Posts by Lucy Stewart

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  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    We call ourselves the Owners of Wellington Libraries (OWL) and have active (as required) for about 15 years fighting - first - that 1990s fashion for Business Process Re-engineering in the WCC, which did not understand that concept of public good that libraries provide, and wanted every council activity to be a narrowly defined economic market place.

    Good on you, all of you - the Wellington Public Library was a huge influence on me growing up, and I feel very lucky to have had access to as many books as it provided. I'm glad someone was fighting for it.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    And after reading them, the answer is almost always "no". Either I read it, so that's done, or I didn't want to read it, so that's done, or I didn't have time to read it, so I renew, or I decided I want to read it later, so I let others read it in the meantime.

    Ah, you're one of those funny people who doesn't re-read books. I don't buy books unless I know I'm going to re-read them. Otherwise, as you say, that's what the library's for.

    Lucy Excellent - a mix of things I know and love and things I haven't read but suspect I would like. You are SO in :-)

    Tigana was the first book my partner lent me and The Blue Sword is one I read as a young teen and has stuck with me ever since.

    *fist pump* Tigana is the book I like to beat people over the head with when they tell me that genre writing can't be literature.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    Lucy - I don't know that Margaret Mahy book you mentioned - would it be way beyond the ken of an 11 year old? We are always on the lookout for the next read ..

    Ooooh, it'd be just perfect! It's a book of short stories - fairytales, really - but not traditional fairytales, original ones. Some are funny and some are mystical and some are quirky and they're all brilliant. You get more out of it the older you are but it's essentially a children's book, so not beyond an eleven year old's ken by any means. Definitely worth a try.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    Any locals asked you about the cookbook yet?

    We haven't actually had any locals over yet due to a sad lack of things for them to sit on. However, we're getting a couch today, so that should change shortly.

    Dear Lucy,
    I love you very much.

    Thought you might like that. ;) The aforementioned SFF library also has it in their "suggested books" display. I felt right at home.

    mostly from that amazing outdated idea know as a public library, which I discovered was vastly superior to my own pointless hoard since it contained mostly books I hadn't already read.

    Well, exactly; you get them out from the library so you can find out if you want to buy them.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    Lucy - I really need to know what those twelve books are now.

    Lois McMaster Bujold (Cordelia's Honor), Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel's Dart), Lindsey Davis (The Silver Pigs), Georgette Heyer (The Grand Sophy), Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana), Margaret Mahy (A Door In The Air), Robin McKinley (The Blue Sword), Terry Pratchett (Hogfather), Carl Sagan (Billions and Billions), S. M. Stirling (The Peshawar Lancers), and the Edmonds Cookbook.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: Fighting On,

    He's not the most modest person but he did challenge some very entrenched, ruthless and irrational powers in Academia when there wasn't a lot of support.

    Dutton is not the most modest person in the same way that ACT are not the most socialist politicians.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    I totally do this before deciding how much closer I want to get to a person.

    This, this, this. I picked the twelve books I did get to take very, very carefully based not only on what I would re-read but what they would say to fellow bookshelf scanners. Of course, the message ended up being a little confusing, but oh well.

    I am enjoying, however, access to the second-largest science-fiction and fantasy library on the East Coast, hidden in a campus basement. It doesn't quite make up for what I had to leave behind, but...it helps.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    My 11 year old keen reader adores Footrot Flats too, though most of his little mates have never heard of the series. Their loss, say I.

    My younger brother got a really terrifying amount of his education about the birds and the bees from the dogs and the sheep of Footrot Flats.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    My grandparents had another Lockwood house put next to theirs without any internal walls to hold all of my Opa's books. Those bits of cardboard and paper and words are sacred in my family.

    My husband talked me into buying a Kindle. One of his grounds was that I'll be able to take all the books back with me when we leave again.

    He is technically correct, but vastly overoptimistic about my preference for hardcopy v. electronic. I won't feel properly at home here until I have a few more over-full bookshelves, and we don't even have half of one full yet.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Busytown: Reading Room,

    (I suppose we would need to know the call numbers of those particular shelves to be able to figure out the true intensity of the blow.)

    IIRC those pictures were taken on the third floor, which houses geology, maps, English and other literature, and the records of the New Zealand and Australian Parliaments since eighteen-whenever. The pictures I saw were only of the literature and geology sections, though. So...a great blow for Australian mining, people who can find faultlines, and future book reviewers, then. Not quite sure what that would have implied.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

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