xanithofdragons | Entries tagged with books

I made an account at goodreads.com! I'm always wanting to read more, so a place where I can keep track of books I've read and books I want to read AND get book recommendations sounds pretty sweet. So if you're using it and want to share book recs or something or just be friends there, please comment or message me! And I feel like I should let you know that I decided to make an account while looking up lesbian mystery novels ~~because this information is so important~~. xD

In fandom news... *sigh* I was already strongly leaning towards not buying it, although some kind of miracle in the track-list could have changed my mind. But alas, a miracle did not happen. Kisumai's management seems set on changing absolutely nothing and making absolutely zero progress ever, so I don't even want to support it all anymore. And since, with the debut of Johnny's WEST, I was feeling like I might need to hold back somewhere else anyway, well, Kisumai, if you're going to disappoint me every time anyway... I'll spend my money on groups that don't make me sad. Ugh, sometimes I feel like WataTai is the only part of Kisumai I really like anymore. >_<

Ah well, I do have Ebi releases to look forward to this summer. ♥ I did ultimately decide to buy the Johnny's Densetsu digest DVD since I do want to watch more Johnny's musicals. And I actually ordered two versions of Legend Story. ^^;

These came in the mail yesterday:
P8020978

It was interesting to buy these books all together because each is a pretty different kind of book from the others.

( cut for pictures and rambling )

I have so much reading to do, and I'm excited about it. I've been wanting to work on increasing my Japanese reading speed anyway.

Current Mood: excited

Since graduating, I feel like I've been able to get back into hobbies I didn't have much time for while I was in college.

I mentioned before how I had started replaying Tales of Symphonia. I've come very close to the end of my replay, but I think I'll do an extras playthrough (partial) after that. ^_^ In the past couple of weeks, I've been going to the library a lot. I've been reading mostly YA books. I've read... six books so far. If I'm really into a book, I can usually read most within a day given unlimited free time.

I guess maybe I still identify with teenagers a bit, since I feel like I'm in the mood to read mostly YA fiction. Yet, when I book drama to watch, I prefer stories about adults... Well, it's hard to find good books without recommendations, and I feel like it's easy for me to find YA recommendations. If you have any recommendations... I'm mainly looking for books with female and or queer protagonists, and my favorite genres are fantasy and mystery. I also like historical fiction and sci-fi pretty well.

Recently I've been thinking I want to try colored mascara. Kisumai's probably to blame for this, with their Ai no Beat Rock ver. xD If any of you have tried colored mascara before, let me know how it worked out, or if you know brands that are really good.

It took me a few days, but I finished reading Clockwork Princess. I finished the Infernal Devices series. But before I get into that, a tale about my college's mail center. My college gives every student a mail box, and students have the same boxes as long as they're students here. It's a tiny little box, though, so only things like envelopes and slips of paper can actually go in them. When a package comes addressed to any of those boxes, they're supposed to put a slip saying that there's a package in the box it's addressed to, but sometimes it takes a day for the slip to get in the box. Sometimes it takes longer or they never actually put a notification in the box. This happened to me earlier this semester and I had a package for about a week before knowing it was there (amazingly enough, I had never seen it so delayed the rest of my time here at college.) Aside from the package slips, there are also lists of all the packages (split by courier) that are far more reliably updated, so if I want to know as soon as I can if I have a package, it's better to check the lists (and then you can also creepily know who else has packages.)

Sorry if all that is really normal, but they point is that I had checked my mailbox to see if my copy of Clockwork Princess had arrived, but then checked the tracking online later and realized it should have already been there when I had checked my mailbox, lol. So I walked back to the mail center to get it.

To finally actually talk about the book itself, I'm happy with the ending. I cried plenty (and oops got my tears on the pages >_<), but it was both happy and sad tears. In the first part of the book, I was excited and fangirling out over the characters and the jokes and the flashbacks, but then the part where we're lead to believe Jem died came, and I was so sad it felt like I was just working toward the end of the book to ease the pain. But I should have known! I should have known that if a character's death scene isn't directly portrayed, there's such a great chance that they haven't actually died. >_<

I'm really glad that in the end, Tessa could love both Jem and Will and both of them could love Tessa and that both of them could love each other, even if not in a romantic love kind of way. My biggest OT3. ♥♥♥ There are people who say you can only love one person, and if you love two people, you don't actually love both? But that's just not the way everyone is, so I'm glad Cassie wrote a story about a woman who loves two men so strongly. And everything about the dynamic of the three of them is so deep and interesting. Even in the part where I though Jem was dead, I was still hoping for OT3. ^^; With all of Jem's references to reincarnation, I was kinda thinking maybe it would go that after Will died, Will and Jem would be reincarnated and be drawn to each other and Tessa and have OT3. Yep. That's how dedicated I am to Will/Jem/Tessa.

And just all the relationships in the Infernal Devices are so cool. There're the other romantic relationships, like Charlotte and Henry having their conflicts while still loving each other so much, and Gideon being awkward with Sophie who's had bad experiences with men before, and Gabriel and Cecily getting drawn to each other. Then there are also all the friendships, like Sophie who does Tessa's hair even after Sophie's become a shadowhunter, now as just a friend and not as a maid, and Will and Jessamine reconciling, and Will and Gabriel still poking fun at each other all the way to the end and Magnus and Henry bonding over inventions. And there's Will and Cecily's relationship with their parents and with each other, and also the whole institute being like a family. It's all so great. The characters are interesting because of their relationships, and the relationships between them are interesting because their characters are well-rounded and interesting. It's great.

Current Mood: happy

I want to write a post on livejournal, but don't really have anything to post about. Or rather, there are plenty of things I could post about, but they don't seem good enough. I don't feel like doing much recently though. Maybe I need to give myself a project again. I guess it can be rambling post time again.

I decided to re-read the Harry Potter series over this summer, and finally got around to starting it a few days ago. I'm still on the first book though, and they still haven't even gotten to Hogwarts yet. I guess I'm just not in the mood right now. For reference though, I can read books of equal or greater length in under a day when I'm in the mood to.

It's been good for me to do fan translations, because I look up a lot of words I wouldn't bother looking up if I was just reading for comprehension. Just today, I learned that the original meaning ガキ, a word which is used to talk about kids, is hungry ghost/preta. 餓鬼

It's been a while, so unrelated video of the post time. I don't know what to think of my taste in music because I have no real reference. In the end, more than good vs bad music, there's music you like and music you don't like, right? Not that I know what good or bad music is.

I find myself wanting to interact with people but not having anything I want to say. Nothing's really going on, but I don't think that's all it is. I kept a journal while I was in Japan, but I got less and less interested in writing in it, even when lots of things were happening. I still kept up with it, but I don't know how to describe or explain that mood.

On Tuesday, I finally bought Clockwork Prince. I really enjoyed it, so I decided to just list out things I really liked about it (in no particular order). Spoilers follow.

( CP SPOILERS )

Unrelated but awesome video of the post.

Current Mood: tired

Am I gonna get in the habit of making posts at night like this? I don't know.

I am alone in the house right now, so I am taking advantage of it to　listen to music and sing to my heart's content.　I also made brownies. Just because. Because we have eggs and I want to use them before they go bad. I think I'll eat eggs tomorrow.

Maybe I should make a "shit no one cares about" tag. Except it would just apply to something in all of my entries.

( Shit someone might care about )

To close, a video completely unrelated to anything else in my post, except for the title. That's related. What do you think? I like the song and the video.

Current Mood: giddy
Current Music: Jenny wa Gokigen Naname - Perfume

The 4th of July. Another one of those horrible days when mail isn't delivered. And also the day when the nation in which I live was formed or something a couple hundred years ago. There are also fireworks, and those are pretty cool. Sundays are my least favorite day of the week because mail isn't delivered. It's super boring.

This is probably gonna be one of those I waited forever before posting so it ends up really long posts. Fair warning. So I mentioned in my last post from over 2 weeks ago that I had been watching j-dramas and a movie. Well I also read a book. Anyway, sum-up post. I'll try to be brief since there's a lot of ground to cover:

( Whee (Spoilers generally avoided) )

I also got my copy of Arashi's Scene Dome+ dvds and watched it, and it was all amazing! I got the LE, so watching all the extras was fun too. <3

If you want to know more details or more of my thoughts on anything I posted about, just comment and I'll answer. :> You can also comment if you want to mention something to me or ask me about something completely unrelated to this post. I won't mind much. I don't get many comments anyway.　Also, Koda Kumi, just because.

Current Mood: sleepy

So, probably a long post today. You are warned now.

I preordered City of Fallen Angels, the latest book in the Mortal Instruments series, and it arrived in the mail on Friday. I finished Sunday morning (by which I mean 12 something am). I would've finished it sooner if I hadn't been so busy this weekend. >_<( slight spoilers ) So now that I'm done, the friend that got me into the series in the first place is borrowing it. ^^ So looking forward to talking about everything with her.

All right, rest of the weekend: a sex education program called I <3 Female Orgasm came to present on campus. The presentation was really fun, and I bought the book they had. I've already started to read it, and it has a lot of good advice. I participated in a Chinese and Japanese translation contest held by my school every year (in the Japanese part, of course). It was pretty fun. My level translated a short thing about sakura and sakura trees. We'll hear about the results on Friday.

I've been getting into this band called Soutaiseiriron (相対性理論) recently.　Meaning of their name: Theory of Relativity. Song sample here.

( random stuff )

Current Mood: bouncy

Quick update before I get completely wrapped up in fun over break and forget to update again.

My order from CDJapan arrived a day late, which was really weird because, according to tracking, it went on a bizarre detour to Quebec (Note: I don't really live particularly close to Quebec) right after being in the closest major city to where I live. Yeah, I don't get it either. I trust Fedex a little less after this. <.< Anyway, when it did come, the P3 x P4 calendar I ordered also came with a poster with the same image as the calendar cover and a big sheet of stickers. I'm never quite sure how to use stickers I have. Hmmm, Ferdinand (my computer) is looking pretty plain.

I also watched the two episodes of Psych this week. I'm really looking forward to the season finale and the end of the Yin Yang Trilogy. ^^ I also watched a marathon of Burn Notice on Thursday and watched a rerun of the season finale of that on Saturday, since I missed it on Thursday.

Alright, final new and exciting things: I finished reading Clockwork Angel last night! I enjoyed it so much that when I went to a Borders on Thursday with my family, I bought another book by the same author, City of Bones. I've started reading City of Bones today, and it looks to be another enjoyable read. Also, when I went to Borders, I bought volume 4 of Ooku. BTW, the movie version based off of volume 1 of Ooku is coming out on DVD in April. Of course, this is in Japan, but still, I kinda want it. T_T

Current Mood: geeky

Yay! Semester completed. Break time is now! Okay, so I've already been home for close to two days, but Saturday evening and Sunday I was spending time with my family. Today is the first day I get to be home alone at all.

The end of the semester seems to have gone okay, but I'll wait until grades are out to say for certain. There were a few interesting things that happened in the last days of class. In Latin class, our professor gave us this wonderful quote: "If you're going to be a filthy manwhore, at least go to a prostitute." For context, he was talking about a certain incident involving Cato the Elder. Also, because he was only here for a semester, he gave us all handshakes on the last day. It was kinda sad, since he was a really fun and really good professor. In Japanese class, our professor showed us this video, which I had already seen before because one of my friends showed it to me. It was still especially funny, though, because she keep saying 「違う、違う」 throughout the video. And in Greek class, in the very last class, our professor was talking about some job interview he had and was saying that he would pretend to be Italian and speak with a ridiculous Italian accent, which led to him running around the classroom while singing the Mario song. He also did the song that plays when Mario gets an invincibility star.

On Wednesday last week, I learned about the sale on CDJapan and bought the P3 and P4 2011 calendar and Arashi's All the Best 1999-2009 album. So of course THE NEXT DAY preorders go up for the Scene tour dvd. :/ I still preordered it from YesAsia, of course. (I had a coupon to use ^_^) Well, my order from CDJapan is arriving tomorrow! Since I picked the FedEx shipping option because it was the fastest and was surprisingly, less expensive than some of the other shipping options, I got a recorded message from them today telling me that it should be coming tomorrow (which I already knew from the tracking). And on the way home, my parents took me to Mitsuwa! I ate katsudon and bought more magazines. <3

So one of my friends lent me a book, Clockwork Angels, during Thanksgiving Break, and since I didn't have time to read it all before leaving for winter break, she's letting me borrow it over break too. I was reading more of it yesterday, and I think I especially love the dialogue. I'm getting close to halfway through it, and it's a big book, so I'll probably finish it quickly. She also recommended some Harry Potter fanfiction for me to read. I don't read much in that fandom usually, so it should be interesting, lol.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: my parent's house

So now I want to play BlazBlue... I'll figure out some solution for this. I think I'll have to end up getting a PS3 sometime, so I've decided that I'll get the PS3 version of Sengoku Basara 3 when it comes out. I know I'm a lot stingier than a lot of people and a lot more conservative with my money than a lot of people, but it still feels bad to think about spending so much of it. (Case in point.)

Today I decided to read some. So, starting in the early afternoon, with a book I was less than halfway through, I read it the rest of the way through, with about two brief breaks... It's nice that I can have time to read like this. ^_^ Also nice to have something to read. When it comes to actual books, I feel like I'm kind of lacking in reading material. Not that I need recommendations. It just feels like my access to fiction books is limited while I'm at school.

Meme I came across. I commented on the entry; I couldn't escape.

♥ Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their LiveJournal.
♥ Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
♥ Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on.

( prtsc )

Current Mood: calm

"Aspice num mage sit nostrum penetrabile telum"
Vergil's Aeneid, Book X line 481

I know I haven't read anywhere near all the lines of the Aeneid, but I still have to say that this is probably one of the most powerful lines in there. It's not all that striking out of context, so it might be hard to understand out of context. Still, when I read this line I felt pierced, struck, probably not unlike how Pallas felt with a spear sticking out of his chest... Okay, not quite so completely struck as having a spear sticking out of me would probably feel, but this line left me completely awestruck. So awestruck that I felt I needed to say it.

See whether our weapon is more able to penetrate.

This one-line quotation from Turnus after he throws his spear after Pallas' spear only grazes him is all the more powerful since most quotations in epic poetry run for several lines. This is the kind of thing that makes me believe that Vergil was actually an honestly good writer.

( Some things I probably should have posted about a while ago )

In other other other other news, I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, in which I will hopefully learn what the results of all those blood tests mean. Hooray!