Facts

matildabj tagged me on the random facts meme: Write 20 random facts about yourself then tag the same amount of people as minutes it takes you to write the facts.

( Read more... )

Don't like tagging much, feel free to tag yourself.

How to start reading Bujold

lizblackdog and I had a short exchange about Lois McMaster Bujold in the comments on another post, and I said I'd come up with a suggested reading order for her books. Then it turned out fictualities hadn't read any, so Something Had To Be Done, and I've decided to do it as a separate entry for future reference.

I've hooked a couple of people this way, so it seems to work, but if anyone thinks there's another good way of reading her books, just say.

LMB writes fantasy and science-fiction. I don't know her earliest fantasy books, so I can't comment on those. This post is mainly about the Vorkosigan SF series. Bujold also has a new series of fantasy books, the Chalion series.

( The Chalion Series )

( The Vorkosigan series )

Right, there you are. Go forth, read. Hope you enjoy them.

For Iain

From The Annotated Hobbit:

The original reading of the text (1937) was "cold chicken and tomatoes!" In 1966 Tolkien changed 'tomatoes' to 'pickles'. Why should it matter whether Bilbo's larder was stocked with tomatoes or pickles? T.A. Shippey, in The Road to Middle-earth, suggests that as Tolkien wrote the sequel to The Hobbit, and as he came to perceive the hobbits and their land as characteristically English in nature, he recognised tomatoes as foreign in origin and name. They were imports from America, like potatoes and tobacco, which were quickly adopted in England. Though Tolkien does use the word 'tobacco' in The Hobbit a handful of times, it is strictly avoided in The Lord of the Rings, where the more English-sounding 'pipeweed' is used. There, as well, potatoes are often given the more rustic name 'taters'. Tomatoes were thus out of place in the Shire as Tolkien came to perceive it.