When I prepare my This Week In Entertainment thing, I usually stick to the same sources to figure out what's being released during the week. I use amazon for DVD releases because they have a large selection. Sometimes too large, for I've seen weeks where they have over 400 entries and half of them are useless. (Anything that doesn't have a box cover is useless, as is anything without a description or a release date.) I use rottentomatoes.com to figure out what movies are coming to theaters, and I use gamefaqs.com for video games. (Amazon and rottentomatoes both suck for video game releases.)
That leaves music and books. As you may have guessed if you've seen my blog during July, I don't bother finding out what's coming out on cd. The only thing left is books. I do try to use amazon for that because it has a "New and Notable" section, but I don't check it often. Part of the reason is because the "New" section seems to have the same books for at least a month. Another reason is because I read so few books. I mostly read novels, and I don't care for stuff like self-help books or the latest political demagoguery. I rarely see stuff I could use like computer programming books. So I tend to skip this section.
Well, guess what? I should have kept an eye on it last month, because it may have reminded me that Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel was being released. "Making Money" is the follow up to "Going Postal", which was about how the leader of the Discworld's biggest city (think a city like London) forces a con man to run the post office. The plot is about how the city's elite are so corrupt that this con man is able to make the friggen post office more efficient then the new Clack Towers (the Discworld's equivalent to the Internet.) "Making Money" is suppose to star the same con man now running the mint. I love the Discworld series and Going Postal was great, so this should be a good one too. This should have been Pick of the Week during whichever week it was released.
I prefer to get paperback novels, so I probably won't get it for a while. What I'll be getting is Wintersmith, the third in a series of young adult Discworld novels about a young witch. The Tiffany Achting novels include appearances by Granny Weatherwax, my favorite Discworld character.
When I say I love the Discworld novels, I mean it. If you go back to my first non-intro post, you'll see that I had something in mind concerning the Discworld series. Sadly, I haven't given any reviews or thoughts about any of the books because I'm still not the greatest reader in the world and I have memory problems (not to mention that I try to write these entries as quickly as possible.) So I've put off talking about any of the novels. Hopefully one of the days I'll have the time to sit down and talk about "The Color of Magic" which is the first Discworld novel and the first one I read.
Showing posts with label Novels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Novels. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Avoiding Spoilers
The much anticipated and ultimately disappoining (this hasn't been confirmed yet) last novel in the Harry Potter series is coming out this weekend. Fans have been pouring over every detail looking for clues about what's going to happen. I can't wait to find out who the heck R.A.B. is. I also bet you Hagrid dies.
The only thing that we can all count on is this: there's going to be spoilers everywhere on Friday, if not sooner. I try to avoid spoilers as much as possible when it comes to something I really anticipate, so let's look at some ways to avoid spoilers.
1) Stay the hell away from television news. Now, up till Friday the news won't give away any big spoilers. Still, it will talk about the book and probably hint at some rumors mentioned by some big fans who got early copies. It won't be until next week, or maybe even this weekend when news reports will start talking about major spoilers. They'll try to diguise them as fans' shock or disgust. "Harry Potter fans were disgusted at the revelation that Harry shot Abe Lincoln." "Kids were upset to find out that Hagrid was arrested for arranging dog fights." So avoid the news.
2) Avoid tv in general. For the big networks, the news is advertised all day, so you can't watch them or you'll run into annoying teasers. I also recommend staying away from sports channels because sportscasters are so trendy that the Harry Potter jokes will be numerous, especially as early rumors surface.
The old movies channel might be a safe bet for now. Unless they mix old movies with trendiness.
3) Avoid the friggen hell out of forums. Not any specific forums. Just any forums. Spoiler jerks are going to post "_______ KILLS ______!!!!!!!" in the topic header everywhere they can, so forums are your worst enemies. Even if you think you can cherry pick your forums and get to a topic that has nothing to do with Potter, you still have to worry about signatures and avatars. Those can sneak up on you.
4) Avoid websites which display the latest headlines in news. Just yesterday I was going to my favorite website for news and politics and one of the headlines mentioned the possible tone in Deathly Hallows. Now, the headline was probably speculation and the website is a partisan one, but I really want to go into the last novel without anything influencing my anticipation. I don't want to become defensive and start lowering my expectations.
5) Avoid jokey websites. I would definitely stay away from sites like ytmnd.com, which quickly had the big spoiler for the last Harry Potter book. Also avoid encyclopedia websites. Wiki spoiled Half-Blood Prince for me.
6) Avoid loud-mouth friends. Not a problem for a loner like me, but I have one solution for this. Guns. Lots of them. Hopefully you live in an area where you can get a permit to carry a lot of guns. Like, in your arms. All at once. And make sure to tell your friends ahead of time that you don't want to hear any spoilers at all or you'll shoot someone. They have to believe you'll really shoot them for this to work.
7) Avoid overhearing conversations. One time I was on a bus going home, and two guys started talking about a movie. I eventually figured out that they were talking about the big spoiler to Sixth Sense. I recommend sticking cotton in your ear when you go to the mall or book store to buy the book, since you never know when you'll run into a spoiler jerk.
8) Avoid kids. They can't read, but they sure can gossip.
I'll end it here. I think my poin is obvious. Just buy a book quickly and lock yourself in a sound proof room until you're done. I prefer to wait for the paperback, but this weekend I'll pick up a copy and read it as fast as I can.
And now, I'll avoid reading comments to this post.
The only thing that we can all count on is this: there's going to be spoilers everywhere on Friday, if not sooner. I try to avoid spoilers as much as possible when it comes to something I really anticipate, so let's look at some ways to avoid spoilers.
1) Stay the hell away from television news. Now, up till Friday the news won't give away any big spoilers. Still, it will talk about the book and probably hint at some rumors mentioned by some big fans who got early copies. It won't be until next week, or maybe even this weekend when news reports will start talking about major spoilers. They'll try to diguise them as fans' shock or disgust. "Harry Potter fans were disgusted at the revelation that Harry shot Abe Lincoln." "Kids were upset to find out that Hagrid was arrested for arranging dog fights." So avoid the news.
2) Avoid tv in general. For the big networks, the news is advertised all day, so you can't watch them or you'll run into annoying teasers. I also recommend staying away from sports channels because sportscasters are so trendy that the Harry Potter jokes will be numerous, especially as early rumors surface.
The old movies channel might be a safe bet for now. Unless they mix old movies with trendiness.
3) Avoid the friggen hell out of forums. Not any specific forums. Just any forums. Spoiler jerks are going to post "_______ KILLS ______!!!!!!!" in the topic header everywhere they can, so forums are your worst enemies. Even if you think you can cherry pick your forums and get to a topic that has nothing to do with Potter, you still have to worry about signatures and avatars. Those can sneak up on you.
4) Avoid websites which display the latest headlines in news. Just yesterday I was going to my favorite website for news and politics and one of the headlines mentioned the possible tone in Deathly Hallows. Now, the headline was probably speculation and the website is a partisan one, but I really want to go into the last novel without anything influencing my anticipation. I don't want to become defensive and start lowering my expectations.
5) Avoid jokey websites. I would definitely stay away from sites like ytmnd.com, which quickly had the big spoiler for the last Harry Potter book. Also avoid encyclopedia websites. Wiki spoiled Half-Blood Prince for me.
6) Avoid loud-mouth friends. Not a problem for a loner like me, but I have one solution for this. Guns. Lots of them. Hopefully you live in an area where you can get a permit to carry a lot of guns. Like, in your arms. All at once. And make sure to tell your friends ahead of time that you don't want to hear any spoilers at all or you'll shoot someone. They have to believe you'll really shoot them for this to work.
7) Avoid overhearing conversations. One time I was on a bus going home, and two guys started talking about a movie. I eventually figured out that they were talking about the big spoiler to Sixth Sense. I recommend sticking cotton in your ear when you go to the mall or book store to buy the book, since you never know when you'll run into a spoiler jerk.
8) Avoid kids. They can't read, but they sure can gossip.
I'll end it here. I think my poin is obvious. Just buy a book quickly and lock yourself in a sound proof room until you're done. I prefer to wait for the paperback, but this weekend I'll pick up a copy and read it as fast as I can.
And now, I'll avoid reading comments to this post.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Tork Book Club
When I was a kid I used to have quite a few books. Of course, they were mostly Little Golden Books. Those books had about 10-20 pages and were filled with mostly pictures. I also had quite a few books that came with records. I even had the record player shown in this cartoon. http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail128.html
I can't remember too much, but I do think some of my favorite books featured Disney characters. Books like that were more picture driven, so you didn't have to read as much stuff as you would for the Poky Little Puppy. I do remember not being a fan of that puppy because it didn't seem as fun or colorful as a Disney character would. I tended to stay away from more serious books and constantly read and reread comedic, "fun" books.
I did eventually read somewhat bigger books. Around the time we got a casette player, I could read 30-40 page books that were still heavy in pictures but followed a plot of a cartoon feature. Disney's "Mickey and the Beanstalk" comes to mind, as do a couple Winnie the Pooh books. I also had a couple books based on cartoon shows I saw as a kid, like the Get-a-Long Gang and a book based on Pac-Man.
Sadly, my reading of these books never carried in school beyond the third grade. By the time I reached the fourth grade, I was good at grammar and spelling but bad at literature. We only had to do short readings a night, and answer those kind of questions that are basically asking if you read or not, but, I never excelled at this. I would occasionally get Ds for the rest of my time at elementary school. I would often got bored of descriptions of backgrounds and skipped forward to conversations between characters. Eventually by the eighth grade I had figured out the system and was able to get all Bs in my literature classes, but I was just coasting at that poin.
That cost me when I went to high school. Except for one C in history, I got all Bs and As in the eighth grade, and I was punished for it by getting several honors classes in high school. I had a tough time in many classes that freshman year, but I really tanked in English 9. Like I said, I coasted through the eighth grade, so I had the hardest time reading whole chapters of a novel. I was so use to playing as much video games as I wanted so it took me a while to adjust. I received my first F at the end of the first quarter for English.
(The dumbest part was that on the first day, my teacher told us to get a notebook and keep track of everything, including vocabulary words. Somehow, I must have ignored this because I never thought about having a notebook until we had a quiz using all previous vocabulary words. It finally occured to me that I was suppose to be doing a better job as a student, and not just reading a chapter during my study period or lunch.)
At home, I wasn't doing any better. I rarely read novels. I had a few kid novels, but never read too many. One of my earliest (not for kids) novels was based on the first Batman movie. It took me forever to read it, and I remember reading the opening part about Batman's first appearance several times. The author would constantly repeat, "Welcome to Gotham City," and it wouldn't occur to me that he was trying to make some poin. By the end of the novel, I had already forgotten a lot of the stuff that happened.
"Batman stopped some random bad guys, then he killed the Joker somehow. A woman named Vicki Vale appeared at some poin. The end."
The books I ended up reading the most weren't really novels at all. I read the heck out of a book that gave synopses of the first twenty-four Superbowls. I also enjoyed a couple books that talked about various blunders that happened in the NFL and the NBA. A few more "books" were editions of "How To Beat Nintendo Games." They were cool, but not about characters or plots. I mostly stuck to video game magazines, which I was always bugging my parents to get for me.
So basically I ended up hating literature class. I was a much better student in math, and my SAT scores benefitted from my higher math scores. The only novels I liked during high school was The Inferno, which I loved, and Invisble Man, the only book in the ninth grade which led me to high quiz grades.
In college I got around this my only having two english classes, both of which were required. Looking back I wish I had taken a couple more, but at the time I was glad I could avoid such classes.
Anyway, it was a good internet friend of mine that finally got me to read some novels that weren't required by a teacher nor just a book full of video game cheats. I had just read the extremely boring "Fellowship of The Rings," a novel that took me eight months to read. I asked my friend to recommend some books and she emailed me a few. I read many of the books from the two series she recommended to me, and I was even able to catch up to her while she was 20 or so books into one of the series. I started reading more and more novels, including books that made her role her eyes.
So with that, I'll hopefully provide a few thoughts on some of the books I've read. Even if I don't, I'm glad that my reading skills have improved and that I'm still thinking about new series I could start.
Book I'm currently reading - "Now I Can Die In Peace" by Bill Simmons
Last Book Read - "A Hat Full of Sky" by Terry Pratchett
I can't remember too much, but I do think some of my favorite books featured Disney characters. Books like that were more picture driven, so you didn't have to read as much stuff as you would for the Poky Little Puppy. I do remember not being a fan of that puppy because it didn't seem as fun or colorful as a Disney character would. I tended to stay away from more serious books and constantly read and reread comedic, "fun" books.
I did eventually read somewhat bigger books. Around the time we got a casette player, I could read 30-40 page books that were still heavy in pictures but followed a plot of a cartoon feature. Disney's "Mickey and the Beanstalk" comes to mind, as do a couple Winnie the Pooh books. I also had a couple books based on cartoon shows I saw as a kid, like the Get-a-Long Gang and a book based on Pac-Man.
Sadly, my reading of these books never carried in school beyond the third grade. By the time I reached the fourth grade, I was good at grammar and spelling but bad at literature. We only had to do short readings a night, and answer those kind of questions that are basically asking if you read or not, but, I never excelled at this. I would occasionally get Ds for the rest of my time at elementary school. I would often got bored of descriptions of backgrounds and skipped forward to conversations between characters. Eventually by the eighth grade I had figured out the system and was able to get all Bs in my literature classes, but I was just coasting at that poin.
That cost me when I went to high school. Except for one C in history, I got all Bs and As in the eighth grade, and I was punished for it by getting several honors classes in high school. I had a tough time in many classes that freshman year, but I really tanked in English 9. Like I said, I coasted through the eighth grade, so I had the hardest time reading whole chapters of a novel. I was so use to playing as much video games as I wanted so it took me a while to adjust. I received my first F at the end of the first quarter for English.
(The dumbest part was that on the first day, my teacher told us to get a notebook and keep track of everything, including vocabulary words. Somehow, I must have ignored this because I never thought about having a notebook until we had a quiz using all previous vocabulary words. It finally occured to me that I was suppose to be doing a better job as a student, and not just reading a chapter during my study period or lunch.)
At home, I wasn't doing any better. I rarely read novels. I had a few kid novels, but never read too many. One of my earliest (not for kids) novels was based on the first Batman movie. It took me forever to read it, and I remember reading the opening part about Batman's first appearance several times. The author would constantly repeat, "Welcome to Gotham City," and it wouldn't occur to me that he was trying to make some poin. By the end of the novel, I had already forgotten a lot of the stuff that happened.
"Batman stopped some random bad guys, then he killed the Joker somehow. A woman named Vicki Vale appeared at some poin. The end."
The books I ended up reading the most weren't really novels at all. I read the heck out of a book that gave synopses of the first twenty-four Superbowls. I also enjoyed a couple books that talked about various blunders that happened in the NFL and the NBA. A few more "books" were editions of "How To Beat Nintendo Games." They were cool, but not about characters or plots. I mostly stuck to video game magazines, which I was always bugging my parents to get for me.
So basically I ended up hating literature class. I was a much better student in math, and my SAT scores benefitted from my higher math scores. The only novels I liked during high school was The Inferno, which I loved, and Invisble Man, the only book in the ninth grade which led me to high quiz grades.
In college I got around this my only having two english classes, both of which were required. Looking back I wish I had taken a couple more, but at the time I was glad I could avoid such classes.
Anyway, it was a good internet friend of mine that finally got me to read some novels that weren't required by a teacher nor just a book full of video game cheats. I had just read the extremely boring "Fellowship of The Rings," a novel that took me eight months to read. I asked my friend to recommend some books and she emailed me a few. I read many of the books from the two series she recommended to me, and I was even able to catch up to her while she was 20 or so books into one of the series. I started reading more and more novels, including books that made her role her eyes.
So with that, I'll hopefully provide a few thoughts on some of the books I've read. Even if I don't, I'm glad that my reading skills have improved and that I'm still thinking about new series I could start.
Book I'm currently reading - "Now I Can Die In Peace" by Bill Simmons
Last Book Read - "A Hat Full of Sky" by Terry Pratchett
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)