None of it means a damn thing.

Mal ,'Objects In Space'


We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good  

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Sheryl - Jul 09, 2005 5:56:51 pm PDT #8093 of 10002
Fandom means never having to say "But where would I wear that?"

Hec,

Huh. well, now I'm glad I got the SF Book Club 2-in-1 edition with that and "Castle in the Air"

And in Harry Potter news, apparently the con I'm going to has "HP&THBP goes on sale" as a scheduled item.(Midnight Friday. Why then? I dunno)


Volans - Jul 09, 2005 9:50:22 pm PDT #8094 of 10002
move out and draw fire

I dreamt last night that they made Harry Potter into a stage musical, and it actually was pretty good.

This book [link] is going to be my next purchase, although the comparisons to "Da Vinci Code" turn me off. But it looks like that's just publisher-hype.


dcp - Jul 09, 2005 11:03:46 pm PDT #8095 of 10002
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

Raquel, have you read any of Gerald Durrell's books? He lived in Corfu for about five years in the 1930s and has some great tales about growing up as an ex-pat among the Greeks. I recently finished the Durrell biography by Douglas Botting, and the differences between Durrell's account of events and Botting's are fascinating.


Sheryl - Jul 10, 2005 5:54:14 am PDT #8096 of 10002
Fandom means never having to say "But where would I wear that?"

"My family, and other animals" is a great book. (Not sure if that's one of the Corfu books you meant, dcp, but that's what came to mind)


Ginger - Jul 10, 2005 6:03:17 am PDT #8097 of 10002
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

I love Gerald Durrell's books, particularly My Family and Other Animals. Do you recommend the biography?


Volans - Jul 10, 2005 7:08:19 am PDT #8098 of 10002
move out and draw fire

I haven't, dcp, but I just checked at Amazon and bought a couple used. They sound great! Sadly, I'm sure they will make me obscenely jealous, as Corfu! And the Greece of 2005 is not at all the Greece of 1999, let alone 1930.


Polter-Cow - Jul 10, 2005 12:09:50 pm PDT #8099 of 10002
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

I just finished The Time Traveler's Wife.

Wow.

I loved it.

That is all.


dcp - Jul 10, 2005 6:25:19 pm PDT #8100 of 10002
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

My Family and Other Animals is definitely the one to start with. The other two "Corfu" books are Birds, Beasts and Relatives and Garden of the Gods. Beasts in My Belfry is early post-war England, and then the first animal collecting expedition book is The Overloaded Ark.

The rest of the books can be read in pretty much any order, except that The Bafut Beagles should come before A Zoo In My Luggage, because the latter is about a return expedition to Bafut.

Ginger, I liked the biography a lot. It is very thorough without being tedious. It's amazing just how much stuff was going on in Durrell's life that didn't make it into his many books.


sumi - Jul 11, 2005 7:20:33 am PDT #8101 of 10002
Art Crawl!!!

David that publisher is an idiot!!!

My HP is "shipping soon".


Nutty - Jul 11, 2005 7:29:19 am PDT #8102 of 10002
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

So that Kate P. knows she is not alone, I bought a copy of Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners over the weekend. I fully anticipate its being really cool and mind-bendy.

It does not include the story "Monsters," of which I have heard the first half and not the second half. That is forthcoming in September, in a McSweeney's collection for young adults, edited by Daniel Handler. The title is something impenetrably long, so long that Kelly could only wave her hands vaguely and recall that there was a "and this other thing we don't have a name for" at the end of it.