Plenty to read
I went to the UQ Alumni Book Fair today. I came home with 19 books. Guess how much I paid for the lot? $24.10. I'm rather happy with that. Want to see what I got?
Fiction
To Ride Pegasus by Anne McCaffrey. Anne McCaffrey is fantastic. The book has Pegasus in the title. How could I not?
Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer. Sci-fi. I thought this was one of Sawyer's books I'd read in Canada, but now I think it's one I haven't read yet. All the better.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. I've never read this. I ought to.
The Compass Rose by Ursula K. LeGuin. An anthology by Ursula LeGuin. No more reason required. I think I read this one in Canada.
Perchance to Dream edited by Damon Knight. Intriguing-looking anthology of dream-centric fantasy stories. Includes stories by H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, interestingly enough.
Momo by Michael Ende. I love The Neverending Story. I've seen the German edition of Momo often in the library, but I don't think I've ever seen an English translation. Can't wait to read it!
The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit. I really like a couple of other E. Nesbit books I have, and this one looks interesting. Blurb excerpt:
Five children find a magic carpet, able to journey though time and space, and inside it a strange edd which hatches into the Phoenix, an ancient and honourable bird who elps them have adventures which never turn out exactly as planned.
The Dark Caller by Louise Cooper. The second in a dark-ish YA fantasy trilogy I read in high school. I have the first book, but I haven't read the others since about year 8.
Great Pyramid Mystery by De Wolfe Morgan. This was a totally random find. It looked so fun that I had to get it. Blurb excerpt:
An Egyptian teenager and his friend match wits with a mysterious enemy, whose weapons include poison gases and deadly snakes!
Legends & Literature
The Saga of Asgard by Roger Lancelyn Green. I have an Arthurian book and a Robin Hood book by the same author. He's a good storyteller. And I don't know enough Norse mythology.
The Tale of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green.
The Idylls of the King by Tennyson. I love Arthurian stuff, but I've never read this. Shame on me. It has other poems in it too.
A Chaucer Reader edited by Charles W. Dunn. It's pretty much all bits and pieces from the Canterbury Tales, but it's a nicely-done book, with promising-looking glosses. And I've only read The Miller's Tale and some of the Prologue already, so reading more will be good.
Non-fiction
Lost Worlds: Scientific secrets of the ancients by Robert Charroux. An interesting-looking book on surprising science in ancient civilisations.
The Linguistic History of English by Manfred Gorlach. The development of the English language in more technical terms than I've learnt about it before. Should be very interesting.
Syntax: A generative introduction by Andrew Carnie. A linguistics textbook. Since I'm not able to do the Generative Syntax course, I hope to read about it myself at some point.
Language as a Cognitive Process: Volume 1: Syntax by Terry Winograd. Not exactly sure how to sum this one up. Looks to be kind of useful for thinking about language algorithmically.
Spoken Natural Language Dialog Systems: A practical approach by Ronnie W. Smith and D. Richard Hipp. It may be fifteen years old but chapter one is called "Achiving spoken communication with computers". Looks mostly geared at speech recognition. Should be some interesting stuff nevertheless.
Costume by James Laver and John Mansbridge. A tiny little book with neat sketches of clothing from 1000 to 1900.
As if I don't have enough things to do with my time already.
Now, the biggest question: what shall I read first? It's good timing, I've finished both the books I was in the middle of (Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the third book in the Soldier Son trilogy by Robin Hobb), so it's time to start a new book. Hmm, so many choices...
PS. Over a quarter of the books I got were non-fiction. Wow. I'm rather proud, really. Actually, it reflects the availability at the fair - it is a university book fair after all, it's mostly non-fiction. Which is good, as I ought to have more non-fiction in my life. Not too much, of course - fiction is terribly important. But a little more non-fiction would do me good.
Fiction
To Ride Pegasus by Anne McCaffrey. Anne McCaffrey is fantastic. The book has Pegasus in the title. How could I not?
Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer. Sci-fi. I thought this was one of Sawyer's books I'd read in Canada, but now I think it's one I haven't read yet. All the better.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. I've never read this. I ought to.
The Compass Rose by Ursula K. LeGuin. An anthology by Ursula LeGuin. No more reason required. I think I read this one in Canada.
Perchance to Dream edited by Damon Knight. Intriguing-looking anthology of dream-centric fantasy stories. Includes stories by H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, interestingly enough.
Momo by Michael Ende. I love The Neverending Story. I've seen the German edition of Momo often in the library, but I don't think I've ever seen an English translation. Can't wait to read it!
The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit. I really like a couple of other E. Nesbit books I have, and this one looks interesting. Blurb excerpt:
Five children find a magic carpet, able to journey though time and space, and inside it a strange edd which hatches into the Phoenix, an ancient and honourable bird who elps them have adventures which never turn out exactly as planned.
The Dark Caller by Louise Cooper. The second in a dark-ish YA fantasy trilogy I read in high school. I have the first book, but I haven't read the others since about year 8.
Great Pyramid Mystery by De Wolfe Morgan. This was a totally random find. It looked so fun that I had to get it. Blurb excerpt:
An Egyptian teenager and his friend match wits with a mysterious enemy, whose weapons include poison gases and deadly snakes!
Legends & Literature
The Saga of Asgard by Roger Lancelyn Green. I have an Arthurian book and a Robin Hood book by the same author. He's a good storyteller. And I don't know enough Norse mythology.
The Tale of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green.
The Idylls of the King by Tennyson. I love Arthurian stuff, but I've never read this. Shame on me. It has other poems in it too.
A Chaucer Reader edited by Charles W. Dunn. It's pretty much all bits and pieces from the Canterbury Tales, but it's a nicely-done book, with promising-looking glosses. And I've only read The Miller's Tale and some of the Prologue already, so reading more will be good.
Non-fiction
Lost Worlds: Scientific secrets of the ancients by Robert Charroux. An interesting-looking book on surprising science in ancient civilisations.
The Linguistic History of English by Manfred Gorlach. The development of the English language in more technical terms than I've learnt about it before. Should be very interesting.
Syntax: A generative introduction by Andrew Carnie. A linguistics textbook. Since I'm not able to do the Generative Syntax course, I hope to read about it myself at some point.
Language as a Cognitive Process: Volume 1: Syntax by Terry Winograd. Not exactly sure how to sum this one up. Looks to be kind of useful for thinking about language algorithmically.
Spoken Natural Language Dialog Systems: A practical approach by Ronnie W. Smith and D. Richard Hipp. It may be fifteen years old but chapter one is called "Achiving spoken communication with computers". Looks mostly geared at speech recognition. Should be some interesting stuff nevertheless.
Costume by James Laver and John Mansbridge. A tiny little book with neat sketches of clothing from 1000 to 1900.
As if I don't have enough things to do with my time already.
Now, the biggest question: what shall I read first? It's good timing, I've finished both the books I was in the middle of (Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the third book in the Soldier Son trilogy by Robin Hobb), so it's time to start a new book. Hmm, so many choices...
PS. Over a quarter of the books I got were non-fiction. Wow. I'm rather proud, really. Actually, it reflects the availability at the fair - it is a university book fair after all, it's mostly non-fiction. Which is good, as I ought to have more non-fiction in my life. Not too much, of course - fiction is terribly important. But a little more non-fiction would do me good.