Save now for FREE cat food bowl
Sep. 6th, 2003 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhialtoI saw a sign at a shop "Save now for FREE cat food bowl". Well, if you have to save for it, it isn't free now is it?
When I returned from BiCon I visited a bookshop at the airport. Usually they are crap, but this one actually had a few nice books. 3 for 2, even, so I got 3 of course after I spotted the one I really wanted :-)
I finished the first book already (despite never having the tim to read properly these days): "Ella Minnow Pea (a novel without letters)". On soc.bi there was a big thread about it, which I thought was a strange coincidence. Anyway, the point of the book was to use progressively fewer different letters. And without replacing those letters with something else, either - everybody had to use different words to avoid the forbidden letters. That calls for some language creativity (fortunately a national hobby on the described island), but then when it became a real challenge, the author allowed himself a cop-out. There was also an evil-dictatorship plot, which although properly done, seems a bit too righteous-American to me in retrospect.
The part I like best of the market is the second-hand book market. Today there was a stall with a big supply of 1960s and '70s pockets, 3 for 1 euro. So I indulged and grabbed an 8-count (footnote: why is there no proper word in english for a group of 8 (or by extension, n) things??? Even the word dozen is obviously from the french douzaine which is derived from douze (12)) of Saint-books (by Leslie Charteris). They are translated by one of my favourite detective writers Havank, whose books are always very funny and filled with interesting language jokes. And when reading The Saint I keep seeing the way he is portrayed by Roger Moore. Hmm.. Persuaders... (I see that Terry Nation is credited for writing some episodes here too, just like Doctor Who, Blake's 7 and The Saint and also)The Avengers...
Apart from that I also got a 2-count collections of short SF stories by Philip K. Dick, and a 2-count books by P.G. Wodehouse. They don't seem to feature Bertie Wooster (and Jeeves) though...
After all that, I could not refrain from visiting a bookshop (well, it calls itself a bookshop, and ideed it is the non-worst bookshop we have here, but its collection of my kinds of books is appalling ever since they moved to this posh new shopping street). Amazingly enough they did have one book that seemed interesting, "Guilty Pleasures" by Laurell K. Hamilton. Something about a vampire hunter in a world where being a vampire is legal. This set me back a full 10 euro though, but that wasn't even so bad because the original UK price is £ 6,99 which is fairly equivalent. Usually the prices of imported books are inflated by a factor of 1,5 or 2 easily, so that's why I didn't hesitate very long.
Speaking of books: a friend of mine plotted my cooperation for bookcrossing...
When I returned from BiCon I visited a bookshop at the airport. Usually they are crap, but this one actually had a few nice books. 3 for 2, even, so I got 3 of course after I spotted the one I really wanted :-)
I finished the first book already (despite never having the tim to read properly these days): "Ella Minnow Pea (a novel without letters)". On soc.bi there was a big thread about it, which I thought was a strange coincidence. Anyway, the point of the book was to use progressively fewer different letters. And without replacing those letters with something else, either - everybody had to use different words to avoid the forbidden letters. That calls for some language creativity (fortunately a national hobby on the described island), but then when it became a real challenge, the author allowed himself a cop-out. There was also an evil-dictatorship plot, which although properly done, seems a bit too righteous-American to me in retrospect.
The part I like best of the market is the second-hand book market. Today there was a stall with a big supply of 1960s and '70s pockets, 3 for 1 euro. So I indulged and grabbed an 8-count (footnote: why is there no proper word in english for a group of 8 (or by extension, n) things??? Even the word dozen is obviously from the french douzaine which is derived from douze (12)) of Saint-books (by Leslie Charteris). They are translated by one of my favourite detective writers Havank, whose books are always very funny and filled with interesting language jokes. And when reading The Saint I keep seeing the way he is portrayed by Roger Moore. Hmm.. Persuaders... (I see that Terry Nation is credited for writing some episodes here too, just like Doctor Who, Blake's 7 and The Saint and also)The Avengers...
Apart from that I also got a 2-count collections of short SF stories by Philip K. Dick, and a 2-count books by P.G. Wodehouse. They don't seem to feature Bertie Wooster (and Jeeves) though...
After all that, I could not refrain from visiting a bookshop (well, it calls itself a bookshop, and ideed it is the non-worst bookshop we have here, but its collection of my kinds of books is appalling ever since they moved to this posh new shopping street). Amazingly enough they did have one book that seemed interesting, "Guilty Pleasures" by Laurell K. Hamilton. Something about a vampire hunter in a world where being a vampire is legal. This set me back a full 10 euro though, but that wasn't even so bad because the original UK price is £ 6,99 which is fairly equivalent. Usually the prices of imported books are inflated by a factor of 1,5 or 2 easily, so that's why I didn't hesitate very long.
Speaking of books: a friend of mine plotted my cooperation for bookcrossing...