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I'm exhausted and I think my feet are about to fall off from walking all the way over to Northcote Plaza and back again. Of course the second time around involved a backpack full of new jeans, a cute aqua cardigan I picked up for $6.00, and a few groceries, as well as carrying a new clothes airer.
I was going to get the bus home with all my loot, but for once I didn't spend hours wandering around K-Mart, so after I'd bought the groceries I still had to wait twenty minutes for the bus. Since it's only about a half-hour walk back to my place, walk I did. I must have looked a sight carrying the clothes airer, but it was fairly light, if a little awkward, so it really didn't make much difference. And after all the crap I've consumed over the past week or so I certainly needed the exercise.
Meanwhile, my flist has gone Harry Potter mad while I still struggle to care. It's not that I dislike him or anything, the books just never grabbed me and now the uber-merchandising machine that has become attached to the whole thing has, quite frankly, completely turned me off. There are a lot of great books written by talented writers out there in the same genre that are being completely ignored simply because the publishers and authors don't have the money to spend on publicising them to the same saturation level as HP. If I'm going to read anything about a young boy discovering his magical powers, I'll re-read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence for the umpteenth time.
I was going to get the bus home with all my loot, but for once I didn't spend hours wandering around K-Mart, so after I'd bought the groceries I still had to wait twenty minutes for the bus. Since it's only about a half-hour walk back to my place, walk I did. I must have looked a sight carrying the clothes airer, but it was fairly light, if a little awkward, so it really didn't make much difference. And after all the crap I've consumed over the past week or so I certainly needed the exercise.
Meanwhile, my flist has gone Harry Potter mad while I still struggle to care. It's not that I dislike him or anything, the books just never grabbed me and now the uber-merchandising machine that has become attached to the whole thing has, quite frankly, completely turned me off. There are a lot of great books written by talented writers out there in the same genre that are being completely ignored simply because the publishers and authors don't have the money to spend on publicising them to the same saturation level as HP. If I'm going to read anything about a young boy discovering his magical powers, I'll re-read Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence for the umpteenth time.
exhausted
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And yes. So many, many, many better writers in the same field (I generally say 'Diana Wynne Jones' next, or if I'm specifically talking about wizardry, 'Ursula LeGuin'), all so much more deserving of being read and raved about!
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The scary thing is, a lot of kids out there are now thinking that this is good writing, while as we all know, popularity does not always equate with quality.
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I'm usually the same way, but in this instance I couldn't even get started!
I haven't read any Pullman, but we've got some of his books at work so I'll take a look.
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I read The dark is Rising and The Grey King at least once a year. They're my favourites of the series.
I haven't read Alan Garner since I was a kid, but I think I've still got a couple of his books at my mum's house.
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Although I've read all the previous HP books, this is pretty much where I am at the moment. I may end up buying the latest since I'm going away and want something to read; but I may just take a look at The Dark is Rising books instead. I don't think I've read them before.
In a completely different genre, have you read Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca? I really like the author's style and her characters are incredibly likeable.
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I've loved them for years, ever since I was about 12 or so. Those and the Roald Dahl books are my top children's fantasy reads.
I've read Saving Francesca and really enjoyed it, and I've looked at Alibrandi, but it'd be great to see authors like her getting the same sort of publicity that the HP series is getting.