Books 書物

Arrival of first book from The Book Depository!

About nearly two weeks ago, after having found out about The Book Depository’s free worldwide shipping and handling, I immediately placed an order for Jay Rubin’s* Making Sense of Japanese (ISBN-13 9784770028020) book that I so really wanted, yet would cost so much if ordered from Amazon. I paid only £5.98 in total!! Such a steal ^_^. Anyway the book arrived and I must say I’m not disappointed at all. (Actually I already read quite a number of pages from this book via Amazon before getting the book so there’s no way I would have been disappointed)

Subjects: Books 書物

Tags: Japanese

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke

One of my favourite authors of all time, Arthur C. Clarke, passed away yesterday at the age of 90.

Besides being an extraordinary writer of science fiction novels, he also conceptualised the invention of modern geosynchronous communication satellites. Some of his books that had the greatest impact on me were “The Fountains of Paradise” and “Childhood’s End”. They were mind-blowing sources of inspiration to me during my undergraduate days. The world feels somewhat a lonelier place without him. He will be sorely missed.

Subjects: Books 書物

Mood: Sombre

Tags: Arthur C. Clarke, death

Absolute Sandman Vol. 1 - やっと手に入った!!!

Finally got my hands on the first volume of The Absolute Sandman!

This is one of the most gorgeous books I have ever laid my hands on. And I thought The Photographer’s Led Zeppelin was yummy. XD

Firstly, it’s humongous!! The graphic novels feel so miniscule in comparison. Definitely not something you’d want to take out of the house — but that’s the point of a collector’s book anyway, duh.

Secondly, the recolouring work is amazing. The graphic novels look so drab when put side by side. Additionally, the printing paper used is so much better; everything seems to pop and come alive now.

The only negative thing I can say about it for now is that when I took my book out of the slipcase, I found some nasty little weird cardboard remains sticking to the leather case of the book. I think it’s something leftover from preprocessing that wasn’t removed thoroughly. Such a pain to remove! There’s some very tiny patches of sticky patches left. Not very noticeable but I shall have to find some way to clean it. Anyone knows what’s the best way to gently clean leather? I hate being such a nitpicker but I can’t help it ‘cos I have the collector’s syndrome.

Subjects: Books 書物

Mood: Gratifications, Raves and Rants

Tags: Amazon, BK1, book, Neil Gaiman, Sandman

Colibri

Met 傑義 for dinner tonight. He passed me the autographed copy of Fragile Things (which I very shamelessly got him to carry back from San Francisco), but the coolest thing was learning from him about this software, Colibri, which allows one to open software on one’s PC, favourite URLs (FYI: it even opens a new tab on Firefox), etc, without having to use the mouse!

I have a love/hate relationship with the mouse: I need it especially for designing stuff but really hate using it to open software. The XP pinup menu makes it bit easier, but still, you have to either click on the Start button and keyup/down, or search through the gigantic list of items in the complete Start Programs menu AND remember to sort them alphabetically.

Mac users have probably been going nahh nahh ni nahh nahh for ages and ages. Argh, this makes me feel like saying good riddence to WinXP!!!

Colibri Banzai!

Subjects: Books 書物, Technology 技術

Mood: Discoveries & Relevations

Tags: book, Colibri, Neil Gaiman

Absolute Sandman Vol. 1 -- Released?!

Just checked out Amazon today. Couldn’t believe what I saw: Absolute Sandman Vol.1 for sale? I thought it was supposed to be released in November. This kind of wrecks my plans of using my Amazon Associates voucher that should be paid at the end of the month. Now I’m wondering if I should just go ahead and get the book and save the voucher for next time (maybe for Vol.2).

Subjects: Books 書物

Tags: book, Neil Gaiman, Sandman

Absolute Sandman

Woohoo!!!!

I want this so bad…

Any one wants to buy from me a complete set of Sandman 2nd edition (save two 1st-edition books) softcovers in relatively good condition for a discounted price? …I guess not… (It’s a good thing the USD is quite low right now.)

[EDIT]
How about cost-sharing the shipping… Any one interested in preordering? :-)

Subjects: Books 書物

Mood: Discoveries & Relevations

Tags: book, Neil Gaiman, Sandman

Neil Gaiman Book Signing and Talk 2005-07-05

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Subjects: Books 書物

Tags: Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Tour

Neil Gaiman is coming to Singapore! This isn’t new news but I just had to write something about it sometime. According to his blog (4 May 2005 entry), he’ll be here around 3-6 July. The fangirl in me is trying to figure out what to get him to sign. Ideally, I would like him to sign my huge Japanified-Morpheus-by-Amano poster(s) but that’s going to be too large to carry anywhere. So I suppose I’ll just bring along the Dreamhunters HC as well as a couple of Sandman books. Maybe I’ll go to Kinokuniya, get myself a copy of the Japanese version of Coraline so that it’ll be something different… ^_^ Wonder what his schedule is going to be like. The 4th-6th are weekdays so I might have to work my leave around his visit once things are more confirmed.

Subjects: Books 書物

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: Amano Yoshitaka 天野喜孝, Morpheus, Neil Gaiman, poster, Sandman

Space Elevator

Arthur C. Clarke’s one of my top 5 favourite sci-fi authors, and my favourite book from him would have to be . Set in both imaginary past and the not-too-distant future, it is the tale of two visionaries, a king and an engineer, who envision and put to science fiction reality, the towers of babylon.

And we are now a further step away from this being a mere dream if Bradley Edwards, Director of Research for the Institute for Scientific Research, is to come closer to realising his vision.

An article two years ago that I read from SPACE.com, “The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality”; and its follow-up just a few days ago, “Space Elevator: Momentum Building”.

Subjects: Books 書物, Technology 技術

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: Arthur C. Clarke, physics, science fiction, space elevator

Desired Books: 2004-06-09: Mashou no Ko (Chinese Version)

I already have the Japanese version for this one. But it’s tough to read. So I just have to get this. Not that it’s going to be easy, but at least my Chinese is still better than my Japanese for now.

Mashou no Ko (Chinese Version)Ono no Fuyumi 小野不由美
Japanese Title: 魔性の子 (ISBN 4-10-124021-3)
Chinese Title: 魔性之子(ISBN 957-10-2882-7)

Subjects: Books 書物

Tags: Juuni Kokki 十二国記, Ono Fuyumi 小野不由美

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