January!

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Not available in my county.
It's January, a new year with fresh new beginnings!  I, however, am groggy from a late night and feeling kind of under the weather, so I don't feel very peppy.  It's a good day to read a lot though, and I have some fun plans for January.

First off, I look forward to January's annual Vintage Science Fiction Month Not-A-Challenge!  I have two goals for this month. 
  1. First, a confession: I have never read Heinlein.  Not one Heinlein book have I read, and I suppose it's time to fix that, so I am planning to read Have Spacesuit--Will Travel, The Puppet Masters, and Starship Troopers.  I would LIKE to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but I have searched this county high and low and there is not a library or a used bookstore or a friend with a copy!  Did you know that there is no ebook version for sale either?
  2. Iron Curtain SF: I have Prisoners of Power, by the Strugatsky brothers (whose Roadside Picnic and Tale of the Troika I liked a lot), and I also found a bunch of Slanislaw Lem, so I'm going to give him a try.  I don't know which to start with!
I'm also excited about Fanda's new challenge, which requires me to pick a medieval work to read for January.  As it happens, I've got rather a lot of medieval literature piled up!  I don't want to pick something that's too long to read in one month, so not the History of the Franks or Venerable Bede.  I'm going to go with Gerald of Wales' Journey Through Wales and Description of Wales, which is from 1188 and is about Gerald's missionary trip in his home country.  I enjoyed his History and Topography of Ireland very much, so I've been looking forward to this one.  It's just too bad that it won't count for the Reading England challenge as well....


I also have some great history to read, and I'm looking forward to reading translations and English literature...so much fun, so little time.


Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 1, 2015 at 1:55 PM

    Heinlein's The Puppetmasters is a ton of fun to read! i have a very well loved and very battered copy. Sorry to hear you're having a tough time finding The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, I know it's been reprinted in the last 10 years or so. If you don't mind paying shipping, try abebooks.com, search the book and you'll find new/used bookstores that are selling it. I've used that website to find many obscure and imported titles, I use the site to find who is selling it, then call the bookstore to arrange payment and shipping.

    Thanks for the mentioning the Strugatsky brothers, i have to to read them on of these days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kristen M.January 1, 2015 at 5:20 PM

    Classic sci-fi is one area that I need to delve into one day, especially an author like Heinlein!

    ReplyDelete
  3. looloolooweezJanuary 1, 2015 at 5:20 PM

    Happy New Year (and happy belated blog birthday, too)! Sounds like you have a pretty intense month planned. I was about to ask if you'd tried an interlibrary loan for the The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but then I saw in your About Me section that you're a librarian so I imagine you don't need that advice, haha!

    ReplyDelete
  4. JeanJanuary 1, 2015 at 11:03 PM

    Yeah, I'm just going to get the libraries to purchase copies--they ought to have them, it's just that they've wandered off over the years. That won't get it to me in January, but that's OK. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. ArenelJanuary 3, 2015 at 11:08 AM

    I have an epub of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (which I've been meaning to read for ages, BTW), and I can share it with you if you are not too scrupulous about where the book came from :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rick RobinsonJanuary 3, 2015 at 4:13 PM

    MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS is available used on the net for $3 or so and is in print new in paperback for about $9.Sometimes copies ooo up on PaperBack BookSwap, but there are none at present.

    ReplyDelete

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