(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

Every week these days I head to my old stomping grounds on the 19th floor to sort through the mail my replacement doesn't know yet what to do with and say hello to Coworker Crush.

She's actually been absent quite a bit while I've been there, but I don't want you all thinking I'm neglecting her. Today she caught up with me as I was leaving to get a soda from the cafeteria downstairs, so we had a nice talk on the elevator down, mostly about books. She's reading Iain Banks right now, and I am about to start on the many and varied PDFs I'm supposed to be reading, but at the moment on the train am buried in a translation from the French of The Memoirs of Hadrian. ("Wait -- " "Yeah, the one with the wall.")

One of my fellow admins asked me today if my boyfriend works in the city, so apparently my love life is even more exciting than I thought. There followed a brief, tactful conversation about my sexual orientation, which may have been what he was angling for to start with.

It's a Tuesday, but it feels oddly like a Monday...

Comments

[oletheros.livejournal.com]

you do know that it's the same person, right? the "m" is just there to throw people off.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I was gonna say, what are the odds of two writers named Iain Banks...

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I do! Just wondering if Coworker Crush is more the quirky lit type or the sci-fi type.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh, she's quirky lit all the way. I didn't even know he wrote scifi.

[oletheros.livejournal.com]

i recommend picking up the player of games or consider phlebas. they're set in his utopian science fiction setting called the culture.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I'm not a gigantic fan of his work. I read one of his books, and it was enjoyable enough, but it didn't really make me want to find anything else he'd written.

[oletheros.livejournal.com]

which book? some of them are better than others.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I don't recall the title; it was the one with the radio DJ who's dating the girlfriend of a mobster.

[oletheros.livejournal.com]

dead air. that's nowhere near one of his best books. the wasp factory, the crow road or complicity are all much, much better.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

... This fascinates me, as I was introduced to him as "a sci-fi writer." I only just learned he wrote other stuff!

[oletheros.livejournal.com]

i wasn't sure - it's a question on the faq.

and i agree that it's a great question to ask. it shows some knowledge of the author AND gets a sense for where her literary sensibilities lie.