Harry Potter Fever

I hope to wake up tomorrow (or later today) and fling open my front door to find my copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince waiting for me along with the Saturday newspaper. WEE!! Harry Potter has arrived! I thought I should update my booklist in this blog entry.

Finished reading (since the last booklist entry):
- Persepolis and Persepolis 2 - Marjane Satrapi - My first graphics novel! After having read The Kite Runner, I was able to follow Persepolis better since it's about a girl who grows up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It opened my eyes to the sorts of things going on in other parts of the world and what it's like to grow up in a country that is at war - we're lucky to live in such a free country.
- Life of Pi - Yann Martel - A story of a boy who survives a shipwreck on a lifeboat with a tiger, hyena, zebra and orang-utan. I felt it was somewhat dragged on. You knew the boy survived so throughout the entire book, you keep wondering, when's he going to be saved? When's this going to END? I think the biggest thing about surviving a shipwreck is finding out how you are going to feed yourself with 1) water and 2) food. I read this book right before doing the 30 hour famine and so I think that after having read about what it's like to be hungry and then enduring it personally for a miniscule amount of time, I was able to feel much more grateful that there's such an abundance of food available to me whenever my tummy craves it.
- Something Borrowed - Emily Griffin - OK, I admit, it was a little silly of me to have bought this book (I mean, I'm probably never going to read this again) but I needed something light and fluffy to read. This chick-lit was just the thing. It's interesting that right after I read it (which was at around 7am) I thought of Tiff's comment during one of our book club meetings - we should read a chicklit book and discuss it to see the kinds of influences these chicklit books have on us. This book had some themes, such as cheating, that society is pretty much completely one sided about (When is cheating ever justified??). The main character ends up sleeping with her best friend's fiance on the night of her 30th birthday. While she vows it was just a one time deal, she finds out that her feelings actually are quite deep for this man and throughout the entire book, she allows herself to be caught up in a love affair with him. The author is somehow able to write this book in a manner that actually makes you hope that the main character will get her man (isn't that totally against the grain?) Yes, love makes you do crazy things and yes, love can totally suck sometimes but would you ever steal your best friend's man? or woman? All in the name of love? Now, granted, the author made the fiancee (or the best friend) a complete b*tch but I'm not sure that justifies cheating - I mean even the b*tch has feelings right? Anyhow, this book might actually be a good book to discuss but whatever. :P There's a sequel to this book that I'd like to read just to see what happens to the best friend.

Currently reading:
- A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
- Bucknaked Faith - Eric Sandras
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K.Rowling

To Read list:
- The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
- Chronicles of Narnia - CSLewis
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
- The Rule of Four - Ian Caldwell
- Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
- The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
- Coraline - Neil Gaiman

Send me more recommendations!