MetaChat REGISTER   ||   LOGIN   ||   IMAGES ARE OFF   ||   RECENT COMMENTS




artphoto by splunge
artphoto by TheophileEscargot
artphoto by Kronos_to_Earth
artphoto by ethylene

Home

About

Search

Archives

Mecha Wiki

Metachat Eye

Emcee

IRC Channels

IRC FAQ


 RSS


Comment Feed:

♦ RSS

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

21 January 2009

I feel like I've just finished a particularly difficult quest I just tracked down a book I've been looking for (by every avenue I could think of, and I thought of practically everything).→[More:]

It's one of those things I never really thought I'd accomplish.

I feel like I've just completed a quest in an epic poem or something.

Anyway.

Do you have any Epic Quests that you're on?
post by: jonathanstrange at: 19:41 | 49 comments
Before the internets made most book-finding so easy, I had a little slip of paper in my wallet with the names of books I wanted. Whenever I'd come across a used bookstore in my travels, I'd go see if they had any of the books on my list. It was always such a happy surprise to find one. Now it's of course very easy to find most books but I do miss the fun of the search and the pleasure of discovery.
posted by Kangaroo 21 January | 19:44
What's the book?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero 21 January | 19:46
I'm on an epic quest for a digital copy of "Pearls At Swine" by the Lovedolls and "Country Beats The Hell Out Of Me" by jerry dale McPadden and "Fish Stick Friday" by Government Cheese. been going on over a decade now.
posted by jonmc 21 January | 19:53
See, the interweb didn't manage to make finding this one easy...

Some things I learnt the hard way:

1. That it was published in 1992 by Hutchison Press
2. That only 500 Copies were printed
3. That it was sporadically available for over $300 US (which was about $500 AU for me at the time) on Amazon.
4. The book finding searches that I signed up for on numerous occasions and in numerous places all couldn't find it
5. Websites that searched all the online bookselling databases couldn't find it.

I even tried to contact the publishers to see if I could get a copy from them directly, but I think they'd merged with another organisation, and the new organisation had no record of the book.

The author had died in the meantime, but I was beginning to consider trying to find them to ask for a copy.

The $300 US was beginning to look almost reasonable.

In the end I bought it for considerably less than that.

The book is a silly one. and no doubt not worth all this fuss.

But I DID IT, and that was important to me for some reason.

It's called "The Heart Has its Reasons", by Mary Brown, and is a romance about the French Revolution.
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 19:53
My current epic quest is to find a free and/or open source translation program that will work with a specific set of languages and be completely easy to use and work with pdfs.
It's been a BITCH. Doubly so because I can't install anything at work, so I have to bookmark everything and install it on my jump drive at home so I can test while at work.
posted by sperose 21 January | 21:00
Learning After Effects for movie making. Thank heaven for the DV Rebel and Studio Techniques books.

Epic quest to learn, even if it is a blast.
posted by trinity8-director 21 January | 21:03
wait! this isn't the same mary brown who wrote 'playing the jack' is it?
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 21:48
It is it is it is!!

this is the sequel to playing the jack.

well... of sorts. It has Jack and Zoe in it - more Jack than Zoe, but it's main characters are different characters, and it's set in France a little bit after playing the jack.
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 21:55
HOLY SHIT! WHERE DID YOU FIND IT? THAT'S MY FAVORITE BOOK!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 21:57
sorry, caps. i didn't knwo there was a sequel!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 21:58
oh crap, now i'm on an epic quest! i think allbris has a copy... ARG!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:00
HEEEEEEEEEEE! ME TOO! hence the bursting into tears when I got it into my hot little hands, and the near decade long search.

I found it on Amazon the other day - but there don't seem to be any other copies on there at the moment. There were when I ordered though...
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:02
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. would you believe i actually have TWO copies of playign the jack because i was so afraid that the second one is falling apart? i just found one on albris $60 and placed that baby right now!

crap, mary died? that's so sad! i always dreamed of trying to visit her farm in england. cry.

i'm not sure what to do with myself now, arg! is it any good? have you read it?
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:06
quick bella, need news! have you read it? it is any good? i just placed my order - shipping from UK to USA... arg! now i'm dying. anyone who has ever read playing the jack totally must understand. i can't believe she wrote a sequel!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:10
Er... I would believe that you had two copies.

I also have two copies.
I remember really loving it... it's about Aimee - who is chatting to a stranger about her sisters, and the count that is promised to either one of them, without realising she's actually talking to the count himself.

Of course the count picks her, and when she's a little older they get married.

And the revolution is in there somewhere also...

I can't remember too much more than that, but I remember it being good - like the Scarlett Pimpernel.

posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:10
OH I'm so excited and so glad you've got one coming too!

you'll have to email me when you get it to let me know how you go!

I'm horribly afraid that I'm not going to enjoy it as much after all this wait...

but I read the first chapter again, and it was good!!!

YAY! I'm so glad you understand my joy! my office thought I was MAD!
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:11
no, i absolutely understand - check out my frantic typing. i first read playing the jack when i was 16 and read it nearly every year since. the #1 review up on amazon is me!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:13
oh no, no, no... i am totally freakign out now! i'm so glad you have a copy. i might have to pay you for photocopies, arg!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:14
well ok, i'm not #1 anymore, but #2... arg!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:15
When my friend lent me her copy (I was also 16) she was going on and on and on about it...

"It's the best book in the world!"

and was sighing, and was generally flinging herself around in an excitable manner.

I was so glad I read it anyway! :)

I'm thinking of scanning a copy, even though it's 517 pages long, just so I have backup...

If I get off my arse and do so - I can send you a copy?
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:18
i know you'd totally understand if i said, i would save up my money for a YEAR and pay for equipment to do so! this really was the start of my love of reading back in the 80s and i've been trying to find some other book to rival it - to no avail. playing the jack is really what i hope heaven will be like. i had NO IDEA that there was a sequel, it drives me mad that only 500 copies were printed. mary brown was a genius of storytelling. is she really dead? that breaks my heart. who knew that i'd run into one of the lucky few to have read jack on mefi who also felt as strongly as i do about it.

i'm completely at sixes and sevens about this. thank god for you and your post!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:23
Ever read Dorothy Dunnett? Pretty great epic historical novels. I'd call it romance, but not really of the turgid sort. Fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though, not eighteenth. Never having read Mary Brown, I don't know how she compares. But I really wish she was alive to write more books; she's incredible.

Hell, if you wanna read the greatest French romances, I never tire of recommending Dumas. I wish his books would never end.
posted by Hugh Janus 21 January | 22:28
As someone who searched for a decade for this book - I totally understand. I would have bought it for the $300 at one point, but it had disappeared from sale.

I recommend checking back on Amazon regularly - even though there aren't any there today, they do come up from time to time.

I'm pretty sure she died in 1999 or 2000 ish. I want more books, so that makes me sad also... :(
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:32
I love this thread.

I actually think I have some Dorothy Dunnett somewhere...

Now I'm going to be searching for Playing The Jack.
posted by taz 21 January | 22:34
Thanks Hugh Janus, I'll keep an eye out for her. I'm always on the look out for a good author.

Especially a good romance author.
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:34
according to albris, my order has cleared... that won't stop me however from checking ebay and amazon and barnes everyday for another one to order until it arrives at my doorstep. i honestly think i'm going to cry now over joy that there's a second book.

i am over the moon for you that you finally got your copy, i sincerely am. knowing how much jack means to me i can imagine how much it means to you.

if anyone else runs across a copy, please let me know because jonathnstrange's ending of an epic quest has now begun my own. i'm absolutely shivering with anticipation.

there are other books - 'here be dragons' any idea if she wrote these too? they say they're by the same author but i feel like it's another mary brown.
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:37
they are too... I read "The Unlikely Ones" - it's good, but it's very different. Not like Playing the Jack at all. it's a fantasy novel. Haven't read the other ones though.
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:42
email me, guess who can send you a free copy? hee!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:44
what's your email?
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:45
I beat feet all around town for the past year or so looking for a copy of Rohan Kriwaczek's An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin, but I can only find it online, which isn't to say it's a particularly difficult quest, and since my brother owns a copy I could just borrow it from him, but yeah, that's a book I've been trying to get for awhile.

It took me forever to find Brian Setzer's album "The Knife Feels Like Justice" on CD. But that's just cuz they took forever to release it. I wore my cassette tape of it silly.

I'd also recommend, in the line of good historical romance, Jeffrey Lent's "In the Fall," though it's kinda harrowing and haunting, like Kawabata's "Snow Country" or Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian."
posted by Hugh Janus 21 January | 22:45
just posted on your blog.
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:46
emailed!

That book sounds interesting, Hugh Janus. And thanks for the recommendations.
posted by jonathanstrange 21 January | 22:52
i'll keep an eye out for Dorothy Dunnett, i'm definite in need of new reading.

seeing jonathanstrange's / bellas post tonight totally gave me a new lease on life, un-freaking-believable! good books really are amazing, aren't they?

and absolutely, if you like the genre, i absolutely advise finding a copy of Playing the Jack to anyone else out there in mecha land! i'm going to start rereading my copy tonight.
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:56
oh and there's several copies on amazon of playing the jack... just saying...
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 22:59
Of course, for the greatest in romance ever, every word of it true, or at least straight from the horse's mouth, scandalous intrigue, daring trysts, creative couplings; head over heels for chambermaids, princesses, divas, nuns, sisters, women posing as castrati, more nuns, friends' wives, enemies' mistresses, women dressed as nuns; occult dabbling, market cornering, prison breaking, Voltaire insulting; nothing beats the sublime, ridiculous, and above all captivating "History of My Life" by the greatest lover Venice ever produced, Messr. Giacomo Casanova. One of the greatest books ever written, I kid you not.

I like recommending books almost as much as I like reading them. I hope anyone who reads any of these recommendations enjoys them as much as I do.
posted by Hugh Janus 21 January | 22:59
jonmc... if ever a copy of 9780091741662 The Heart Has Its Reasons shows up at that famed store you work at shows up, can i beg you for it? i promise to bring you a nice bagged dinner from mamoons or something!
posted by eatdonuts 21 January | 23:22
aha! found it! eatdonuts, I have some Dorothy Dunnett texts in html, if you're interested.
posted by taz 21 January | 23:59
OOOOOOOOoooh! I can haz too?
posted by jonathanstrange 22 January | 00:03
no worries, i think i'm actually going to try and buy a copy of Dorothy Dunnett tomorrow... where should i start? with the lymond series?

i was just emailing bella that i don't believe in fate but how often does an obscure book come up in such a manner anywhere on teh tubes, let alone two people who share the same passioned love of a title with such a limited print run - taking into mind that neither of us live in the country of origin of said title? amazing this mecha thing, wot!
posted by eatdonuts 22 January | 00:05
hey, you know this game of kings sounds very much like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series - another fantastic read. need direction, where to start with dunnett? i'm excited about embarking on a new journey... while i wait anxiously for the book that might not come by brown... eek.
posted by eatdonuts 22 January | 00:09
I'm happy for y'all. I've been trying to find Alexei Sayle's Geoffrey The Tube Train And The Fat Comedian. I found 1 on Amazon and ordered it and then a few days later they told me is was no longer in stock. It was the same with the next one I found on Amazon and the one from Half.com and the one from Abebooks. It seems that these used book things on the Internet have very weak inventory tracking.
posted by arse_hat 22 January | 00:24
jonathanstrange, I've emailed you.
posted by taz 22 January | 00:35
Thanks Taz!
posted by jonathanstrange 22 January | 01:11
In college, I put in an Interlibrary Loan request for a botany paper presented at a conference in 1880. For some reason, it has been difficult to find a university to honor the request :) I've been expecting, off and on over the years, to get an email in my old college account saying that they've finally scanned all those old transcripts and that a PDF is on its way.
posted by muddgirl 22 January | 09:38
I don't know this Mary Brown, but I've been wanting to read Dorothy Dunnett, too. Can I get in on this game?
posted by toastedbeagle 22 January | 09:40
I started with Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, and was not disappointed. I read the House of Niccolo series later, and on reflection felt I'd made the right choice in order. King Hereafter, about the historical Macbeth, is also damn good.

One thing about Dorothy Dunnett, she doesn't shy away from untranslated Old French or Latin quotes, so some of her stuff takes very careful reading. But it's worth it to have a novelist treat you like a scholar.
posted by Hugh Janus 22 January | 09:54
mailed you, toastedbeagle.
posted by taz 22 January | 10:11
OK! I have just purchased another copy of 9780091741662 The Heart Has Its Reasons from the UK from a lovely little shop aruond the corner in Consett,Durham, United Kingdom - or possibly I have just purchased again the same copy that I found on Albris.com. Yes, this apparently is how goofy we Mary Brown fans are. I have at this point spent my allotted $100 for an insane person... yay!

If anyone has religion out there, please give a nod to God for me that I getat least one copy of the same book?

Thanks!
posted by eatdonuts 22 January | 10:14
For the rest of you searching books, I highly recommend bookfinder:
http://www.bookfinder.com/

and their fascinating monthly report on top out of print titles:
http://report.bookfinder.com/
posted by eatdonuts 22 January | 10:40
← Pull yourself together! || Right ulnar neuropathy →

HOME  ||   REGISTER  ||   LOGIN
All posts and comments © their authors