Books!

Book 9 of 2012: Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes.
Book 10 of 2012: Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton.

Both books were rereads, but for both of them it had been so long since I read them, they might as well be new.

I finished Algernon while on vacation, but had no net access so delayed posting about it. Plus, unfortunately, it wasn't very post-worthy.

Like many people, I read the Flowers for Algernon short story in school. When the teacher mentioned it was based on a book, I ran out to get it and read it. I loved it at the time.

I wish I had left it at that. What a dark, slow-moving, unenjoyable book to read. I don't mean it was bad, it was just hard to enjoy. The main character was teased when he was slow (what horrible people everyone else was!), and when he became smart he was unlikable... and I knew going in how the story would end. Plus it was really slow, page-sloggingly slow. I wish I hadn't reread it, I wish I had left it as a good memory. (I can also see why it worked as a short story. There was so very much that could have been cut out and left the story intact!) (Edit: Oh. Reading the wiki, it seems Algernon was a short story first and then expanded into a novel. Interesting.)

Jurassic Park was day-and-night different. What a fun, exciting read! I read the book when it came out, and I watch the movie every month or so (whenever I catch it on TV). The book is quite different than the movie, and I loved every page of it. The characters were deeper and more complex than in the movie (not surprising!). The book is a little dated, but that really didn't take away from the story at all.

I have five or six other Crichton books in my to-read pile, and I'm looking forward to getting to them.

But first! I learned through djinni's LJ that Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep now has a sequel out! EEE! But I wanted to reread Fire first, so I could fully enjoy Children of the Sky (plus I loved Fire dearly). Only problem was... where was my copy of Fire? It wasn't in my Kindle app, either active or archived. Could I have read it in physical form? Turns out I had. So I settled in to read the dead tree version... but the text is too small. D: (How in the world did I read it the first time?!)

Online to the rescue! I believe in books and I like supporting writers. I'll happily buy a copy of a book once... but I won't twice. I *cough* found a copy online, so I can read it that way.

I'm falling further and further behind for the year. :/ I had thought I could make half of 50bookchallenge's goal, but now it's looking like I won't even reach that. I sure do wish I had more time to read (and watch TV and play online and and and...).

WoW!

Sorry for two posts in one night, but eee! Timing! Just a day or two ago I was telling firebyrd that TCG mounts rarely get sold on our server... then one shows up! (For non-players, TCG mounts come from cards that you pay RL money for.) The one I've been looking for, too! Corrupted Hippogryph! 250K, which brings me below a million again. Arg!

I'm dying because I can't decide if I should use it or not. I'm using spectral wind rider on my AH alt (the one I'm on the most -- Thanks awhisperofdusk and veloxe! <3), and when MoP brings account wide mounts, I can use my beloved Headless Horseman horse on all of them.

So for now, it's in the special section of my guild bank:


On the left are haunted mementos, Jaina's Lockets, at the bottom are Blazing Hippogryph (TCG) and Corrupt Hippogryph. On the right are: Tabard of the Lightbringer, my small herd of Crimson Deathchargers, and Muradin's Favor.

The blazing hippo and I suppose the deathchargers will be sold in MoP (SOB! I have no reason to hold onto the horses, other thanMINE MINE MINE). I just need to decide about the corrupt hippo... I'm guessing that I might be able to double the price I paid (500K/rare TCG seems likely in a world of account-bound mounts), but... but. I don't need gold, except for one thing:

If an Invincible mount shows up on the black market AH, I might bid 999,999 for it. So I need to keep that much gold liquid. Invincible would be the perfect star of my collection of Lich King drops. (Though it would be amusing if I got it before I get that music box...)

Edit: Same guy sold me a Grell pet, the purple pufferfish pet, and the stack of starfish toy (all TCG) for 15K total. I had been thinking about flipping the pets, but they're BoP (oops), but still. The starfish sells for about 30K, so the pets are just bonus. :)