buter's BABY blog

Jarv recently posted about her NaNoWriMo efforts - she's introduced me to the term dystopian novel.

After looking it up on wikipedia, I realise that I've actually read (and enjoyed) a lot of dystopian novels. That makes me feel all posh and educated (or something). But then, as Jarv said, I wouldn't necessarily want to go ahead with reading books just *because* they are in that category.

Someone told me recently that I must be a fast reader. Why? Because I have read so many books, that I must finish them quickly. Well, maybe. I guess I do read quite fast, which makes it less of an investment for me to re-read something.

I know I've done a list before, of sci-fi that I've read and appreciated, so you know how to calibrate against my taste in geekery. But you don't know my taste in novels overall. So here is a quick run-down of types of fiction I've enjoyed (in terms you don't have to look up on wikipedia). And if you're interested, I've read most of these several times, and continue to enjoy reading them.

1. Period social satire:
Jane Austen - Persuasion
Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

2. Other worlds (fantasy):
JRR Tolkein - LOTR, specifically The Return of the King
Ursula le Guin - Earthsea, specifically A Wizard of Earthsea
Stephen Donaldson - The Mirror of Her Dreams (Mordant's Need)

3. Science Fiction:
William Gibson - Neuromancer
Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age
Isaac Asimov - Foundation (is this dystopian? probably?)
Douglas Adams - HHGTTG, of course

4. Assorted stuff that makes me *think*, and it can be pretty hard going sometimes:
Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver (and the others)
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore (but all the rest as well!)
Alain de Botton - Consolations of Philosophy

I leave it to you, faithful reader, to make your own opinions (and your own google/amazon/imdb searches).

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I was in the supermarket the other day, falling into a mild stupor over the choice of fruit juice (Should I get breakfast juice with A,C and E, or instead the one with Iron and Folate? Should I stick to Orange, or get Multi Carrot Berry Blend Plus+++ ?) Ok, so I might have been making those up, and even after I made my choice (because it was 2 bottles for $6 and that's 4.8L of juice so it works out to about 18 cents per glass, which is pretty darn cheap), I was shaking my head at myself for getting stuck on the Added Vitamins. I'm referring of course to the fact that there is no discernible nutritional or medical benefit in Added Vitamins in juice, because there just isn't a therapeutic dosage in there, and if you're really after those Added Vitamins you should either go and eat fruit/vege/meat/etc original source, or if you're lazy just buy some tablets.

Be that as it may, the stupor induced by the juice was nowhere near the stupor I fell into when considering the breakfast cereals. I had one item on my list - "boy cereal" which as we all know means cereal made of small boys. The stupor wasn't induced by the choice of cereals (I knew which one I wanted!) but by the conversation I overheard between Kylie** and Pammy** back at the juice.

"Can Tuscany have apple juice or is it just orange juice she reacts to?"

Tuscany?

TUSCANY?

While I accept that maybe I'm just being a change-hating misanthrope, and that we often name places after people, I find the practice of naming people after places to be absurd.

Sorry. Tuscany? What's the child's nickname going to be? Annie? Or maybe if she has buck teeth she will be just "Tusk". Maybe when she's old enough she'll ask to be called by her middle name, "Helsinki".

Goodness me.

**I don't think these were their real names, but they could have been!