Anguilla: Veya and a Day at the Beach

Our pre-dinner sunset

There are three fine dining restaurants on Anguilla that never disappoint: Mango's (where we always eat on our first night back on the island and where we go for lovely seafood), Straw Hat (where we have our first breakfast and where we go for a more casual fine dining), and Veya. Veya we save for the most special occasions.

Thus it was on Friday night that we found ourselves heading toward Sandy Ground for our anniversary dinner at Veya. Because it is a little inland, they don't try to compete with the settings of the various beachfront restaurants but rather have cultivated a lovely ambience all their own: lush, green, and soothing. It is unique among Anguilla's restaurants for its menu, too.

We calculated that our anniversary dinner was our tenth visit to Veya (and this is only our seventh visit to Anguilla, mind you) and have sampled most of the menu by now and it has all been excellent.  Add in the good cocktail menu and the welcoming service and you've got a pretty hard place to beat.

I almost forgot to take a picture of the chowder!

Though I usually opt for two small plates, I surprised myself by ordering the jerk spiced tuna with a rum espresso sauce, and DH surprised me by ordering the poached lobster with spinach risotto.  I started with the Sandy Hill cocktail, which is Veya's rendition of a grapefruit margarita, and it was great, and our server brought us an amuse bouche of sweet corn chowder. There was a little cilantro in it, but not enough to bother me, and then came the johnny cakes (Amelie, one of our servers, was sweet enough to box up a couple for us along with our uneaten pumpkin bread).

DH's poached lobster

My tuna dish

I am not a big fan of lobster, so I wasn't surprised when I was little more than indifferent to DH's dish, but he raved that it was the best lobster he'd ever had.  I did like the spinach risotto, though. Mine, however, was amazing. The tuna is jerk spiced, but served on a slice of pineapple which absorbs the spiciness in wonderful and unexpected ways. Then there's the tuna, perfectly cooked, then a compote of some sort that was redolent of caramelized onions, then a slice of fire roasted red pepper, topped with a couple of fried plantain chips for texture.  The rum-espresso sauce tied everything together. It was, in a word, perfect.

We lingered for a while after dinner while we debated dessert.  Again, I surprised myself by being drawn to one of their chocolate-laden desserts--I usually tend to the fruity desserts when I get my druthers. I selected the chocolate hazelnut mousse bars, served with malted chocolate ice cream with an espresso anglaise.  I think it was the hazelnuts and the malted parts that drew me in.  It was very good and I did mange to eat half of it before giving up.  I suspect that anybody who lives and dies by chocolate would find it divine.

The hazelnut chocolate mousse bars

Usually we stay at table with a nice sipping rum, but we were still pretty tired from our long day of travel the day before, so we went home to get rested for our next big day at the beach.

Caribella provides chairs and umbrellas

After breakfast at home on the patio, we decided to stay close to home for the rest of the day and set up camp under the sea grapes on Barnes Bay.  My feelings about Barnes Bay are rather like Elizabeth Bennet's for Mr. Darcy: the first time I saw it back in 2009, I was unimpressed.  I'd been hearing raves about it from people like Nori but walked away decidedly underwhelmed. But then I actually stayed on Barnes Bay, and that was the beginning of a love affair.  Now I'm passionate about Barnes and its character--it may not be quite as handsome as the more fabled stretches of sand on this island, but that's fine by me.  It gives me seclusion, a great sunset view, and my own private swimming cove.

Note the hoards of people

My private swimming cove

Even with Viceroy, the largest resort on the island, right there, we rarely see other people in front of Caribella.  When we do, it's usually a couple walking the beach in the early morning or late afternoon.

Breakwater being constructed at Viceroy

Sand has eroded from the beach immediately next to Viceroy, leaving behind these rocks.

Thus it was that we had another perfect day of reading, walking the beach, and dipping into the swimming cove to cool off. I finished two books that day, which definitely counts as a success in my, er, book.  We stayed in for dinner that night, cooking up some grilled cheese (me) and omelet (DH), then settled in for the night to play some card games.  The bugs were a little too pesky for sitting outside after dusk, so we played indoors with our three sliding doors and various windows open to catch the breeze. We also availed ourselves of the kitchen blender where I concocted a yummy banana/ mango/ passionfruit rum drink. 

Stay tuned for breakfast at Geraud's and another taxing day at the beach, in this case, Rendezvous. 

Some beautiful post-sunset color, seen from our balcony at Caribella

Vacation Reading and Some Book Reviews

My physical book pile.

So today is our second full day in Anguilla and I'm already a little panicky: I have finished reading my third book.  What if I run out of things to read? As always, my husband and I check a suitcase full of books and gifts when we travel here, and this year I even loaded up my Kobo with e-galleys to be on the safe side.  But this afternoon I just finished my third book, so I'm starting to get a little antsy. I have 15 physical books and 13 e-books and 13 days left of my vacation, so I'm sure I won't actually run out of books to read, but I still fret.

Please be aware that some spoilers lie ahead.

Choosing one's airplane read is even more important than choosing one's vacation reads, which is why I test-drove every physical book that earned a place in my suitcase/backpack. This year I struck gold by taking Holly Black's forthcoming The Coldest Girl in Coldtown for my plane read.  It's immediately engaging and well-written, and clearly this is not your daughter's vampire novel.  True, it's a young adult book, but Holly wrote this book in homage to the great vampire works she read growing up.  If you think vampire books begin and end with Twilight and thus haven't given them a fair shake, give this one a go.

Tana lives in a slightly futuristic world where a rogue vampire decided to break all of the ritualist rules of Vampire Secrecy by infecting hundreds and hundreds of people with the Cold, and they, in turn, infected thousands and thousands and so on. This created worldwide havoc, but at least in the US there are a handful of Coldtowns, where vampires and humans live side by side in an uneasy alliance: humans allow vamps to feed on them just a little via IV tubes rather than by biting (which spreads the Coldness), and therefore the vamps' food source doesn't dry up (literally) and the humans can keep on being human and not Cold.

One day, Tana wakes up from an all night party to discover she is the only partygoer left alive from a mass vampire attack. When she discovers Aidan, an exboyfriend infected with the Cold, and Gavriel, a mysterious but insane vampire, chained up in a bedroom, her split decision to try to rescue them both by driving to the nearest Coldtown changes all of their lives. You'll find no romanticized notion of vampires, no helpless heroine, and no love triangles here.  Instead, you'll get a moral-but-complicated-heroine who often doesn't know what the right thing to do is, plus a vampire who is unhinged, secretive, and seductive. In other words, this book is thoroughly fun and refreshing.

NoViolet Bulawayo's debut novel, We Need New Names is decidedly not fun and refreshing.  Unless by "fun and refreshing" you mean "dark and disturbing, with a side of bleak." It's the story of a girl named Darling who grows up in Zimbabwe but later moves to America to live with her aunt. No matter where she lives, she is longing for the other country and unable to confront that longing head-on.

She and her best friends, Chipo, Bastard, Godknows, and Sbho, are only around 10-11 when the book opens, but already they inhabit dual worlds of innocence and worldliness that juxtapose sinisterly.  A scene in which the kids are sneaking off to Budapest (a wealthy neighborhood far from their shantytown) to steal guavas to assuage their hunger pangs but joking about breaking into the houses to steal other things, is echoed later in the book when an angry mob on a rampage destroys a house, drop-kicks a dog to its death, and drives away the wealthy white occupants--the kids watch in terror and then  pour into the emptied house to make their own brand of mischief.

Or when Darling, Sbho, and a new neighbor want to re-enact a scene from ER because they want to emulate the beautiful and successful doctors on TV, only to come dangerously close to inflicting real harm to pregnant Chipo with their wire hanger and herbs mixed with urine as abortants. Not to mention the scene when Chipo breaks her voluntary muteness to finally tell Darling how she got pregnant (raped by a family member), and Darling's response: "I watch her and she has this look I have never seen before, this look of pain. I want to laugh that her voice is back, but her face confuses me and I can also see she wants me to say something, something maybe important, so I say, Do you want to go and steal guavas?"

In other words, Bulawayo breaks your heart with these characters while she makes you want yell and scream at them, and then you remember that they're only children and your heart breaks all over again.  This is a strong debut but not a comfortable read. I definitely recommend it.

NB:  I read advance reading copies of each of these books, which were provided upon my request by my sales reps.  We Need New Names was published by Little, Brown in May 2013 and The Coldest Girl in Coldtown will be published in September 2013. 

Anguilla: First Day Back in Paradise

Barnes Bay in the morning light

After a long but relatively easy day of travel, we arrived in Anguilla.  My DH and I have been trying to figure out how many trips this makes for us, and this is either our sixth or seventh trip.  We first started coming here in 2009, and though we have flirted with other islands here and there (St. John, Virgin Gorda), we feel that our relationship with the island is stronger than ever.

Getting ready to land in St. Maarten

We flew American Airlines out of Hartford, via Miami, to St. Maarten, and I've never seen such long lines at immigration before.  It's hard to imagine how much worse it must be on a Saturday in high season! 

We grabbed our checked bags and walked through customs (which is to say, we walked through an empty room) and started making inquiries with the various boat reps to see who had space and who was leaving soonest.  When I told a lady at Funtime that I didn't have a reservation, she actually started fussing at me. When I told her that we generally don't make reservations because we prefer to go with whatever is available, her fussing became even sterner.  Not the best of welcomes.  If I'm not fussed about taking the public ferry if no private charter has space, why should she be so upset? Luckily, Calypso had room for two more and was leaving in 15 minutes so I just turned my back and walked away from the No-Fun-time lady.

Leaving St. Martin in our wake

This was our first experience with the new ferry/immigration office next to the airport, and it was fairly chaotic.  They rounded us all up and told us we had to wait inside, though there was barely room to turn around with all of the passengers trying to pay, fill out their forms, etc. We paid $65 per person and headed for the Calypso boat, which is on the small side with a 12 passenger capacity. The crossing was  a little bumpy but fine and we were in Anguilla about 20 minutes later. Unfortunately, about half of our luggage was  not, which made DH a little nervous since the two bags left behind were both his. 

When we inquired with one of the porters, he assured us that the bags would be on the next boat: "jus' a couple of minutes."  Well, he was half right.  They were on the next boat, but I should know better by now what "jus' a couple of minutes" means in Anguilla.  A little over half an hour later, we had all of our bags and made our way to Caribella, our home away from home.

View between two Caribella buildings

This year Rose-El put us in a different unit--the upper one in the building closest to Mango's. The square footage is the same but the layout is different, and it's fun to try out a new space.  As the week goes by, I will probably post more about the unit itself. 

Mango's

Our first night at Caribella, we always choose Mango's for dinner.  It's definitely one of our favorite restaurants on the island, but being able to walk 10 meters back home afterwards makes this choice a no-brainer for us. We started with a round of cocktails and shared the green salad, moving on to the sesame snapper for me (sauce on the side since it contains cilantro) and the grilled whole snapper for DH.  Both were excellent. I also tried the mango martini for the first time and quite enjoyed it, mentally raising my glass to the many members of the travel boards where I am active who recommended it.  

You can see our balcony light on behind my head--that's how close we are to Mango's!

My excellent sesame snapper

DH's whole red snapper

Dave and his wife came by to chat with us, and we were in good hands with Andrea, who is one of our favorite restaurant people.  She promised to poke me like her granddaughter does to her if I seemed to be falling asleep over dessert.  We usually get the apple tart, but it was finish, so we opted for some simple ice cream instead. 

Mango's eponymous martini

I made a valiant effort to finish reading my book after dragging ourselves back home, but DH went straight to sleep. Despite the excellence of Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, I had to give up with about 75 pages left to go.

In the early mornin' rain.

I managed to finish it first thing in the morning--it's a pretty wonderful YA book that is homage to vampire genre that Holly read growing up [most assuredly not of the Twilight ilk].  I slept fitfully, which is not unusual for my first night, and arose early, which is, oddly enough, pretty typical for me on vacation.  I finished unpacking while DH slept, and then we both went out on our large balcony to talk about our day.  Before we even knew it was upon us, a brief but intense rain shower passed through, and we enjoyed the freshness of the ozone in the air and the light spray on our faces. 

The grounds leading to Straw Hat

At Straw Hat

Thirty minutes later, clutching books and an umbrella (just in case) we headed down to the Meads Bay area.  We always like to break our first fast at Straw Hat--we've done it on every visit save one, when we were staying in Island Harbour. Breakfast was a leisurely and pleasant affair, with each of us lingering over our coffee and books. I had the continental breakfast with a side of bacon and a marvelous mango & peach juice concoction and DH chose a simple bagel. We lingered there for a while and when we got up to leave, Peter came over to greet us--he'd been in the middle of a meeting, but promised to visit longer the next time we popped in.

Sounds appetizing, no?

After that, we did some grocery shopping--mostly breakfast fixings and booze--and then scoped out a fruit stand to buy some mangoes, bananas, and a melon.   No passion fruit today.  Then we made a beeline home because we couldn't wait to be outside under the seagrapes by our villa, reading the day away.

The fruit stand on the side of the road

Soon we will be off to Veya for dinner to celebrate our anniversary.  Ten years ago tonight, DH and I exchanged vows on a Caribbean beach at sunset--the summer solstice, to boot.  I still wonder at that. Today's post is dedicated to him, the one who daily puts the D in the DH. 

Happy anniversary, sweet'art!

BEA, Bill Bryson, and Other Bookish Events

Workman booth at BEA

I have been woefully behind in my blogging!  Book reviews, author signings, and publisher dinners have come and gone without my posting, but I can't skip out on BEA, or BookExpo America.  BEA is arguably the most important book/publishing event worldwide, up there with the Frankfurt or London Book Fair.  It's also a chance for me to meet up with friends in publishing and from other bookstores whom I only see 1-2 times a year at bookseller conventions like this one.  It's lots of fun. It's also *exhausting.*

My favorite YA from last year, along with its sequel

I spent most of my Thursday and Friday in meetings with publicists from various publishing companies to promote my store for its 50th anniversary this fall. We're trying to build a MONSTER events schedule for the anniversary celebration, so we were pitching to everybody. If I could get just one of the big authors we were shooting for, my pick would be Bill Bryson, who has a new book out in the fall called One Summer: America, 1927, which I'm reading now. My highlight of the day on Thursday was getting to meet him again (I spent an exalted hour in his company once before, which you can read about here) when I showed up in the Random House meeting room for my appointment.  Here's the man himself, chatting with a...publisher? Marketing person? Publicist? I'm actually not really sure.

Bill Bryson (on the left) 

On Thursday we had the Celebration of Bookselling luncheon, where each table has an author or illustrator and somebody from publishing, and we indie booksellers get to chat them up. I got to sit next to Will Schwalbe, author of End of Your Life Book Club, and we shared a Moment. One of the folks speaking (John Green by video, maybe? I really cannot remember) got us both a little choked up and then we glanced at each other and started laughing because we were both so sappy.

Will Schwalbe

Publishers also throw lots of fun parties, and that is a good part of where the exhaustion comes in.  My coworker and BEA roommate, Hannah, might have overdone it just a tad on her first day, but I don't blame her.  It was her first BEA, and she was in appointments all day long, followed by cocktail parties for Random House and Simon & Schuster, followed by more time on the town in the company of a very groovy Wiki chick. I then was witness to her heroic efforts to make our 9:00 appointment on Friday morning.

Workman's menu. Bacon candy? Yes, please!

Odyssey Booksellers!

I went to the Workman party, which is open to almost everybody, and then made my way to a dinner hosted by Algonquin (I've raved about them before, but they're a wonderful publisher based out of North Carolina and a part of the larger Workman group).  We always try to get to the Workman party right when it starts so that we can actually have a conversation and meet new people, because after about 45 minutes, the room fills to a ridiculous level and you cannot hear anything.  Plus the wait for the bar or for food is ridiculous!

Three lovely public school librarians from near Buffalo, whom I met at Workman

At 7:30 I left the party and walked to  Home restaurant, where I was lucky enough to be seated with author Lee Smith for the first (and longest) part of the night.  The authors rotate from table to table so that everybody gets to meet each one, but Lee was at our table for drinks, appetizers, and salad, so I got extra time with her.  Also at my table were the editors from O Magazine and Family Circle, which was pretty cool, and the publisher and a marketing person from Algonquin.

That's Larry Watson in the middle

Friday was largely a repeat of the previous day, except that my dinner that night was sponsored by Milkweed, an indie publisher based out of the Twin Cities.  They do great work, too, and this was another fairly intimate dinner.  Sue from Milkweed took us to Lupa, which is one of Mario Batali's restaurants, and treated us to the tasting menu.

This is me with Betty, who runs a big literary festival in one of the Dakotas. Shhh...I can't remember which one.

I left Lupa and started walking towards Poisson Rouge, where the PGW party was happening, but wonder of wonders, the music was over before I even got there.  I think it must have started super early, 'cause I'm not the type of person who usually shows up at an evening music venue after it's over.  I'm no night owl. Anyway, I ran into a woman who used to see my old mentor, so we grabbed a quick drink and then found our way home.

The post-music dregs of the PGW party

Saving the best for last, I met up with some fellow bookbloggers at an Irish pub near Penn Station on Saturday morning: Alice, Alley, Rayna, and Amanda were all there and we had a grand ol' time.  We talked about BEA, suffragists vs suffragettes, Bessie Bueller, Harry Potter, fan fiction, and lots of other breezy subjects about which we know everything. Everything. Seriously, next to chatting with Bill Bryson, this was without a doubt my favorite part of the BEA weekend.

L-R: Rayna, me. Amanda, Alice, Alley

I thought I was going to have time to blog about the fundraiser/cocktail party/dinner bash that I got to attend the following week, but alas, I do not.  The good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, I'll get to it  soon.

Harry Potter and the I Can't Believe It's Over Readalong

More fun than a poke of Pygmy Puffs.  More tears than Fawkes can fathom. That about sums up this splendid ride that Alice has taken us all on.  Thank you, madam, for hosting this misfit band of international readers. This series contains just about everything one can want in a book, and this last section for today's discussion is the most intense of all. There really is too much but we must try...

Let's start on a happy note, shall we?  Let's celebrate Neville's return:

• But seriously: how many of you were also thinking in this first chapter, "Go on, Harry.  Tell at least Neville and Luna and Ginny what y'all are up to." Seriously, he's spent half the book being frustrated that Dumbledore never gave him the full picture, so why not rely on these most trustworthy of characters now that he knows the end is nigh?

• I *love* the Ravenclaw password system.  But it's not very practical, is it? How would ickle firsties know how to answer the questions? Or do we suppose that the eagle door knocker adjusts its questions according to the person knocking?

• Does anybody else find it strange that Harry abandons his trademark Expelliarmus for Crucio when he leaps to McGonagall's defense?  Not only is it going from a defensive to a completely offensive spell (pun intended), but going from a passive one to a very, very aggressive, not to mention illegal, one.

• "The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties." I have always thought that this line was completely unfair.  Yes, you'll find me to be a Slytherin apologist, so clearly I will take sides here, but when in the course of the series have we ever seen the Slytherins get a truly fair shake when it comes to Harry and his merry band of Gryffindors?  No matter whether the Slytherin students support Voldemort or not, many of them are being asked to take up arms against their family members or to leave. They are the House that the remaining three houses loathe and make no secret of doing so. They are the House whose end of year House Cup was taken away from then at the last minute by the headmaster, the very person who should be maintaining more neutrality than even the teachers. If Hogwarts itself has shown no loyalty to the Slytherins, why should they choose otherwise? We as readers know all about Harry and what he stands for and his chance to save the world, but the Slytherins themselves are not privy to such information.

• Percy's reconciliation with his family: brings me to tears every time, and oh, how I ache for them to have more time together before the Weasleys are rent asunder.
  
  
  
  
  
  

• I love Harry's flash of insight about the no wizard in living memory to figure out about the diadem.  That was very clever of him, indeed, and a major leap in intuition. However, since he saw Voldemort in his vision thinking about where his horcrux was in the Room of Hidden Things a, why didn't they just go straight there to find the diadem?

• These professors have some seriously whack ideas.  Bopping the Death Eaters on their heads with crystal balls?  That's just silly, but okay, I'll buy it.  But fighting Death Eaters with mandrakes?  Um, how is that going to work?  The Order and the students are all going into battle with earmuffs on, which is ridiculously dangerous? Otherwise wouldn't the mandrakes disable both sides with their screams?

• I call shenanigans on Ron's ability to mimic Parseltongue well enough to break into the Chamber.   It was quite brilliant of him to think of the idea, but I'm just not buying it. 

• Ooh, Fiendfyre. Very interesting.  Did anybody notice that in the film, the Fiendfyre takes the forms of the four House mascots? I did not notice that until I started looking for gifs.  
  
• And in other news, we finally see Drarry on a broomstick together.

• Okay, wow. Snape gets the most ignominious death EVER. I assumed for a long time that he would have to die to satisfy the story arc, but I really, really, really was hoping for something more badass than that. Just sayin'. 

• Frankly, Dumbledore, YOU disgust me. I have a whole essay about it here that I wrote back in 2011. But here are the most relevant parts: Like many people, including Harry himself, I was surprised to learn of Dumbledore's past, but rather than being disappointed in him, it made him far more interesting in my eyes.  Hard-won wisdom, experience, and self-knowledge make for a better character any day in my book (and make me curious what we would learn if given a glimpse of, say, Gandalf's youthful indiscretions).  It's no wonder, then, that in books 1-6 and the backstory we get there that Dumbledore comes across as powerful, wise, and good--it's because he has spent decades reflecting on his past and honing those worthy qualities in atonement.
  So why on earth does he not treat Snape with the compassion we would expect to see in those pensive memories?  After all, we've just learned that 18-year-old Dumbledore was best friends (we find out later from Rowling after the series has been published that they were probably lovers) with Hitler Grindelwald, that he subscribed to his plan for the master human wizarding race ("Muggles forced into subservience" is a direct quotation), and he was quite ready to throw over his own siblings and follow Grindelwald's hallows hunt--not to mention he possibly killed his own sister.  So it felt like a punch to the solar plexus for older-and-wiser Dumbledore to say to Snape, who in 1981 could not have been older than 21, "You disgust me."  Really, Dumbledore?  Snape disgusts you?  For wanting the only person he ever loved to be kept guarded from Voldemort?  Because he didn't automatically beg to save James Potter, the boy who nearly got him killed a few years earlier but was only given detention for it because *you* didn't want to let the wizarding world know you had allowed a werewolf into Hogwarts?  Frankly, Dumbledore, you disgust me for saying that when at almost the same age you were fucking Grindelwald, subscribing to his anti-muggle policies, and wanting to bring back your dead mother so she could watch over your younger siblings and relieve you of your adult responsibilities. To exaggerate slightly and put it more bluntly, Dumbledore was well on his way to becoming one half of a two-man Death Eater Squad team, all in the name of The Greater Good, and yet in his older & wiser years isn't able to empathize with Snape's youthful mistakes?!
  
  [sidebar: why couldn't Dumbledore have just been gay in the books instead of being outed after the last book had been published? I do not think lowly enough of Ms. I'm-Wealthier-Than-God Rowling that she was worried that she wouldn't sell as many books if a main character were gay, so what was the reason?]
  
  And as if that weren't enough, Dumbledore makes a second knife-thrust to the heart when he says "Perhaps we sort too soon." Why, Albus?  Because Slytherins are second-class citizens?  Incapable of doing good in the world?  Because only Gryffindors can be brave?  Because Slytherins, unlike Gryffindors, don't deserve a second chance when they recover from their adolescent foolery?
  
  It's not that I don't respect Albus for his teenage failings.  We all do things in our younger lives that as adults we are not particularly proud of, and we commit acts in pairs or groups that we wouldn't dream of doing on our own.  In fact, Albus's dabbling with anti-muggle policy in his youth makes him a far more interesting character in my eyes, and I admire his fortitude and redemption in later life all the more.  Which is why I cannot forgive his lack of empathy towards Snape in these pensieve memories.  If it's because Snape reminds Albus of his own teenage self, then it's all the more reason for me to want to bitchslap  ol' Dumby.
  
  
• Ahem.  I digress.  "I open at the close." Very poetic. I love the scene of Harry with his color guard on the way to his death.  I mean, it kills me, but I love it. I love it for its own merits as well as because it reminds of the scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Aslan is walking toward his own death, accompanied in the cold of the night by Lucy and Susan.  And then when Harry asks, "You'll stay with me?" and James responds, "Until the very end," I totally lose it.  It's a lot like this:

• And because it just wouldn't be a Harry Potter readalong without it, I must draw attention to one of my favorite "wand" references: "He picked up the holly and phoenix wand and felt a sudden warmth in his fingers, as though wand and hand were rejoicing at their reunion." Yeah, I just bet they were. 

• Neville has his moments of awesomeness. Narcissa Malfoy has her moment, too, and though it's less awesome, I want more than ever her back story.

• That epilogue. I. Can't. Even. I know y'all are rolling your eyes at me by now, but I have a really good fanfic downloaded called Coda to an Epilogue: 20 Year Later, or the Kids Are All Right.  It's about 90 pages long, so I cannot post it, but I can email it. Let me know if you'd like me to send it to you. It's completely canon-compliant as far as I recall, and it puts closure on the wizarding world in a way that JKR's epilogue does not: Young James Potter acts a lot like his eponym, young Albus Severus gets sorted into Slytherin and becomes best friends with Scorpius, and Draco marries a tough freedom fighter from Portugal.  Plus sewers and alligators.  And lots of humor.

• I am so sad that the end is here for this readalong.  I think, above all, that is the main reason I read fan fiction--it allows me to linger in this world a little longer.  Thank you, JKR. Thank you, Alice.

• This YouTube video is a little long, but it's a good way to bid Snape adieu. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Wowzer!

Kudos and props and ALL THE HUMMUS to Alice for hosting this read along!  It's been about three weeks since my last participation, between my skipping two weeks ago and getting a respite for BEA last week.

Oh, my goodness.  There is too much in this week's chunk.  Entirely too much. Partly because I want to draw out this readalong, partly because it's true that it's just too much (yeah, I'm repeating myself), but I think we should take the remaining reading and discuss no more than two chapters at a time.  Because otherwise it will feel like this:

Chapter 20-21: Xenophilius Lovegood. How terrible must it be to be in his position? I feel very sorry for Mr. Lovegood, and I really have no idea what I would do if my only child were being held by sadistic kidnappers. I hope I'm never in the position to make judgement calls re: the greater good when the stakes are that high. I am fairly certain that if I'd read Harry Potter as a much younger reader I would never have identified with Xeno's dilemma, but now, while I clearly want the trio to escape, my heart still aches for him a little. Which is all to say that the series is a little different each time one encounters it.  I nitpick along the way because I'm snarky I love, but I have to deeply admire the fact that somebody wrote a book that speaks as much to teenager as it does to me.

But seriously, how can he not know that that's an erumpent horn? The man can't see the forest for the trees.  And show of hands: how many people crumpled all over again when Harry saw the ceiling in Luna's room? I know I did.

found here

Two things: how did the trio not know something was up when Luna didn't immediately come to the house and welcome them? I shake my head at them. Also, how 'bout our girl Hermione's quick thinking there at the end of this chapter?  Brava!  I think in this book she really comes into her own in terms of her intelligence and wits.  Books 1-6, she relies almost exclusively on book learning and her prodigious memory, but here in book 7, she's showing a depth of creativity in the face of necessity that is both impressive and powerful. When the coming years give her the experience and maturity to match that intelligence and power, she's going to be one seriously amazing witch to reckon with.

And because no situation is so dire that we can't appreciate a little penis humor: "I've got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

Chapter 22: How does the password work on Potterwatch? Do you randomly turn the dial on the wireless at random times and shout out random passwords in the hopes that Potterwatch is airing? Because that just doesn't seem plausible at all.  While we're at it, why do Kingsley and Remus think that Royal and Romulus are good code names?  River works for Jordan, as presumably most wizards aren't well-versed in biblical things.

Chapter 23: Hermione displays her quick brilliance once more by making Harry almost unrecognizable.

I'm not sure this occurred to me during previous readings, but it did this time: does anybody else find it odd that Grindelwald is still alive? Now that I think about it, I'm a little taken aback. And this little detail never stood out before, but Grindelwald lies to Voldemort about never having the Elder Wand. Dare we suggest that it's remorse that makes him say so?

I feel terrible for Draco in this chapter.  It's clear that he doesn't want to betray Harry to Bellatrix, but he's caught in an awful place, knowing what will happen to him and his parents if Voldemort learns that he was less than forthright.

And what the heck kind of dark magic makes Wormtail choke his own daylights out? Can I just say here that I was pretty disappointed how the life debt was repaid. Before this book was released, I was convinced that Wormtail would use his silver hand to protect Harry from Grayback, which I think is actually more interesting and poetic, tying it back in to the days of the Marauders.

Chapter 24: I just need to say that I have no great love for Dobby, but all the same I'm extremely moved by his death. I mourn his loss.  But unlike Dumbledore's death previously that left him adrift, Dobby's death seems to galvanize Harry and lend him insight in the infernal hallows vs horcruxes debate. I see Dobby's death as one more turning point and the real beginning of the end, as Harry's thinking becomes more intuitive, making leaps ahead of even Hermione, a pattern that will continue right to the very end of the book.

Penis subtext joke: I'm sure by this time that nobody is surprised that Draco's wand "felt friendlier in his hand."

Chapter 25: I'm not going to take a stance here, but in this chapter and the next we get most of the bases for all of those anti-Semitism essays floating around the interwebs. Griphook is an interesting character but not an entirely pleasant one.  I don't actually think JKR is actively anti-Semitic, but I do think that it's fairly careless of her to employ so many stereotypes. Oops, looks like I just took a stance.

I cannot tell how much in this chapter is JKR showing what assholes wizards can be to non-wizards and how much is JKR not realizing that her characters can be assholes.  Authorial intent, how I love thee!  To wit: why should Griphook be expected to eat the food of a different species? Presumably Fleur wouldn't feel huffy if a centaur or a mermaid were staying with them and wanting non-human food.

Why, Harry?  Why are you trying to double-cross Griphook? There's no need to be so underhanded.  Tell him that you need the sword long enough to destroy something, which will weaken Voldemort to the point that he can be killed.  Once the killing's done, the sword could be his. It's clear that Griphook respects Harry and finds him to be a wizard with extraordinary views, and I still say that would have been his best bet.

Chapter 26 & 27: This is one of those occasions when the movie is so much more fun: Helena Bonham Carter playing Hermione playing Bellatrix.

Also, that curse in Bellatrix's vault? That's crazy in wildly inventive and effective kind of way. Flagrante, indeed.  But why couldn't they just use impervio? And if anything that gets touched replicates itself, why doesn't the cup create another half dozen horcruxes?  Magical loopholes.

Chapter 28: Oh, Aberforth.  I can't tell if he's truly given up, or if he's just being a big ol' curmudgeon. How sad about Ariana. But JKR must have been playing a very long game, indeed, for all of those goat references to have worked out.  I wonder if she knew back in the first book whether Aberforth's patronus would be a goat, etc.

Also, it's about damn time that Neville is back on the scene. I am already all a-flutter about next week, in which I will have ALL THE THINGS to say about Severus Snape and Dumbledore and that infernal epilogue. But to end on, a little something funny because frankly, we need it:

Audio Book Review: My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

As I mentioned in my last audio book review, I've lucked my way onto a special list from Random House Audio, and I have to say that listening to Sonia Sotomayor's My Beloved World was as pleasant a surprise as I've ever had in my audio book experience.  I never would have picked this book up to read, much less purchased the audio book for myself, which in retrospect makes me something of a fool.

This book was everything that I had hoped Maya Angelou's memoir would be and wasn't: immediately engaging, beautifully read, and exceptionally written. If I had been reading this book instead of listening to it, there would have been much underlining and dog-earing of pages to mark the lovely passages.Rita Moreno performs the audio and she is definitely one of the better readers I've ever listened to.  The prologue is read by Sotomayor herself, and while it's nice to hear her actual voice, Moreno was definitely the perfect choice for reading the rest of the book.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a Supreme Court justice can write well, but I was.  Good writing isn't usually a hallmark of memoirs with a political bent, and so many lawyers I know run on at the mouth without actually saying much, that it was actually a double surprise. I particularly enjoyed learning about her younger years up through her time at Princeton and the various struggles she faced along the way. There was the rare occasion when I felt that Sotomayor, in summing up the end of a couple of chapters, was a tad too didactic, but overall this was just terrific.  Underdog stories are good, and hers is certainly one of the great underdog stories of our time. I highly recommend it to anybody interested in memoir, strong women, feisty characters, the immigrant experience, minority rights, or simply a damn good story.