More books!

[heliona]

Okay, well, I decided quite a while ago that I would post an entry from Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land every day, but then I never got round to it. So this is me just starting!

First of all, the reviews on the back are great!

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An indispensible guide for anyone stuck in the realms of fantasy without a magic sword to call their own. - Terry Pratchett

I've got a magic sword actually, so I'll stick with that if you don't mind. Even if it is broken. - Aragorn, son of Arathorn

Would have been a lot more use on the quest than three Elven hairs. - Gimli, son of Gloin

---

And now for the first entry (which isn't actually an entry but a guide in how to use the book, but it's a must read!):

What to do first:

1. Find the MAP. It will be there. No Tour of Fantasyland is complete without one. It will be found in the front part of your brochure, quite near the page that says:

For Mum and Dad for having me
and for Jeannie (or Jack or Debra or Donnie or ...) for putting up with me so supportively
and for my nine children for not interrupting me
and for my Publisher for not discouraging me
and for my Writers' Circle for listening to me
and for Barbie and Greta and Albert Einstein and Aunty May

and so on. Ignore this, even if you're wondering if Albert Einstein is Albert Einstein or in fact a dog.

This will be followed by a short piece of prose that says:

When the night of the wolf waxes strong in the morning, the wise man is wary of a false dawn.
Ka'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances, VI ii

Ignore this too (or, if really puzzled, look up GNOMIC UTTERANCES in the Toughpick section). Find the Map.



The whole first entry can be found at this webpage, because I didn't want to blow up LJ! (The reference to Toughpick is talking about the main part of the book; the glossary part.)

[ETA: All of the writing I'm quoting is copyrighted to Diana Wynne Jones and Gollancz publishers. I don't intend to post every entry, because that would take years and bore everyone to death. Instead I was thinking about posting interesting ones with the idea of getting people interested in the book, so I'm not encouraging people to read my entries instead of buying the book. You should buy the book if you like what I post, because it's really funny!]

Comments

[nimoloth.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fun book! By the way, be careful you don't get poked by LJ Abuse for copyright violation when posting large excerpts - some one on my flist got a warning the other day for posting an article he'd read somewhere.

[heliona.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll edit my post to include something about.

[lejlkwiet.livejournal.com]

Hehe, that book is just wonderful :D

I don't think my edition has the Aragorn and Gimli quotes though :S

[heliona.livejournal.com]

Well, my edition is the small hardback version, and of course, the British publication (although, I would have thought that Malta would have the UK version as well).

[lejlkwiet.livejournal.com]

Well, I think mine is an older edition, it's this one: http://www.suberic.net/dwj/pix/covers/tough_uk_pb.jpg

It is a UK version though, I'm sure.

[heliona.livejournal.com]

Mine looks completely different! Hardcover version front cover

[lejlkwiet.livejournal.com]

That's the one I was going to order from play.com! I like it loads too, it's cool! I was lucky to find my copy of the book at this bookstore I like to go to that sells books very cheap, I was surprised I found it at all cause the books are all over the place in that shop, and I got it for a fraction of the price while it's still brand new. Hehe. It was ridiculous how accomplished I felt at having managed to find it in one of the boxes piled up on each other filled with books. It was like finding buried treasure :D

[heliona.livejournal.com]

I *love* hunting through second-hand bookstores. You do totally appreciate any book that find if you've spent hours looking!

[lejlkwiet.livejournal.com]

Especially if it's a book you've been wanting for months! ;) I wish we had more of those bookstores here, there's only that one that I know of.

[heliona.livejournal.com]

My favourite one (it specialised in sci-fi, fantasy, and bizarrely, western novels) shut down about six years ago. But I managed to get quite a few books out of it before it closed!

Other than that, there's only one good second-hand bookstore that I know about in Glasgow, although I'm sure there are more, somewhere! *g*

The problem is, they're always hidden away in some seedy part of town. I suppose that adds to the idea that it's some kind of adventure going to the bookstore to find some treasure!