Book Art

I'm a sucker for a good book cover.

I've always been annoyed at some of the fantasy novel book covers...or ones that are all shiny, or have scary yucky things on them. I don't want to touch them as I read them. Makes me feel odd. Sometimes I get lucky...Spin is a fantastic novel (won a Hugo) we picked just because it looked interesting. Sure I've picked some duds up at the library that looked cool, and read some amazing books with terribly tacky covers, but usually you can tell at least a little bit about the author or the contents from the cover.
My point is this: I am greatly annoyed when a cover has absolutely nothing to do with the book. I'm not talking that it's just some scenery, or of random people, or skulls or lame unicorns or what have you...I'm talking completely and totally irrelevant or unrelated art.

Case in Point: this cover for The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

I have to ask: What the flying frack does this have to do with *ANYTHING* remotely involved in the novel? Anyone? A book set in an alternate world, where WW2 was won by Germany and things are dominated by Chinese culture...naturally makes me think of a lame looking shiny torso floating in geometry. How about you? I know the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the I Ching is "ooh...torso!"
I've been told that often Dick's covers do not match his stories at all. The covers in the Wikipedia article iare at least related to the novel in some way. The one I read (above) does not resemble anything at all to do with the story.

Boo to this I say...I will have none of it, sir.

If I saw this book in a store I would make a point of *not* reading it, simply based on the utter lameness of the cover. It came highly recommended and I enjoyed the discussion of the book afterwards. But the cover?

It's silly.
Fiction and science fiction get enough razzing as it is without this sort of thing going on...

My name is little Bongo

My name is little Bongo
I sing my little song-go
I see you staring at my head.
I admit my ear is long-go

My name is little Bongo
I sing my little song-go
Rhyms are hard to think of.
Except for words like flong-go

My name is little Bongo
I sing my little song-go
If there was one place I would live
Well, that would be the Congo



Heh heh...I found a Life in Hell compilation book at a used bookstore a little while ago.
I haven't read it in years...since high school. It is what Matt Greoning did *before* that whole Simpsons thing.
I now have enough Bongo for weeks :)

I know who the murderer is - it's *ACK!* gurgle...

After a 12 hour long marathon read I finished the last Harry Potter book.
Ah.
My reward for a day of boring work (and missing out on a phone call from an old friend while being there...grrrr) was to sit about all of Sunday and read the last Potter book in it's entirety. I knew I'd be insanely busy until at least August with no time to read it if I didn't get to it now and by then some blathering twit in the world at large would let things slip to me about the story, so I tucked in with my comfy new uberpillow, some popcorn, a huge pot of coffee and a cat and read away. Haven't done that in ages. It was lovely. I felt like a kid again all cozied up with a good story.

And don't worry...I won't let it slip that Hogwarts is invaded by alien hoardes or that Harry survived the adventure through shrewd use of a magic blue marble he found up Ron's nose...cuz that would just be mean. I mean who wants to know the details of a story before they've read it and enjoyed it for themselves?*

(* take the hint world...let the kiddies and the grups read in peace and let them have their fantasies. Go and nurture your tortured soul somewhere else...)

Well played Diddums, well played

I was browsing the Diddums’s blog and got tagged unawares.
The instructions seem simple:
Look at the list of books below & bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you want to read and leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
And...If you are reading this - tag! You’re it!

Muahahahaaaa...:)

Being at home on a Mac with no text editing in Blogger on my Safari browser (*ahem* take note and FIX THAT Blogger) I've had to make quick modification: I've put a * after ones I've read, and a # after ones I'd like to.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)*
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)* (yawn)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)*
4. Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)*
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)*
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)*
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)*
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)#
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)*
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)*
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)#
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)*
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)#
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)*
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)* (one of my favorites)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)*
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)*
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)*
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)#
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)*
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)*
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)*
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)*
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)*
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)#
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)#
34. 1984 (Orwell)*
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)*
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)#
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)#
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)*
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)*
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)#
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible (not the whole thing)*...yes the whole thing
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)#
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)#
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)#
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)*
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)#
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)*
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)*
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)#
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)*
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)*
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)*
60. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)#
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)#
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)#
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)#
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)#
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)#
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)* half done and had to return it to the library...plan on finishing it when I can
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)*
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)#
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)#
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)#
73. Shogun (James Clavell)#
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)#
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)#
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)*
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)*
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)*
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)*
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)#
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)#
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)#
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)*
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)#
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)*
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)#
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)#
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)*

Read:39
Read part of: 1
Might read: 27

So - how 'bout you?