T-minus three hours until The Book That Must Not Be Named hits the shelves...of our grocery store...and we at the Potts-McCoy household have just finished our commemorative dinner of home-made fish and chips w/ mooshy green peas.
It seemed an appropriate dish for the evening, and it was awesome, if only for the experience of watching a certain blogmistress scream* every time my deep frying got a little "crackly".**
Now begins the waiting period, and it seems my formerly blasé spouse has somehow been possessed by a twelve-year-old on a Pixie Stix bender. She keeps calling our neurotic tabby "Crookshanks" and I think she just tried to use the Imperius curse on me so's I'd do the dishes.
Okay, that last sentence isn't true, but still: it's adorable.
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* Yes, scream. Not a yelp, not a gasp, but a full-throated scream. Often with the highly amusing jumping backwards and throwing of hands in front of her face.
**Hey, you want that authentic beef-fat-fried taste, you gotta throw some beef stock into the vegetable oil, fire hazard be damned. Besides, I totally had a pot of water I was using for the peas to put out any grease fires.
...what?
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12 comments:
There was grease flying everywhere! It was terrifying!
How's the book? Finished it yet? I'm waiting for a description of midnight book shopping at Ralphs.....
I highly recommend buying books at the grocery store.
At 11:40, I insisted that we go to Ralph's "in case there was a line." The line consisted of a couple about our age sitting on the porch furniture display by the chips aisle. At 11:55, a clerk rolled out a shopping cart full of books, and told us to help ourselves. At 12:01, they began checking us out. At 12:05, we were home and reading.
Sometimes you want the excitement and the crowds, but sometimes you just want the convenience...
Why couldn't you just put beef fat into the fat, and not stock?
Living in Cedar, I discovered one of the grocery stores had about the best book selection in town, which is pretty sad. So I also began to haunt the Smith's Grocery book aisle.
I have been reading for 15 hours, with only breaks to let out the dogs. I'm not even sure if I can fall asleep now. This is a very bizarre experience.
BTW, I can TOTALLY visualize exactly what Mary looked like when she threw her hands up in front of her face and screamed. It's an endearingly characteristic gesture of hers.
So what did you think of the book? Did it live up to all the publicity?
Larry: Storywise, as a conclusion to an epic tale, it was quite satisfying and a fitting ending. As a book on its own...well, moments of excellence and some great chapters, and certain bits were sloggy...could have used some tougher editing.
Ang: Not really in the habit of keeping beef fat for such occasions. Although now that you mention it. . .
I had the same response as Brady...as a stand-alone book, there were times it seemed to drag on and several chapters could have been condensed into one without any real loss of plot. It felt a little like she'd decided it had to be as long as the others and had to cover a full school year but she hadn't quite come up with enough stuff to have happen so she just stretched stuff out.
But that said, I sat and read it straight through. I would look down and realize that in what seemed to be maybe 10 minutes I'd read 80 pages. I totally lost track of time and was shocked to discover it was nearly 5 a.m. when I finished. Other than aching terribly from lying on my sofa for so long, I hadn't gotten the least bit tired the whole time. I can't think of too many books that you can say that of. And I did like the resolution at the end. So like Brady, I say that as the end of the series Rowling carried it off quite well.
I also just realized Mary and Brady read the HP book AND are doing their blogathon in the same week. They are truly masochistic.
Thanks for your insight.... I'm quite curious as I've never read any of the books and probably won't at this point--I find the time commitment pretty intimidating.
And yet I'm intrigued because they are an incredible phenomenon. So I was quite curious as to whether they lived up to their billing. I was hoping they would and not just be shrewd merchandising.
I think there are only two or three books I've ever read in one sitting or pretty much nonstop.
The first was "Hound of the Baskervilles," which I discovered as a high school student and simply could not put down.
The other was "Hawaii," which I had the misfortune of discovering during finals of my senior year in high school. I read "Hawaii" nonstop and still managed to graduate. I wouldn't give you a nickel for any of Michener's other books, but to me "Hawaii" is terrific.
Oh wait, I read "Hunt for Red October" in one sitting. It was a real page turner. But I wouldn't give you a nickel for all of Tom Clancy's other books put together. And now he's just a marketing franchise.
As a writer on a book project of some years' duration, I do feel a twinge. When you think of the days and weeks and months any author spends on a chapter or sometimes a page and the readers buzz through it in an eye blink....
But that's just one of my weird reading quirks--I do have a few, Lord knows.
ps. Speaking of books, I had a great idea for one when I was in Vroman's last night: "50 Movies Worse Than Yours." I think it could sell really well in Hollywood. The industry, don't you know.
Well, my aunt seemed to enjoy her copy of "50 Relatives Worse Than Yours," so you could be onto something there...
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