweight military jacket that I've been in love with but too cheap for finally got put on clearance! (I got it in beige, because I have way too many black jackets/coats as-is)
- I found the JLU action figure three-pack with Green Lantern and Fire & Ice. I have all four human Lanterns! I have Bea & Tora! It was being cleared for eight bucks!
- Aaaaand I bought A Wizard of Mars! I have been waiting five years for this book. I fully recognise that I am abusing the italics tags here but I don't even care. I want to hide myself away in my room for a few hours 'til I finish it, but I promised myself I would do the what-I-read-in-March post first.
So. Books!
I'm not going to go into detail about these
Go Jump in the Pool: This was the first one I ever read! Oh man, nostalgia trip like you wouldn't believe. I will never get tired of the ending/punchline. Of course he doesn't want the pool for himself!
War With Mr. Wizzle: This one just might be my favourite. It is kind of perfect, okay. Miss Peabody is a little creepily fond of Cathy
Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood: I am genuinely not sure if I had read this before! Parts of it seemed really familiar (Die In The Woods, Bruno on the stunt bike) but most seemed new. Then again, it might be because it's not as memorable as the other books? I don't know! I liked it! But it is definitely not as good as the rest of the series.
Something's Fishy at Macdonald Hall: OR MAYBE THIS ONE IS MY FAVOURITE. This is the only one I owned when I was a kid, so I've read it more than the others. The surprise! Twist! Ending! Is still fucking amazing, even though I knew what it was. It's not the surprise that I love, it's the twist itself, if that makes sense. (Anyone who's read it knows what I mean, I guess.)
And then I ran out of B&B books and moved on to other things!
Bugs Potter Live At Nickaninny: Way less fun than the first one. Korman's humour tends to work best with double-acts. Part of what makes Bugs so great is seeing him from Adam's POV, and Adam isn't even mentioned in this one. Also, the whole "white kid finds lost native tribe" plot made me extremely uncomfortable. As did the bits with Elizabeth and the scientists, I mean, I thought she was a teenager, these men all have PhDs and they're like, stalking her, it is terrifying.
I Want To Go Home!: Can you believe I had never read this one?!! Ahhhh, nothing coherent to say about it, I just love it so much. Even if reading it did bring back a lot of buried summer-camp-related memories. If I had has this when I was at camp (....Daycamps, mostly, and a week of real camp with my middle school. Shut up, it was more than enough.) it might have been bearable!
Semester in the Life of a Garbage Can: This is the one that apparently nobody has read, which is weird to me because I must have read it at least three times from three different school libraries. I am running out of positive adjectives! It is great, okay, so great. It disappointed be greatly that (unlike with B&B and IWTGH) there isn't even a small fandom, 'cos I ship Sean/Jardine so hard.
Son of Interflux: The one without a central double-act where it actually works! I loved this one as a kid. And I still do! It is about wacky art school kids screwing over a massive corporation! Best part is Dave. Secondary characters in Korman usually have one-note personalities: Sydney is The Clumsy Kid, George is The Rich Kid, etc. Dave's one-note? He is obsessed with the worm store. (At the end he gets a job at a legit bait shop! Yay, Dave.)
No Coins, Please: Ahhhhh tiny ridiculous adorable eleven-year-old con man in a tiny ridiculous adorable tuxedo!! ....Yes, that is all I have to say.
Don't Care High: Pretty standard Korman fare, except set in a shitty NYC public school instead of a classy Ontario boarding school. We actually did elect a student council rep as a joke at my high school, it was less exciting & more obnoxious than in the book. It's a good book! Just not particularly exceptional.
...So yeah, I've basically come to terms with the fact that this is my fandom now. Obscure, out-of-print Canadian kids' books from the '80s.
Indigara: This is basically a love-letter to awful sci-fi pilot movies. It was two dollars. I HAD to buy it! I actually feel like the idea would be better served as a full-length novel, but then again I am a weirdo who often finds worldbuilding more interesting than plot. I was trying to come up with a "It's like this meets this!" summary for it, but all I could come up with was "It's like if all the Neil Gaiman books had a party and invited all their friends, and then a Gibson book knocked up Neverwhere, and they raised the baby on trashy sci-fi, and Mirrormask was her babysitter, and then she grew up into a sullen gothy fifteen-year-old." Which is a pretty convoluted description!
Lolita: What is there I can say about this that has not been said by lots of people before? (My edition has a quote from a review on the cover. Vanity fair called it "The only convincing love story of [the 20th] century." That sentence is everything that is wrong with the woooorld D:)
Brave New World: I had clever words to say! But I finished the book like, a month ago, I don't remember them anymore. I should probably like, write things down. I don't know, I liked the book a lot, but I am a fan of dystopian SF in general, so. Certainly liked it better than He, She, And It last month.
GREAT. DONE. NEW DIANE DUANE BOOK TIME NOW.