There's a new book coming out by Joyce Tyldesley, entitled Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt. Already out in Europe, its U.S. release date is soon, and from the review...

...Octavian staged it? O.o

j00licious made me do it! ( Book meme )

It's World Book Day! Go adopt a book from the British Library.

So, what have the participants picked as the "most precious" book this year? Pride and Prej! The Top 100 Books at large are an interesting peruse, and I'm glad to say I've read a fair number of them.

The Nat'l Education Association is also sponsoring Read Across America Day tomorrow to coincide with the birthday of Theodore Seuss Geisel. Seussical tidings!

I found Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain today, translated into modern French, for €0.10. I rock.

Have finished Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? The encyclopedia of modern life, picked up as a BookCrossing book from silja. It's vaguely amusing, but not a must-read. Will leave it open for a release-to-friend for a couple days before releasing it in the wild, so leave a note if you'd like it. The only condition is that it get passed on to someone else when you've finished.

Next on my list (actually started over lunch this afternoon) is Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. This has been in the queue essentially since I read Starship Troopers donkey's years ago. I like his style; he's obviously a snarky bastard, and it makes me laugh. I picked it up recently because I've been re-acquainting myself with a healthy self-image (back down to 60 kg as of today!). Was remembering something damionreed said back when we were dating, about feeling like a character out of Heinlein for being with an intelligent redhead or some such, and realised I was in the mood for some sci-fi snark. Still haven't made it through the Beranek Canon, or even through my own giant list of things to read before I die, but will try.

So, as inannajones has stated, the Trinity library can really suck. Now that I've gotten around to reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I've put in requests for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I keep getting vague notes back, reading, "Not on Shelf," to which the librarians glibly say, "Just put another docket in tomorrow." I despair of ever getting that book. I'd intended to take this last weekend off, lay in bed, and read; since I didn't get my book, I revised my journal article, and otherwise didn't take a break as intended. This is what comes of inefficient libraries.

Might I be able to borrow it from someone?

I recently finished reading Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer. It's sci-fi, but contained some intelligent dialogue on intelligent design versus creationism or evolution theory. Was not only a book that I did not throw across the room, but was a book I actually enjoyed. Fancy that.

Have been keeping an eye on the growth, progress and decay of Hurricane Katrina, which had been an F-5 storm but has now been downgraded to tropical storm (55 kt winds and 981 mb). Her winds had sustained at over 200 mph, so had there been an F-6 rating on the Fujita scale, I've heard Katrina would have made it. Yesterday I predicted to some co-workers that her storm track would lead west of us, and (hah!) it looks like she'll be tracking up the Ohio Valley from where she is currently in Tennessee. I still think that the worst of the rain will -probably- continue to remain west of us, but it might still cause some flooding along the Delaware River. If you want to follow along, Intellicast has good charts.

Hee hee hee. Thank you, chris_brigham, for that bit of nostalgia.

Finally finished Naked Lunch. Was generally disturbing, which was only to be expected, as it was written by a recovering heroin junkie. The "plot" is really disjointed, disorienting, disconcerting, discordant...a lot of dis-es, but honestly I'm glad I read it because the William S. Burroughs' command of words, at least, is brilliant. Had the rest of the book not been so massively fucked up, I'd think he was an amazing writer. On the down side, this means I need to find something else to read. Am going after some Michael Moorcock--the Von Bek stuff, since Jason recommended it, and The Jewel in the Skull, just because it sounds like something I'd have read...uh, probably 10 years ago by now (that's a scary concept) and want to see if it's the same thing I remember. May also request The Mists of Avalon from Santry, since I never quite finished it when Andy lent it to me, and I'm not exactly going to be able to borrow it again. ( ::shakes fist at the sky:: Bad monkey, dying on me! )

Any book recommendations would be most welcome.

As regards German cooking, the fish croquettes underwhelmed me, but the potato and tomato with dill sauce casserole was really tasty, and the pretzels are just baked. I'm making some with salt and some, because I'm a genius, with white and brown sugar and cinnamon, so I have something for breakfast and snackies tomorrow. (Did I just say snackies? Damn you Whitney!) To grease the baking pans I used hemp oil--hey, it's got nutritional information on the back. Doubt it makes good *Brownies*, though. Yes, the stars are mandatory.

I had to use store-bought yeast, because sadly, my bread starter seems to have gone off. It was invaded by some culture that turned it orange and made it smell unpleasantly like cheese though I've been caring for it as I should. I think it just comes of all the mildew that had been in the bathroom until I moved in and bleached the place like an overclocked soccer mom. Some of that ::shudder:: was orange.

Really inspiring lecture at the National Museum today on Egyptian poetry and landscape. The lecturer, Dr. Stephen Quirke from University College London, used both these in order to bring you closer to the human side of ancient Egyptian culture--he read us poetry in old Egyptian (and some Demotic!) and described various elements of the culture, ones which don't approach the massive perfection of the pyramids, in order to humanize and deconstruct the objectification of ancient Egypt as a culture. He told us to approach them from a view of modern Egypt, with its color and richness and dignity. I've always been captivated by Egypt, to the point of taking Dr. Redford's lower-level Egyptian mythology class (not the one where you have to translate the actual hieroglyphs, sadly), and this really changed my outlook.

On my quest to get through the Tanakh, am on 1 Samuel. I'm finding I like it better than the disturbing trippiness of Naked Lunch right before bedtime. Reading Burroughs is givin' me Kafka dreams. Buh. Speaking of which, sort of, I had a strange dream where the lead singer of Type O Negative really was the Green Man, but at the same time he was Jason. I think that's another one of those episodes of "visceral religiousness," to paraphrase chris_brigham, to which I seem to be prone. It was kinda like that waking dream I had a while ago about Jason. Hm. Curiouser and curiouser.