death and literature

[ursula]

One of the perks of my new graduate student status is a fairly impressive gift certificate to the University Bookstore. I went there today and discovered that most of the books it would have been responsible for me to buy (i.e., a Latin textbook and a book on the early stages of a mathematician's career) weren't in, so I had all the money for frivolous purposes-- buying books in hardback, for example, which I almost never do. This bookstore is pretty impressive for the frivolous user: it's sponsoring visits from Lois Bujold and Terry Pratchett in the next week, for example, and Neal Stephenson was here a couple of days ago. I ended up with miscellaneous art supplies, a limited & signed edition of Lois Bujold's new book (which has a silly title involving something or other with paladins), Johnny and the Dead, which has a beautiful premise and an exorbitant price, and a book called White Apples which I started reading in a different bookstore a few months ago.

And I left $20 for future mulling. I need to make a concerted library effort, too: there are books by Ursula Le Guin, Nancy Kress, William Gibson, and Diana Wynne Jones that I haven't read yet.

Then I got home and found out Sarah Seastone had died. This isn't a surprise or anything, but . . . She was my boss of sorts for a couple of years, she was difficult and opinionated and aggressively competent (and impressed by my labours, which always helps), and she took one of the best photos of me I've got as one of those random things one sticks on a webpage of staff.

Comments

[nobu.livejournal.com]

isn't he sexy when he is irrational? ;)

[ursula]

He's always sexy ;)