Reading something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue
I really loved the chindogu book my cousin Chickoy lent me to cheer me up when I was confined in the hospital last year, so I set about to getting my own chindogu book. Luckily the first book in the chindogu series, 101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions, also by Kenji Kawakami, was readily available on BookMooch.
Kawakami is recognized as the founder of chindogu, everyday gadgets designed to solve life’s little problems. Well, almost.
I’ve always been curious about Garth Nix’s Abhorsen Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen) because a friend of mine from college (hello, Tintin!) has been raving about it since we were in school — I remember her sneak-reading it in class, and I remember she even bought the cassette audiobooks and we listened to it in her car!
I’ve had the set sitting in my TBR pile for ages; I’ve always thought it was a bit too high fantasy for my taste. As you might have read in past posts, I balk at fantasy with unpronounceable names, made up languages, and maps; I usually prefer fantasy with some semblance of reality in it. But I listed Garth Nix in my A-Z Challenge purposely so I would be forced to read at least the first book of the trilogy, and I’m so glad I did.
A couple of years ago, I read my first Natsuo Kirino book, Out, for the Flips Flipping Pages Japanese book discussion. Natsuo Kirino is one of Japan’s top female crime/detective fiction novelists, winning both the Grand Prix for Crime Fiction, Japan’s top mystery award and the Edgar Award for Out. I enjoyed reading Out back then, and so I set out to hunt down Kirino’s other books.
Earlier this year, my cousin gave me a copy of Grotesque, another novel by Natsuo Kirino. I figured it was going to be another chilling read, so I’ve been saving it for Halloween this year.
I just got back from a Halloween weekend spent out of town; my cousins and I had a blast at this year’s Halloween extravaganza. I have two more Halloween reads to blog about — Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino and Sabriel by Garth Nix, but I’ll save that for another post and tell you about the Superhero costume Halloween party.
It was my cousin Chickoy’s birthday celebration, and Dianne and I were eager for another party planning opportunity, so we decided to take on the Halloween party, which doubled as our celebration of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington (aka Nearly Headless Nick)’s Deathday Party.
Continue reading “Halloween 2010 (Nearly Headless Nick’s 518th Deathday Party)”
