The Aviary

Friends, I haven't read anything in a month or so that I really enjoyed. Would you like to recommend me some books?

( What I am interested in reading right now under here )

Would anyone like to give me a horror recommendation? I am looking for something more spooky than gory and some sort of cosmic Lovecraftian mindfuck-y whatsit would not go amiss.

I am up for pretty much all media, so long as it is acquirable via the interwebs.

So...I have a somewhat weird request for information. The internet knows everything, right?

The vast majority of my knowledge of Greek mythology comes from books aimed at kids, and that a long time ago. I have recently found myself wanting to revisit those stories, but in a closer to the actual sources kind of way, without having to learn ancient Greek. Sort of, y'know, like reading the Eddas but with Olympians instead of the Aesir. Except that I know nothing about Greek whatsit beyond what I remember from the D'Aulaires. (Well, and Homer. I have read the Odyssey.)

What should I read?

So. As I may have mentioned, I have been reading a lot of Marvel comics of late. But I ran out of Avengers-related cartoons and still have knitting to do, and thus I have been rewatching Justice League. Which has led to me rereading the DC comics that I have on my computer (mostly JLI and Suicide Squad).

I am enjoying Marvel comics a lot, but DC still kinda feels like "real comics" to me*. Even though I have pretty much ignored everything that DC has done in the past several years, because it seemed like everything that they were doing was calculated to cause me pain and I am a firm believer in the idea that comics should be fun. But I guess there has been a massive reboot that I didn't really pay attention to lately? So maybe they are doing fun things again.

Thus, I am coming to the internet to ask for recommendations. I like Batman (well, I like his rogue's gallery), never really cared much about Superman but would be willing to try, really love toon!verse Wally West but have never really read other Flashes, have never properly read Wonder Woman, and kinda want to punch Hal Jordan in the face all the time. I don't mind dark or creepy but I do draw the line at soul-crushingly depressing. I am willing to put up with bad art if the writing is fun. I like kickass ladies and would ideally prefer stories in which those kickass ladies are neither raped nor murdered.

Do any of you guys read semi-recent DC comics and do you have any that you would recommend? I would really appreciate it.



*I think part of it is the fact that I have not quite gotten over how everyone in Marvel comics lives in New York. That is crazycakes.

Things:

- I have a cold. This does not make me a happy pudgeball. In fact, it makes me quite a cranky pudgeball, one who quietly hates everyone. Grar.

- I did manage to dress nicely today, despite that, in what I think of as "stealth-comfy" clothing. Stealth-comfy clothing is the stuff that is as comfy as lounging around in pjs, but actually looks pretty. So I am wearing an ankle-length skirt* and a long teal sweater duster with the pockets full of cough drops and handkerchiefs.

- I am listening to my current audiobook in the stupidest way possible. See, I am enjoying it to a ridiculous degree and I am terribly sad about the fact that it will one day be over. So I am postponing that eventuality by...not listening to it. And thus depriving myself of the ridiculous enjoyment. It is very silly indeed.

- My new hard drive should arrive today. Alas, the recovery disk for the computer probably won't be here till Monday, but the arrival of the hard drive gives me hope nevertheless. I miss my computer amazingly. Work computers and my phone are not in any way the same.

- I am between actual books right now, which is annoying. Would anyone like to recommend me something? Horror for preference, but I'm open to just about anything.




*I would happily live in ankle-length skirts, if more of them came with pockets. This one has no pockets but is amazingly comfortable and cozy. Someday, it is going to wear out and on that day I am going to cry.

Last night the family started making plans for Christmas dinner, which eventually led to a discussion of pie. Which in turn led to my Mom deciding that, next year, I should do a Pie-of-the-Month thing, where I make a different pie for the family every month.* With no repeats and no pies that I've made before.

Which leads me to ask for recommendations. See, I like making pie, but I especially like making unusual pies that you can't find whenever you stop in at the grocery store. So I am looking for recipes.

Do you have a favorite unusual pie that you would like to tell me about? Thus far, I am planning to make orange chess pie, vinegar pie, and Schadenfreude pie. (Alas, my beloved buttermilk, brown sugar, and shoo-fly pies are out, because I've made them before.)

If you don't have a recipe but just want to tell me about a certain type of pie that you love, I am more than willing to track down actual recipes myself. (If you have a recipe you want to share, that's awesome.)

Let us talk about pie.




*It was carefully noted that although this means there will definitely be a pie every month, that doesn't have to be the only pie I make that month.

Things:

- Tonight, I made this for dinner. (And broccoli. Man doth not live by macaroni alone.) It is maybe the best macaroni and cheese I have ever eaten and so I recommend the recipe to all of you. (Notes: I made twice the amount of pasta that the recipe calls for because the box was a pound and hell, I made the box. However, the sauce covered the amount of pasta I had completely to my satisfaction. But, if you like more sauce on your pasta, you may want to only make half a pound.)

- I have finished my green lacy socks! They are beautiful and I'm quite pleased with them. And now I get to start a new pair - I'm going to make these with this absolutely gorgeous yarn my mom bought me. It's a subtly variegated black, with shadings of red and purple and green and, mostly, looks like iridescent crow feathers. I'm terribly excited about it.

- I am nearly caught up on Haven (I have one episode left and then I will have watched all the Haven there is till Friday). One on hand, I am happy to have watched it. On the other hand, now I am out of knitting tv. Can you recommend me some new knitting tv? Preferably something not too heavy and definitely something that does require me to pay a lot of visual attention to the screen (so anything with subtitles is out, alas). Anyone?

Things:

- The library is doing this event in..."celebration of" is the wrong word, but it's that sort of thing. In memory of? I don't know. Anyway. This event dealing with Linda Hazzard and her sanitarium. And, I mean, I read Starvation Heights and I completely understand the draw of that book* and sure, I can see it being historically interesting to go and see the place where it happened. But that doesn't mean that I want her face staring at me every time I go to the library webpage. It's kinda freaky.

- My bloomers are about a third of the way done, in that I have made both legs and joined them together and now get to knit the body portion. And then I get to knit the ruffly bits! I am so excited about doing something that isn't stockinette, I just can't even tell you.

- While knitting, I have been watching season 4 of Supernatural, which I skipped ahead to because there is a list of Things Sara is Easy For In Fiction and both angels and the War in Heaven are pretty high on that list. Supernatural is fun and I'm enjoying it but it has some obvious flaws. Thus I make a request - can anyone recommend some fiction that has angels and the War in Heaven and also, maybe, some women? Possibly more than one? Any medium, I'm easy. (Alas, I have read Good Omens to recently for that to be of any use. Also other relevant things by Neil Gaiman. Maybe I should netflix The Prophecy again...)

- It is really sunny today. I'm glad to see the sun, but I'm really not looking forward to it getting warm. I realize that it's necessary but sometimes I really would like to skip summer entirely. (I'm such a wimp - it barely gets above 80 here. I still want to skip that.)





*Tangentially, it is still oddly thrilling to read stuff that's set where I live. I mean, Seattle is thrilling enough but a lot of Starvation Heights happened in Kitsap county. So weird.

So, internet. I am in need of gadget advice. My mp3 player has started doing crazy things. Well, I say "started" but really, it's been doing most of it for months. It does this thing where it will pause or switch to the FM radio or shut itself down if you twiddle the headphone jack or bump it or touch it at all, really. In fact, if you don't put the headphones in exactly correct, you get no sound whatever. And this weekend, it started randomly starting itself and playing in the depths of my bag when the player was supposed to be locked.

Currently, I have a Creative Zen Vision. I have been a devoted Creative Zen person since I got my first one, even though the rest of my family are iPod people, for one reason and that is the bookmark function, which the Zen has and the iPod does not. I listen to a hell of a lot of audiobooks and losing my place because I've decided I need to take a music break is obviously unacceptable. However, they don't make the Vision anymore (of course) and the reviews for their current crop of mp3 players are...disappointing.

So. Does anyone have one of the new Creative Zen products, like the X-Fi, so they can tell me how they really work? Or, alternately, does anyone know of another brand of mp3 player that does bookmarking? I really don't want to have to carry a pad around with me everywhere, just to keep track of my audiobooks.

So. Next weekend, la familia and I are going away. Just for the weekend, but still. Going away. And, y'know, I am the kind of person who, if they are leaving the house to run errands and will be alternately driving a car and in the grocery store, will have a book. Just in case. Going away for the afternoon usually means a couple of paperbacks. One of them might turn out to be boring! A weekend usually means four (and, if we end up in a used bookstore, I tend to buy more). The last time I went away for the weekend, I brought four paperbacks and my kindle.

Obviously, this is ridiculous. And takes up too much space. So, since I am not currently engaged in any reading that is really catching my interest, necessitating that I bring that particular book with me, I am planning on just bringing my kindle. After filling it full of fanfiction. So I am going through my tobereadlater tag on del.icio.us and finding stuff that looks fun. And I am also asking you for recommendations.

So, do you have any fic that you particularly like that you want to recommend to me? I am especially looking for long stories. Fandom isn't really a factor, as I'm willing to play the "learn about the fandom from the fic" game. I tend toward slash but am perfectly willing to read het or femslash or gen. And I would prefer happy endings, though I don't mind angst and pain on the way there.

Any takers?

Dear the internet - I come to you seeking book recommendations! Y'know, if you want to provide them. I have two categories of books I'm looking for and they're both kind of weird and oddly specific but I figure it can't hurt to ask.

The first is Star Trek novels. Because, like everyone else on the internet, I saw the Star Trek movie (twice now) and loved it. And I haven't actually read many Star Trek novels (other than the ones that bethos has handed me at various times and said, "Read this!"), so I would like some guidance as to which ones don't suck. I am mainly looking for Original Series but I would not be adverse to TNG or DS9 recs. (...maybe I should read Millennium again. Heh.)

The second is...well, basically Dracula fanfic. Long and long ago, before I discovered the internet and fandom, I read a lot of published Dracula fanfic. (Also published Sherlock Holmes fic. Sometimes both at the same time.) I...do not remember most of it, as that was middle school, when I read kind of voraciously and did not retain as much as perhaps I would have liked. Like, y'know, the titles of the books I have already read. (Possibly, I should be writing these things down.) Possibly, there are other people out there who read a lot of published Dracula fic and recall which ones were good? And would be willing to tell me about them?

A corollary question - are the Saberhagen Dracula books any good? I seem to recall liking The Holmes-Dracula File but I liked a lot of things when I was 13 that later turned out to have been bad ideas. Did it have some sort of weird thing with Seward and plague and the Giant Rat of Sumatra, or am I thinking of another book? (I'm pretty sure I've read some sort of Holmes-meets-Lovecraft pastiche with the Giant Rat of Sumatra in it as well. There's probably a rule that if you have Holmes and horror, eventually you have to do something with the Giant Rat of Sumatra.)

My library has none of the Kim Newman Anno Dracula novels and this makes me very sad. I seem to have lost my copy of the first one.

Anyway! Any ideas or recommendations, O Internet? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.