(no subject)

So, in addition to making epic polls, I also spent the day reorganizing my “to read soon” pile, instead of doing something useful, like a yuletide reveal post. (Urm…they’re at my AO3 profile
? All Vampire Diaries, one of which I deeply surprised myself with by writing in my absolute least favorite style ever.) I’ll probably actually do a post to talk about them later.

The “to read soon” pile is basically my going through my entire backlog and pulling out books that I think I’ll want to read soon. This always ends up being about 70 books, far more than I’ll get read before I want to read something else, and I always end up adding things to it as I acquire them.

Anyway, this is what my subconscious thinks I’ll want to read soon:

1. Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Georgette Heyer.
2. It thinks I will be very devoted to that “read conventionally respectable books” thing.
3. Romance novels. Specifically Restoration era romance novels.
4. More Christopher Pike. (Brain, aren’t you tired of the Nice Guys? Or are you that distracted by things like time traveling, incestuous dinosaurs?)
5. Read all the new releases that came out in the second half of 2010 that I kept not reading because of L.J. Smith an Christopher Pike bingeing.
6. Every Arthuriana based book in my backlog. (Uhm…has NYONE READ Rosalind Miles’s trilogies about Guenevere and Isolde?)
7. The few Agatha Christie books I have with Ariadne Oliver.
8. Every non-fiction book I have in my backlog on European folklore and myth.
9. Every fiction book I have in my backlog based on fairy tales and European folklore and myth.
10. The Heian diaries and Ivan Morris’s book.
11. The Romance of the Rose, The Song of Roland and a collection of Tennyson’s poems (most of which I’ve probably read over the years), all of which I had forgotten I had.
12. Historical mysteries and the historical/mystery/romance blend books that get shelved in general fiction, but don‘t have an official category that I know of.

In reality, I’ll likely read an Austen, a couple Heyers, one or two other Respectable Books (most of which fall into “I watched the movie, I WILL read the book!”), probably some of the Restoration romances (I seem to do most of my romance novel reading earlier in the year, based on the last few years), Pike, Christie, most of the new-ish releases, but spread over a couple of months, a few Athuriana/fairy tale/folklore books, and maybe one of the Heian books. Probably a historical mystery and/or historical/mystery romance book, as those are always good fallbacks for me when I can’t decide what to read. At which point, we’ll be at least a month or two out.

But mostly, it’s interesting to see what themes show up in my choices when I’m not paying attention to what I’m picking out.

Also, unrelated, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the second season of Kyo Kara Maoh was meant to be the last? Because it felt like it was meant to be a conclusion. The second season didn’t border on being a loving parody of shoujo/shounen-ai/high fantasy (Yuri is a Magical Girl. Don’t try to deny that.) with tons of crack thrown in, but I think I prefer it to the first because of the more unified plot, and all the backstories, which it had without losing any of the humor or cracktasticness of the first season. Is there any word of season 3 hitting the US, as this has been out for a while, or will I have to Illicitly Acquire it?

I apparently no longer have a Chuck icon.

Dear listies:

What are your thoughts on White Collar? I tend to like detective series and spy shows, as long as they don't end up procedurals (The Inside and Bones are the only real exceptions, and The Inside is almost more of a character piece, and Bones always reminds me more of an old bickering detectives drama and the fake forensics involve icky corpses, but they're usually barely recognizable as human, and it has lots of women doing things and multiple women with authority and actually having their authority respected.) or have an endless string of dead/used women.

White Collar sounds like something I'd have fun with, if not get invested in (that tends to usually be genre shows and period dramas, though there are a decent number of exceptions), if I liked the characters, and I like the actors in it who I'm familiar with, but I understand there's frudging at the end of season one, and then there's the cruddy way they treated Natalie Morales. It also sounds like it may be a case of "men do things while women support them," but I try not to judge things as such until I've actually watched them.

Also, I giggle at the thought of Matt Bomer as a con artist, or whatever he is. From impossibly good looking and perfect spy to impossibly perfect and good looking con? I'll keep thinking it's a deepcover mission! But, Bryce Larkin, Chuck and Sarah will be very disappointed with you! (In Chuck, I am annoyed with Bryce when he's all "Sarah, we are epic love and the fact that you've totally rejected running off with me twice and left me waiting for you at the train station for hours, so to speak, does not change that!" but like him when he is all "I shall protect the precious precious pirincess! And by 'princess,' I mean Chuck. Who has somehow remained both annoyingly and endearingly Pure.")

Though, uhm, with exactly 1 episode of The Undercovers left ever, I may subconsciously get bitter on principle for any new-to-me spy shows that don't get cancelled halfway through their first season.