I'm at home!

If you were to try to call me right now, the line would be busy. That's because I'm at home, with my pretty new laptop, typing this. I only have a dial-up connection right now, but I'll get DSL soon. Over the last few days I finished Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold, and today I read Enna Burning by Shannon Hale. Both were good books. I'm not sure that Paladin was as strong as The Curse of Chalion (the first book with these characters), but both were awfully good.
But really, tonight I'm all about the new computer, and my new access to the Internet. Yippee!

weeping, pregnant Petra

I read Shadow of the Giant yesterday. Boy, it was lame - so lame that I can't even find ordinary words to describe it. So I'll use bad haiku:
Pregnant Petra cried -
Young Beans were scattered worldwide
All but one returned

One lost, three in space:
Surely Card will find fodder
For sequels in this.

What are the odds that
many leaders of the world
would be twenty-odd?

Not comfortable with
idea that Muslims need to
change how they are now.

Petra and Peter:
Similar names - "I love you"
failed to convince me.

"Ender's Game" great read:
More books unnecessary.
Please, Mr. Card, stop!

snogging at Hogwarts

Some of my colleagues have heard me complain about the lack of sex at Hogwarts, and how much this bugged me. I don't have any prurient interest in hearing about Harry's sex life - can't stress that enough. But I do feel that given Rowling's fearlessness about moving the books from children's literature to teen lit, it's odd that she never mentions all these co-ed boarding school students snogging in the halls. This bothered me because I tend to think that showing violence (but not physical affection) in books and movies for children and young teens is usually limited to the U.S.; I'd hate to see this idiocy spread to other countries. Why is violence more acceptable?
I'm not going to give away spoilers about the new book, but suffice it to say that Rowling has finally decided to put snogging into Hogwarts.
Before I started in on the sixth Harry Potter, I read The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank by Ellen Feldman and Elske by Cynthia Voigt. Elske is a favorite of mine, despite the misandry. The Boy who loved Anne Frank was interesting - not sure it's a classic for the ages. I dislike fanfic and alternate history as a rule, because I like to keep the real world very distinct from fiction. But I figured this one was pretty safe - Peter van Pels died in 1945, after all, and so a book about his life after the war wasn't likely to get confused with anything else in my head. I'd love to hear others' opinions about this one; I'm still not sure what I think. My library has Anne Frank, but not Peter van Pels or Otto Frank, in the subject headings; that's more accuracy than I'm used to from them.
On my to-read pile: Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold and Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card. I'll read Card first, I think, so I save the better book for last. Card is writing just barely well enough to hold my interest in the series; I'm expecting a barefoot and pregnant (and probably weeping - you know how women are) Petra. Ugh.

Henry Potter

I was amused to hear an elderly person asking for "Henry Potter" books at the library the other day. Mind, I wasn't laughing at her because she was out of the loop. Rather, I was amused by my surprise. I'm so used to hearing about Harry Potter, but it's not as though Harry Potter is some sort of icon, like Christ or Martin Luther King, Jr. Why should she know the name? Earlier today, I was reading e-mails on a listserv about popular culture and the generation gap, and it made me think: is pop culture solely for the young?
There are only five days left until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out. I know this because, well, it's my job to know. And yeah, because I re-read the fifth book over the weekend, and because I'm going to help out at the local bookstore's Harry Potter party on Friday. And yeah, because I'll almost certainly be done with HP6 by this time next week.
I'd write more, but I'm distracted by the music. I've been listening to all my CDs (and my husband's, which is harder. He has cooler CDs, but I don't always like them) in rough alphabetical order for the last few months - I'm almost through S. Today I've been listening to various CDs by Stravinsky, Styx and the Spice Girls. And I'm bowled over by how bad Styx's Kilroy Was Here is, now that I'm old enough to have taste. So I think I might hurriedly turn off the computer (and by the extension the CD) and go home.

sunt lacrimae rerum

I've been re-reading Antonia Forest's books about the Marlow family. Seriously, she's one of the best children's authors ever. Her plots are interesting and organic (things tend to go to their logical conclusions), the characters feel real and her command of the language is almost unparalleled. Even The Thuggery Affair, with its tremendously dated slang, says more interesting and true things about humankind than many a Newbery winner. I was bowled over (no pun intended) by The Cricket Term again yesterday. Of course, I'd appreciate Forest's writing even if I didn't care for the characters, and I'd enjoy the Murder Must Advertise references and the well-described cricket matches, but really, I love everything about this book. It's one of my top ten favorites, ever. The Attic Term and Run Away Home (the two books that follow) aren't as good, but they're still perfectly fine reads. I'm looking forward to the day that Forest is re-discovered by children's literature enthusiasts in the U.S., both because I want to talk to people about the books and because I got there first .
While I was at my parents' house last week, I curled up in their formal and rarely-used living room and read The Scarlet Pimpernel in great gulps. It was such an unexpectedly fun read! If you haven't read it, please do. I liked it, and I'm not even a fan of adventure stories.
BTW, if anyone can provide a better translation of sunt lacrimae rerum than "there are tears of things", I'd love to see it.