Q

i confess i’ve been a slubberdegullion (yes, i just had to use an recently learnt archaic word because i am annoying) with fiction recently. after a month of heavy non-fic and a few carelessly chosen novels, there came an insane need for good fiction. therefore: prowling about dusty second-hand bookstores.

it’s quite a good haul.. but i was very select with what i got, after disappointing half-reads that are strewn all over the house at this very moment. i hate not finishing what i start out reading.. but i hate having to trudge through bad fiction more than, so.

ANYWAY.

three picks in the fiction haul.

i read a chunk of this in the book store and got a terrible neck ache. slick narrative (which i slipped in so easily i forgot to stop). there were none of those bright moments of word/idea lust YET, i can’t be too quick in my judgement. i suspect it will go into post-colonialism (dislike) and hit a dry patch near middle. then again, i have a penchant for African waif-child with special abilities after Life of Pi so maybe this won’t disappoint.

by God, HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY. guilt wants me to tell you i picked this one out purely because its title is so sublime. so on the cover we have the Hilton sisters decked out in the hot threads of Christmas ’99. despite that, instincts tell me it’ll be good. twins unnaturally codependent (i love weird twin stories), neighbor with OCD, gothic house and the cemetery (symmetry.. geddit?). i’m very excited about this. although i wish i got the plain cover instead of the Christmas Hilton ’99 one for selfish aesthetic reasons.

oh right, and yes. same author as The Time Traveler’s Wife which made me cry, but this one seems stranger and less ideal a la Nicholas Sparks (meh) – YAY. next on the to-get list: Three Incestuous Sisters by her, illustrated!

i’m not sure what this is yet, read the first page and immediately knew i had to have it. it’s in a multiple column format, each a tiny excerpt that seemed more like a poem-monologue hybrid. it’s strangely reminiscent of those monologues we did back in Sec 4, and they are really, really pretty. i felt, slightly, that it’s so good i need to stop for a while thing. flipped through a little and there’s something about Keanu Reeves, and it uses a lot of gimmicks a la Jonathan Safran Foer.. i’m betting it’s good but not consistently. we’ll see.

and also got The Lovely Bones which i’ve read half of in the school library once so thought i’d finish it.

okay that’s all. non-fiction includes Douglas Adam’s really old works, some Mao Ze Dong nonsense (this bookstore is dedicated to Mao, i swear. this woman came in complaining about being sold over-priced Mao propaganda paintings and wanted a refund [yes i was eavesdropping]. apparently she paid a thousand for three pieces. the hell, woman!?) history nonsense that i probably will never read, economics nonsense that looks interesting but i probably will never read because it reminds me of my ungotten A, a Stephen Fry collection of his nonsense, and one about crime.

although nothing will beat John E. Douglas’ works on profiling (HIS WORKS ARE SO ELUSIVE. only ever available in reference libraries and pop-up heartland book carts). the only one i’ve got from him is Obsession, which i’ve read twice over and also referenced for my..

(okay this is where it gets freaky)

…notes on rapist. yeah, okay. i’m trying to keep records of rapists under the four major rapist-types (as propounded by Douglas). so far i’ve categorized the types and their victimology, personality, modus operandi and motive, but haven’t been weird/determined/free enough to catalogue known offenders. also, if i did – my web history will likely lead to my arrest on grounds of potential sex crime.

…potential sex criminal AND possible attempts to overthrow the incumbent cabinet to establish a dictatorship, because of my one-evening madness where i charted out Hitler’s genealogy as far back as autobiographies/the net would allow. it’s nothing that we don’t already know, but Hitler is so full of incest. as was his best buddy Nicholas II of Russia, a fellow anti-Semite. and look where it landed them – art-school rejection angst and suicide for one, an always bleeding son and Rasputin for another (well at least they got to be a Disney movie trolol).

INCEST AND JEW-HATING AIN’T GOOD, PEOPLE.

OH AND ALSO – would you guys be interested in buying metal Pokemon gym badge (Indigo League [Kanto region]) pins if i got them produced? how much are you willing to pay (single/full set)? this is the rough draft – it will be way more symmetrical and with more accurate/vibrant colors. wqingtan@gmail.com.