Priiiiiiivate eyes (clap clap!) are watching you!

[aftertherockets]

Hi, hello! Some things!

1. Book recs! I need them. There is this chain of used bookstores about 45 minutes from my house called Friends of the Library, they get their books from the county's public libraries and various donations, and everything in there is super super cheap. My roommate and I have started going once every couple of months or so, and every time I walk out with 8-10 decent quality used books for under $20. HOWEVER! Whenever I go in, I'm pretty overwhelmed because I don't actually know what I'm looking for. So, book recs! I need them! What are you guys reading? What have you read recently? I'm especially looking for some sci-fi/fantasy recs in the Gaiman and Pratchett vein, but anything will do really. Walking down those aisles it's hard to tell what will be fun and what will be straight up not something I want to read, since I don't have anything to go on but a book jacket blurb. It would be helpful to have a list of things to look for! :)

2. A friend of mine from high school sent me a link to this, and it is basically the greatest music video EVER MADE. Surprise marching band attack! Everyone ever needs to watch it. RIGHT NOW.

Seriously, are you not grinning from ear to ear right now?

3. Psych returns tonight! I am very excited! I don't know if you know this, but there is very little I love more in this world than a good Hall & Oates dance party. And the best song for a good Hall & Oates dance party? Priiiiiivate eyes! Are watching you! They see your eeeeevery move! So pretty much? This is the best promo ever ever ever:

I'm not which part I like most - Gus' eye-pop, or Lassiter quietly drumming in the background. Or Shawn's mullet. It's all gold.

4. I got nothin' else. Book recs! Give me yours! :D

Comments

Book recs, you say?

[egosomnio.livejournal.com]

I always recommend the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher - eleven books so far (see here for the specific books; it probably isn't strictly necessary to read them in order, since a lot of the main concepts are explained pretty much once a book, but you'll get a lot of spoilers about previous books if you go out of order). Urban fantasy / hardboiled detective, with lots of geeky references and some fun silliness (including the Pizza Lord's Guard, which is a bunch of faeries loyal to the protagonist; and the immortal battle cries "I don't believe in fairies!" and "Polka will never die!") thrown in despite it getting pretty dark at times. It's been described on TV Tropes as an entire series of Crazy Awesome. So keep an eye out for those.

Snowcrash, by Neal Stephenson, is crazy sci-fi, kind of like a Gibson novel put in a blender with some laughing gas and a copy of the first Matrix movie.

Job: A Comedy of Justice, by Heinlein, is sort of a religious satire. Alternate realities, Heaven, Hell, other afterlifes, and deities being inveterate gamblers all play a part.

Most things Bordertown are good. Mostly anthologies of short stories, it's a shared-world urban fantasy series. Little bit of everything you might expect to come across in urban fantasy.

If you've ever got a lot of free time, George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire is an epic (I am not using that word lightly), barely-fantasy series. Serious, dark, and long, but very good. Still in the works, and being made into an HBO series at the moment. Starts with A Game of Thrones.

The Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser is also good. Not sci-fi/fantasy, but historical satire. The protagonist is an absolute cad - a bullying, self-serving, cowardly, deceitful, womanizing, cowardly, racist (it's set mostly during the middle of the 19th century, so he's probably actually a little less racist than a significant portion of the population was, but still), boozing, and cowardly glory hound. Imagine if the biggest two-bit thug in the background of some other book was given a sharp wit and let loose in his own series - that's pretty much what this is (the Flashman character is adopted from an antagonist in a book published in 1857). I wouldn't worry about the order at all in this one, since they're not written in chronological order and Flashman references events in previous and later (and never written) volumes indiscriminately.

Of course I also enjoy old hardboiled detective books, like those by Raymond Chandler and Dasheil Hammett, but those are hardly everyone's cup of tea. Lovecraft is always good for weird horror. There are a couple of books of recollections and what not from Richard Feynman (possibly best described as a whacky scientist; he's the sort of guy who got bored while working on the Manhattan Project and decided to learn safe cracking to screw with security - good idea to check the blurbs on anything by him if you're not looking for treatises on quantum electrodynamics or the like) that are entertaining and good for when you've just got ten, fifteen minutes at a pop to read.

Um. That's all I've got right now.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jems_/]

I've enjoyed the first four Women of the Underworld books. Book five has been a little less engrossing, but I'm pretty sure I'll continue with it sooner or later.

[manduhchow.livejournal.com]

I am addicted to used book stores too! In Towson there is a chic used book store called Ukazoo and next store to it is a record and tape traders. If you go, plan on spending half of your day! + they have free coffee that is amazing.

First I would like to say I second the recommendation for Snowcrash. I had to read this book for an anthropology class and it is something I never would guess that I would enjoy, but I did.

I am currently in mist of reading a ton of required material for my grad class, but in between my mind mush I am reading the lastest Kristin Cashore, Fire. She is a new author, but I did see her first book Graceling already in a used book store!

My recent used book store finds are by authors Agatha Christie (detective stories), Robin McKinley (Sci-fi/fantasty + one of my new favorite authors), Alison Croggon(fantasy), and a random book called Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks, which is about the hidden world of Islamic women.

If you are looking for fun sci-fi, look for books by Anne McCaffrey and Karen Traviss.

[delenn-xi.livejournal.com]

Firstly: HAPPY BIRTHDAY YAY :D

Those videos made me happy!

Book recs hmmm. I feel like I should have a lot but I can't think of too many right now (I've been reading too many comics lately, I guess they are ruining my brain?). You've probably read some of these or they are not to your taste but here are the few I can think of: Rendezvous with Rama is one I always like to re-read. Also Contact and pretty much anything else by Carl Sagan, though I also enjoy science non-fiction so ymmv on this one. I Am Legend was good, much better than the film I thought, though it's more of a short story than a book.... Going back to the non-fiction I really enjoyed Virus Hunter and The Hot Zone and a few other books in that vein. Band of Brothers too... Clearly I am quite fail at this.

You mentioned Pratchett, have you read the Discworld books? If so yay! If not, they can be quite fun.

[egosomnio.livejournal.com]

I'll second I Am Legend. It's really not a zombie movie in book form.

Way to screw up the entire goddamn point, along with making the title meaningless, Hollywood.

[delenn-xi.livejournal.com]

THIS. I kept waiting for them to turn things around in the movie, to make the ending have even close to as much impact as the ending of the book. I was sad when it never happened.

[egosomnio.livejournal.com]

The original ending didn't test well with their focus group whatever audience, so they changed it. Which... Bad as that is, they are in business to get as many people's money as they can, so it's somewhat understandable. We don't have to like it, though.

It's on the DVD, though, and streaming on this site. It's not the same as the book, but it at least veers a lot closer to it than the theatrical release did.

[delenn-xi.livejournal.com]

You? Are awesome. Thanks for linking that. It's still not as good as the book (obviously) but it seems a bit more palatable than what I saw in the theatre. I never even thought to seek out DVD extras since I guess I sort of wrote the movie off after watching it. In summation? Boo focus group.