books and more books

Okay, so has everyone read about Harry yet? I finished the print version last week but am now sinking my ears into the wonderful audio, done by Jim Dale. He does all the voices so well. I retain more when I listen to Harry books. I read somewhere (a magazine at my mechanic's) that British children claim they are better readers for having read HP books. That I don't doubt--JK's style is so...wonderful. Brilliant, rather. I tell folks that don't go for the whole wizards thing that that is not central, the relationships are. And if you are into complex human relationships, HP is full of them!! Snape, for instance. Who knows what lurks inside that man's mind? And then there are Ron and Hermione, snapping at each other like an almost divorced couple...oh the richness that lies therein.

So while I listen to Harry to and from work, I have been reading The other woman by Jane Green. Don't judge this book by its cover: the stylist for the hardcover obviously didn't read the book, or was using Emma (a lesser character with more flamboyant dressing styles) as the pink legs next to the more conservative legs of Linda, the Mother in law. Not at all a "what's going to happen next" page turner like Something Borrowed, this is just a romp, something to read to while away your lunch hour. It's just pleasant. Orphan girl marries man with domineering mother=monster in law. But I read ahead, it ends up nice, so I can't wait to see when Ellie upstages Linda. I love the first chapter, where Emma waxes eloquent about Dan: "Technology and I never got on particularly well...My basic problem is not so much technology as paper: instruction manuals, to be specific...my Hoover still has the same dust bag it's had since I bought it three years ago...I cut a hole in it when it was full one time and hand-pulled all the dust out...if anything, just think how much money I've saved myself on Hoover bags...So things may not work the way they're supposed to, or in the way manufacturers intended, but they work for me, and now I have Dan, Dan who will not lay a finger on a new purchase until he has read the instruction manutal cover to cover, until he has ingested even the smallest of the small print, until he can recite the manual from memory alone." So I love this book for Green's descriptions, for her moments where I can say yes! as a single woman I've done/felt that too. I'm half way through, no rush. (Except that all my Inter Library Loan books and Holds from my library arrived on the same day so now I have a stack!!)

Over the weekend, whilst I waited for audio Harry, I listened to ummm the guy who committed suicide in Dead Poet's Society...I was checking Internet Movie Database, but it is so slow in coming up...go to google and figure it out yourself. (alright, I got it, Robert Sean Leonard. I swear, I could listen to him read the phone book.)Anyways, he read an "early" short story of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Did that man ever have a runaway imagination? Descriptions and plot lines so lush, bizarre...I returned the set today, without listening to Parker Posey or any of the other luminary readers--early F. Scott is a little too bizarre, and besides, now I have over 12 hours of Harry to listen to.