Skip to main content

You Can Never Have Too Many...

I've admired fantasy author Glenda Larke's work for some time and I have her blog subscribed in Google Reader so I can always read her latest posts.

But I never knew she just lived down the road from me!

I randomly met her on Friday evening in a restaurant near where we lived and recognised her from her pictures on her blog, so I went over and said hello. We had a short chat and then she asks me, "Would you like some reading matter?"

Turns out Glenda's cleaning her house out and is culling some of her books from her personal library. Well, obviously, I'd be happy to help!

The next day, I was over at her house with four shopping bags and look what happened:

Cataloguing this will be very interesting, to say the least.

188 books. 10 books in each stack, except for one stack which has 8 books.

That's altogether 188 books, mostly fantasy but there are some science fiction (finally, I have a copy of Frederick Pohl's elusive Gateway!) and some crime fiction as well.

But the most wonderful discovery amongst these treasures was a book I had been looking for the better part of the last decade. It was a tough search as I had forgotten the title and the author's name and I only remembered a vague outline of the story.

I had read the book back in secondary school and in a moment of extreme dumbness I sold it to NovelHut, a second-hand book store which I've mentioned on this blog several times before. I liked that book, so I don't remember why I actually sold it off. I must have been really desperate for money.

When I pulled the book off Glenda's bookshelf and saw the cover, I took a deep breath as recognition set in and I couldn't believe I had finally found it.

Finally, in my hand, was a copy of The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein:

The cover isn't much but it's a really good book. Honest!

Can't wait to reread it and blog about it. Meanwhile, Jo Walton's writeup on Tor.com is a good introduction to the series. (Wow! I didn't know it was a series!)

Anyway, looks like I now need to go buy some planks of wood and drill some new shelves into the wall or else two-year-old Sophie is going to play librarian and the next thing I'll know she'll shelving these books under the toilet bowl, rather than under "Fantasy/Science Fiction".

And if you haven't read any of Glenda Larke's books, you should, especially if you're into fantasy. The Last Stormlord, book 1 of The Watergivers trilogy is a good place to start. You could also check out Heart of the Mirage, which is the first book of the Mirage Makers trilogy.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Elizabeth Tai29/1/12 7:03 pm

    Glenda Larke lives in Malaysia? ZOMG! Must interview her! ;D BTW, is the sale still on? I know some Star journos who are fantasy fans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ted Mahsun29/1/12 7:17 pm

      Um. It wasn't a sale... she just gave them to me. And I don't think she has any books left. I took almost everything she was giving away... :D

      And yah, you should interview her. She probably has some interesting things to say about the current state of publishing. I think Eyeris interviewed her before but that was yeaaarrrsss back.

      Delete
    2. Elizabeth Tai30/1/12 2:44 pm

      Yes I should! You don't happen to have her number, do you?

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

REVIEW: Confessions of an Old Boy by Kam Raslan

Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life. Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now. I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this ...
5 comments
Read more

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time! The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it. All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame. On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day cover...
5 comments
Read more

REVIEW: Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami.

UPDATE: My Wind/Pinball review can be found here . ISBN: n/a Publisher: n/a Paperback: 160 pages In Murakami fan circles, simply owning a copy of Pinball, 1973 is a mark of hardcore-ness. Like Hear the Wind Sing before it, Haruki Murakami does not allow English translations of Pinball, 1973 to be published outside of Japan. Back in the 80s, Alfred Birnbaum translated it into English and Kodansha published it as a novel for Japanese students who wanted to improve their English. While the English edition of Hear the Wind Sing continues to be reprinted and sold in Japan (and available for a moderate sum via eBay, see my review ), Kodansha stopped its reprint runs of the English edition of Pinball, 1973 and has now become a collector's item, fetching vast amounts of money on auction sites and reseller stores. Last time I checked, the cheapest copy went for USD$2500. Of course, Murakami addicts or the curious can always download a less than legal PDF of the book, painst...
18 comments
Read more