I’ve been reading science fiction nearly nonstop — took a break this weekend to finally read Dragonhaven, really didn’t care for it overall. I read the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars books, A Princess of Mars and have the second book on order from the library. I’m halfway through The Golden Transcendence now, and still working on Worlds Apart; the latter is so scholarly that it takes some time and concentration to go through. (Also, the reading is so good that I don’t want to miss anything by being tired or distracted.)

I went through all of my writing notes last night (everything loose, that is) and got rid of most everything written pre-NaNoWriMo 2002. My high school writing, by and large, was crap, and most of the ideas weren’t worth keeping. I found a lot of newer ideas to keep, however, and now everything is organized by project, and better yet, all in one place. I have a nice bookish/writerly corner of my office going. (The rest of it is a disaster area.)

I’ve been going through my library again, in anticipation of a future Powell’s visit, purging out any books I don’t use for reference and/or don’t feel like reading again. Temporarily I have more shelf space, but aforementioned future visit will assuredly eat up any space I might have at this point in time. (And probably put me back into negative shelf space.) Some things I’ve read, liked and am selling, because I don’t feel the need to reread (or the desire; I reread things I really, really like, and not everything I like has the stick-with-me power it needs to stay on my shelf.)

It’s illuminating to see what stuff I’m selling despite liking — what things really speak to me and what don’t. Good books are dishes I like to relish again and again, annually or not-so-annually. Some days I wake up and find I have need to dip into an old but familiar story, a well-loved setting, and refresh myself.

…I keep telling myself I’m not going to review Dragonhaven, but it’s almost impossible to post and not express my feelings just a little! Some things were quite interesting. Some premises were really… super great. And the telling of the story, and certain other things about the book made it almost torturous to read — in fact, I just barely crawled out of the first chapter, and I only tried the second chapter because I could not believe I was reading my favorite author and yet disliking it so much. The end of the second chapter was just interesting enough that I kept going. So I kept going. And it was a challenge book and I’m not sorry I read it, but BLAH! I have a few “dragon” books around here to be read and I want to read one of them because I feel unsatisfied. (I’m keeping my fantasy intake down low, while I expand my sci-fi reading intensely; reading for research, breadth and depth on about six five different topics, lol.)

So… there’s your book report for this week? What a nerd am I!