The Golden Compass

So what's the consensus on adults reading children's books? Is it embarassingly lame, or is it ok only so long as the book features Hogwarts, or is it generally acceptable?

I ask because this weekend I read The Golden Compass, the first in a trilogy of children's fantasy books by Philip Pullman ... and I liked it quite a bit. This isn't a book I went out and bought. My mother forced it on me last time I was home, and she claims she only bought it because the polar bear on the cover reminded her of her Great Pyrenees (seriously, the most awesome dog in the world, and one I'm tempted to dognap every time I go home). And while I didn't fall down in raptures with how wonderful the book was, it was perfect reading for a weekend spent ill and huddled under a blanket beside the fire. And I definitely want to read the rest of the trilogy. The little girl at the center of the story is flawed and charming, and the world they inhabit is a really interesting twist on our own. I recommend reading it before the film comes out in December. (Especially if you can do so in a snowy cabin.)

A sex change for Mr. Men?

As a child, I loved Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men and Little Miss books. As an adult, I still love them. I'm such a fan that I own two Little Miss Bossy shirts (one purchased, one homemade), one Mr. Messy shirt (homemade), a Little Miss Chatterbox shirt (purchased), a Little Miss Stubborn shirt (purchased) and a pair of Little Miss Bossy pajama pants (purchased, and by now you have probably figured out who my favorite Little Miss was). I also bought my niece (9 months old) a Little Miss Naughty dress, which is totally adorable. Back in 2002, a friend and I wanted to buy the rights to Little Miss and Mr. Men so that we could sell tee-shirts with their likeness. We were convinced it would make a good amount of money. I guess we were right, because the company, Chorion, that did purchase said rights, now sells the apparel in Saks and Nordstrom.

But Chorion has also done something that I just can't abide. They are putting together a television show and in so doing have changed the look of some of the Mr. Men and Little Miss Characters. What's worse, although they had 83 characters to choose from and only took 25, they still managed to change the gender of a few!

The formerly excellent website, mrmen.com, now only features these 25 pseudo-characters, and you can see the changes for yourself. I warn any fan of the series: it's not pretty. Mr. Messy is wearing blue sneakers? Little Miss Naughty has hair?! (And pink hair, at that.) Luckily, there is a "classic" site available, but even it doesn't feature all of the characters. Where is Little Miss Bossy? Little Miss Scatterbrain? Little Miss Splendid? Terrible.

Definitely feeling a lot more like Mr. Grumpy than Little Miss Sunshine right about now.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So here is my promised post about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Holt asked me not to post spoilers because she has an RSS reader and would have to skip through it (I don't RSS any of the blogs I read, so I'm uncertain how this works), so I told her I had to post spoilers, but would make sure everything was well-labeled before that point came.

I got the book at midnight. Well, not quite midnight. I was in line at Borders (luckily, I had gotten my bracelet early that morning on my way to work, so I was in the first grouping of people: you lined up based on your bracelet color, so although I got there much later than most people--around 11:30--I was still near the front of the line) when 12:01 came around. And the line didn't move. 12:02: line isn't moving. 12:03: no progress. 12:04: still standing still. 12:05: Borders employees walk through the store with cases of the book. At 12:05 a.m.! Couldn't they have set up the cases of books near the registers at some point before 12:01?! Did I mention there was no AC in the Borders? And that Gobo had been texting me from about 11:40 p.m., asking if I had the book yet?

Anyway, by 12:20 a.m., I had the book. We went home and I started reading immediately. I stayed up until 5:45 a.m., at which point I took a nap for a few hours, then woke up, told Gobo "I have to power through," and finished by about 3:15 p.m.

In the time I read the book, I lost two pounds. I'm not joking--I weighed myself before reading and after reading, and I was two pounds lighter. I'm guessing I cried those two pounds away.

And now for THE SPOILERS (I don't think that a traditional review will do this book justice, so I'm just kind of laying out my favorite moments, in the order in which they happened in the book):

I started crying at page 56. When a book is over 750 pages long, this isn't a great sign for my tear ducts. Page 56 is when Hedwig died, which was just so devestating to me. Of course, as I sit there and sob my cat looks at me, turns around, and walks away. The loyalty of pets.

I was hoping for a reprieve from tears, but that was in vain. I started crying again a few minutes later (at page 74) when Fred sees George with his ear cut off. Something about the idea of seeing your identical twin physically injured was very sad to me. I also had a brief cry for poor Mr. Ollivander, prisoner in the Malfoy's basement, but that one didn't last long.

But my next cry was a big one (page 97): Hermione modifying her parents' memories so that they didn't even remember they had a daughter, so they would (hopefully) be safe in Australia as she helped Harry to fight Voldemort. So much of the Potter books are about loyalty and sacrifice, and losing your relationship with your parents so that they could live (and you could fight for humankind) seemed like a pretty big sacrifice to make.

What made this book so great, though, was that there were not only the (very, very) sad moments, but also light, funny ones, which is something Rowling has managed to do with all of the books in this series. There was Hermione telling Ron that she was washing his underwear (page 115) and then Ron giving Harry a book about girls and how to talk with them. Throughout the book, Ron would give Hermione really obvious compliments, and she would fall for it every time. But my favorite part was when Harry gave Mrs. Weasley a genuine compliment and Ron, thinking it was something Harry had picked up in the book, tells him "good one!" (page 119). And any reference to Ron as a "ginger" made me laugh, but that was really more because of how much I love South Park.

One of my absolute favorite humorous parts of the book, however, was when Luna and her father were at Bill and Fleur's wedding, and Luna's father was encouraging Luna to be her totally kooky self and to do whatever she felt moved to. It was so great to see Luna with someone who really understood and appreciated her.

It wasn't long until I was crying again--there were definitely tears at page 312 when Hermione cried herself to sleep after Ron abandonned them, and Harry looked at the Marauder's Map just to see Ginny's name. But those were pretty quickly followed by laughs a few pages later when Harry joked that he had never opened "A History of Magic" and Hermione fell back into her old know-it-all routine. It was nice to see life a little bit normal just for a few minutes. Ron's return was great, as was his vote for whether they should visit Luna's father, Xenophilius Lovegood (he sided with Hermione to get back in her good graces, making the vote 2-1). I also loved Ron excitedly telling Harry and Hermione who was speaking on the radio, even when it was incredibly obvious.

But then followed what may have been my biggest cry of the book (it had a close competitor--it's tough to call which one I cried more for): Dobby's death. I didn't even like Dobby all that much. I always thought of him as the Jar Jar Binks of the Harry Potter books. But when the ever-loyal Dobby, who would do anything for Harry, died, I lost it. And I lost it even more when everyone donated clothes for Dobby to wear, and Dean Thomas provided a woolen hat for him. It reminded me of how Dobby had collected all of the clothes Hermione knitted for the house elves when she was working on S.P.E.W., and Dobby proudly wore them all. I finally thought that I was done cying over Dobby, but then Harry wrote on his gravestone "Here lies Dobby, a free elf," and I was sobbing again. Pages 475-81 were not easy ones for me.

One thing that I had missed about this book was all of our favorite characters. We got to see many of them only in bits and pieces, and so I was thrilled when I turned to page 570 and Neville appeared! And I absolutely loved that Neville finally came into his own--he was a resistance leader at Hogwarts!

Another think I love about the Potter books is Rowling's ability to describe moments we have all been through. It was great when Fleur asked Lupin "'ow eez little Teddy," to try to break an awkward moment.

And I love her ability to stay true to her characters. Sure, we knew that Ron and Hermione were in love. But we didn't see a kiss between the two of them until page 625. And why did Hermione finally grab Ron and kiss him? Because he was worried about the house elves in the Hogwarts basement and thought someone should warn them of the fight that was about to take place.

That moment of happiness didn't last long, however, as the fight within the castle began and the casualties started mounting. I was so happy to see Percy finally come back into the Weasley fold. Which made it even sadder when Fred laughed at a joke Percy made while they were fighting, and was killed, "the ghost of his last laugh etched upon his face." I expected at least one Weasley would be killed in this book, but having the perennially happy Fred killed while laughing was so very sad. And so along with Dobby, I cried more than I had for any other death in the book.

One would think that when, only 24 pages later (on page 661), we were told Lupin and Tonks had both died, I wouldn't have had any tears left. Alas, I managed to cry for them as well, although perhaps not as much as I would have if all these other deaths hadn't happened. Lupin was always one of my absolute favorite Potter characters, and it would have been nice to see one of the Marauders make it (well, as between Sirius, James and Lupin, that is--I didn't care to see Pettigrew survive, and his death was a great scene). And Lupin and Tonks' death was even more tragic because their son, like Harry, would be orphaned as a baby. But Rowling just told us that their bodies were among the dead, instead of recounting their death scene, which probably made it a little easier for me to take.

However, by the time we were told that little Colin Creevey had died, I didn't shed one tear. Maybe I didn't have any left? Because between Lupin and Tonks' death and Colin's, there were two more huge sobbing moments. First was Snape's memories of Lily. I really loved this part of the book.

I always suspected that Snape and Lily had some sort of relationship before James and Sirius hung him upside down in front of their classmates, but I loved seeing them as children and best friends (and I loved getting some background on Petunia and learning that she had desperately wanted to attend Hogwarts). I cried when Snape sat outside of the Gryffindor common room, saying he would sleep there until Lily came out, to beg her forgiveness (which she didn't give), and I cried when Snape realized that he might end up being the cause of his beloved's death. Snape was such a tragic character throughout all of these books, even if he was also horrible to Harry. He could never get past his hatred of Harry's father to realize that Harry was really so much like his mother. Or perhaps acknowledging that would have been too painful? In the end, Snape was always alone: obviously alone in his home life as a child, alone at Hogwarts (going to the dark side to fit in with his Slytherin friends), and alone as an adult. The only true friend he ever had was Lily, and it was his fault that he lost her.

And then there was Dumbledore's revelation that Harry was an inadvertent Horcrux and therefore must also die. At this point in the book (page 691) I didn't want to continue reading, because I didn't want Harry to die. The next fifteen pages were torture, as Harry walked to his death, catching one last glimpse of Ginny, telling Neville to kill Nagini (in case Ron and Hermione didn't make it), thinking of his times visiting Hagrid. I was pretty much in constant tears at that point. And then he talked with all those he had cared about who were dead. At about that point I began to hope that Dumbledore knew something he hadn't told Snape when he informed him Harry must die. And on page 708, my hope came true, as Dumbledore told Harry that he probably wasn't dead. It was also interesting that the fact that he was alive was hidden from Voldemort by Narcissa Malfoy, although she certainly didn't save Harry because of her love for him--she did it because she wanted to know whether Draco was safe. But regardless, she did it.

Of course, the fact that Harry was alive didn't stop me from crying when Hagrid thought Harry was dead on page 727. But after that point, things got pretty great, particularly with Neville killing Nagini and then, finally, with Harry killing Voldemort.

I know that Rowling had stated she wrote the last chapter of the final Potter book before she wrote any of the series, but I hadn't expected it to be an epilogue. In the end, I'm not sure it was needed: was anyone surprised that Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny ended up together? I doubt it. And we didn't get much more out of the epilogue than that. We learned they had children, that Harry named one of his sons Albus Severus (and his other two children after his parents), that Teddy Lupin seemed to have grown up just fine (and that he was getting it on with Bill and Fleur's daughter), and that Neville was the Herbology professor at Hogwarts.

But it was nice, after reading through so much death and sadness, to see a happy ending for our main characters and the wizarding world.

So in case you haven't figured it out, I loved this book. My true favorites are probably still The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire, but I'm not sure. I definitely have to go back and re-read it. I also listen to the Potter books on audio, and playing in my car on Sunday was the tail end of The Sorceror's Stone. And at one point, Ron asks Hermione "Have you gone mad? Are you a witch or not?" when she comes up with a difficult, non-magic solution to a problem. And I realized that Hermione asked Harry the same thing in Deathly Hallows: "Have you gone mad? Are you a wizard or not?" when he comes up with a non-magic solution. It's easy to miss those references, especially when you are worried that Hermione might die on the next page, so I definitely have to go back to make sure I didn't miss any nuances.

I'm sad that there will be no more Potter books. Rowling really managed to stay true to her characters through seven books, and she expertly mixed humor, sadness and mystery. I hope she writes more books, hopefully outside of the fantasy genre.

I suspect I will remember a ton I meant to include in this post and forgot, and so this might not be my last word on The Deathly Hallows.

Will Harry live? Will Harry die?

In just a day and a half I can begin reading the final installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I guess I could actually begin reading now, since apparently a New York Times reporter got a copy of the book (and managed to read it and file her story in about 12 hours), and the internet is rife with spoilers about how the series will conclude (in fact, in an abundance of safety, I'm not going to read any potential comments to this post until after I am finished reading the book).

I have already told friends that I can't do anything this weekend because I have to read the Harry Potter book. I have scheduled a grocery delivery for Saturday, because I know there is no way I won't be home. I have arranged to pick the book up at a downtown Borders at midnight. I chose this store after scoping out the area bookstores and determining this will be the least busy (they told me the last person on line got out of there at 12:20 a.m. when book 6 was released). I'm feeling prepared.

I must be done with the book by Monday, because otherwise I am sure to hear some sort of leaked information in the hallways at work. I have just reacquainted myself with the first six books of the series, so I am hopefully aware of any potential loose ends that have yet to be tied up.

I'm feeling ready! Look for a post on Monday, full of spoilers.

Appalling

Forbes has come out with a list of the "Celebrity 100." I recommend that you not click on that link because it's like the most annoying Web site ever. The list itself is a pretty transparent attempt to get people to read Forbes to see pictures of celebrities. And the "methodology" seems like pure b.s.

All of that being said, according to Forbes, Mitch Albom is one of the 100 most influential celebrities! (Number 96, to be exact.) What the hell? I feel like there was some justification for Tuesdays with Morrie, because it's based on a real guy (I think). But did the world need The Five People You Meet in Heaven or For One More Day?*

What is more disturbing is that, inspired by Albom's success, Mike Lupica is now writing novels! Young adult novels! This has to stop.

*Note: I have not actually read any of these books, so it's possible that they are works of literary genius that I'm unfairly prejudging.

Random Thoughts

1. Okay, one final thought on the final Sopranos episode. I rewatched the episode, and it was really chock full of great moments--Paulie unzipping his pants after Bobby's funeral; Carmela's comment to AJ that if children had been playing in the leaves, he would have killed them; Agent Harris in all of his glory, but two things stand out. One--the sit down b/w Tony and NY at the junk yard. Again, the show hearkens back to the Godfather and the meeting Don Corleone organized among the five families to end the mob war. But that meeting was at a fancy restaurant; now, they meet in a dump. Tony and company did have bottled water, however! Again, the lost glory of the past rears its head.

And, of course, the last scene. The tension that Chase was able to put into that simple scene was amazing. When you watch it a second time, it is the ordinariness that is so striking. And yet Chase was able to have the viewers experience the stress that Tony continuously has lived with and will live with in those moments. We feared what was entering through that door, and could not sit still. (I still don't buy the Tony died theory although it is an interesting one; and if you saw the comment about Phil Leotardo's nephew being the guy in the Members Only jacket, it's a lie.)

2. Mrs. Bartender and I saw Waitress last week. The movie is very cute albeit fairly light. Not a must see, but an enjoyable two hours. And it certainly makes you want to have a really good piece of pie.

3. Some fascinating (and atrocious) golf over the past 4 days at Oakmont. The amazing thing about Tiger is how badly he seemed to play on Sunday at both the Masters and now the Open, and in both tournaments, he ended up in second place. (Of course, he played nowhere close to as badly as Aaron Baddeley did yesterday.) Yesterday, he just could not make a birdie (with one exception) although he kept saving pars left and right. Cabrera played a fantastic round although he came quite close to choking it away on 16 and 17. Espn.com is asking whether Cabrera won it or Tiger lost it. Puh-lease. Tiger shot a respectable 72 and Cabrera a terrific 69. More importantly, Tiger just couldn't make a birdie at then end to force a playoff. It was not like some other golfer putting his head up his butt on the last hole and making double when a par would win and a bogey would force a playoff. (Yes, Phil, I'm talking about you.)

4. Good to see that Entourage is back. The hiatus was rough.

5. I watched the pilot episode of John from Cincinnati and was intrigued enough to stick with it. I've liked Bruce Greenwood for a long time (going back to St. Elsewhere), and the cast is very good including Al Bundy and Dylan McKay. The supernatural and surfing is a strange premise, but I have faith in David Milch (Deadwood and NYPD Blue).

6. Finally, I'm halfway through Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography (fittingly titled Einstein). I highly recommend it. As much as is possible, he makes the physics understandable. I can, somewhat, handle special relativity; general relativity is much more mind boggling. Even more importantly, Isaacson is an excellent writer (although he has a tendency to reiterate repeatedly a central theme of his books). Even without understanding the physics, there is a fascinating story of the life Einstein led, becoming a mega-celebrity from around 1920 until his death in 1955, a celebrity that obviously still lasts. Perhaps if he were alive today, he could be on a reality show. He would certainly have lent his voice to The Simpsons.

Swapping books on Bookmooch

Has anyone ever heard of Bookmooch? It's a book-swapping website where you post books you want to get rid of and then browse for books you want. When you find a book you want you request it from the person who has it, who then sends it to you.

It's all totally free. You get points by posting books and by sending them to others, and then you use those points to get books from others. All you pay for is shipping when you send a book (and sending books is really cheap).

I signed up this weekend but haven't gotten any books yet. Someone actually has a Gladys Mitchell book which, according to Holt, are great mysteries and hard-to-find. The one this person has is called "Spotted Hemlock." I'm thinking it might be the first one I order. Anyone know if it is any good?

Unfortunately for me, the books I have posted are all relatively popular mysteries, which probably means not many people will want them.

Mysteries

I've been binging on mystery novels for the last few months, and I thought I'd share some of my new favorite authors. None of them are technically "new" since they've been dead and buried for ages, but I hadn't gotten around to reading them until recently. I'm a huge fan of the classic English murder mystery and finished reading all the Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy Sayers books in existence long ago. (Though if you're fond of Agatha Christie but have never read either Sayers or Marsh, read them, they're fabulous.)

My first discovery is Margery Allingham. She, like all the authors I'm going to mention, was a contemporary of Christie and her books cover some of the same ground - espionage, classic country house murders etc. - but with a lovely twist in the form of her detective Albert Campion. Campion would be right at home in a Dorothy Sayers mystery actually, as he's often compared to her detective Lord Peter Wimsey. Campion is brilliant, athletic and brave, but manages to hide it all behind an inoffensive, silly ass demeanor and a trick of looking shorter and weaker than he actually is. There's some mystery about who Campion actually is, and there are some hints in the early books that he's the (possibly impoverished?) younger son of a famous aristocratic family, and Campion is just one of his many aliases used to keep the family name unsullied by his more unsavory exploits. Highly recommended.

And then there's Gladys Mitchell, whose books, unfortunately, were never widely published in this country and are therfore damned difficult to find and expensive when you do come across them. If I could afford it, I can think of few trips I'd enjoy more than a used book store tour of England to stock up on her entire catalog. She's that sublimely good. Mitchell's detecive is Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, an independently wealthy psychologist with some shocking opinions. Mitchell's books take all the conventions of the English murder mystery and pull and tweak them in fabulously ridiculous ways so that they're almost parodies of the genre. (I just finished one in which an old lady is murdered with grated carrot. Seriously.) But her characterizations are fantastic, and her plots intricate and amusing. Like all the members of the Detection Club, Mitchell plays fair with her readers but the plots are so outrageous that even with all the clues, the solutions are a surprise. Very highly recommend.

Crossing the pond to America, I present for your reading enjoyment Elizabeth Daly. Her detective is New York antiquarian book dealer Henry Gamadge. I've only read two of her books, but from what I can tell the series is quite good. They're urbane, well plotted, well characterized, and feature some really creepy post-war New York high society settings. Recommended.

David Halberstam: A Tribute

On Monday, the legendary journalist/author David Halberstam was killed in a car accident at the age of 73. I read The Best and the Brightest almost 20 years ago, and the vivid characterizations Halberstam provided of the leading figures in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations remain with me to this day. For example, I still recall his story of McGeorge Bundy giving a fabulous presentation on some topic in, I believe, boarding school while reading from a blank page as he had not prepared anything.

Sure, he was frequently criticized for his pomposity or verbosity (and I can give second hand confirmation of the former and first hand of the latter), but he brought a talent and love to his craft that few can match. (If I could write 10% as well as he did, I would be getting paid for my insights instead of having the three of you read them on this blog!) In the years since reading what, I believe, was his magnum opus, I have read several of his other works including three of his "lighter" sports books on the 1949 Pennant Race (Summer of '49), the 1964 World Series (October 1964), and Michael Jordan (Playing for Keeps) as well as his work on the 1950s (fittingly, The Fifties). He died in the midst of his latest project, going to interview Y.A. Tittle for a book on the 1958 NFL Championship Game where the Colts beat the Giants in the first overtime game ever played and in a game forever after known as The Greatest Game Ever Played. It is such a sad loss particularly as he had so much left in him.

I Could Care Less, But . . .

I know some of you out there (yes, I mean you, Red Fraggle) get quite excited about Harry Potter. Here is the cover for Harry VII.

Can we stop talking about Harry on the horse now?

As most of you have no doubt already read, J.K. Rowling has announced that the final installment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released on July 21.

I am a big Potter fan, so I'm excited, although I question how Rowling is going to resolve everything in one book. We still need to learn more about Lily and James--I would like to know, among other things, what their professions were, why they had so much money and why Dumbledore had James' invisibility cloak (Rowling has promised that we will learn more about them, particularly about Lily, and she has also said we'll learn more about Petunia Dursley), we need to know why Dumbledore had a "look of triumph" on his face when he found out that Voldemort used Harry's blood to be reborn at the end of The Goblet of Fire, Harry needs to find the remaining Horcruxes, he needs to figure out who RAB is (most people think it is Regalus Black, and Rowling has said this is a good guess), and the question of Severus Snape: Good or Evil?, finally needs to be answered.

Hm...in looking at this list, it doesn't seem like there is that much to resolve. But I remember at the end of Book 6 being overwhelmed by how much there was left to learn. So I'm probably forgetting a lot of stuff. Luckily, I have more than enough time to go back and read all of the books again before book seven is released.

And I'm really hoping that Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny make it through book seven alive. I really do want a happy ending.