I was at the dollar store recently and came across some Harry Potter-themed Valentine’s Day cards. Specifically, they were from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final and most tragic installment of the series. The publicity photos are not exactly what you would call “romantic” – or even “happy.” No, everyone’s sitting around looking pensive.
Something tells me Harry's not thinking about candy hearts right about now.
Hermione just looks depressed.
The text is actually appropriate to the photo, until you remember what happens to Hedwig in Deathly Hallows. Buzzkill!
Nobody gave Ron a Valentine, apparently.
Wait, doesn't that charm contain part of Voldemort's soul? Kill it! Kill it!
Reuse of this photo of Harry is made more amusing by the fact that he appears to be thinking wistfully of Ron.
Ah, but this one is my very favorite:
Magical surprises - like horcruxes!
Loved ones are dying left and right, and the fate of the entire human race rests on your shoulders. Happy Valentine’s Day!
by James Warner: Cal is a venture capitalist obsessed with guns and hopelessly in love with his Romanian dominatrix of a therapist. Reid is a British-born graduate student in the Department of Theory at Berkeley, studying the socialogical implications of cinematical errors in Casablanca. Reid also happens to be dating Cal’s daughter. In addition, Cal’s ex-wife, Tabytha, is running for Congress on the ultra-crazy-conservative ticket and attempting to squeeze Cal for all he’s worth. When Reid is laid off from Berkeley he turns to Cal for employment. From there it’s a strange ride through blackmail and abortion clinics, politics and illegal arms deals. It’s fun, it’s strange, and it’s a little bit silly at times, but it all works out in the end. Reid turned out to be much more likeable than I’d expected, and the ending was surprisingly satisfying. I look forward to reading more from Warner.
by Kathryn Stockett (unabridged audiobook read by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Cassandra Campbell; 18 hrs on 15 discs): Aibileen and Minny are housemaids in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, who work for old friends of Skeeter (whose real name is Eugenia, but pretty much no one calls her that). Skeeter is the only one of her friends who didn’t drop out of college to get married, and is now back home after graduation, trying to figure out what to do with herself. She longs to be a writer, and with a little encouragement from a woman at a large New York publishing firm, she decides to write a book. She’s unsure of a topic until her friend Hilly’s “Home Help Bathroom Initiative,†encouraging all white families to get a separate “colored†bathroom installed in their homes for the help. According to Hilly, African Americans are genetically different from whites and carry special diseases. The idea that the very same person who cooks your food and cleans your bathroom would be so dirty as to require their own little stall out in the garage just baffles my mind. The double standard doesn’t end there, though. The white ladies of the Junior League regularly raise money to help “the poor colored children of Africa†and yet turn their noses up at the idea of helping the poor colored kids of Jackson. In secret, Skeeter and Aibileen write a book about life from the point of view of the help, conducting interviews with numerous maids around the city, all the while knowing about the very real danger if the wrong people find out. Meanwhile, Minny is dealing with a tarnished reputation due to her lying former boss (Hilly), an abusive husband, and the strange secretiveness of her new employer, Celia. This book is touching, maddening, hilarious, sad, and ultimately uplifting. Now I want a sequel. I want to know what happens to Minny, Aibileen, and Skeeter. I want to know how Mae Mobley turns out when she grows up. In short, this was an excellent book and completely unforgettable. Highly recommended.
by John Connolly (unabridged audiobook read by Steven Crossley; 11 hrs on 10 discs): 12-year-old David mourns his dead mother, resents his new stepmother and baby half-brother, and suddenly finds that books have begun whispering to him. One night he journeys to a strange land, a land of fairy tales and dreams. But these aren’t your modern, Disney-fied fairy tales. These are the old cautionary fables, full of monsters and violence. I spent much of the first part of this book wondering why it hadn’t been made into a movie, but once David enters the other land, there is more than a little bit of disturbing, violent imagery. Even so, it’s a captivating story, full of classic motifs and new characters, scary monsters and thrilling adventure. Not one I’ll soon forget.
by Arthur C. Clarke: Just as man is about to achieve space flight, a group of alien ships appear over every major city in the world. The aliens, whom the human race refer to as The Overlords, bring peace and prosperity to the entire planet over the course of the next hundred years. The Overlords are mysterious and secretive, never revealing their true purpose – until one day they announce that the current generation alive will be the very last of mankind ever. It’s a difficult read, though admittedly not quite as depressing as, say, On The Beach by Nevil Shute, but sobering nonetheless. Another interesting facet is the view of the future from the past: here, for example, it’s the mid-1970s and we still haven’t reached the moon. But I wouldn’t mind the near-instantaneous travel, where people living in Australia can attend a dinner party in South Africa. So while this isn’t what one might consider a rolicking adventure, it’s a fascinating look into one possible first contact scenario. One final note: at the beginning of my copy is a disclaimer that the views held within this novel are not held by the author. Which views, however, are not specified, so I am left to speculate. Does it refer to the polygamy of men? The passive submission to the Overlords? Something else? Hard to say, but in all honesty it added to my enjoyment of the book, because I paid more attention to the subtle clues of what, if anything, the author is disavowing.
by Max Barry: In a world where capitalism is so prized that you take your employer as your last name, Hack Nike accidentally finds himself part of a marketing scheme to sell sneakers by killing customers. I suppose one could see this as a cautionary tale against over-privatization (the NRA is basically a bunch of guns for hire, schools are run by toy companies where new Barbies are part of the curriculum, etc.), but I was too amused by the absurdity of it all to take it too seriously. Jennifer Government is, as her name suggests, a government agent attempting to catch the people behind the sneaker shootings. At the same time, Hack’s somewhat unstable girlfriend Violet attempts to make a fortune selling a nasty new computer virus, stockbroker Buy Mitsui makes a random act of kindness that drives him to ponder suicide, and Billy Bechtel attempts to go on a skiing holiday and somehow ends up as a hired assassin. The whole thing is positively silly, but a lot of fun nonetheless. If you like satire in the vein of Catch-22, you’ll probably enjoy this one.