bookshelves of doom

Timewaster.

This M&Ms Halloween game?

I got 22 out of 50 semi-quickly, but it's not remotely easy!

I can't wait! I can't wait!

NICHOLAS SPARKS!

HAS THREE TELEVISION SHOWS!

IN THE WORKS!

Just kidding.

I can wait.

I can wait, like, forever.

Although, okay: I could be convinced to try the Romeo & Juliet one.

Maybe.

Kindle Daily Deal: Mary Downing Hahn! (Yes, again.)

The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall is $1.99 today.

As I don't already have that one, *click*!

Oh, and if you haven't read it, Arthur Slade's creeptacular Dust is free at the moment.

Happy Halloween, all!

 

 

Our favorite holiday, and not-so-coincidentally, our wedding anniversary*.

Have fun, eat lots of junk, and stay safe, my friends.

_____________________________

*Eighth! How did that happen?

Fifty Shades of XKCD.

(via Chrissy)

Community has a return date.

And it's a long, long, LOOOOOOOOOONG time away: February 7.

BUT.

It's replacing 30 Rock, so maybe that's a good sign?

I dunno.

I JUST WANT IT BACK.

Ned Vizzini on Discovering Role-Playing Games at 28.

At Beatrice:

Bryce ran a mean game of D&D. He didn’t follow the letter of the rules; he followed the spirit. He let us keep rolling dice until we got characters with decent ability scores so we wouldn’t all die immediately—and then, to keep things interesting, he killed us off with abandon. (I once died because giant lizard carcasses fell on me.) Bryce had the ability to herd us gamer cats into some semblance of group storytelling, and he always kept the game going. One time, when we were fighting a minotaur, someone farted, and he said, “The stench of the minotaur envelops you!”

I read a good amount of this aloud to Josh, and we both giggled like mad.

Previously: My take on The Other Normals.

A quiz about Shel Silverstein.

I bombed it: 6/14.

How embarrassing.

You?

GoodReads Choice Awards 2012.

First round voting has opened.

Evening links.

• Sorting the Real Sandy Photos From the Fakes. (Oddly enough, they didn't bother fact-checking this one.)
• I need to check the Literary Jukebox more often.
• Still trying to figure out a Halloween costume? Here you go.
• I tweeted this earlier, but it's worth another link: 21 Emergency Prepareness Tricks.
• Dino-controversies. "Scrotum humanum". *snicker*
• More from mental_floss: I would only categorize one of these as a strictly Disney character, but it's a fun list nonetheless: "5 Psychological Conditions Named for Disney Characters".
• Key facts on the Random Penguin merger. (Sidenote: If we keep calling it Random Penguin, will they eventually give in?)
• Vampire panic in New England.
• "It started with a barbershop and a bookshelf and has grown into an educational endeavor that engages a community and inspires a want for higher education."
• The bookshelf coffin.
• On James M. Cain's lost novel.
• Are you a librarian? Colby Sharp needs your help.

GAH. NO.

From TheForce.net:

Lucasfilm to join company's global portfolio of world class brands including Disney, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel and ABC.

STAR WARS: EPISODE 7 feature film targeted for release in 2015.

The Clone Wars is great (and for that matter, so are the Legos), but MAKE THE MOVIES STOP.

Brilliant.

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are now available via Comixology.

Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip -- Jordan Sonnenblick

Pete Friedman and his best friend, AJ, are the stars of their middle-school baseball team. They're hoping to make the JV team when they start high school, and as there's a high school coach scoping them out at their last game of the summer season, it seems like a done deal... until Pete's elbow gives out.

Post-surgery, his doctor tells him that he'll never play again. So his freshman year starts on a bad note that is compounded by two secrets:

• First, he finds that he can't pop AJ's bubble of cheerful optimism about their future, so he keeps the severity of his injury under wraps, 
• and second, his beloved grandfather—his favorite person in the world and the man who's taught him everything he knows about anything important—has started not just forgetting things, but forgetting basic things, and when Pete confronts his Grampa about it, he's asked to keep it a secret.

But life is not all bad. See, there's this girl in his photography class...

Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip is a solid contemporary that deals with two big issues—Alzheimer's and a life-changing injury—without ever being Issue-y. The issues complement each other nicely, too, as both Pete and his Grampa are struggling with losing independence and to some degree, agency: Pete's body is no longer capable of doing what he wants it to do, and Grampa's dealing with the same issue, but it's his mind that's refusing to cooperate. It doesn't offer any easy answers in either situation—Grampa's arc was particularly difficult for me emotionally—but it does provide some amount of hope in that even-through-big-hard-sadness-life-shifts-and-changes-and-goes-on sort of way. Relatedly, there's a short bit about drinking, and while Pete suffers the consequences of his actions—in the form of a hideous hangover and an angry girlfriend—Sonnenblick never turns the situation into a Teaching Moment.

Pete is a likable narrator with a compelling voice, and it was nice to read a book with no real antagonists. It would have been easy for Sonnenblick to go the cliched I-quit-sports-and-found-out-my-old-friends-were-d-bags route, but AJ is a good (occasionally hilarious) friend throughout, and Pete's romance doesn't cause any real drama, either.

The upperclassmen tease him a bit—he and his lady-friend end up in an Advanced Photography class—but in an affectionate way. The dialogue is funny, with some nice quirky details—his photography teacher speaks with a broad New York accent, and the older students usually refer to him as the furr-reshmannnnnn—but still feels realistic in that it doesn't feel over-the-top or overly stylized. 

Oh. AND. While there are a lot of eyebrow cockers in Curveball, in an awesome move, PETE ACTUALLY MENTIONED IT:

He raised one eyebrow. It's amazing how many people do that to me.

So that made me laugh. 

Not one that inspires gushing, but totally solid, no complaints.

_______________________________

Author page.

_______________________________

Amazon.

_______________________________

Book source: ILLed through my library. This book was read for the 2012 Cybils season.

All is well here, post-Sandy.

Surprisingly enough, we didn't lose power for any significant amount of time.

(Well, long enough to have to reset the clocks, but not long enough that we had to use any of the many containers of water that we filled ahead of time.)

The neighbors' dead tree did NOT fall on our house, no leaks, no damage, nothing. Lots of school cancellations—not us, though, so I'm writing this from the library—and some power outages, but nothing too dreadful.

While I'm relieved that we didn't get nailed, I know that a lot of you out there did, and I'll be thinking of you. I know that people are busy and that none of the clean-up/aftermath/repairs/being-without-power-for-days part of storms is particularly happy-making, but I'd love to hear from you just to know that everyone is safe and sound.

BIG HUGS, and love to you all.

Free Iron Fey ebooks!

They aren't available long, though, so get 'em while you can!

(Yes, we still have power... though it's been flickering...)