I think, in the wake of Classic Books That Must Be Read!!!, that it’s time for another round of Humiliation.

Same rules as before: in the comments thread below, nominate a book that you haven’t read, but that you think everyone else has.

Nominations need to be in by 9 a.m. Saturday morning (6th of September).

Once all the nominations are in, I’ll open a separate thread for voting. As always, you’ll receive one point per person who has read your nominated book.

The winner in this good-natured game is the most humiliated!

When we were in high school, a friend and I put together a list of “Classic Books That Must Be Read!!!”—sadly, complete with the three exclamation marks.

I found it this evening, in—and I’m embarrassed to admit this—a pseudo-hatbox with cherubs printed on it. (In my defense, I bought it when I was much younger and didn’t have any taste.)

There are seventy-five books on the list, so perhaps it’s not the best idea to transcribe the entire list here.

I notice I haven’t read all seventy-five, though. Frankly, there are some on the list that I have no intention of reading and some that I have read but wish I hadn’t.

I haven’t read Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which comes in at the bottom of the list because we’d clearly forgotten Edward Albee’s name. (Most of the books are alphabetical by the author’s last name). On the other hand, I have read Pollyanna—and have no idea how that made it on to the list. Certainly, it’s a classic children’s book, but it’s also thoroughly irritating. Nevertheless, I’ve read it, and there were two advantages: I was able to spend eighteen months making fun of it when I taught an Academic Research course, and it also gave me a good giggle in volume one of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I have never read Heidi, which turns up just above Pollyanna—I don’t think there’s much likelihood of my reading Heidi at my age. (On the other hand, I do own a copy of Swiss Family Robinson, which is also on the list, and I fully intend to read that at some point.) But, to balance that, I have read King Solomon’s Mines, which was less racist than I had anticipated (while still being rather racist) but no less sexist.

I’ve never read Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, and I do regret that. I don’t regret it much, mind, because I still have time to read it. And, on the other hand, I’ve never read Black Beauty—at least, I’m fairly sure I haven’t—and I consider that a plus.

(What is it about children’s books and general cruelty to animals? Watership Down was devastating and as for Colin Thiele, I think he must have killed a dog off in every single book he ever wrote. Was he badly bitten as a child? That’s the only explanation I can think of.)

Oddly enough, I seem to have ticked Brideshead Revisited off the list, and I have no memory whatsoever of ever reading that book. I remember reading The Loved One for school: I adored it, but I was the only one who did. And I have a copy of Scoop that I’m saving for when I have a free afternoon. But I have no memory of Brideshead Revisited—except that I remember Sebastian’s bear is called Aloyisus. Is that sufficient cause for claiming I’ve read it?

I notice we’ve put Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoyevsky down without specifying particular works. Perhaps we intended to read all of them? Well, Dickens only has fourteen novels, if you don’t count the Christmas novellas and the incomplete Edwin Drood. I’ve certainly read some of them, and really should read the rest. I might save The Old Curiosity Shop for when I need a good laugh. But I don’t know if I’m ever going to get to Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, or The Brothers Karamazov.

(Confession: I have read none of the great Russian works. Not even Anna Karenina. I know I should, and I will. But as of now: not one. I have read a number of Boris Akunin crime novels, though, so I’m not without some Russian novels under my belt.)

I’ll freely admit that I’ve never read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, though my mother keeps recommending it. Nor have I read Frank Herbert’s Dune, which would probably be a good candidate for a future round of Humiliation. I did try to read Dune, but I just couldn’t manage it.

I also note that we’ve added “Lawrence of Arabia,” apparently under the illusion that that was the book title rather than the author. Either way, I don’t think I’ll regret it much if I never read The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

On the plus side, I have finally read The Great Gatsby—but only because I had to. And I have read Heart of Darkness, Paradise Lost, and The Three Musketeers.

I suspect that this is now less of a reading list and more of a time capsule. I have no intention of working my way through many of these items, though I think that, now, more are read than unread.

I wonder, too, whether we consulted other people when we put this list together—I don’t recall whether someone else recommended Dostoyevsky or whether that was our pretentious teenage selves talking.

It’s nice to have this list, and to see what we thought were the Classic Books That Must Be Read!!!

But I don’t think it’ll be keeping it near me, to cross items off as I go.

I’ve read many books over the years, generally at the expense of doing all the other things that you’re supposed to do to “get a life.”

I see no reason why I shouldn’t read many more in the years to come.

But I doubt any of them will be Heidi.

Many years ago, Nick and I made this picture using a website that allowed you to construct yourself as a Lego figurine. (There’s almost certainly a Facebook application that allows you to do the same thing.)

I found them this evening while I was rummaging through a box of letters, looking for the basis of the entry I’m about to write.

I was a little disturbed to see how faded the inks were looking, so putting it on the blog seems like a good attempt at conservation.

Plus, I’m frightened to see how prescient it is:

Is it just me, or does that device that we put in Nick’s hand seven years ago look exactly like an iPhone?

I can’t believe that I only found out today that illustrator Pauline Baynes died a month ago.

But it’s fitting, with my current re-reading of the Narnia books, that I should find this out today.

Baynes didn’t only illustrate Narnia, of course. She was a favoured illustrator of Tolkien’s work and her illustrations appear on nearly every Puffin children’s fantasy book produced in the 1970s, as in this edition of one of Mary Norton’s later Borrower books:

Or this one of George Macdonald’s lovely The Princess and Curdie, the sequel to The Princess and the Goblin:

I actively seek out editions with Pauline Baynes illustrations, so central is she to the ideas about what fantasy should look like that I absorbed in my childhood.

But she is best known, perhaps, for her Narnia work. I know I’ve been carrying around these full-colour images from a commemorative calendar since about 1991.

We’ll miss you, Pauline Baynes.

Since books taught me all I needed to know about navigating my way through girls’ boarding schools, especially if they exist in the 1930s, I assumed that reading the Narnia books would give me the necessary information to become royalty in an imaginary universe—or at least to rule wisely, once that state of being comes about.

If I never unexpectedly become High Queen of a fantasy kingdom (and if that’s the case, I’ll be rather annoyed, frankly), at least I’ll have grasped the following important points:

1. Wardrobes are inherently untrustworthy. Not only do they sometimes contain fantasy kingdoms, which is confusing if you’re only trying to locate your winter clothes, but they also sometimes don’t contain fantasy kingdoms.

I know! It seems unfair to me, too.

In fact, sometimes the same wardrobe can randomly switch in a matter of moments between being a magical gateway to another kingdom and a space-wasting repository for clothes that, let’s face it, I’ll never wear again.

This has taught me two things.

Firstly, if someone walks in on you while you’re trying to see if your wardrobe is the magic kind, it can be very embarrassing. Especially if you’re in your twenties at the time.

Secondly, it’s safer just to keep your clothes in random piles on the floor, and save yourself the heartache.

2. Bears are stupid. So are giants. Giant stupidity is worse, however; giants are prone to bursting out of the woods at completely the wrong point during a battle, causing horrific casualties to their own side.

At least the worst a bear will do is suck on its own paws when it’s supposed to be acting as a marshall during your duel with a usurper. This will, necessarily, make the entire army look gormless, but it probably won’t be fatal.

(Except perhaps to the bear, depending on whether you’re a beneficent monarch or not.)

3. Spending your childhood and much of your adult life as rulers of a fantasy kingdom and then unexpectedly finding yourself falling out of a wardrobe back into your adolescence in 1940s’ England presents no problems at all for your mental health.

You won’t find it difficult to head back to boarding school when you’ve been accustomed to subduing giants on your northern border or partaking in tournaments in the Lone Islands.

You won’t end up in trouble from shouting “Uncover before your queen, knave!” to people whom you pass in the street.

You won’t have any trouble whatsoever reconciling the fact that you’ve lived several extra decades and are now a child again, despite the fact that you remember those decades in sharp detail, right down to the specific occasion on which you lost one of your chessmen while playing in the orchard outside your castle.

Clearly, anyone who suffers a psychotic break under such trifling circumstances is not fit to be a king or queen, anyway.

4. Kissing a badger is not a girlish thing to do if you’re a king. (Or, presumably, a girl.)

This dictate refers specifically to a kingly salute to the badger’s forehead. The books are rather silent on whether snogging a badger is a girlish thing to do.

(Note: this blog does not recommend snogging badgers. In fact, underlying every entry on this blog, no matter how far removed the subject matter may seem, is a strong recommendation not to try and snog a badger.)

5. Foreigners can’t be trusted, especially if they dye their beards scarlet.

The problem is that you can’t always tell which people are the foreigners (unless they dye their beards scarlet).

Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve don’t count as foreigners, to begin with. But the Telmarines—who are as human as anyone, being descended from pirates who happened to find their way through a gap in reality—do count as foreigners. At least, the bad ones do. And no-one ever explains whether the people from Archenland are also Telmarines, or where the Calormenes come from.

At this point, it’s often easier to give up and just stick to trusting badgers.

6. Bears that have lived on honey are fruit are apparently delicious, whereas bears that are meat-eaters taste rather revolting.

You’ll have to trust the books on this one, since I have no intention of attempting to eat a bear (for, oh, so many reasons. I mean, have you seen a bear? They’re enormous!).

7. But the most important lesson is this: if you’re too interested in boys and nylons, you’ll never be allowed back to Narnia, even if you die in a railway accident.

I understand the embargo on boys (although I’m not sure if the embargo applies to both genders, or whether the embargo also applied to girls) but I’ve never really understood what’s so sinful about tights.

Still, better safe (and cold in winter) than sorry, eh?

So, I’ve made the point a couple of times that my Elf Ranger will sleep with anyone whom she comes across in the course of her adventures.

I’ve been playing the “Tower of Darkness” adventure in the background while live-blogging “Forest of the Dead” and I’ve just succeeded in this encounter:

Saeana found an empty guest bedroom in the expansive castle. Exhausted from her travels, she decided to rest for a moment on the bed. She was awoken by a kiss from a handsome stranger.

Saeana made a Wisdom check with a difficulty of 18 . . . and rolled 24

Saeana smiled and rose from the bed to introduce herself, but her romantic encounter was cut short as castle guards burst into the room. They moved to take the man. It hissed, dropped its guise, and spread its wings. A succubus! For a moment, Saeana felt compelled to protect the impostor, but she quickly shook that off and helped the guards subdue it. The captain of the guard rewarded Saeana for her help in the matter.

Now do you see why I’ve been complaining about your behaviour, Saeana?

If you continue to sleep with every handsome stranger that you come across in your adventures, some of them might turn out to be soul-sucking succubi.

I suppose that this time she bothered to at least try to introduce herself first.

I have a confession to make: I’m doing this live-blogging while finishing watching an episode of 30 Rock and also playing the “Tower of Darkness” adventure on Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures.

But it shouldn’t interfere: after all, the encounters in Dungeons and Dragons only refresh every ten minutes or so.

30 Rock, on the other hand, was Nick’s idea. It is hilarious. I was uncertain about watching anything with Alec Baldwin in it, but I’m loving every episode. Of course, it’s being shown on free-to-air television at some ridiculous time analogous to the time that Arrested Development was shown—11 p.m. or 11:30 p.m., something like that—but that’s par for the course, isn’t it?

We’ve also decided to revamp our eating habits, and I now have a stomach full of fibre (especially bran) and fresh vegetables. So far, my body isn’t really enjoying this new pattern of behaviour. Apparently, it can cope with one healthy meal a day.

Whoops, the episode has started, while I was rubbishing on about irrelevant things.

I love you, Colin Salmon! You rock.

NICK: Where’s my iPhone?
ME: I don’t know! Just sit down and watch television!

I’m losing patience with Nick’s obsession with his iPhone—but then, I have no power over the situation, do I?

(He still hasn’t found it.)

And we’re back to everyone being chased by the skeletal remains of Proper Dave. Poor Proper Dave.

Oooh, hang on—we haven’t seen this country house before. (Nick is going to try ringing his iPhone.) And that’s Donna. Wait, what’s happening here?

(He’s found it.)

Hang on, that’s Doctor Moon! What’s he doing there? This manipulation of Donna’s memories and her behaviour is intensely creepy: that repeated “and then you remembered” is starting to seem thoroughly disturbing.

It’s so like Donna to go fishing in a black sequined tunic. And now she’s married? Wow. And with children? This is, perhaps, the creepiest sequence in the entire episode.

Fully integrated? Pardon?

Hey, that was the Doctor! And now Doctor Moon’s telling her to forget the Doctor? Okay, this is well disturbing. I don’t like the idea of people having control over my memory; I feel as though I have little enough control over it myself.

This back story with River and the Doctor is fascinating to me; I understand that a big influence was The Time Traveller’s Wife, but I’ve never read that. What it’s reminding me of is Slaughterhouse Five: “Listen. Billy Pilgrim’s come unstuck in time.”

Oh, so they’re quarreling like an old married couple, are they? I’ve heard a lot of debates about what these two are to each other, but to me it seems quite clear: she’s his wife. Or she will be.

Oh, a doctor moon is a virus checker that supports and maintains the computer at the centre of the planet? Well, that answers some of my questions.

Now, that’s why I like River: for much the same reason as I like Donna. Donna is free from jealousy, and River, seeing Donna, demands to know whether the Doctor can get her back. They’re both free from jealousy, because they’re both secure in their relationship with the Doctor, different though their relationships are. We need more women like that on television, instead of the skeletal, insecure child-women that we’re supposed to enjoy. (It’s true: I’ve never got over the idea of Ally McBeal as a role model.)

(On the plus side, I just challenged the Captain of the Guard to a sword fight and won. Yay, me!)

Okay, that woman in the flowing Victorian garb is thoroughly creepy. And now the little girl doesn’t want Donna to have anything to do with her? So what does that imply about Donna’s current existence?

See, this mysterious woman points out that Donna has suspected that this world is not right before it is pointed out to her.

(Wow, that’s a lovely shot, with them all running along the bridge from one building to another.)

She’s not stupid, Donna: that’s my point.

I feel as though I can’t type fast enough to deal with everything that’s being dealt with in this issue. And now Nick’s trying to make interesting ideological points to me, and I don’t have time to deal with them.

Oh, Doctor, honestly: I figured out what the Vashta Nerada were talking about when they mentioned their forests, long before you did.

Oh, dear: now Other Dave is repeating himself. He’s ghosting.

Nick thinks that the fact that the Doctor uses the word “soul” is problematic, since after Time Lords die, their minds are stored in the APC Net—the Matrix, before Keanu Reeves. For Time Lords, that is their afterlife. So the use of the word “soul” is suggestive—and perhaps not canonical.

(I managed to defeat a gargoyle in battle, but took four points of damage.)

Ah, now River’s talking about her Doctor, and how this Doctor doesn’t seem finished in comparison. This is fascinating. Solipsistic, yes, but fascinating. What happens to the Doctor in the interval, that whole armies run from him? Or, more to the point, that he’s willing to put himself in a position where he’ll face whole armies. Has he come to terms with the Time War and his genocide?

Oh, there’ll be reams of fan fiction written about this.

Nick wants me to add that it’s not problematic that someone’s stolen a person’s soul through a computer programme, but that it would be a sore point for the Doctor. I think my garbled rewriting of that is what Nick gets for introducing complicated ideological issues while I’m trying to live-blog a complicated episode.

River’s attitude is intriguing to me: she loves this man, that’s quite clear. But she doesn’t love this man. This man she finds frustrating and immature, essentially hard work.

DONNA: But this isn’t me? This isn’t my real body? But I’ve been dieting!

For some reason, that makes me laugh out loud every time.

I don’t buy the idea that “being brilliant and unloved” are the two qualities needed to reveal absolute truth. That seems odd. Being brilliant and having a frighteningly pixellated face would seem to be closer to the truth.

Damn! The little girl just deleted her own father! Now that’s strangely depressing.

Donna’s children seem to have a better grasp of what’s going on than Donna does.

Oh, dear: now Doctor Moon’s gone the same way as the little girl’s father. Poor Colin Salmon.

Nick’s excited because in the first shot of the gravity platform, you can see its reflection in the windows. Nick is easily excited by CGI.

That the children are conscious that they cease to exist when their mother isn’t looking? That’s horrible. How can they, processed to think that they’re small children, manage to cope with that idea?

Now the Doctor and River, and the others, are in the data core. Remind me never to wake my computer up from sleep mode. Apparently, it’s terribly cruel.

(I’ve just been stabbed by a thief. After chasing him and tackling him down a hill. That doesn’t seem fair.)

This child’s face on a statue is creepy. (I know, I’ve used the word creepy a hundred times in this blog entry, but it’s an intrinsically creepy episode.) I love reading as much as anyone. I dare say that I love reading more than many people do. But spending eternity as a computerised version of myself? In a giant library?

Actually, I’ll get back to you on that one.

Oh, Vashta Nerada—the Doctor’s not stupid. He didn’t need that much time to realise that Anita was already dead. Poor Anita. I felt worse, frankly, after Other Dave ghosted, and he died in a much more perfunctory fashion.

DOCTOR: I’m the Doctor, and you’re in the biggest library in the world. Look me up.

Oh, River! As soon as you punched the Doctor, I knew things weren’t going well.

DOCTOR: That’s my job!
RIVER: And I’m not allowed to have a career, I suppose?

Oh, they’re definitely married.

Now, this angle—the idea that the Doctor knew from the beginning of their relationship when and how she would die—this is the sort of thing that normally makes my brain ache. But Alex Kingston just acts the hell out of this scene.

(Embarrassing admission: I’m closer to crying at this point than I ever have been in all the episodes of Doctor Who. I cried unceasingly for the last ten minutes of season two of Torchwood, but Doctor Who—never. But this scene breaks my heart, and combined with Donna’s separation from Lee is almost too much for my stiff upper lip.)

Oh, Steven Moffat. How you (normally) hate killing people off. And I love you for it. I do so love a happy ending.

Oh, crap: cut to the Doctor staring at (what’s left of) River. That’s not a happy ending.

Dammit, Moffat! How am I supposed to cope now? Now you’ve decided that Lee may just be imaginary? That’s just cruel.

DONNA: Is “all right” special Time Lord code for “really not all right at all”?
DOCTOR: Why?
DONNA: Because I’m all right, too.

Damn, they come out of this episode damaged.

Oh, Moffat, you bastard! You absolute bastard! (I love you, Steven Moffat!) So Lee is real, but he can’t call out to Donna? Oh, why not just kill people off?

No, Doctor—you can’t leave it at “spoilers”. You know there’s more to it than that. There must be. Moffat hates killing people off! Remember, “everybody lives! Just this once, everybody lives!”

See! I knew that wasn’t the end of the story!

This running scene, here—this is the culmination of all those discussions about how much running the Doctor does. This is the Doctor actually running for his life, running for someone else’s life—not just avoiding a monster, but running when there is nothing else to do, no other way to save people.

And here we have absolute Moffat: he just hates killing people off. So Proper Dave, Other Dave, Anita, Miss Evanglista—all alive. And there’s Doctor Moon! Hurray!

I’ve heard it said that what the Doctor does here is cruel: trapping the woman he apparently loves in a computer that he knows is going to go insane. But I don’t think that that’s supposed to be the end result. I don’t think it should be assumed that the computer will go insane again: there’s a big difference between four thousand minds and five minds.

I understand that Moffat argued his way into keeping Donna’s children alive in the computer at the end of the episode, against executive producer Julie Gardner’s concerns. And that, in the end, they switched positions: she felt the ending with the children alive was ideal, and he came to see it as saccharine.

I can’t remember having any opinion on it at all: I was too busy trying to deal with the rest of the episode.

And that’s “Forest of the Dead.”

Next week: “Midnight.” Oh, dear lord, that’s going to be hard to rewatch.

(Still, I became so distracted by the live-blogging that I managed to kill a grick—I don’t know what that is, but it has tentacles—without noticing.)

Tonight, Nick suggested we play less Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures and spend more time together.

I reluctantly agreed.

(The reluctance, I might add, had nothing to do with spending time with Nick and everything to do with wanting to level my Elf Ranger up to level 8.)

But first we compromised: I was allowed to finish my current adventure, Hidden Shrine of Nahautl.

And that’s when I came across this, my final encounter:

At the end of a sloped hallway was a poorly lit chamber. A few small windows let light in through partially occluded glass. Half the floor was a pool of water, the light playing across the rippling surface. A young man bathing in the pool noticed Saeana as she entered the room.

Okay, I thought to myself, I have a Thundering Mace and a Phasing Short Sword. One half-naked bloke in a pool isn’t going to be much of a challenge.

And, he wasn’t:

The man beckoned Saeana into the pool and, as he did so, it became quite apparent what might take place there between them. It was equally apparent that this man was using his charms to get the better of Saeana but she was going to turn the tables on this suave seducer.

Saeana made a Charisma check with a difficulty of 17 . . . and rolled 28

A battle of charms ensued, with winks, flirting, careful placement of hands, and whispered words. Saeana easily bested the charmer in this contest and came out of the situation with more treasure and better memories than she had gone in with.

Saeana obtained a suit of Plate Armor +2!

Seriously.

I want to make several points about this encounter.

1. I thought I was a serious adventurer. I didn’t realise that that meant getting my kit off at every given opportunity.

2. Saeana, you climbed into a pool with a complete stranger and only then did it become apparent “what might take place between you”?

You daft cow.

3. “Careful placement of hands”? As in, you’re afraid you might slip on the soap? If my Elf is going to sleep with everyone she comes across, at least make it sexy, WOTC.

4. “Better memories than she had gone in with”? Well, I thought the instance in which I seduced a halfing lad for a suit of armour was at least ambiguous. This one really doesn’t seem ambiguous at all.

5. There really is nothing that my Elf won’t do for armour, is there? And, once again, the treasure she’s obtained by sleeping with some random man encountered in the pursuit of adventure is a suit of armour that she can’t even wear.

Saeana, I must insist that if you’re going to sleep with people for treasure—instead of obtaining it in the old-fashioned way of bludgeoning your enemies—you at least ensure that it’s treasure you can use.

I refuse to seduce anyone else for the sake of sixty-three gold coins.

NICK: I need to do something different with my life.
ME: In general? Or are you just thinking you shouldn’t play any more Diablo this afternoon?
NICK: The latter.
ME: Excellent. You can do some washing up.
NICK: I wasn’t thinking of anything that radical.

Yes, I’m talking about Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures again.

But, seriously, this is hilarious:

Two elves were fighting in a yellow wood. Long Saeana stood, trying to determine which one of them was the bad guy.

Saeana tried to peer as far down into one’s soul as she could, then fairly chose the other whose expression was less worn. More telling, perhaps were the symbolic trinkets each wore. The first’s marked him as an agent of evil, while the second’s marked him as a follower of good. After helping defeat the evildoer, she and the good warrior lay in the leaves, sighing and telling tales of deeds they’d done, and roads they’d traveled.

(There was a wisdom roll in the middle, there, but I think you can tell how that went. I worry about my Elf, when she chooses who to kill on the strength of how “worn” their faces are, and only then thinks, “Also, that necklace made from the skulls of children? That might be a clue.”)

Are the people behind Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures enormous fans of Robert Frost? He is a dearly beloved poet, after all.

Or do they simply have too much time on their hands?

As for me, I don’t have too much time on my hands, but—well, you have to do something during your cigarette breaks, don’t you? (Something apart from smoking, that is.) And it’s been a while since I posted a dreadful poem on the blog.

The Elf Not Slaughtered

Two elves battled in a yellow wood,
And, sorry I could not battle both
And win the battle, long I stood
And checked my Wisdom roll (not so good),
Lurking awhile in the undergrowth.

Then killed the nearer, a fitter goal,
As having perhaps the better claim,
Assuming that darkness was in his soul.
(Though, since I failed my Wisdom roll,
The two seemed really about the same.)

The other and I together lay
In leaves my mace had made gory
We would perhaps fight another day!
For, knowing how way leads on to way,
Odds are I must replay this story.

I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two elves battled in a wood, and I—
I slaughtered the evil one, aye,
But it didn’t make a difference.

1. I’ve just been hit in the chest with a golden cannonball. This is, in fact, why I started this post.

Who uses a golden cannonball? Isn’t that insanely expensive and also rather impractical? Or I am just cranky because I took six points of damage despite, and I think the word is warranted, absolutely pwning my Armour Class Check?

2. Slightly before that, I was hit on the head by a falling scythe after failing a Wisdom roll. Still, the man who dropped the scythe on me was more annoyed about the whole situation than I was:

Disapointed, Plurbius faded from view, mumbling “‘Oh, don’t worry Plurbius, we’ll have thirty scythes . . . and they’ll spin and shred . . . .’ Last time I use gnome contractors.”

So there is that.

3. I’m deliberately not re-mentioning the time I apparently seduced a Halfling. (Plus, aren’t they tiny? Like hobbit sized? It’s all very odd.)

4. I don’t think it’s good for my Ranger’s reputation to have to hide in a soot-filled chimney because she can’t overcome a few skeletons.

5. I once tried to climb a tree to rescue a family pet: none of the actual family could manage the climb. But then goblin raiders appeared, and I fell out of the tree on top of them. Not on purpose, of course. But, honestly: Elf and Ranger. You’d think I’d be slightly more sure-footed than that.

Of course, this was immediately after the encounter in which I slipped and fell while walking through the forest, poisoning myself with toadstool spores in the process.

What kind of Elf falls over in a forest? (Ooh, Zen.)

Maybe I just have a very clumsy Elf.

6. That’s not even including the time I waited in ambush for an orc lord, behind his throne, and fell asleep on the floor while waiting for his bodyguards to leave. That was just embarrassing.

7. There was also the time I tried to grab a vine to swing across a pit and completely missed. The more I look at these misadventures, the more I think that my Elf is a bit rubbish, actually.

It’s one thing to have sharp enough eyes to spot the pit and another to fall straight into it anyway.

Later in the same adventure, I was lured into a trap by the promise of treasure and fell straight through an illusory floor. Into a pit, obviously.

8. Of course, the stage was set for all of this during my first adventure, when I was not only shot in the leg by an Elf after failing my Charisma roll but was also bitten by an alligator.

More accurately, I experienced “an unpleasant sensation of being bitten in the thigh.” Is that opposed to the slightly less common pleasant sensation of being bitten in the thigh?

Actually, don’t answer that.

9. I once ended up as a king’s food-taster, despite the fact that the whole point of the adventure was to drag the self-proclaimed king back to the town in chains. Of course, the disadvantage of becoming a food-taster and then failing your Constitution roll is that you end up being poisoned.

They never did explain how the king found me, why he didn’t demand to know why a heavily armed complete stranger was strolling around his fort immediately after he’d announced his secession, or why I accepted the position of food taster in the first place.

10. By now, it’s probably no surprise that the time I decided to fix a dumbwaiter (Why? Why would I decide to do that in the middle of an attempt to track down an Undead Paladin?) I, in fact, slipped and fell down the shaft on top of it.

11. I also worry about my character’s morality. For example, the Undead Paladin adventure above ended with me escorting him back to town, where a priest freed his tormented soul and I nicked his armour.

(I couldn’t wear Bonegrim Armour, of course, but we’re all familiar now with the depths to which my character will sink for the sake of armour.)

But this aspect bothers Nick more than it bothers me. Whenever we’re both playing at the same time, I can hear him muttering things like “a Paladin would never try to rob a sleeping giant!”

I’m thoroughly enjoying the game, which has completely ousted Packrat from my affections (although, gods of Packrat, if you could see fit to send me a Great Wall of China pop-up card, I might stop sulking).

In fact, when my father-in-law came around for dinner tonight, I greeted him by shouting from another room, “I’ll be there in thirty-nine seconds! I just need to finish this encounter!” Rude? Possibly. But he’s known me for eight years by this stage.

(Then when I did finish the encounter, Nick was strangely annoyed at the outcome.
ME: I killed the metal dog.
NICK: I don’t think that’s anything to boast about.
ME: It wasn’t K9!)

But there’s a fine line between thoroughly enjoying a game and being slightly miffed when your easily distracted, accident-prone Elf Ranger cops a golden cannonball in the breastplate.

I have a weakness—one that I persistently indulge—for reference books.

And I’m not even talking about the sort of reference books that everyone should have on their shelves: the OED, Strunk and White, Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, or The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

I’m not even talking about the ones specific to my discipline or my occupation: MLA Handbook, Abrams’s Glossary of Literary Terms, or The Little, Brown Handbook.

No: I’m talking about the odd ones. The . . . slightly embarrassing ones, like Who’s Who in Enid Blyton. The ones that I don’t look at every day, or every week.

And then, looking at my shelves at work and again at home, I thought, “Sod it. These books are awesome. Every one of them has taught me something. It may not be something terribly essential and chances are that I won’t remember it tomorrow, but it’s still been imparted.”

So this is in honour of my favourites among the not-quite-essential reference books that I love.

Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations by Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman.

I’m going to love any book that warns me to “sterilize [myself] with fear.” But the most valuable thing this book taught me? That Tony Stark, at some point in his continuity, uttered the line “I’ll meet you at the Frug-a-go-go when I’ve finished with the cyclotron, baby.”

Smooth, Tony.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones.

Diana Wynne Jones just rocks. That’s all there is to it, really. But The Magicians of Caprona and Archer’s Goon are one thing, and a tourist’s brochure to fantasy fiction is another.

Sample entry: “Small Man can be a very funny or a very tiresome TOUR COMPANION, depending on how this kind of thing grabs you. He gambles (see GAMING), he drinks too much and he always runs away. Since the Rules allow him to make JOKES, he will excuse his behaviour in a variety of comical ways. Physically he is stunted and not at all handsome, although he usually dresses flamboyantly. He tends to wear hats with feathers in. You will discover he is very vain. But, if you can avoid smacking him, you will come to tolerate if not love him” (174-75).

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence by A Member of the Whip Club (Frances [sic] Grose, according to the introduction).

This one speaks for itself, surely.

No? Might be just me, then. It certainly helps when you’re reading Georgette Heyer novels, that’s for sure.

This, I think, is my favourite entry.

Dommerer: A beggar pretending that his tongue has been cut out by the Algerines, or cruel and blood-thirsty Turks, or else that he was born deaf and dumb.

It’s just so curiously specific, isn’t it? The proviso stuck on the end—“or, he might not have much of an imagination. You know, whatevs”—seems a bit of a let down.

Book of Intriguing Words, Paul Hellweg.

I’m just going to list the weirdest of the new words that his book taught me while I was flipping through it this afternoon.

Daphnomancy: divination by means of a laurel tree.
Ailuromancy: divination by the way a cat jumps.
Cinqasept: a short visit to one’s lover (literally from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.)

(But surely the last would also apply to a period between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.? )

The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce.

Now this one is a vital addition to the shelf, really, but I had to include it in the list just so I could give some sample definitions.

Circus, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.

Guillotine, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

Thou Improper, Thou Uncommon Noun by Willard R. Espy

But, seriously: who doesn’t need a dictionary of eponyms? I had no idea, before browsing through this, that “tawdry” was an eponym (taking its name from a corruption of St Audrey, in reference to the inexpensive lace collars sold on her holy day) or that badminton took its name from the Gloucestershire seat of the Duke of Beaufort (where it was first played after being imported from India).

An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton.

Now, I don’t know how many of these collective nouns are tongue in cheek and how many are derived from genuine sources. I believe that the collective noun for hounds is “a mute” (from the Old French meute, for either “pack” or “kennel”) and that a legitimate, if rare, alternative is “a sleuth of hounds” (from the Old Norse slóth, meaning “track”).

That seems plausible.

But this following list seems both as though it’s entirely fabricated and as though the words should be in more common use:

An angst of dissertations.
A vicious circle of fallacies.
A tabula rasa of empiricists.
A conjugation of grammarians.

When I find gems like these, is it any wonder that I keep buying reference books?

And that isn’t even revealing the existence of my Dictionary of Pirates or Encyclopaedia of Plague and Pestilence.

I was happily running Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures in the background this morning while I was slogging through some donkey work, when I stumbled across the following encounter—or should I say “encounter” (nudge, nudge)—in the City Under the Streets adventure:

Saeana’s eyes widened as she entered a room to find a handsome halfling lad sitting dejectedly at a wooden desk. “I’m so bored,” he moaned.

Saeana made a Charisma check with a difficulty of 13 . . . and rolled 16

Saeana worked her magic (so to speak) on the halfling and a good time was had by all. As thanks for their new friendship, the halfling gave Saeana a gift.

Saeana received 88 XP.

Saeana obtained a suit of Eladrin Chain!

That’s . . . not right, surely? I mean, I may be reading this incorrectly, but it does look as though my character—in the middle of an adventure in which I’m supposed to be tracing the mysterious killer of city guards—stopped for a little dalliance with someone who, frankly, sounds underage and then accepted a costly gift (that she couldn’t even use, since she’s a Ranger).

I’m trying hard not to read this as a broader indictment of gender politics in role-playing games—and, frankly, it hasn’t stopped me playing the game.

But I’m fairly certain that the male characters aren’t offered the chance to “work their magic (so to speak) on the halfling.”

Of course, Nick hasn’t done this adventure, yet; if his male character has this encounter, I’ll eat my words.

But, as it stands, it’s reminding me of C. J. Cherryh’s shift to writing about giant cats on the grounds that at least her illustrator couldn’t put those on the cover in gold bikinis.

Nick’s Goth background starts showing through:

NICK: You seem willing to cuddle me at the moment. (Note: not a euphemism.)
ME: I cuddle you all the time! And I initiate cuddles, too, even though I’m not a cuddler by nature. So you stop that!
NICK: Okay.
ME: Well, you’ve spoilt the cuddle mood now.
NICK: For good?
ME: Yep.
NICK: You are so Old Testament sometimes.

I had my hair cut this morning, and I’m worried that it’s a little too short. (It’s doesn’t help when you say “shoulder length” and then the hairdresser starts muttering, after she’s already cut a chunk off, “That’s quite a lot to take off in one go.”

So I’m a little nervous about it.

Then the following conversation occurred:

NICK: So let’s have a look at the new hair.
ME: You could have mentioned it when you came into the room five minutes ago to say “Hello,” but you didn’t notice it.
NICK: I did! I did notice it! I was just waiting to have a proper conversation.
ME: You didn’t notice it.
NICK: Well, I wasn’t really looking at you.

Yep, honey. That makes it much better.