Chapter 4 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone brings us Harry’s first meeting with someone from the wizarding world–i.e., Hagrid! And we learn very quickly that Hagrid has no time whatsoever for Vernon Dursley’s shenanigans.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Chapter 3 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is where stuff starts getting good–and by good, I mean, magical!
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
After Chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone essentially serving as a prologue, we fast-forward to the present day for Chapter 2, “The Vanishing Glass”!
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
In which I officially open the Harry Potter Triwizard Tournament Trilingual Reread with Chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: “The Boy Who Lived”!
Commentary and language geekery behind the fold!
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Grabbed in print from Third Place Books:
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Making of a Legend
Grabbed electronically from B&N:
Last but not least:
This makes six books for the year so far.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Busman’s Honeymoon
There is a side effect of being an author that I’ve seen other authors mention before, and which has started to affect me: i.e., I often am less inclined to read things in genres I’m actively writing. Which is to say, urban fantasy and epic fantasy. I haven’t ditched those genres completely, mind you; I did just do a sprint through the last of the Greywalker series, as well as the Dresden Files.
But every so often I specifically have to go read something in a genre I am not likely to write any time in the foreseeable future. And my current read is a long overdue visit to one of my favorite literary detectives, Lord Peter Wimsey! The title in question: Busman’s Honeymoon.
Which I mention in part partly because of the aforementioned need to visit other genres, but mostly because of the delightful and unexpected outbursts of French Peter keeps having in this book. French which, I note, is not translated in any way, as if Sayer clearly expected her readers to either a) know what the hell Wimsey said, or b) be in a position to look it up. Either way I approve.
What really tickled me outright about Wimsey’s French in this book, though, was a thing I recognized from Quebec French–i.e., the use of the word “blonde” in what I’m pretty damn sure is the context of “girlfriend/lover”. Moreover, unless I miss my guess, it’s in a saucy song!
Here’s the first bit of it that appears in the book:
La caill’, la tourterelle
Et la joli perdrix–
Auprès de ma blonde
Qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon
Auprès de ma blonde–
And here’s the second bit:
Et ma joli colombe
Qui chante jour et nuit
Et ma joli colombe
Qui chante jour et nuit
Qui chante pour les filles
Qui n’ont pas de mari–
Auprès de ma blonde
Qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon
Auprès de ma blonde
Qu’il fait bon dormi.
BUT WAIT the amusement does not actually stop there. Because I just looked this song up, googling what looks like the chorus, and discovered that it is in fact this song. “Auprès de ma blonde”. Which had English lyrics written to the tune for an Elvis song. I.e., “I Love Only One Girl”, from the movie Double Trouble. A song that I filked in Pern fanfic.
Between this and this book ALSO teaching me that the phrase “embarrassment of riches” comes from a translation of a French play, I’m getting all sorts of fun French mileage out of this read!
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
This is getting posted in 2015, but it’s actually a 2014 book roundup, because all of these titles were bought before New Year’s!
Tales from Rugosa Coven
Bought in print from Third Place Books, all of which are print copies of things I already own electronically (but I’m buying again because these are authors I want on my list of people I buy in both formats):
Bought from Amazon, because that was the only place I could get it, and because it was DRM free:
Bought from Smashwords, now that it’s finally available in electronic form:
169 for the year, and this time this IS actually the final title!
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
It has taken me ages to get through my edits for Victory of the Hawk, you guys. But now that the end is in sight, I’ve had some cycles free up finally. Which means I can get back to the last few bits of my Trilingual Hobbit Reread!
And Chapter 17 of The Hobbit, “The Clouds Burst”, is pretty much where the Battle of Five Armies gets down to Serious Business. Which is a good place to be, given the movie that’s about to come out next month, yes?
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Yoinked from B&N, digitally:
A Play of Shadow
And, from Kobo:
135 for the year.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Dear Author pointed at this article today, in which the article writer admonishes people who bail on a book before finishing it. I do not agree with the article, though I’ll give its author props for a cogently written argument.
As you all know, Internets, I am a voracious reader–voracious enough that I’ve started reading books in a whole extra language, for fuck’s sake. I read on the bus. I read at lunch. I read while waiting in lines for stuff. I read print. I read ebooks. I read on my phone. I read on ereaders. If there’s a newspaper lying around and I have nothing else to read, I’ll read that. Hell, if there’s something suitably interesting on it, I’ll read the back of a cereal box.
So trust me when I tell you that 999 times out of a thousand, if I commit to starting a book, chances are very high that I will finish it. If I pick up a book in the first place, I’ve already done my due diligence–I’ve read reviews of it, I’ve checked out its ratings, I’ve probably even read sample chapters. Something about the book has piqued my interest and made me think, okay yeah, this is possibly a book with which I will be happy to entertain myself for a few hours.
But every so often, I will DNF a book. (That’s Did Not Finish, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the acronym.)
And when I do, it’s typically because something in it has actively pissed me off. Crappy writing isn’t usually enough by itself to make me do that–though I’ve found that if I have too many reactions of “no no no YOU’RE WRITING IT WRONG”, I’ll bail. More often than not, though, it’s because something in the storyline has pissed me off. Usually, a character that does something that makes me want to climb into the book and punch them out of irritation.
As the article I link to points out, sure, it’s possible that a book that does that to me will eventually hand me something awesome that makes up for it pissing me off. But I can think of exactly one example of a book where the writing was compelling enough to make me stick around, despite the fact that I actively loathed every character in the book. And the book in question did not in fact redeem itself in my experience.
So I don’t honestly see the point of sticking around to finish a book that irritates me. That’s tantamount to saying “gosh, hitting myself on the head with this hammer really hurts! But maybe if I keep at it long enough, it’ll start feeling better!”
Seriously, who has time for that?
What about the rest of you? What makes you bail on reading a book?
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Just to clear this off my post queue!
Green Rider
Picked up electronically from Kobo:
Pre-ordered electronically from Barnes and Noble:
127 for the year. And I’m counting the Hines as this year even though it doesn’t drop till January, because I’m paying for it now.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Bought in print at VCON:
Grimspace
Nabbed from B&N electronically:
And, nabbed as a review copy because fellow Carina author Sheryl Nantus is awesome like that:
122 for the year!
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Bought in print at VCON:
Grimspace
Nabbed from B&N electronically:
And, nabbed as a review copy because fellow Carina author Sheryl Nantus is awesome like that:
122 for the year!
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
So B&N sent me a $5 credit, because I was one of the first 200 responders to a survey they sent out–they’d seen I’d recently bought a Nook HD, and they wanted to know my experience with it vs. with my earlier Nook. Awesome, I said, and promptly answered the thing and got the five bucks.
Les Rêves de la Mer
Which I then promptly turned around and spent, and this time, my target purchases were books by Élisabeth Vonarburg! She’s been on my radar for a while as a prominent Quebecoise SF/F author, so I’ve finally grabbed three of her novels to queue up for when I’m feeling ambitious enough with my French to try to tackle her. Probably after I do a bit more Élodie Tirel, and some Esther Rochon. 
The titles I got were:
I was originally just going to get two books, but as soon as I grabbed Chronique I realized that that was actually book two of a series, so I grabbed Silence as well. And I grabbed Rêves since it’s Book 1 of a different series, the Tyranaël books.
Just going by the titles and by what I gleaned out of the blurbs for these books, I’m expecting stuff heavy on the feminism. It’ll be interesting to eventually compare her to oh, say, Sheri Tepper, who I also need to read.
This puts me at 117 for the year.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
So B&N sent me a $5 credit, because I was one of the first 200 responders to a survey they sent out–they’d seen I’d recently bought a Nook HD, and they wanted to know my experience with it vs. with my earlier Nook. Awesome, I said, and promptly answered the thing and got the five bucks.
Les Rêves de la Mer
Which I then promptly turned around and spent, and this time, my target purchases were books by Élisabeth Vonarburg! She’s been on my radar for a while as a prominent Quebecoise SF/F author, so I’ve finally grabbed three of her novels to queue up for when I’m feeling ambitious enough with my French to try to tackle her. Probably after I do a bit more Élodie Tirel, and some Esther Rochon. 
The titles I got were:
I was originally just going to get two books, but as soon as I grabbed Chronique I realized that that was actually book two of a series, so I grabbed Silence as well. And I grabbed Rêves since it’s Book 1 of a different series, the Tyranaël books.
Just going by the titles and by what I gleaned out of the blurbs for these books, I’m expecting stuff heavy on the feminism. It’ll be interesting to eventually compare her to oh, say, Sheri Tepper, who I also need to read.
This puts me at 117 for the year.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Grabbed from iBooks. Both of these are recent Tor releases, which I picked up due to liking the look of their excerpts posted on tor.com.
Grabbed from The Dreaming, a comic shop in the University District:
114 for the year.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Grabbed from iBooks. Both of these are recent Tor releases, which I picked up due to liking the look of their excerpts posted on tor.com.
Grabbed from The Dreaming, a comic shop in the University District:
114 for the year.
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Grabbed from Kobo in ebook form:
Grabbed from B&N in ebook form:
And last but not least, picked up from Third Place in print:
110 for the year.
(I’ve been reading a lot more from the library lately, trying to beat the To Read list down some and pull back on spending ebook money as long as Dara and I need to spend a lot on house maintenance. We’ll see how the numbers progress as we head through the second half of the year!)
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
Grabbed from Kobo in ebook form:
Grabbed from B&N in ebook form:
And last but not least, picked up from Third Place in print:
110 for the year.
(I’ve been reading a lot more from the library lately, trying to beat the To Read list down some and pull back on spending ebook money as long as Dara and I need to spend a lot on house maintenance. We’ll see how the numbers progress as we head through the second half of the year!)
Mirrored from angelahighland.com.
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