The Sunday Salon: Finding the Sorcerer’s Stone and this and that

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I just finished a review of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and now I’m writing this final Sunday Salon post of the day. So it goes.

Earlier today, I said I would be diving into Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling, for my Personal Banned Book Week Challenge: A book a day in honor of Banned Books Week, which runs from this past Saturday, Sept. 27 until this coming Saturday, Oct. 4. And so I did and finished it with plenty of time to spare.

Since the Vonnegut review took a little more time tonight than I anticipated, and I still want to watch the movie Freedom Writers in honor of Banned Books Week, my brief review of the Harry Potter book will be coming tomorrow. However, I will share one quick thought about it now, which is probably not new to those who have read it: The book (as I’m sure all the books are) is much better than the movie. It is rare that a movie lives up to a book and this certainly is, and was, the case with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. From the very first introduction of the Dursleys, I knew this was not the same as the movie.

As for the book being challenged, I was over three-quarters through the book when I had this astonishing thought: “And people wanted to ban this book? Huh?” And then I had a very evil thought that they also probably would like to ban: “WTF?” Personally, as someone who grew up in a Christian home, I didn’t– and don’t– understand the objections. Like many of those who protested the movie The Last Temptation of Christ didn’t see the movie, I think those who protested the book didn’t actually read it either (of course, I think if any of those protestors actually had seen that particular movie, I think they would have laughed off the disciples with the Brooklyn accents right away and realized that it didn’t deserve any hype, period — just my opinion, but that’s another subject for another time).

For more of my thoughts on the book, see my review, which will be coming sometime tomorrow.

This and that

This:

• This past Monday, I began a new feature called Monday’s Memory, in which I will focus on a book each Monday that I read years ago, but only now after starting this book blog am I remembering them. I will reread them and see if they live up to my memory. The first book for this feature was In The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, and appropriately a great lead-in for Banned Books Week, as it has been on the list of most frequently challenged books.
• This past Friday, I wrote this post for Friday’s Finds: Rex Libris: I, Librarian and Superman of Tomorrow, which highlighted a graphic novel I found about a superhero librarian. For real? Yep.
• On my rambling blog, unfinished rambling(s), last Sunday, I continued  with a theme from the previous week with a tongue-in-cheek look at South Korean culture, with this time I give a critique of Korean commercials in Actress 서우 Seo Woo: A fine example of South Korean culture.
• This past Thursday, I shared on that same blog how Infatuation hurts, wounds, scars, marks, as I remembered my top three infatuations and more schlock rock from the 70s and 80s.

That:

First some serious stuff about that financial crisis about which we keep hearing on TV that a friend from South Korea shared with me (and I’ll be honest I haven’t read yet, but he’s keeping up on it more than I am so I trust his judgment):

• The next bubble: Priming the markets for tomorrow’s big crash by Eric Janszen in Harper’s Magazine, February 2008
• Recession 2007: Part I by Eric Janszen on Oct. 27, 2006 on a forum called ITulip
• Another article from Jansen on iTulip called USA, Inc Common Shares: Long or Short?
• On The Curious Capitalist, the blog of Justin Fox, Time’s business and economic columnist this past July: Nouriel Roubini on the endgame for Bretton Woods II
  

And then a few posts that hopefully may make you laugh, or at least make you smile, some even about that same financial crisis:

• Chris Cameron @ Angry Seafood is one of the better humor bloggers out there in the blogosphere and here, he proves it with this post on a serious subject The $700 billion bailout deal is done…wait a minute…it’s not.
• My sister @ Boondock Rambling told me this story earlier in the week about something dumb she said and then posted it on her blog. She does obituaries for a newspaper. So you might only can imagine or just go see for yourself.
• Nick @ Buffalo This gives yet another funny post on the Large Hadron Collider and links to his other posts on the subject in case you missed the other ones. I’m trying to highlight bloggers new to me on my unfinished rambling(s) blog and he was the featured blog this week.
• Doug @ Taunt Vortex puts his own funny spin with a hula hoop on the collapse of Washington Mutual Inc. (WaMu).

And last, but least…I’ve redone the tabs here at Just A (Reading) Fool to make it a little less cluttered. I’ve also cleaned up the sidebar on a few of the blogs, plus added a sticky note that explains the connection among the blogs on each blog. This way, hopefully, you’ll be able to see the connection (if tenuous, with unfinished ramblings) among them.

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Tags: Banned Books Week, Books, Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling, The Sunday Salon