Everytime I hear that title (V for Vendetta), I keep thinking it's the next Sue Grafton mystery.

Not just bios of sports figures. There's quite a bit of sports-related stuff out there that isn't bios.

Oh, yes. I've come to peruse quite a number of nonfiction books I might otherwise have missed. And in general, it's easier to sell a preteen boy on nonfiction than fiction. (I don't know why, but this tendency is not as pronounced among girls.)

Baseball is rounders, but more so, as I understand it. But with added passion and formality and tribal stuff.

Baseball is all I know about rounders. And, yeah. Lots of formality and tribal stuff, and also statistics.

I liked Summerland well enough, but

Ditto. It was breezy, fun, pleasant, but in the end it felt rather like piffle, to me.

The brand new Science fiction + Fantasy reading group that is starting at my library is reading "V for Vendetta" this fall - just before the movie comes out.

Baseball is rounders, but more so, as I understand it. But with added passion and formality and tribal stuff.

This week I wanted to write a scene for my work-in-progress where one company in a battalion challenged another to a sporting match of some kind. I meant to make it cricket, but no matter how many times I read the rules and tried to visualize the bits and pieces of cricket I caught on TV when I was in England, I couldn't picture it well enough to write even a simple scene.

So I googled rounders, read over the rules, looked at a diagram of a field, said, "Oh, that makes sense," and wrote my scene. So, yeah, a lot like baseball.

I wish I could wrap my brain around cricket, since every once in awhile it comes up in books like the Aubrey/Maturin or Lord Peter Wimsey series, and for me it's like having several pages of a language I don't know inserted in the middle of the book.

If you like K&K, I believe that you'll love "Fortress of Solitude." because it's like K&K with urban funk(both literal and musical)

So pleased for Diana Wynn Jones - I've loved her stuff since I was, what, 10 or so, and was always baffled as to why she wasn't more successful. One of my first thoughts on the whole JK Rowling phenomenon was "Well, maybe this will kickstart DWJ's publishers into pushing her books!" And it really did. They reprinted so many titles and made a push to market them, and not before bloody time. I'm really looking forward to the movie - Howl's Moving Castle is one of my favourite of her books, and I loved Spirited Away. (Found Princess Mononoke to be slightly disappointing. Good, but not as good as I'd hoped.)

Susan, clearly you need to hook up with these folks: [link]

RE: HBP, something popped into my mind this morning regarding horcruxes.

JK has been so good at cleaning up details...or at least good enough for my less than steel-trap mind...and one thing has been bugging me since HP5: What the hippogriff happened to that two-way mirror thingie Sirius gave to Harry? Last we saw, it lie broken in an old sock...but it had no payoff! Except, perhaps as a last nail in the Harry resurrection fantasy coffin.

While I don't think it will reappear, it makes me wonder what other objects have I forgotten about that might end up being the last horcrux? I'll be amazed if it ends up being something we haven't seen before.

HP VI -- beej I thought about the mirror too. I was surprised that Harry didn't beat himself up over not finding/using it sooner, as that would have eliminated the need for him to use Umbridge's fireplace to talk to Sirius. I think he may use it yet, to communicate with those who return to Hogwarts next year. (I wonder if the Ministry of Magic may try to put someone else in as Head of the school rather than McGonagall; if so, then normal methods of commuication may prove too difficult.) Perhaps Ginny and he can talk to each other this way?

HP VI -- Speculation Assuming that "RAB" means Sirius brother Regulus, and he's the one who got the cave horcrux, the question is "how"? It looks to be a 2 "person" job as someone has to force the other to finish drinking. Who could Regulus have turned to for help? Who could he bring out in the boat without triggering the alarms and would have HAD to obey -- his command? My money is on Kreacher. Kreacher was protecting all of the Black family stuff, including that locket. Perhaps not only because he revered Regulus' and Sirius' mother, but because Regulus had ordered him to do so.

Also, it seems to me consistent with the way JKR is telling this tale that Harry would to have to deal with Kreacher to get information about what happened, particularly in light of Harry's revulsion at having to deal with the creature that betrayed Sirius. Also, maybe that would lead to some payoff for Hermoine's whole "S.P.E.W." crusade, which is little mentioned these days.

Damn. Good thought, Narrator. Yep. Colour me convinced.