Seasonal Plume

Today’s Booking Through Thursday is about libraries:

Whether you usually read off of your own book pile or from the library shelves NOW, chances are you started off with trips to the library. So…what is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?

My earliest memories of libraries were all in our school library in the Philippines, when I was in grade school. As a kid who would finish Nancy Drew mysteries within the two or three hours it took to drive home from the city with a new book, the library was the only place I could satisfy my search for more and more Nancy Drew books to read. They had an old collection, usually the Grosset & Dunlap Pc library editions.

Sometimes I went there to just look around. I read everything from encyclopedias to children’s books (when I was younger, the children’s section had a small rug and floor pillows!). It was a quiet place where I could just mill around. I loved looking at my full library card, a dull yellow, with all the date stamps and the librarian’s signature on each return. It was usually wrinkled by the end of the school year, the corners folded. That is, unless I had to get another card.

One of the odd memories I have of our school library was seeking its peace and quiet with my best friend after a particularly “stressful” afternoon which included a secret admirer declaring himself. But, who should be there, but the guy I had a crush on, asking me what happened with The Talk.

My response: a rather loud, squeaky “What?!“

There was an unexpected 20% off sale at Kinokuniya today, and I’m extremely glad I went. :D I found out only when I was paying for my stash. I’m almost insanely glad I did go ahead and got a lot of books, and am slightly sad I didn’t get another Hanadan volume to grace my shelves. But that’s okay–I shouldn’t spend too much on books. I shouldn’t! This week alone, I bought ten books. Four from the Carrefour books sale, and six from Kinokuniya.

I got these books at $5 at Carrefour:

• Maya Slater’s Mr. Darcy’s Diary (which I talked about here)
• Stephanie Lehmann’s The Art of Undressing
• Edward Charles’ In the Shadow of Lady Jane
• R.F. Delderfield’s Diana

All four are books I wouldn’t really buy at their usual prices, as I am always a bit skeptical. But they looked rather interesting and were in alright quality, so hey, why not? The stash from Kinokuniya were certainly more interesting for me:

• Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn
• Garth Nix’s Across the Wall
• Nix’s Grim Tuesday
• Nix’s Drowned Wednesday
• Nix’s Sir Thursday
• Nix’s Lady Friday

I already bought Nix’s Mister Monday during my last trip to Kinokuniya, and finished it last night (easy, exciting read! Will review sometime), hence I went ahead and bought all the next ones. The available Superior Saturday was in a different edition, so I didn’t get it.

The best thing is, Breaking Dawn is also in tradeback! Like the rest of my Twilight Saga books. Squee! I haven’t started reading yet, because I’d like to finish Isabel Allende’s Zorro first, and Breaking Dawn is a thick book :P No spoilers please! I realize it disappointed a lot of people, but I’d really like to make my own opinions.

So I’m reading Maya Slater’s Mr. Darcy’s Diary, which I picked up at the Carrefour book sale I promised I wouldn’t go to. Like I said, I end up picking up books I wouldn’t normally buy at the usual price–like this one. I generally like retellings, but it seems to me that a lot of P&P retellings aren’t worth their salt (or pages).

I’m nearly chalking this one up as one of those you shouldn’t even bother borrowing. I haven’t given up on it yet, but I’m nearly there–and I’m not yet even half of the book. I’m skimming through the book, at the least. I’m not an expert of that time period by any means, so I’ve no idea how accurate some details and situations and habits are for that period–so don’t ask me about that. The characters are generally the same in terms of personality, and it seems to me that they included some dialogue from the 1995 BBC production with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, which is a plus for me: I loved that miniseries.

But I couldn’t care less about Darcy being… well, a man. At the risk of sounding like a prude, I didn’t care about the inclusion of Darcy’s intimate relations in the book; or of him having any with random people. Oh, they’re not “scandalous”; the first few instances, a friend had gotten him inebriated enough to spend an evening at a bordello; the ones after that were with a servant girl in Netherfield. If you can stretch your imagination, they even seem to be slightly according to Darcy’s personality, i.e., he wouldn’t have anything to do with the second girl while the Miss Bennets were in Netherfield due to Jane’s illness.

That is, if you can stretch your imagination far enough to imagine Darcy going to a bordello, or tumbling a serving girl in his friend’s house. “Darcy” does not write about the details of the encounter, thank goodness, but he does praise the first girl’s form along with mentioning, in passing, a word that feels “dirty”–although I’m not aware if it is a crude word. I’m just assuming it is, as there is a crude-word equivalent in modern vernacular.

It’s rather disturbing to think of Darcy tumbling random people, that’s all. Granted, he’s only done two in the time frame so far of the novel (and as he’s now rather in love with Lizzy, I assume there will be no more), but I’d much rather prefer that he had none whatsoever. Darcy is Darcy! You don’t have to have a man have intimate relations with serving girls et al to prove that he’s a man.

Today’s Booking Through Thursday:

Are there any particular worlds in books where you’d like to live?

Or where you certainly would NOT want to live?

What about authors? If you were a character, who would you trust to write your life?

I’d always liked to live in either Narnia or Prydain. Those were the two fantasy worlds of my relative childhood, and they weigh roughly the same in my estimation. For Narnia particularly, I’m more interested in the first days, after the creation of Narnia, than the time of the Pevensies as kings and queens of the land. And for Prydain, certainly the time before the end of the series ;)

I would certainly not want to live in some of the worlds/places in Stephen King’s Dark Tower; End-World would be the worst *shudder*.

As for authors I’d trust to write about my life…that’s a tough one. I initially thought that I would trust all my favorite authors to write about myself but I realized that Jane Austen would find my horrible flaws and might give up on writing about me; Charlotte Bronte might turn off some readers with a long chapter about my feelings as a child; C.S. Lewis would turn everything into symbolism; Janet Fitch would add more grit and grime and un-beauty into my life than I’m prepared for!

I’m kidding, I would be honored if any of them would write about me; unfortunately, I have no idea who would be a good “fit”: one who have written something along the lines of my life, and the kind of style that I like.

There’s yet another book sale at Carrefour Suntec, near where I work, with books starting from S$5. The last time they had this sale, I went home with around a dozen or more books overall. It’s books of all kinds, and in all conditions. I got away with a couple good ones, although it can take a while to soft through the piles and piles of books.

What I like best about book sales like these is that because of the lower price tag, you’ll just go ahead and get a few somewhat interesting titles, or books you wouldn’t buy at the usual prices but you want copies of.

I didn’t go in, though; I have around 20+ books in my bookshelf that are on my to-read list :s and I really shouldn’t add to the stuff I’m going to need to pack up when I move at the end of this month. It’s only the first day; I really hope I’m able to last this one out.