books I have read since coming home

or, alternate title, Still Not the Graduation Post

anyway I have read some books since coming home! None of them are the books I meant to read. Some of them I read years and years ago (heading into that scary "ten years ago" category that is starting to take over my life), some of them were new to me! One was even a translation of a French YA fantasy novel. They were all weirdly similar, as you will see by the cut tags.

I have discovered that I have trouble picking books off the shelves in the library unless I know the author or have heard good things about the author. This multiplies times a thousand bazillion when I leave the YA section and head for the adult fiction section. (Also, the adult fiction section seems to have more disguised-cover romance novels than previously expected.) I hit the jackpot yesterday--the little itty bitty library near my house had both How to Ditch Your Fairy and Liar, which I have been looking for FOREVER. Now, if only one of the branches would get in some of Maureen Johnson's books...

Anyway, Books I Have Read This Summer, Possible Spoilers Ahead, I Will Try to Warn You

( Zel: Girl gets locked in tower )

( The Book of a Thousand Days: Princess and maidservant get locked in tower, people die )

( Quest for a Maid: Girl has manservant, princess and girl-turned-attendant spend lots of time in boats, people die )

( The Princetta: Princess and maidservant runs away, spends lots of time in a boat, people die )

( The Shining Company: Boy has manservant, boy becomes shieldbearer, more people die than in both previous books combined )

I did take a detour, as part of my I Will Get My History From Biographies quest, and read
( Notorious: Sometimes it is hard to be impartial when talking about Ingrid Bergman who makes everybody gaga )

I also got about forty pages into
( The Ruins of Gorlan: Somewhere in my high school notebooks there is a generic apprentice YA fantasy that I really ought to bring back to life )

phew that took a long time.

on my to-read list are the aforementioned Justine Larbalestier books, Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin (overall I am wary of the books my mom checks out, novelizations famous women in history/literature, because they usually turn out to be giant sexfests, but I trust LeGuin--see, cannot pick a book up off a shelf anymore), and Lauren Bacall and Steve Martin's autobiographies (see: Biographies Quest). Oh and I picked up Allegiance because it was made of love and I felt like reading a SW book I knew ended well. Oh and I should read The Great Gatsby. And Jane Eyre. And maybe work on my own novel.

You know, life as usual.