One black leather jacket up for grabs

It's an XL (though small for an XL), basically the classic biker jacket, except it's cut short -- would probably hit at the waist for most people, instead of at the hips. Arms are long enough to work for me, and the leather is heavy enough to give a fair bit of protection, and to feel a bit stiff. It just wandered back into my possession, but clearly deserves a more caring home.

Book meme, continued

I had so much fun with this meme that I'm unwilling to let it die unsolved. So, here are the remaining selection, with more clues. I'll post the complete list when I have some time, maybe Monday evening or so.

3. Jiro shook his hair out of his eyes and bent once more over the worktable. He dipped the brush into the glue and began to apply it to the inside of the puppet head that lay in two halves before him. lilsquishy

This is one of a number of books set in historical japan by a popular children's author, who also wrote contemporary american books (and a book or two set in China) and won a number of awards, IIRC. It was one of my very favorite books as a child.

4. It was from the air that the rawness of the land showed most: vast tracts where humanity had as yet made no difference, deserts unclaimed, start as moons, scrag and woolwood thickets unexplored except by orbiting radar. jadine Who told me that a whole bunch of SF books could start that way, and then got it with her first guess.

jadine should get this one. I've recommended this book to any number of people, but I don't think many have actually taken me up on it... It is by an author who has written both science fiction and fantasy, and whose fantasy I usually haven't found particularly interesting. I find it amusing that the two Science Fiction books I included both involved genetic engineering.

5. In the collection of the Vatican Museums is a mosaic signed by one Heraclitus. Across a white background is an even scattering of debris: a wish-bone, a claw, some fruit, various discarded limbs of sea creatures, the remains of a fish.

incoh3rent might be the most likely person to get this one. It is about history and consuming passions.

6. When I was young I, too, had many dreams. Most of them I later forgot, but I see nothing in this to regret. For although recalling the past my bring happiness, at times it cannot but bring loneliness, and what is the point of clinging in spirit to lonely bygone days? However, my trouble is that I cannot forget completely, and these stories stem from those things which I have been unable to forget.

This is from the preface to the first collection of stories by my favorite Chinese revolutionary author, who is also one of my all time favorite authors. I ought to enter this in Chinese, but I'm feeling lazy, and my copy of the text in Chinese is downstairs.

10. Nolan was nearly an hour late by the time her arrived at the Central Government Activities Complex, and even here his way was blocked. Throngs of tourists, lines of determined security guards, and pockets of news reporters clustered in front of every entrance to the huge red granite building that dominated the city skyline.

k_crow should get this one. And perhaps... solcita? (I don't know if you have read this book, but I know you read other books by the same author.)