As near as I can tell, he took pictures for the Rude Gallery Black Rebel Spring and Summer 2012 photo book (Ju-ken blog; Rude Gallery Black Rebel blog)

January

29: Hyde Roentgen Night — 苗場プリンスホテル4号館ブリザーディウム(新潟県湯川市)

February

14: GLANZ — Morph Tokyo

Haruki Murakami – 1Q84 (library) — I feel like I should write something about this after reading the whole thing, but I don’t have anything to day about it; I’m not sure I liked it (I didn’t dislike it)
Ngaio Marsh – Overture to Death (library)
Ngaio Marsh – Final Curtain (library) — not this month, but I’m 99% sure I’ve read it already
Darynda Jones – First Grave on the Right (library)
Caroline Stevermer – A Scholar of Magics (own, reread) — I love this book
Darynda Jones – Second Grave on the Left (library) — and I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of these; I don’t care about Reyes and he’s clearly the focus of these books
Umberto Eco – The Prague Cemetery (library) — did not finish, didn’t like the lead and didn’t want to read any more about him
Terry Pratchett – Snuff (library) — another did not finish; I don’t care about Vimes in the country, but will try it again
Mercedes Lackey – Beauty and the Werewolf (library) — enjoyable fluff

Ngaio Marsh – Death in a White Tie (library)
Ngaio Marsh – Grave Mistake (library)
Ngaio Marsh – Last Ditch (library)
George Mann – The Immorality Engine
Mercedes Lackey – Intrigues (library, reread)
Mercedes Lackey – Changes (library)
K.E. Mills – Wizard Squared (library)
Steven Gould – 7th Sigma (library)
Cherie Priest – Hellbent (library)
Better Homes and Gardens – A Cross-Stitch Christmas: The Season For Stitching (library, ISBN 0-696-20887-3)
Beth Russell – Beth Russell’s William Morris Needlepoint (library)
Eva Brent – Oriental Designs in Needlepoint (library)
Ngaio Marsh – Death at the Bar (library)
Terry Pratchett – Truckers (library)
Simon R. Green – Something from the Nightside (library)
Carrie Vaughn – After the Golden Age (library)

Will Hill – Department Nineteen (library)
Tom Holt – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages (library)
Patricia McKillip – The Bards of Bone Plain (library) (DNF)
Ngaio Marsh – A Man Lay Dead (library)
Lev Grossman – The Magicians (library)
Ngaio Marsh – Clutch of Constables (library)
Kate Elliott – Cold Magic (library)
K. E. Mills – Witches Incorporated (library)
Patricia C. Wrede – Thirteenth Child (library)
Patricia C. Wrede – Across the Great Barrier

Ju-ken has joined the band GLANZ:

Members are Cherry (drums), Takako (vocals), ShigE (guitar), sHIGe (bass, aka Ju-ken). Their first show with this lineup was September 3 at Shibuya THE GAME; it was an audition to play in a free area at Inazuma Rock Fes. They passed the audition; their second show will be at Inazuma on September 18 (Inazuma site originally said Sept 17; they’ve updated it to the 18th now). They’re also playing on Nov 2 at Morph Tokyo and are having a small tour in December.

Barbara Hammet – The Art of William Morris in Cross Stitch (library)
Cherie Priest – Four and Twenty Blackbirds (library)
Cherie Priest – Those Who Went Remained There Still (library)
Melissa Marr – Graveminder (library)
Lisa Shearin – Magic Lost, Trouble Found (library)
China Miéville – Embassytown (library)
Jim Butcher - Small Favor (library)
Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill – Legacies (library)
Shelley Faye Lazar – Shelley Faye Lazar’s Oriental Collection (library)

This book had an introduction with information about William Morris and his works. A number of his works were used as inspiration for the items in the book. Each work inspired a group of items, or a group of works were used to inspire a group of coordinating items. Each group of items had a description of the inspiration, a photograph, full color charts (no symbols), and ideas for variations on the theme. This was a lovely book, and I may try to get a copy of it someday.

Shelley Faye Lazar – Shelley Faye Lazar’s Oriental Collection

This book was inspired by Shelley Faye Lazar’s travels through Asia. There was an introduction about her travels and how they inspired her. Each item had a description of the inspiration, a photograph of the completed piece, and a chart. Items were mostly needlepoint and other stitches. It was an older book, and the charts were hand-drawn. Anything repetitive had only a small section of the chart drawn; some items had line drawings only and the instructions to blow it up and draw it on the canvas. I liked some of the items but would have wanted to change the colors a little; changing colors is not really an option for me because I have no eye for color.

Cherie Priest – Those Who Went Remain There Still

This is set in two times: one part in 1775, with Daniel Boone and his crew building a road through Kentucky and one part in 1899 in a small town off the road with feuding descendants of one of the crew. The chapters alternate times. The road crew is being hunted by something. The town is poor; few people manage to get out. Three of those who did get out are summoned back when the family patriarch dies; they are part of a group of six (three from each side of the feud) who have to go into a cave known as the Witch’s Pit to find the will. No one’s explored the Witch’s Pit very far; people who go in generally don’t come out. This is not my usual sort of thing; I’m not really interested in tales of the frontier or feuding small towns. I was interested in it enough to finish it but don’t have much else to say about it.

Melissa Marr – Graveminder

I waited until way too late to write about this; it’s all very hazy now. Maylene visited the newer graves in her small town with a ritual: three sips of a cordial, three sips on the ground, some conversation, and a final admonishment of “Sleep well, and stay where I put you.” Her (step)granddaughter Rebekkah accompanied her on her rounds when she was younger, but moved away once she was old enough. Maylene is murdered; Rebekkah comes back to town. She and Byron, the undertaker’s son, try to find out exactly what is going on with their town. I can say that I liked it well enough to want to read her other books, but on thinking about it afterwards, I had a couple of issues with it. Rebekkah was a very passive protagonist; she was mostly reacting to events instead of taking action on her own. She had an excuse; she was in shock after her grandmother’s death, but it still bothered me a little. I also felt that Rebekkah’s personal issues as presented throughout the book should not have been resolved as easily as they were by the end of the book.

Lisa Shearin – Magic Lost, Trouble Found

Raine Benares is an elven sorceress and a seeker; she finds lost people and things for a living. She is an average sorceress, but has a few tricks up her sleeve and can take care of herself. The book starts out with her watching the back of her friend Quentin (without his knowledge) while he breaks into the house of a necromancer. Her cousin Phaelan finds her there and waits with her. Quentin finds what he’s looking for, a group of goblins show up, there is fighting, and in the chaos, Raine ends up with an amulet. Everybody wants the amulet; Raine has to decide who to trust while trying to find out exactly what the amulet is. She finds that she cannot remove the amulet, and it enhances her powers. I enjoyed this; it was exactly what I was looking for at the time and was what the cover promised: a fast-paced, entertaining romp. I wanted to read more, and was disappointed that the library only had this one and the fifth in the series. It did have some clichéd elements; Raine of course had red hair, and the goblins had names like Sathrik Mal’Salin. The goblins were also described as tall, grey-skinned, exotically attractive; I continued to visualize them as short and ugly because that’s what I think of when I think goblin.

Jim Butcher – Small Favor

One of the Dresden Files books; when I read through the series last year the library branch didn’t have this one, so I skipped it and went on to the next one. I think it’s the tenth book in the series; if you liked the others, you’d probably like this one. Harry gets recruited by Mab to find out what happened to Marcone, there are investigations, seemingly random attacks, not-so-random attacks, mayhem, and bad things happening to good people. Harry takes a major beating, but comes out of it with new powers.

Parnell Hall – The KenKen Killings

I did not finish this; I didn’t even make it to the first murder. I picked this up off the new release shelf because it looked vaguely interesting even though I binged on mysteries recently and burned out on them. Part of my problem with this may have been that it was the twelfth book and I hadn’t read any of the others. Part of it was that I did not like Cora (the lead) and did not find her interesting enough to read about her anyway and part of it was that I did not like the writing style (pages of unattributed dialogue; I kept losing track of who was speaking).

Melissa Marr – Wicked Lovely

I did not finish this, but will try it again later. I had my fill of teen angst already this month with Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill’s Legacies and wasn’t in the mood for more.

I’m not sure if I liked this book or not; I did finish it and didn’t really stall out reading it. I don’t know if I liked Avice very much, but she was interesting to read about. I thought the worldbuilding was good; the aliens were indeed alien, and the way the Ambassadors worked was interesting. I was not sure about the ending. The bulk of the book was world-building, building up to the catastrophe, during the catastrophe, and the catastrophe’s resolution. I think I would have liked to see a little more of the aftermath. Also, one of the side characters that I was interested in just faded out of the story.