So, um, hey...

[lydamorehouse]

I totally forgot to promote my booksignings. So, uh, if you happen to be in Minneapolis at 1 PM tomorrow, you wanna come see me at Uncle Hugo's? No? How about the HarMar B&N at 2 pm?

I just got back from the woods. Mason and I took his rattata for a walk. For his birthday, he got Pokemon Heart Gold for the DS, and a feature is a pokemon pedometer, to which you can download one of your pokemon and take them for a walk. It's weirdly cool, because you see a little screen immage of her bounding along with you.


We went to Minnehaha and, now that Mason is older, we can make it all the way to the Mississippi back in about two hours. That may still seem long, but we can't walk without stopping to toss rocks or do a little wading/mucklucking. I brought along my geocach GPS, but the caches all seemed to be "off road" and labeled as rough terrian. After the steep hill of our first attempt, Mason wasn't really in the mood to leave the trail and, as he said, "come back all bruised and scratched."

I started reading HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. It's (no surprise to naomikritzer who recommended it to me) pretty good so far. It is very dark, as the lady at Red Ballon warned me as she sold it to me, but only 50 some pages in it's really just dystopian SF more than anything truly graphic. Perhaps that's about to change as we're just getting to the games themselves. Speaking of dark, Mason and I are nearly 300 pages into THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (right about just after Ron gets accepted onto the quidditch team.) I'm still enjoying this, actually. I like reading it out loud. Mason is patient enough that I can read two or three chapters at a sitting, which is even better. Snape continues to be one of my favorite characters, and despite my determination not to be impressed by anyone so popular, I'm beginning to understand the deal. The stories are very compelling.

Okay, got to go. It's a busy life being on vacation.

Comments

[seawasp]

In some ways, despite horrific events later, I think Order of the Phoenix represents the absolute dark nadir of the books, mainly because HARRY hits bottom hard in this one and nearly ruins everything for himself.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed _Hunger Games_ and its sequel, and didn't find them particularly graphic. More dystopian, as you said.

You may, on the other hand, notice some holes in the world-building. I found I could on the whole ignore them.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

A website I've been reading lately with huge enjoyment is Mark Reads Harry Potter. This is the guy who achieved a remarkable degree of internet fame for his scathingly brilliant review, chapter by chapter, of the Twilight series, which he HATED (Mark Reads Twilight--I believe it's had several million hits). He decided to read Harry Potter next and he's posting his reviews, chapter by chapter as he goes, generally two chapter reviews a day. He's now halfway through Goblet of Fire. It's so much fun, because he's reading them absolutely cold, with no clue what's coming next. And he's just loving them, but just as scathingly funny as before. Highly recommended--it's interesting to see him try to guess what's coming (and failing, of course) and, as I said, he's just hilarious. (He's gay, too, by the way, a fact which comes up periodically when he's talking about his reaction to the books.)

I devoured The Hunger Games and its sequel and was quite impressed.