Skip to main content

The Half-Blood Prince

I can't believe it, but I finished all 652 pages of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in five days. I'm in the middle of reading other books (Let it Blurt, Live from New York, Complicated Shadows, Please Kill Me), but those had to be put on hold. The book is so good: it's evenly paced and there are no major slow-downs. Story-wise, like all the other books, more answers are revealed as more questions pop up.

Of course, there are enough clues and hints about where the next book is heading, but there is so much that is up in the air. Rowling has not said anything about when the next book will come out, but if it came out today, I would drop everything and read it.

What amazes me is the amount of time that it takes for people to finish reading these books. In the case of Half-Blood Prince, a friend of mine finished it 11 hours. Another friend of mine finished The Sorcerer's Stone in one night. For me, it took me weeks to finish the other books. Since I usually reserve reading books for when I'm about to go to sleep (reading makes me sleepy regardless of how interested I am in the subject or story) and have to visualize everything I read in my head, reading takes a long time for me.

I wonder how long it will take for people to read Post. Hopefully longer than one night.

Comments

Eric Grubbs said…
Knowing how quickly people can read these books, you may know somebody that is willing to lend you his/her copy of Half-Blood Prince.

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J

Hello, Control

I'm still a big fan of iTunes . I haven't tried Napster , Urge or eMusic as I've been perfectly happy with Apple's program ever since I downloaded it two years ago. However, an annoying new feature has come up with its latest version, 7.0. Whenever you pull up your music library, a sidebar taking up 3/4ths of the screen appears plugging the iTunes Music Store. Why is this an annoyance? Well, first and foremost, since you can't close the sidebar, you can't escape it. I believe a music library is a private collection, a spot away from the music store. So what's the need for constant advertisements and plugs? To provide a better visual, let me describe what I see whenever I pull up a song in my iTunes library. When I listen to "This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open" by the Weakerthans, I see a graphic for Left and Leaving , the album that it comes from (and available in the iTunes Music Store), along with a list of the Weakerthans' other albums,