the most importantest poll is the universe (and other bits)

[meganbmoore]

[Poll #1142777] Why is it important? Because it will entertain me.

ALSO!

Has anyone read/heard about Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters? I only had time to briefly skim the blurb at the bookstore and it sounds rather like cyber-punk noir in the Victorian era, but I admit that it was the supremely awesome cover that caught my attention:



Do not judge. Cover ogling led to my reading E.E. Knight and Rob Thurman, both AMAZINGLY GOOD moves.

I also saw a shounen manga called Pretty Face(actually, I saw it a while back but forgot the title) about a boy whose face is damaged in an accident, and a mad scientist did the reconstructive surgery, using the face of his crush as a guide, so now he looks exactly like his crush, and her family thinks he's her long lost twin sister, and he moves in with them.

I have no words.

(Is there a name for this subgenre?)

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

HOLY CRAP, that is an awesome cover! Now I need to look this book up!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yyyyeeeesssss...I had to run a couple errands before work and they didn't take as long as I'd expected they would, so I went to browse around, and on my way out, I glimpsed it on the "new arrivals" shelf and had to look...

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

OMG, and the villains are called Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock!!! AIEEEEE.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

See, things like that? There just wasn't enough time to absorb in a quick skimming.

If it sucks, I will be depressed...

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I read a couple reviews. The consensus seems to be:

POSITIVE:
It reads a lot like a videogame: stylish fight scenes & over the top characters.

NEGATIVE:
It reads a lot like a videogame: plot is thin, characters lack depth & there are many deus ex machinas.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

So basically...fun but not a lot else?

Pretty Face

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

If they ever make this into a dorama I, for one, will watch every episode.

Re: Pretty Face

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

And I...will listen to you and cali talk about it. Like RH+.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

That book cover is incredible - and I love the title, too. I'm going to go learn more right. now.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Roc churns out some seriously amazing covers.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

I didn't check anything in your poll because I automatically assume that all portions of an apartment have books in them.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Shall I drop the hint that there are 2 places that don't have books, bith of which are places where people usually assume there WOULD be books?

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

...you actually have places without books?

If that poll were for my place, the only tickybox would be "hall closet", and that's just because I recently scavenged some shelves that let me get another box of books unpacked. And OK, the bedroom closet *proper* doesn't have books in it, but the sewing room/office is technically supposed to be a bedroom, and the closet in there is the central location where I store books that are going out on Bookmooch. Oh, and there's a few more odds and ends still in boxes there, too...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

When I made the post, I thought there were 3 places...then I remembered a box...

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

And the hall closet here does still end up with books in it occasionally...it's where I keep all of my recycled mailing supplies, so sometimes I'll walk in there with a book to go out so I can size envelopes, and leave it in there until I'm ready to actually address and seal the package.

Really, about the only places I can think of here where books don't at least occasionally go are the bathroom and kitchen cabinets. And that's because the books in those rooms already have places to live...

Perhaps this is a sign that I really should cosplay as Tenpou at some point. The Jin-glasses are close enough, I presume?

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Let me think...

Front room: full of my parents' old books they've got no room for in their new house.
Front porch: large quantities of book overflow from the hallway.
Hallway: large quantities of books, full stop.
My bedroom: two free-standing bookcases.
Spare bedroom: a few books and huge quantities of comics.
Lounge: two in-built and three free-standing bookcases.
Study: decent number of books, a few latest purchases and a lot of stamp catalogues and reference books.
Kitchen: maybe a couple of cooking books.
Back room that used to be for coal storage until the coal all got evicted into an outdoor shed: a few old books and several hundred Reader's Digests I haven't got around to giving away yet.

That only leaves bookless: the old master bedroom (which I might end up moving into one of these days; maybe even this year if Mark doesn't stay there during the forthcoming oyster season); the bathroom (I don't read in the bath - I normally shower, anyway); the toilet (I don't read there, either), the laundry and the back porch (unless there are some there that I've forgotten about). As to the size of the place... if you want to see it from the sky, hop on to AIM, I'll give you my location address and you can type it into maps.google.com which will take you right there.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Let's see...

Foyer: small wicker shelf of manga magazines, semi-disposable Mooched paperbacks and various second-string used manga right by the door. Two small bookracks of manga and Japanese light novels on the foyer table next to it. Small basket of magazines and catalogs under foyer table.

Front room: Two bookshelves, one large, one small, and one wide wall unit pressed into service as another bookshelf, all stuffed to the gills. Two comic longboxes stacked next to the couch, pile of unboxed comics stacked on top of them waiting for me to get another box. More manga magazines stacked up on a storage chest next to the longboxes. Generally at least one or two basic reference books (favorite poetry, random Saiyuki volumes, Pukui-Elbert Hawaiian-English dictionary) stuffed somewhere alongside the computer desk, and a paperback tucked into my usual everyday tote bag. Not counting the dozens of electronic texts on my Visor Prism, plugged in next to the computer desk, because I need to get a new rechargeable battery before I can put it back into proper service as a portable ebook library.

Dining room: short three-shelf bookshelf, stuffed to the gills with books on the two lowest shelves while doing double duty as a sideboard (plate racks and wine glasses on top, bowls, mugs and other small kitchenware on upper shelf)

Kitchen: several feet of cookbooks shelved high up in gap between kitchen cabinets and ceiling; generally one or two other cookbooks down at counter level on the bookstand or lying about the counters.

Hallway: small, short bookshelf, overstuffed as usual. One small freestanding plastic magazine holder, stuffed with magazines, catalogs, and game guides, tucked into a corner -- this normally lives in the bathroom but got moved into a free hallway corner when I was cleaning and somehow hasn't migrated back to its proper home yet...

Bathroom: aside from the transplanted magazine rack, always has at least one or two semi-disposable paperbacks sitting on the toilet tank, or tucked into a little storage basket alongside the tub. At times may have many more books stacked up on baskets alongside the tub for bathtime reading.

Sewing room/studio: several milk crates of crafty books (knit/crochet patterns, sewing and embroidery guides, calligraphy books, costuming books) under the cutting table. Machine/serger manuals on shelves alongside the sewing table. Sundry odds and ends boxed in storage or piled up for Bookmooch offers in the closet.

Bedroom: one large bookshelf, stuffed to the gills. Wireframe baker's rack, generally holding several in-progress books along with all of the jewelry/cosmetic organizers that live there. Bedside nightstand, also generally holding one or two in-progress books. One large plastic shelf unit, mostly given over to soft toys, but with the bottom shelf stuffed with graphic novels. Rumors that I have a Tenpou-ish habit of leaving books in the bed itself are a damned dirty accuracy.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there's usually at least a couple of craft books down in the bottom of my knitting basket in the front room, too...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

You're wandering around, taking inventory, aren't you?

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Nope. Sitting in bed with laptop and puppy (don't ask whether or not there's a book digging into my spine), trying to visualize where everything is shelved.

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, you're sitting there drooling at the thought of large quantities of books, aren't you?

(sorry for disappearing without warning... computer has started spontaneously shutting down again. I forecast expenditure on the horizon...)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Is this the point where I mention my fantasies of rolling about naked on the complete 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, while everyone else starts backing away slowly?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

But the PAPERCUTS!!!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

But the detailed etymologies and illustrative quotations fill me with word-lust! *whimpers*

(And really, now, what kind of book lover are you worrying about something as trivial and self-healing as papercuts? I'd have expected you to tsk over the risk of wrinkling pages...)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Wrinkles can be smoothed out, but it's ever so hard to get blood off of paper...

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

I have no idea of your living arrangements so I ticked the box that is the only possibility out of the ones you have listed that in my living area does not contain books.

/me really needs to get a "books" icon one of these days...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I consider icons of people reading or just books to be an essential part of internet life.

[laura-holt-pi.livejournal.com]

Imagining a room without a book in it is too painful to my delicate sensibilities. I try to guess and then my brain says, "But no books? What if someone were trapped in there?" Every room of my house is stuffed full of books and I still never have enough to read.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I know, it's difficult. But some places are too full for books, and others could result in books beging ruined...

[estara.livejournal.com]

They had the description "dining room" on a room with phone outlet? How many phone outlets per apartment do you guys have in the US? We only have one in the whole apartment (mine is in the hall and since I didn't want to fall over cables I now have my phone in the hall and my dsl-line via powerline in my office).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

My apt has 2, and it's a 1 bedroom. The outlet is right on the border of the kitchen and diningroom.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

It can vary pretty widely, really. My current place is a small two-bedroom built in the 1970s, looks like it's been renovated a bit since then, and there are three phone jacks -- one in the corner of the front room, along the wall where that room sort of flows into the small dining nook area, and one in each bedroom. The one in the larger of the nominal bedrooms is actually double, although that looks like it was a later addition -- there's a lumpy wall-wart sort of jack sort of sprouting directly underneath the usual flush-mounted wallplate one.

(This place also has at least two cable tv jacks -- both on different walls in the front room; I can't remember if there's also one in either of the bedrooms, if it is it's hidden behind furniture someplace where I can't spot it on a quick glance around the place. But the cable installer claimed one of them doesn't work. No idea if any of the phone jacks are also non-functional, as I've actually got digital phone service so they're all going unused...)

Phone jacks in the kitchen/dining room don't seem to be terribly uncommon in the US, at least. I'm old enough to remember the days before phone deregulation, when Bell was a monopoly, RJ-11 wasn't yet standardized, and multiple phones or phone lines in the house were a relatively uncommon luxury; for folks who had just one phone, like my mom, it seemed pretty typical that it was installed in a central, high-traffic common area like the kitchen. (Ours was on the wall between the kitchen and dining room, so you could pick up the phone and talk in either room, making allowances for the limited length of the cord...)

[estara.livejournal.com]

Interesting. In most German houses up to the internet age (so the mid 90s) you'd only get one telephone jack, mostly in the hallways. When my dad designed my parents' house, however, he knew they'd have an extra office and that's where he put the phone line.
Until getting Powerline I always had to live with cables running along the floorboards and walls to go to where my telephone and later my pc were.

[kitkat-cat.livejournal.com]

I used to keep books everywhere, bathroom included...but then, i read/heard that bacteria from toilets get everything within 6 feet, and so, the ick factor has caused me to shift them all out. Otherwise, i pretty much have books everywhere else in the flat.

In the UK, some estate agents actually tell people to get rid of their books when they are selling their house because it projects a fuddy duddy image...i don't even know what to say to this, except, I can't actually imagine myself in a place without books, and i think it is very telling of the type of people who live in a house without books.