Reading- I do occasionally expand my horizons to include things other than pirated manga and fanfic. Occasionally.

After finally returning my other library books (nearly a four dollar fine, I suck), I picked up a few more; volumes 5 and 6 of Petshop of Horrors, Conrad's Fate, Villa Incognito, and The Iron Council. That's two ambiguously gay manga, one Diana Wynne Jones, one Tom Robbins, and one China Mieville. I think I've outdone myself in terms of a random crossection this time.

Petshop of Horrors is spazzy ambiguous fun with small children, animals, and cops, and has yet to disappoint me. It's pretty, too, and I'm hella shallow. :) I'm so happy the library carries it.

Now, Diana Wynne Jones is my favorite children's book author, even more so than Bruce Coville or Zilpha Keatly Snyder (though I still really, really, really want to finish the Below the Root trilogy), despite the fact that I never read very much of her when I was a child. I did, however, read my first Chrestomanci book in third grade, and Charmed Life is still one of my favorite books. I adore the Chrestomanci series (bizarrely anachronistic British children's fantasy with alternate universes!); when I found out she'd written a new one, I was rather excited.

Chewed through it in an afternoon; have decided I want to bear Christopher Chant's obnoxious little forgetful magical babies. Have also decided that I want someone to write Christopher/Conrad/Millie fic, and that I am a horrible person for wanting this. (I'd settle for Christopher and Conrad fooling around while Millie is away at boarding school, even. Or Conrad and Millie having a "Why isn't Christopher in on this too?" "Because he's a prat," make-out session, or Christopher wondering why Conrad hasn't got a girlfriend and Millie thwapping him with a newspaper for being clueless.) I still think Charmed Life is my favorite in the series, but Conrad's Fate probably ties with The Lives of Christopher Chant for second place because of my aforementioned love of Mr Chant.

By the by- This Person has a few Chrestomanci fics, most of them crossovery and delicious.

I've started Villa Incognito; I have to stop every few pages to make incoherent noises at the book. (You know the ones- "Aaaaaaaaahh. AaaaaAAaaahhh.") This isn't because the book is so amazingly funny or shocking (even if it is); it's because I'm a rabid Naruto fan, and at the moment two of the primary characters are Tanuki and Kitsune, and I am a shameless dork. No, seriously. Shameless.

The only other Tom Robbins book I've read is Jitterbug Perfume; I keep telling myself I need to reread it again, but I haven't recently. Whenever I do, I feel an insatiable urge for beets and honey and jasmine tea (but not the three together, necessarily). It's an awesome book, utterly absurd, and the reason I will occasionally tell people to stop putting Descartes before the horse. (Sex! Lies! Two thousand year old perfume bottles! Dinosaur brains! More sex! Immortality! Root vegetables!)

I haven't started Iron Council yet, but China Mieville, pwns j00 and your puny soul. Fear the wrath of his steampunk. Perdido Street Station ate my brain (turned it into rotting lemony goo and slurped it right up) and briefly had weird anthro investigative journalist characters filling up the free space in my skull, but I've since recovered. Iron Council doesn't look quite as intimidating as Perdido Street; I'm hoping for a better ending from it, as well. A deus ex, no matter how cool its alias, is still just a deus ex. On the other hand, just about everything else about the book was amazing (the giant rhyming omnipotent spider in particular), so I'm looking forward to another adventure in New Crobuzon. Mieville may occasionally play fast and loose with his plots (only occasionally), but his world building is fucking amazing- if gritty and disgusting industrial revolution sort of things are your thing.

Yay, books.