"Dashed unpleasant things to have about the home. To cope with flashing eyes, you have to be a man of steel and ginger. Are you a man of steel and ginger? No. You're like me, a gentle coffee-caddie".
"A how much?"
"By a coffee-caddie, I mean a man - and there is no higher type - whose instinct is to carry his wife's breakfast up to her room on a tray each morning, and bill and coo with her as she wades into it....."
It was enough. Pongo rose, a dignified figure.
"Shall we join the ladies?", he said coldly.
"There aren't any", said Lord Ickenham.
"I don't know why I said that", said Pongo, annoyed. "What I meant was, let's stop talking bally rot and go and have a game of billiards".
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18
Monday, February 5
The Deathly Hallows
I am one Harry Potter freak, the minute HBP was released, I was there fighting through the crowd to pick the book.
So when JKR announced the title of the seventh book (and the last in the series), a friend of mine called me to check if I had heard the news.
Once I heard the title, I was like, "No way....that sounds sinister!!"
I had a huge attack of goosebumps and my office peon asked me if I wanted him to increase the temperature of the room a bit, and I had to tell him I was not reacting to the cold.
I have been reading up on the series again, preparing to sharpen my mind and trying to guess what is going to happen.
Half the fun in reading a book like HP is guessing and seeing if we were right, especially when the author is of the calibre of JKR..the innocuous takes on meaning with her tales and things a reader would just skip as unimportant comes up later to have been an important clue. That told, there have been red herrings too and now that people have begun to analyse almost every word in the series, there are a number of theories floating around , some logical and some just downright bizarre (come on people, Snape and Lily!!! Really!!!!!)
So I thought I would just quickly recap questions that will be answered/need to be answered in the last book-
1) The big one - Is Snape really evil or is he a person who has sacrificed everything for the greater good (I belong to the group who believe that Snape is the good guy here)
2) What is special about Harry having Lily's eyes?
3) Who is the squib who will perform magic in desperate situations? (Note JKR did not specify that the person is a squib, just that one person will do so)
4) Who is RAB? (Popular theory - Regulus Black)
5) Where are the remaining Horcruxes? (Is the locket at Grimmauld place the Slytherin locket?)
6) What is the sixth horcrux?
7) Will Harry die in the last book? (My gut feeling is a no, but I am biased)
8) Who are the two characters who die in the book (JKR revealed that she did not expect them to in the beginning, I am strongly inclined towards a Weasley dying this time - Percy or Charlie to be precise)
9) Who is the new DADA teacher?
10) Will Harry return to Hogwarts this year (will it even open this year?)
11) How is the two-way mirror coming into play in this book?
12) Will Neville become a Hogwarts teacher (JKR has comfirmed that one of the students will become a teacher later, my tip is its either Neville or Hermione)
13) Will Draco survive?
14) What is the role of Kreacher in this book ? (I think he will have an important role here)
These are some questions, I will add more as I think of them.
All I know is, its gonna be an exciting July with the release of the OOTP movie and the DH book.
So when JKR announced the title of the seventh book (and the last in the series), a friend of mine called me to check if I had heard the news.
Once I heard the title, I was like, "No way....that sounds sinister!!"
I had a huge attack of goosebumps and my office peon asked me if I wanted him to increase the temperature of the room a bit, and I had to tell him I was not reacting to the cold.
I have been reading up on the series again, preparing to sharpen my mind and trying to guess what is going to happen.
Half the fun in reading a book like HP is guessing and seeing if we were right, especially when the author is of the calibre of JKR..the innocuous takes on meaning with her tales and things a reader would just skip as unimportant comes up later to have been an important clue. That told, there have been red herrings too and now that people have begun to analyse almost every word in the series, there are a number of theories floating around , some logical and some just downright bizarre (come on people, Snape and Lily!!! Really!!!!!)
So I thought I would just quickly recap questions that will be answered/need to be answered in the last book-
1) The big one - Is Snape really evil or is he a person who has sacrificed everything for the greater good (I belong to the group who believe that Snape is the good guy here)
2) What is special about Harry having Lily's eyes?
3) Who is the squib who will perform magic in desperate situations? (Note JKR did not specify that the person is a squib, just that one person will do so)
4) Who is RAB? (Popular theory - Regulus Black)
5) Where are the remaining Horcruxes? (Is the locket at Grimmauld place the Slytherin locket?)
6) What is the sixth horcrux?
7) Will Harry die in the last book? (My gut feeling is a no, but I am biased)
8) Who are the two characters who die in the book (JKR revealed that she did not expect them to in the beginning, I am strongly inclined towards a Weasley dying this time - Percy or Charlie to be precise)
9) Who is the new DADA teacher?
10) Will Harry return to Hogwarts this year (will it even open this year?)
11) How is the two-way mirror coming into play in this book?
12) Will Neville become a Hogwarts teacher (JKR has comfirmed that one of the students will become a teacher later, my tip is its either Neville or Hermione)
13) Will Draco survive?
14) What is the role of Kreacher in this book ? (I think he will have an important role here)
These are some questions, I will add more as I think of them.
All I know is, its gonna be an exciting July with the release of the OOTP movie and the DH book.
Tuesday, January 16
The Book Quest
The entire day today was spent on what I call the "Quest for the Holy Book".
My sister had asked us to send across a book on Shirdi Sai Baba called Satcharita and we thought that would be fairly easy to track down. So went to Landmark at Spencer Plaza in the morning around 11:45 only to be told that they do not stock it.
We then went to this shop called "Giri Brothers" in Mylapore, which is supposedly well-known for all articles connected with prayers - they stock all the Pooja CDs, books, items such as the Agarbati (the incense stick), unfortunately they only had the book in Tamil.
From there, to R A Puram to Sundaram, which is the temple for Satya Sai Baba, but they informed us that they would be opening their book stall only when Bhajans took place (usually on Thursdays and Sundays).
We then went to the Ramakrishna Mutt in Mylapore and I decided to check the Universal Temple that they have built there. The architecture is great and we entered the temple and sat down to meditate the way the others in the temple were. Its calm and peaceful and you can feel your worries being washed away in that atmosphere.
Unfortunately they too do not stock the book and we heard about the book fair that was being held at Poonamalee High Road, about an hour's drive from there, so went ahead to that place. It was packed like the entire Chennai crowd was there, I never knew there were such avid booklovers in Chennai.
Unfortunately most of the books were in Tamil and the English ones were not worth a glance, moreover, the crowd was beginning to psyche us out, so we decided to call it a day and got back home at around 9 PM. By then, mum, dad and myself were all too bushed to be able to move even an inch, so we called up a few people and thankfully a family friend had the book, so we finally got that.
Seriously, I never thought a book could ever bring such agony and frustration in a single day!!!
My sister had asked us to send across a book on Shirdi Sai Baba called Satcharita and we thought that would be fairly easy to track down. So went to Landmark at Spencer Plaza in the morning around 11:45 only to be told that they do not stock it.
We then went to this shop called "Giri Brothers" in Mylapore, which is supposedly well-known for all articles connected with prayers - they stock all the Pooja CDs, books, items such as the Agarbati (the incense stick), unfortunately they only had the book in Tamil.
From there, to R A Puram to Sundaram, which is the temple for Satya Sai Baba, but they informed us that they would be opening their book stall only when Bhajans took place (usually on Thursdays and Sundays).
We then went to the Ramakrishna Mutt in Mylapore and I decided to check the Universal Temple that they have built there. The architecture is great and we entered the temple and sat down to meditate the way the others in the temple were. Its calm and peaceful and you can feel your worries being washed away in that atmosphere.
Unfortunately they too do not stock the book and we heard about the book fair that was being held at Poonamalee High Road, about an hour's drive from there, so went ahead to that place. It was packed like the entire Chennai crowd was there, I never knew there were such avid booklovers in Chennai.
Unfortunately most of the books were in Tamil and the English ones were not worth a glance, moreover, the crowd was beginning to psyche us out, so we decided to call it a day and got back home at around 9 PM. By then, mum, dad and myself were all too bushed to be able to move even an inch, so we called up a few people and thankfully a family friend had the book, so we finally got that.
Seriously, I never thought a book could ever bring such agony and frustration in a single day!!!
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