sj

Stupid question because voting is FUN!

 

I got roped into doing this "Let's Vote for the Best YA Books Ever" thing, people nominated the books and I split them up into brackets.

 

The first round of voting starts here, there are two posts so far pitting books head to head and there will be two more tomorrow.

 

Go vote!  You know you want to.

 

As I mentioned before, I host a twitter drinkalong every other week.  It is USUALLY a film adaptation of a book (but not always).  I tend to get quite ranty, so if you're interested in that, you can totes log on just to watch me lose my mind, BUT!

 

This week we're watching The Princess Bride, which is  not only one of my favourite books, but a movie I love, as well.

 

You should join us.  It's a lot of fun, swearsies.

 

Click for info.

 

Every other week I host a drinkalong on Twitter.  We all start a movie at the same time and livetweet while drinking to preset rules.  We've done Harry Potter, LotR, Holy Grail and we just finished all of the View Askew movies.

 

This week we're watching The Dark Crystal, so if you're not doing anything tonight at 10:15pm EDT, why not stop by?

 

More information can be found here.

 

Sorry for the Spacehog earworm, truly.

 

But I just realized there's a new audience for this awesome shirt I made.  You want one, right?  Yeah, you do.  Click.

 

Attempting to manually delete all reviews cos they're just...fucked.  AND ALL THE BOOKS ARE WRONG.  Well, not all of them, but MANY OF THEM.

 

So, just ignore me for now.

 

 

Sorry, guys.  Import was wonky and all formatting was lost, plus it looks like old ish is showing up first.  I'll figure out what's going on soon.  

Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies...or maybe midgets.

I have read this book at least 6 times, and every time I find new things to love about it. This is the book I give to people who've never read Gaiman before.

Originally posted here as part of the 30 Day Book Challenge.I am having a REALLY HARD TIME with this category.  I already posted a list of Five Book-to-Movie Adaptations I Don't Hate, and the only one I can come up with that probably should have been on the list that didn't make it was High Fidelity, but that's not a FAVOURITE so I don't know.Since that's the case, I'm going to expand on one of those entries, which kind of makes me laugh because I think I've done enough talking about this author recently, but that is just TOO BAD FOR YOU.  You knew I was a snake, bitch.Favourite Book Turned MovieI successfully avoided this movie for five years.  Conversations about it went like this.Friend:   "Hey, sj - have you seen A Scanner Darkly?  Don't you love that book?  Is the movie any good?"Me:  "DKJAF;OLRKEJAWEK, DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT THAT MOVIE!  Keanu Reeves as BOB ARCTOR?!  WINONA RYDER AS DONNA?!?!"Friend:  "Yeah, but - "Me:  "NO!  Do NOT talk to me about that movie.  I want nothing to do with that movie.  NOTHING."For five years.  This is almost exactly the conversation I had more times than I can count.  I'd been burned by terrible PKD adaptations before, y'know?  I mean - as an adult, I even have a hard time watching Blade Runner now (which I used to LOVE) because it makes me so mad, and Ridley Scott just doesn't know how to leave well enough alone...but that is a topic for another day.Anyway (I know I talked about this in the post I linked above, but most of you will be too lazy to click through.  I know you guys.), last fall, I met Kate on subjot (man, I totally miss subjot).  She'd written a review for Clans of the Alphane Moon, which kind of blew my mind.  I mean, that's not a book one reads unless they're a total Dickhead.  Shut up.So anyway, we started talking about PKD and people were actually commenting just so they could follow the conversation.  Really, until I met Kate and Trevor, the people I could discuss his work with (that had read him before they knew me) I could count on one hand.Kate asked if I'd seen A Scanner Darkly, and I'm pretty sure I had a similar reaction to the one I described up there.  I mean, Donna was supposed to be young.  Like, jailbait young.  How the hell did they decide Winona Ryder was appropriate for that role?  HOW, I ASK YOU?Kate essentially told me to STSU and watch it.So I did.  That day.And I loved it.Yes, I have minor quibbles with the way the ending was changed (but Kate actually prefers it, go figure), but really - it's the strongest adaptation of any of his work I've ever seen (and am likely to see, unless they ever snaping release Radio Free Albemuth to somewhere other than a festival I'm not likely to visit since I live in the middle of nowhere).Um...I seem to have lost my train of thought, completely distracted by the fact that there's actually a Philip K Dick Festival that NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL ME ABOUT!So, yeah.  Favourite movie adaptation?  This is it.  Best scene?Click.

Fuck it. This is the collection of all 6 issues of Punk Rock Jesus and I KNOW it isn't out til April, but I just finished reading #6 and if I wait til April to talk about it, I'll forget everything I want to say about the series as a whole.

 

First, though -

 

THE COVER FOR #6! It's probably one of my favourite comic covers ever.

 

 

Punk Rock Jesus is dirty and violent and a helluva good time.

I went in expecting something fun, along the lines of Jesus Hates Zombies Featuring Lincoln Hates Werewolves, so I wasn't prepared for the IRA hits on THE FIRST FUCKING PAGES (which totes made me cry, not gonna lie - read it, you'll see why) - and I wasn't exactly ready for what I ended up reading.

 

In brief - The Shroud of Turin is used to create a clone of Jesus. Instead of waiting for the Messiah to return, we've decided to bring him to us. Chris is raised on tv and eventually rebels, joining a band called the Flak Jackets who decide to tour the Holy Land.

 

The best parts of the story don't deal with Chris, though, but with his 6'7" former IRA bodyguard, Thomas. Thomas breaks my heart in the best possible way.

 

Not a fun read, but still a good one. Sean Murphy's art is perfect for the story being told, and the story itself was worth the time spent waiting for individual issues. I'll be buying this collection.

 

Oh, and I'm pretty sure 17y/o sj's room was used as reference for the following panel:

 

 

I just today remembered that this book existed. I read the whole thing standing in a used book store one afternoon shortly after it came out, and was more than a little disgusted by it.

 

The art is lovely, but it was the concept that I found bothersome.

 

Why?

 

Because, yes, as an adult - I still believe in faeries.

 

A friend got it for me as a birthday gift not long after I read it, thinking that it would be perfect for faerie loving me, and I gave that grin that says to most people "Oh, I LOVE IT!" but really means "Oh, I love YOU, so I'll PRETEND to love it!"

 

Everyone has one of those grins, I've perfected mine over a number of years.

I wanted to love this book, but the thought of smushing faeries, even if it's just to capture their essences (which really sounds dirty now that I think about it) put a bad taste in my mouth (which furthers that dirtiness earlier in the sentence, I guess).

 

It's kind of making me sad thinking about it now, and I'm glad this wasn't around when I was a kid. I would have taken the whole thing as a personal affront and refused to ever watch Monty Python again because Terry Jones would have been DEAD TO ME.

 

He was never my favourite, anyway.

I wish I still had my copy of this book. Well, I think it was this book (they have the same Nautilus on the cover), but there are no different editions and I'm really too lazy to go looking to make sure I have the right one.

 

Regardless, for a while when I was young I thought I wanted to be a photographer. I spent hours and hours in the dark room in high school, trying to achieve the perfect prints. Since it was sound and light proof, I'd take my mix tapes in there (only one person has ever made a comparably awesome tape like I did, yo - I wonder what happened to him?) and sing along under my breath as I attempted to get the filters and focus and size and everything just so...inspired by this book, a friend even allowed me to take some (tasteful) nudes of her. Of course I gave her the negatives and the prints once I'd satisfied myself that I could do it...but nothing I shot ever came close to achieving Weston's perfection. How could it? I was 15/16/17 and had no little idea what I was doing.

 

I seem to have strayed from my point, which is what happens when I'm writing reviews because I don't want to get back to the book I'm currently reading.

 

Sorry!

 

(Civilian Defence is still my favourite.)

 

I gave it til 34% and just can't do it anymore. (Wow, check me out, abandoning ALL THE THINGS this year, I kind of like it.)Anyway, it's not that it's terribly written, or anything like that - it's that I don't. fucking. care.I'm reading and my eyes keep sliding down the page and I find myself re-reading the same two sentences over and over. I don't care about your hallucinatory black turkey and I don't care if you are a speshul snowflake of a zombie. I'm over the whole sentient-zombie-is-so-funny-and-or-misunderstood thing I'm seeing so much of....on to the next one.

When I was a kid, I had a bunny that I named Hyzenthlay. As an adult, I had a pixel bunny with the same name.

Pretentious-as-fuck 20y/o sj LOVED this book, but 30something year old sj is afraid she'd want to smack younger her's face right off her face if she re-read it.I really don't even remember what I loved about it, but I think Coupland is better left to my youth.

The first time I read this book, I was a 6y/o first grade GATE student in a 6th grade reading class. We did it as a play, I think. Paddington's story broke little me's heart, but I returned to it time and time again, because the idea of finding a family to just love you seemed so exceptional to me.I read it aloud to my best friend (along with the first three h2g2 books) while I was pregnant with my oldest, and his crib bedding was Paddington themed.I wish I still had all of that, I couldn't even believe I found it at the time.