5 posts tagged “ursula k. le guin”

This weekend I had a small bit of success in the fact that I remembered where my Earthsea books were! I lied in bed on Saturday, thinking about how Shelfari wouldn't let me put the word "nipples" in my book review of Fruit - about a boy who thinks his nipples are talking to him. Then it hit me, a polaroid in my mind of me holding Fruit and finding my Earthsea books and then I remembered the box in the closet. Such a good thing to wake up to!

When I dug out the books though, I was sad to realize that I had the first book in mass market, the other three in paperback. Yes, three. Apparently I did read the forth book and after I read the back cover again I remembered how very much I liked it! I felt a bit ashamed at having forgotten about reading it but I was reading so much at that time (I was working at Barnes & Noble and they let you borrow books as employees and I borrowed a lot!). Anyhow, so I've decided I'm going to do some creative exchanging and get the first book in trade paper with the matching movie promo covers (at the time, the SciFi channel movie was coming out - so all they had were movie promo covers).

I also found my many, many, Russian instruction books. Seeing them all made me sad. I bought and tried so many and still I couldn't seem to find the time, energy, or help to learn it. I also found my copy of As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. I bought this on suggestion of this guy I "kind of" had a crush on. I say "kind of" because I liked him, but he was a wreck and I never did anything about my like for him. Plus, he came to our store and then transfered in like a week. Since I have the book I'm going to try and read it.

We went to Barnes & Noble again this weekend (I'm visiting that place so often now, I love it!) and I picked up The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin because the back cover sounded good. I was bummed when we got home because I left Ripley on the bed with the book for about ten minutes to come back to find she'd chewed off a good portion of the corner :( I hate damaged books - especially when I'd just paid for them - and full price. That'll teach me. I haven't started reading it yet - but its going on my list! We also saw - but didn't pick up - the first volume of the Vampire Hunter D series. In an afterthought I remembered that A. Dawn Wolf had been reading these as well. B&N didn't have the first, only the other eight volumes, but I found the first at Borders the next day. So - that's going my list too even though I bought it more for Paul. No book is safe!

I've read a lot more of The Handmaid's Tale and I'll be making a separate post about that later.

As I said at the beginning of my last finished book post, I'm so pleased to say that I'm finally done with my second book of the year - "Tulip Fever" by Deborah Moggach. I got through this book in four days, though I skimmed through a lot of text towards the end so it probably should have taken me another day.

What I liked about this book was the short, concise sentences & the short chapters. It made finding a place to stop easier and less confusing once trying to pick up the book to continue reading.

What I didn't like about this book was the long bouts of historical background the author injected into the chapters - so long that I began to skip over them. If you're interested in Amsterdam in the 1630s than you'd probably like these parts of the novel. I wasn't interested, and I found the supposed "internal monologues" of the characters and their unending love of the place and time to be boring. I also found the lack of dialogue to cause me to loose interest as well. In fact, this book has made me realize how much I enjoy and need dialogue in a book and how bored I am without it. I also was not pulled in by the plot and didn't really care what happened as long as I found out what happened which is why I skimmed so much towards the end. I didn't find the plot twists surprising either.

I recommend this book if you're looking for an easy, mindless read and if you're interested in the time period of the novel. Don't expect any great revelations or memorable characters, and don't expect to become enthralled by the novel - you'll be able to put it down.

My next read? "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin. I already own the first three books in this series (I have conflicting reports as to whether there are 5 or 6 books) and so I'll be able to start very soon. I think I've tuckered myself out on historical, love-story-based books and so I'm derailing from my original plan to read The Other Boleyn Girl. Though, I've now seen the movie trailer a bunch of times and each time I want to read the book more.

I'm finding it difficult to finish this book. It's lost my interest almost completely. At first, I was enjoying the sentence structures and the chapter layout - but now I'm finding it tedious to get through one just to move onto another. I'm also not caring for the author's choice of making paintings & seasons characters with practical narrations. I'm on page 178 with 103 pages to go. I hope that the climax of the story isn't as predictable as I think it'll be - or else this book will have been a waste of my week so far.

I'm definitely looking forward to my next read which I've decided to be the Earthsea series. I've read three of these five books before - a few years ago - so I'm only going to count the two new ones towards my 50 even though I'll be reading all five.

Thanks dragongirl_2001 for posting about this!

Studio Ghibli has made Tales of Earthsea! Apparently, there has been a manga realease based on all three books - but a full feature length anime was created based on the third book, The Farthest Shore. It was released in Japan at the end of July of last year - but wont reach the US for a bit longer - such as 2009! Apparently, the Sci-Fi Channel still holds the rights to this movie in the US until the license expires in 2009. Fear not though, the UK & Australia are already working on a subtitled release for this year - so we may be able to get our hands on that one.

We fans must be wary though! According to an Wikipedia article on the anime, after Ursula K. Le Guin saw the file was quoted on her website saying, "It is not my book. It is your movie. It is a good movie." I really like what Studio Ghibli does though, so I'll probably see it regardless. I did try to watch the Sci-Fi miniseries, didn't I?

Anyhow - I just wanted to post this for anyone who didn't know - because I myself didn't know :)

(Official Japanese site for the anime)

What are five books that changed your life? 
Inspired by Ms. Genevieve.

Wow. This is going to be one for the record keepers here at Vox.

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
2. The Last Vampire (Series) by Christopher Pike
3. Earthsea (Series) by Ursula K. Le Guin
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. Outlander (Series) by Diana Gabaldon

Why They Changed My Life:

I read this book for the first time in 2002 (if I remember correctly) and fell in love with it instantly. If anyone has seen or read this, you'll know that it's not a thick book. It's short and clip and to the point. It's about someones sanity - and how they loose it and gain it. The book was amazing to me because it was so lyrical. It flowed so well, I wanted to read it out loud like a song or a rhyming poem. It's one of those books you can read over and over and over again and continually learn something new about it because the story keeps changing as you change. You begin to discover and relate to the main character at different points in her life as you yourself go through similar points. This book changed my life because at the time I was reading it I was struggling with a lot of mental conflict and this book put me at ease in a way. Like I said, it was a story about falling down the deep well and crawling back out.

I read this series for the first time in 1995 or 1996 - I can't really say for sure. I know I was in Junior High School so that's why the 95-96 period. I was given the first book by my best friend because she loved to just sit and read sometimes and I wasn't a reader and to keep me occupied while she read she gave me one of her books in the hopes that I'd leave her be for a bit. Well it worked. It worked so well that I went through the whole series before she had gotten halfway through and she said she didn't want me reading anymore of her books. From that point forward though - I was hooked. I couldn't get enough of Christopher Pike and I soon had collected basically everything he had ever written - which is saying a lot because he was a young adult writer so he released books basically one after the other. This series changed my life because I began to read again. As a very young girl I read a lot of the Baby-Sitter Little Sister series, but once I had exhausted those I just sort of quit. This series also gave me a lot of confidence & ideas to write a bit of my own. I used to love to write - I would stay up until three or four in the morning typing and then get up and go to school.

I read this series in 2004 in anticipation for the Sci-Fi Channel's adaptation (its very rare that I'll watch a movie based on a book without reading the book first). I was SO glad I read it before watching the mini-series because by the time I got the mini-series on Netflix (I waited a LONG time, I'm not just that slow of a reader...) I couldn't watch more than ten minutes of it before I was about ready to murder whoever had made it. The books were wonderful - a big divination from other Sci-Fi/Fantasy books I had tried to read so far as I could follow the characters and world without having to continually look at reference maps and genealogy charts. I also found a lot of symbolism in it that I was really relating to at the time. The fact that no matter how far he ran, his shadow demon still followed him, until he turned around and faced it and dealt with what had created it - really hit home for me.

I read this book in my senior year in High School - the first year out of all that I didn't take an advanced English class. I think the lack of pushing to find more in the book really allowed me to find more in the book - if that makes any sense. When I was in advanced classes I had to rip apart and basically dissect any book beyond all recognition in order to get the supposed most out of it. But that really took a lot of enjoyment of reading out for me. Its just like what The Crafty Linguist was saying in one of her posts about how when she was required to create art - she no longer found a passion for it. That's why I think I could never be a professional writer. Anyhow - this book changed my life because it really got me thinking about all my values & beliefs and why I chose to live in the kind of society we do. Also, as a class project, I had to create a Utopian society and it gave me the opportunity to make decisions and have them play out in a certain way. I made clothes have a lot of zippers :)

And last but not least, Outlander. Oh Outlander, how I love thee... This book changed my life because at 16 I wasn't reading much adult fiction as I was still trying to transition from young adult - so this was the first book that really matured me as a reader. As you might read if you follow the Wikipedia link to the book, the book was hard to categorized when it was first released because it was just so...great. It wasn't just one kind of book - it was many! I fell in love with these characters, with the Scottish history, with the idea of living out a life that had been forgotten. It was particularly great for me because I'm a Renaissance Faire buff and it gave me a chance to imagine what it would be like to go back in time and still retain everything I know now.

Anyhow - so there's my list.