Snuffles and woozles

[annwfyn]

*cough*

*cough*

*sneeze*

Bah humbug. Chinese New Year failed to happen last night due to disease. I woke up with a sore throat, and systematically began to feel worse and worse throughout the day, so by evening time I was about capable of lying on a sofa feeling sorry for myself. I think it's just a nasty cold in the head, but there was no way I could sensibly go wandering around Chinatown when I'd started to go slightly giddy and feverish.

Today I am feeling much better. My nose is blocked up, I'm sneezing and I'm weirdly hot wherever I go, but I can breathe a bit better and I'm not feeling unsteady walking downstairs.

*snuffle*

I shall, however, spend today curled up on a sofa with some books and try and avoid moving much. Oh - I did go and see Ocean's 12 yesterday afternoon. I suspect that might have been an error, but Catherine Zeta Jones did have great hair in it. Vincent Cassel, sadly, came across as mostly rather camp.

I'm vaguely pondering books today. Mostly I'm pondering the existence of books which you have read a dozen times, but can still read again and just find the flow of the words comforting. I spent yesterday and a chunk of today reading the Queen's Quarter trilogy by Midori Snyder, which I am aware I need to somehow get to fire_kitten at some point! They are amazingly comforting books. I've read them often, but I can keep reading them, happy to just be in the company of Jobber, and Shedwyn and Tayleb. Do other people have books like this? What would be your rainy snuffly day read of choice?

Comments

Chinese and books

[melsner.livejournal.com]

*Mike heroically spends a willpower to avoid mentioning a certain Book That Shall Not Be Named, since Sally is sick...*

What year is it on the Chinese calendar? I was told that it was "Year of the Cock," but the person who told me that is a Very Gay Man and thus that kind of answer is somewhat suspect to me...

Re: Chinese and books

[kiffkin.livejournal.com]

It's the Year of the Rooster, so your associate is kinda right :D .

Re: Chinese and books

[melsner.livejournal.com]

Oh god, it IS Year of the Cock???

Bah Humbug

[melsner.livejournal.com]

Eek, brain cramp.

You saying "Bah, humbug" in regards to Chinese New Year made me think of some kind of Chinese version of "Dicken's Christmas Carol."

Strangely, I think it would work rather well... Vengeful spirits and ancestral ghosts who teach lessons works pretty damn well in a Chinese setting...

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Books I can read over and over:
- The Dark is Rising Sequence
- The Belgariad
- Harry Potter
- The Chronicles of Prydain.
- first edition werewolf

By now they are all easy reading, they just trigger off child-like feelings of comfort and safety and a faint hint of heroic uplifting. Rain, duvet glass of wine/hot chocolate and one of those books and I'm perfectly comfortable.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

Except that I'd substitute 'Umbra: The Velvet Shadow' for the main W:tA books.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oooh...the Dark is Rising is wonderful! Which is your favourite of those books? I've always had a bit of a fondness for the Greenwitch one.

If we're talking rpg books - the Fading Suns world imperial surveys tend to be one of my comfortable books to flick through as well.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I like the Dark is Rising most... young Will's journey is fantastic, and I always like "learning the mysteries" stories. I also love the Grey King.

But they're all great, and Greenwitch appealed more to me as I got older and less "yuck, girl book".

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I rather liked the 'dealing with the Wild Magic' aspect of Greenwitch, but other than that it didn't really stand out to me.

The Grey King and The Dark Is Rising were far and away my favourites. And I have them all in hardback :)

When the Dark comes rising
Six shall turn it back
Three from the circle
Three from the track
Wood, Bronze, Iron
Water, Fire, Stone
Five shall return
And one go alone

Iron for the birthday
Bronze carried long
Wood from the burning
Stone out of song
Fire from the candle-ring
Water from the thaw
Six signs the circle
And the Grail gone before

Fire on the mountain
Shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the Sleepers
Oldest of the old
Power from the Green Witch
Lost beneath the sea
All shall find the light at last
Silver on the tree

Or, indeed,

On the day of the dead, when the year too dies
Must the youngest open the oldest hills
Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks
Then fire shall fly from the raven boy
And the silver eyes that see the wind...

But I don't remember the rest of that one.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

Mmm... I love Susan Cooper's stuff.

I also have an old Alan Garner box set with Wierdstone, Moon, Owl Service and Elidor.

[suave-steve.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a snuffly day read, mainly because I'm very bad at just being snuffly and tend to just act as if I'm still well and plough on.

[onyxtears.livejournal.com]

It would be my serial killers book. I read it once in a while.
For some reason I seem to forget most of it each time, not sure if it's through shock of what they have done or just time between reading but...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

crimelibrary.com has a website full of serial killers...

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

Jeanette winterson's written on the body. I've read it so many times it's very old and tatty. I think I might actually have to buy a reading/loaning copy as she signed my one.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

*looks embarrassed*

David Eddings' The Belgariad and The Mallorean series. I think because I was given the first 5 when about 9 and in the throes of chicken pox. They take no mental effort and have get well associations.

for mindless cheering up

[fire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise, Magic's Price, known by various friends as 'the gay mage trilogy'.

for the schaden freuder effect, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.