Sakura of DOOM

I miss reading long fat series. Long, fat books are good, but there's something about the development of a series that I love. Unfortunately, since they take so much investment, I rarely start new ones unless they are highly, highly recommended, especially in the fantasy book arena. I've been burned out by too many Robert Jordan-esque ones. Instead, usually I get my series kicks from TV shows and manga and anime now.

So I am glad that I have this long fat series to return to, at least for one more book. I enjoy watching Rowling build more into her world with each book, and I like the fact that she doesn't forget spells and magical gadgets from older books. It makes the world feel deeper and more real. And now that Harry is sixteen, as opposed to eleven, I am sympathizing with him much more than before.

( Spoilers galore! )

Links:
- rilina's review

First impressions here. I reread this in preparation for book 6, as I realized that I pretty much didn't remember anything. I really started reading HP when the fourth book came out, and since there was such a big time gap between the fourth and the fifth books, I've reread the first four books a few times, at least. Also, it helped that I used to keep them back at home in Taiwan, where I'd visit for vacations and have much more time for rereading.

( Spoilers for book 1-5 )

- My personal history of HP (spoilers for 1-4, sort of)

Yay!!! I got the Buffy musical soundtrack hermionesviolin sent me ^_^. Just listening to it makes me much, much happier about the entire moving situation.

I also saw the new Harry Potter movie. It was much prettier than the first two, I still really love Emma Watson's version of Hermione, and Scabbers is such an animatronic rat. What did they do with his ears anyway? Rats don't have funny floppy ears with hair tufts! Ok, maybe I imagined the hair tufts. My rats are cuter anyway /brag. Haha, I liked it, but have no intelligent thoughts (as one can probably tell).

Other things to cheer about: rheanna27 has been doing the DVD commentary thing on her fic "Vivere," which is quite possibly my favorite piece of fanfiction ever (here, here, and here so far).

melymbrosia has been posting on feminist lit theory here with more reading suggestions in the comments, and now I want even more books! You know, reading all those posts on the feminism in sf/f during Wiscon makes me realize just how much stuff I've missed. Not just that, but several recent conversations with people who read lots of sci-fi also made me realize how I am not a sci-fi reader. I feel bad because I haven't read so many of the classics/canon. I feel I'm a little better off in fantasy, but I'm probably not...

I've read Le Guin's Earthsea books (well, except the most recent), but none of her sci-fi, except Four Ways to Forgiveness. I've read a scattered of Arthur C. Clarke (mostly the 2001 books), a fair amount of standard Asimov (Robots and Foundation) and Dune. The scary thing is that I don't even really know what the canon is -- I figure Stanislaw Lem and Heinlein and Bradbury and HG Wells are in there, right? And this is just normal sci-fi, not even feminist sci-fi. Anyone have suggestions? Sci-fi, fantasy, all good.

The boy has suggested that I make some sort of computer database categorizing all my books and what shelves they are in. Hahaha... little does he know he has unleashed a demon! If it were up to me, I would have a giant database full of all the books I've read and the ones I own, down to ISBN and edition and condition (for the ones I own) and hopefully linked to LJ reviews and dates read, etc. Luckily, right now the book collection is still at a size in which I can remember everything. Actually, I don't particularly remember a time when the book collection has ever been too big to remember. Either that, or a very frightening percentage of my brain is dedicated to this.

And for purely gratuitous reasons:

( Books I plan on reading )

And then there are all those books I feel like I should read, because everyone's read them, or because everyone talks about them, or just for personal edification...( Books I should read )