A Summer of Faulkner?

I just joined Oprah's Book Club. I'm surprised I hadn't done it before, as much as I watch and talk about her. I have no idea how much I'll actually get into the reading though, especially with all the other reading I'm doing, but it's a start. At least I'll now have access to all the cool stuff in the site, especially Oprah's Classroom, a free online course where I'll be privy to video lectures, Q&A sessions, and discussion groups. That's what really peaked my interest.

I'm going to need all the help I can to get through these books!

This brings me to the second article I referred to in the last post. It's an announcement of the new books Oprah chose for reading over the summer. This month's selection is As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. The picks for July and August are also by Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury and Light in August. To make it easier for folk to get the books, they've packaged them together as a three-book set called A Summer of Faulkner.

There's actually a third article that I didn't mention in the last post. It's a sidebar story entitled, As You Lay Frying. I thought it was quite funny. It basically wretched about how long each of those books are (288, 366, and 528 pages respectively), and as the author put it, "dense as hell," and "even denser than hell." She basically recommended kicking those heavy, difficult tomes to the curb and getting CliffsNotes, which run about 72 pages each. This way you can get your reading in and still enjoy your summer. Hey, sounds good to me!

New Old News

I just looked at a couple of articles that I pulled earlier this month and planned to discuss before I went offline. I was afraid they'd no longer be of interest after so long, but I read them again and decided I can still talk about them.

The first is about the not-yet-released J.K. Rowling book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. According to the article, a couple of guys got busted trying to sell advanced copies of the book to two English tabloids, The Sun, and The Mirror. They allegedly demanded $55,000 from each publication for sneak peeks at the sixth Harry Potter book.

Spokespersons from both tabloids said they intended to obtain the book from the sellers and return it to the publishers while exposing the scam in their papers. What they may not have expected was for these guys to be armed and dangerous. A chase ensued and shots were fired when a Sun reporter tried to take off without paying for the book. No one was hurt, but police did manage to arrest two guys in connection with the incident.

This is apparently the second time this has happened before a Harry Potter book came out. Four people were arrested for advance copy theft when the last book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out in 2003.

Crime, in this case, didn't pay. I shouldn't be surprised, but it always amazes me to what lengths people will go for "easy" money. It's also interesting how much more things seem to be worth when they're rare or yet unavailable. I guess timing is everything after all (not to mention a modicum of intelligence, which Dumb and Dummer seemed to be in short supply of in this case).

Start The Presses!

It's New Word Wednesday and I'm ready to roll! It's been a month since I've posted and I'm anxious to get started. As I get my thoughts together, I'd like to say thanks to those who stopped by and checked out the blog while I was away. It was great to see the numbers in the sitemeter jump as much as they did (I actually broke the 200 mark. Yay!!) Thanks also to those who commented. I'll holla back ASAP.