corellianjedi

For the longest time it has driven me crazy that I have all of the Harry Potter books in hardback except for Sorcerer's Stone. I only had that one in paperback (2 copies).

I just went to the used bookstore and they had a copy that looks BRAND SPANKIN' NEW and since it was used and I had credit it only cost $7.

I HAVE A COMPLETE HARDBACK SET OF HARRY POTTER.

*cranks HatP and does a happy dance*

I finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows today. It was lovely. More than lovely. It left me feeling so happy and calm and, yes, it made me cry but I loved it oh so much. It killed me a little that the book is actually Mom's; she let me borrow it (read: forced it upon me as soon as I finished Flashforward) so I couldn't dog-ear the pages or underline quotes that I liked. I think, perhaps, once I have a job I will have to buy myself a copy so I can reread it and find all my favorite quotes again.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Seriously. Go read it.

Most importantly, where is my Dawsey Adams?

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

-The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (pgs 11-12)

Twenty pages into this book and I'm in love. It reminds me so much of 84, Charing Cross Road that I almost want to cry.

So far, today is an awesome day.

• I finished all of my chores by 10:30a.
• I'm halfway through Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer (I love reading on our screen porch).
• I watched an episode of Big Bang Theory over breakfast and half of WALL-E over lunch.
• Vitina should be here in about an hour or so for 24 HOURS OF FUN. And by fun I mean "finishing The Middleman, going to used bookstores, eating mac'n'cheese, and playing MarioKart before she must return to Dayton."
• This bit of Emmy news from Ausiello: Sources confirm to me exclusively that host Neil Patrick Harris will headline a Dr. Horrible-themed production number about midway through Sunday’s ceremony. Score! FLAIL.

Enjoy your Saturday, everyone.

Question: Why are the UK covers for Jasper Fforde's novels consistently superior to the US covers?

I've thought this since The Eyre Affair but now that I've seen the cover art for Shades of Grey I'm convinced: UK > US.

( And now I'm gonna babble about cover design and post pictures - FUN! )

That being said: OMG I WISH IT WAS DECEMBER. I'm super excited for Fforde first foray (wow alliteration) into non-meta-fiction.

01. Mom, Dad, and I went to the mall tonight. We went to Sears so my dad could look at grills but Mom won the night with this quote: "I'm gonna go look at washers and dryers and see if Felicia Day is here." She got a hug for that one. We had Auntie Anne's pretzels for dinner and watched obnoxious teenagers get thrown out by mall cops. Then we stopped by Borders and I bought Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine and Mom bought me Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman 'cause I couldn't decide and it was gonna be 50% with the book she bought. Or something. Whatever, I got two new books!

02. Looooooved Psych tonight. Buzz needs to be on more often. Streetcar named Shawnsire, LOL.

03. New Boooones promo! Has nothing to do with anything except the cast looking ADORABLE and dancing with skeletons again. Seriously. Adorable. (And TJ looks hot. Like always.)

04.

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Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

My favorite book cover design sites: The Book Design Review, Shelved Books, Readerville, and Fwis Book Covers.

SHARE!
Day one: a song
Day two: a picture
Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day four: a site
Day five: a youtube clip
Day six: a quote
Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

Usually when I love a book enough to recommend it, I can't shut up about it. So if I've rambled about a book in my LJ, I recommend it. But, since I'm reading Extreme Measures right now, I thought I'd recommend the Mitch Rapp series by Vince Flynn since I don't know anyone besides my dad who reads them.

They're definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but they are awesome. They're political thrillers about Mitch Rapp, a counter-intelligence operative (aka CIA assassin) doing whatever it takes to keep America safe from terrorists. They're very detailed and interesting to read; Flynn does a lot of research for these books and it shows. I have definitely enjoyed all the books in the series so far but my favorite is probably the first - Transfer of Power - in which terrorists manage to take over the White House. It's fantastic. So if you like thrillers or, as my mom says, books that "have terrorists trying to blow up the world or something," I highly suggest you check out the Mitch Rapp series. There are 9 books so far: Transfer of Power, The Third Option, Separation of Power, Executive Power, Memorial Day, Consent to Kill, Act of Treason, Protect and Defend and Extreme Measures. The tenth book, Pursuit of Honor, comes out in October (but my dad and I are cheap and lazy and always wait for the paperback so I won't read it for a while, lol).

So if you like thrillers, give Flynn a shot.

When your laboratory explodes, lacing your body with a supercharged elixir, what do you do? You don't just lie there. You crawl out of the rubble, hideously scarred, and swear vengeance on the world. You keep going. You keep trying to take over the world.

-Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman (page 310)

I really liked this book when I read it last summer. But I just finished rereading it last night and I'm completely, madly in love with it. It's a fantastic, inventive story and some of Grossman's prose makes me feel like someone hit me in the knees. So much love for this story.

I can always count on my brother to talk me into buying stuff, even if I probably shouldn't. I was at Target this morning and stupidly tried on this jacket and it was so comfy and I loved the color but I was like "Nah, I shouldn't buy it." But I texted Ste - who has more jackets than he knows what to do with 'cause he loves jackets - and he told me to get it. So I did. It's green and has some yellow/orange/red stripes on it. It looks cool and it's really soft. Now it just needs to cool off a little more so I can actually wear it.

Speaking of the weather cooling off: I'M WEARING JEANS. Heck yes. Please, weather, do NOT warm up again. Cool off some more. I'm ready for jeans and football season, please.

The other day when Mom and I were exploring we found a used bookstore. It didn't actually open until today but the women who own the place - who were getting ready for the grand opening - let us in to look around a little. I went today and turned in the four Twilight books for credit. There's no way I'm reading them again and I got $17 worth of credit for them (and OMG the owners were so excited to have those books. They were stunned I didn't want them anymore, lol). I got the new Vince Flynn paperback for Dad and me (Extreme Measures), Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein (the only Heinlein they had, and it cost a dollar), and a book for Kerry's birthday. All in all a rousing success, I still have $10 of credit left, and the ladies who run the place were very nice. And it's like 2 miles from my house. Huzzah.

I wish it was this Saturday. We've got tickets to the Mizzou vs. Illinois game in STL. COLLEGE FOOTBALL FTW.

Has anyone else read Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman? I'm a little less than halfway through it right now, and at the moment I love it just as much (if not a little more) than its predecessor-but-not-prequel, The Forever War. [Both won Hugos for Best Novel: War in 1976, Peace in 1998.] I highly recommend The Forever War to anyone who enjoys military, sci-fi, or military sci-fi books. Or books that make you really think. It's really quite something. If the rest of Forever Peace is as good as what I've read, I will heartily recommend it as well.

It's a really fantastic, serious book and - just like when I read Chris Moore's A Dirty Job and saw Nathan Fillion as Charlie Asher - I find myself picturing the main character, Julian Class, looking like Dule Hill. Thinking about Dule-as-Julian just makes me want to watch episodes of The West Wing like "Proportional Response" and "Bad Moon Rising," when Dule was at his oh-so-serious best.

Back to reading.

ETA: OMG Talk about a blast from the past. I remember cutting that out of my mom's People magazine and tacking it up on my bulletin board. It's from the 14 May 2001 issue, so I was 13. :)

For my own reference.

( Hugo Award Winners/Nominees That I Have Read. )

01. Like I mentioned in my last post, I watched the Warehouse 13 Comic-Con panel last night. Saul Rubinek and Allison Scagliotti are kind of awesome together and now I'm super excited to see how Claudia works with Artie. Eddie McClintock, in a ballsy move, called the president of SyFy up on stage at one point to first thank him for supporting the show and then ask if they're getting renewed. After (at the time) only 3 episodes had aired and in front of a big group of people. The president dodged the question artfully and said he loved the show and that if the fans want it renewed to get the word out, etc. I couldn't believe Eddie did that, lol. The EPs were like "Eddie? Eddie, what are you doing?" Also, Mark Sheppard was there. Because Mark Sheppard is EVERYWHERE. He's gonna be in the last episode of the season and he was sitting in the audience for the panel, it was cute.

02. A great interview with Maurissa Tancharoen about Dollhouse. Admittedly, this is my favorite part:

And Enver [Gjokaj] – he's outstanding! There's so much that can be done with him!
Maurissa: Absolutely! The way you're all excited about him? That's exactly how we feel. We're going to milk him to death in season two. Why wouldn't we? Enver is a chameleon, and so talented.

Can you give me any tidbits on what's in store for him in season two?
Maurissa: We may do something where we explore where he came from, and how he came to be in the Dollhouse. The fun thing about him is we can do anything with him. The possibilities are endless.

Hooray for Enver! Speaking of Enver, here's an interview with him and Dichen from the TCAs. (OMG 2x02 is Victor-heavy and written by Tim Minear. WIN.)

03. I spent way too much time this morning reading io9's Great Opening Sentences from Science Fiction and Our Favorite Last Lines from Science Fiction Novels and all the reader comments. And of course I just got Borders Bucks this morning. I think I'll have to pick up something sci-fi.

Wow. My room is a mess.

The vast majority of my bookshelves were wall-mounted and stayed with the house in Ohio. Every other box I open in this room has books in it. There are two 18-gallon RoughTotes in the basement full of my books. I have one 4-shelf bookcase in my room. This... is a problem.

We got 36-inch extensions for the pullstrings on my ceiling fan. Now they hit me in the face when I walk through the room.

Good news: my West Wing mug, Darth Vader helmet candy dish, and shot glass from Ireland arrived whole and intact.

When I take a break from unpacking I check Twitter and think mean thoughts about all the people who went to The Middleman panel today. That is the absolutely number one thing I'm bummed about missing this year. (All snatched from Twitter: io9 report, IGN report, picture 1, picture 2, Zap2It's pictures) I'm reading everything I can find about this panel, and the more I read the more upset I get that I wasn't there. I know the Middleman's name.

The DNA poster I made for sophomore year [high school] biology is hanging in my closet.

So I just finished The Chronicles of Narnia. ♥

Remember that guy who redesigned the Harry Potter and ASoUE book covers to look like Penguin Classics?

He's also done Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials.

I think all books should have variant Penguin Classics covers. And I think M.S. Corley should design them all.

Soooooo, I don't think I mentioned this but I'm in the midst of finally reading The Chronicles of Narnia. I've started to read them several times but I only got four books in because I was distracted or didn't have the next book or whatever. But I got the entire series in one volume for my last birthday so I decided to read them this summer.

I finished Prince Caspian this morning, which is the last one I have previously read. The last three - I started Voyage of the Dawn Treader after dinner - are completely new to me and I'm SO EXCITED to finally read them.

(I'm also a little excited because I bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in paperback yesterday and I'm going to reread it once I'm finished with Narnia. I miss HP.)

I watched Serenity today for the first time in a long time 'cause indilime kept posting quotes on her Twitter. GOSH I LOVE THAT [BIG DAMN] MOVIE. The Woe is the only thing I don't like about that movie, I think, and I've even come to terms with that (even if it still makes me sad). It's one of my favorite movies ever.

I've also decided that John Casey needs to go scruffy for a few episodes because Adam looks damn good like that. See?



I'm also reading the second Dresden Files book, Fool Moon. I finished Storm Front the other day and I really very much enjoyed it. Harry is a cool character, the story is interesting, and I like Jim Butcher's sense of humor. Of course the last thing I need is another book series (particularly one that's still in progress) but that's beside the point. I started downloading some of The Dresden Files (tv show) episodes, too. I like it less than the books, and I'm not wild about the woman who plays Murphy, but Paul Blackthorne is Harry Dresden. I'll probably watch all 12 episodes just for him. He is absolutely perfect as Harry. And he does the scruffy well, too. See?



This post was brought to you by my increasingly better mood and scruffy men. :D


ETA: ZOMG TOY STORY 3!!!!

01. YOUREMINDMEOF...

02. Picspams! Laura Roslin vs. Jed Bartlet / Chris Pine / The cast of Star Trek / I'M ON A SHIP

03. Icons! HIMYM/Chris Pine/Glee and Chuck

04. I finished Odd Hours today. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first three Odd books, but it was still Odd so I did enjoy it. The end didn't really feel like an end though; c'mon Koontz, you gotta give us more Odd! I'm about to start Storm Front by Jim Butcher. It's the first Dresden Files book; Jack got it for me for graduation. He's been trying to get me to read this series for a long while.

05. 66 days until The Middleman DVDs come out.

06. Aaaaand to make this an even number, check out this gorgeous picture of Neil Gaiman and his dog, Cabal.

I love my Oddie.

"Loss is the hardest thing," I said. "But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore."

Her fanning hand went still. She regarded me with an expression that I took to be surprised agreement.

Because Birdie seemed to expect me to elucidate, I fumbled out what I thought she might want to say herself: "Grief can destroy you - or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. Or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by the gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the the gift of life."


-Odd Hours by Dean Koontz (page 252)

The rules are that for 8 days until graduation, you have to post something that made you happy that day.

Today's Happy Things: I'M DONE. I turned in my paper, I turned in my take-home exams, and I took my only in-class exam. I'm done with homework and essays and tests and everything. I have work tomorrow and Thursday and packing and visiting with people and laundry and getting ready for my family to come and graduation on Sunday, but as far as schoolwork goes, I'm done. And it feels good. [Plus, Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi and Odd Hours by Dean Koontz come out in paperback today. I think I'm gonna order them as a graduation present to myself.]