Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (warning spoilers)

I missed last week due the the Holidays, but I want to continue my series about literary elements in Harry Potter. I have been focused on the element of foreshadowing and there sure was a lot of it in Harry Potter 4. There were two subplots that J.K. Rowling kept dropping hints about. The first element was Mad-Eye Moody's impostor replacement by Barty Crouch Jr. From the beginning there were subtle hints that Moody had been replaced. When Barty was finally revealed and detailed what he had done the hints and clues became evident.

The second subplot with foreshadowing and clues was the Rita Skeeter (Skeeter, sound uniquely insect like, no?) All along there were these fairly subtle references to beetles, and so when Hermione smugly revealed that she had Rita in the bag (or jar) and told us how she had put together the clues, I personally thought that I had solved it right along with her.

Another of my favorite examples of foreshadowing and dropping clues was during the scene when Bary Crouch Jr. has Harry in the Defense Against the Dark Arts office and Snape appears in his foe glass. J.K. Rowling is just too good to have done that incidentally. The foe glass, whether it was Moody's or Barty's is definitely showing Barty's foes as he had explained to Harry earlier. Well, Snape shows up in the foe glass. There is some argument on Goodreads as to whether Snape is actually good or not and whether people actually thought he was good. Personally, I wish that I had noted this a little earlier. Reading through it again, I am convinced that this is meant as a clue that Snape is a foe to Voldemort's biggest supporter. Constantly through the books J.K. Rowling has left us clues that Snape was in fact to be trusted. Dumbledore is virtually never wrong and never on anything big. Dumbledore's continued support of Snape is the biggest clue that Snape is, if not good, at least loyal. But this little clue is another piece of evidence that Snape is good.

Finally, during the confrontation with Voldemort and then Dumbledore's analysis of what happened, we see that rather than making himself more invulnerable, Voldemort has made himself more vulnerable, only later do we realize that he is more vulnerable to Harry specifically. By using Harry's blood to rebuild his body he has in fact overcome the protection provided by Lily when she died, but also strenghtened the connection between Harry and himself making it possible for Harry to read his mind regularly through the rest of the books.

Literary Elements in Harry Potter 4

I have already done my main posting for this week about Harry Potter 4, but I wanted to talk a little more about the elements of prophecy and prediction in the books. Some folks don't really like Professor Trelawney, but she is key to the whole series. It was her prophecy and Snape's reporting of it that sparked the Dark Lord's attack on James and Lily. She is a right old fraud for the most part, but she does play an important part in the books. Many times it is her class and the work that is done in it that plays counter-point to her own true prophecies and to Harry's insights into Voldemort. In fact in book 4 Harry has a most significant dream during class. Another example of how well J.K. Rowling adds elements to her stories.

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had Merry Christmas, and I say that in the most general terms since no one is actually reading this blog. I thought some people were when I first installed the feedjit gadget, but when I installed google analytics and realized that on average people are only staying on this site 20 seconds I realized that anyone who comes here has landed by accident, oh well, maybe by sheer volume of writing I can actually trick people into thinking I have something to say.

Well, I got a copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling for Christmas. It was a pretty good book but disappointing on some counts. My goodreads review is below

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hermione Granger inherited a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard from Albus Dumbledore in the original runes. This is an English edition with annotations by Dumbledore himself. The stories are fables or moral tales for the wizarding community. Much like the fables and tales in the Muggle world they have both fans and opponents. Dumbledore goes to great lengths to explain to all of us exactly what was intended as the moral of the tale which came across to me as unnecessary. Dumbledore apparently assumes that we aren't bright enough to figure out how to apply the moral of the fable without his help. Dumbledore also manages to portray himself as quite the genius, nearly infallible and rather more than a little arrogant.



I truly love J.K.Rowling's work and honestly have been a huge fan of Harry Potter since I laughed my way through the first chapter of The Sorcerer's Stone. I do hope any attempts on her part to return to the Wizarding world are better than this. It reminded me an awful lot of her other two mini-books: Quidditch through the ages and Fantastic Beasts and where to find them which were very gimmicky. I hate to see her considerable talent wasted on this. I had gotten my hopes up and wasn't left completely disenchanted, but mostly a little confunded. The stories were good, but a tad short even for the target audience. My 9 year old sone finished the stories in one quick evening, but skipped Dumbledore's explanations because they were too long. I did like it so I don't want to sound too negative, but it wasn't the visit back to the Harry's world that I had hoped for.


View all my reviews.

More Harry Potter Foreshadowing

Well, dang it I missed the biggest and most obvious foreshadowing from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I finished the book (again) and noticed the very obvious foreshadowing of Dumbeldore informing Harry that now Peter Pettigrew is indebted to him and there may come a time in the future when it would be important to Harry.

Well, turns out of course that Dumbledore was right! No big surprise there since J.K. Rowling was doing such a phenomenal storytelling job. She set up the clue because she had the end in mind.

When I have talked to people about storytelling, I often point out the importance of this. A good storyteller knows what subtle points to emphasize because they know which points will show up later in the story. I doubt that Rowling wrote this in and then when she got to Book 7 suddenly thought: Oh, I forgot about Pettigrew. She knew when she planned Book 3 that he needed to escape and he needed to be in debt to Harry.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (warning spoilers)

Continuing my series about the foreshadowing in Harry Potter I am realizing that it makes complete sense that several of the titles have won various awards for Young Adult Mysteries. Normally, I wouldn't have classified these books as mysteries, but each one of them actually is. This is why foreshadowing is so well done in the books. J.K. Rowling leaves us clues to understand the truth and we can figure it out if we try hard enough.

Scabbers illness was one of the examples. Hermione eventually figured out that Scabbers illness was tied to the escape of Sirius Black. Turns out Scabbers was ill because he was stressed out that he old friend was going to come and kill him. Not without good cause since that was exactly what Sirius had in mind. Throughout the book there are clues that not all is right with Scabbers. When he is examined at the Magical Menagarie Rowling points out that Scabbers is missing a toe. This was foreshadowing the revelation that all that was found of Peter Pettigrew was his finger. Finally, when Scabbers is revealed to be Pettigrew in Animagus form it is fully revealed that Pettigrew cut off his own finger to fake his death.

Hermione is the voice of reason and faith again. Her unwavering faith in Crookshanks turns out to be well placed. Crookshanks was the trustworthy one all along and it was Scabbers that was untrustworthy. As demonstrated by the Sneak-a-scope going off when Crookshanks attacks Scabbers. Hermione incedentally is one who's faith in Snape was well placed. She trusts him right up until he kills Dumbledore in Book 6. She believes all along that Dumbledore must have reasons for trusting Snape.

Rowling also gave us some good foreshadowing with the names on the Marauder's Map. When Harry asked Lupin if he knew these folks he demures but admits that he does know them. As the authors of the Marauder's Map are revealed to be none other than James, Sirius, Remus and Peter the names Prongs, Padfoot, Moony and Wormtail make sense and had been a clue as to what was going on all along.

I recently posted in a discussion on GoodReads.com that J.K. Rowling doesn't really trick us. The bad guys are bad guys. I may have to retract that statement. In this book there were clues all along that Sirius wasn't out to get Harry. For example, He apparently went after Ron, but didn't kill him even though he hadn't been reluctant to kill innocent Muggles years before. Well this as all a clue that he wasn't in fact after Ron or Harry nor had he killed any innocent Muggles. He was after Pettigrew. Even with these clues, I don't think I expected Sirius to be good and I certainly didn't suspect Ron's rat. But it is clear that Rowling planned from the beginning the storyline with Pettigrew. She was certain to have him present in all the books and that we knew that he had been in the family for a long time. Rowling shows her craft and foresight in this book.

Rowling also has some great word play in this book. The names on the Marauder's Map was a fun play on words. The code names for each Animagus form are clever and engaging. Crookshanks, with his bowed legs ( Crooked shanks) also imply he may be some kind of a crook and possibly untrustworthy, distracting us from the true sneak, Scabbers. Dementors who suck out life's happiness imply that to be unhappy and focus on the negatives of life is truly demented. Remus Lupin was like Sirius Black an interesting word play. I mentioned in an earlier post that Sirius is the dog star and well he's a black dog. Remus was the name of the brother to Romulus for whom Rome was named. Both brothers were, according to legend, suckled by a wolf which gave them great strength and wisdom to lead the people. Lupin is a form of lupine which means wolf-like. His whole names indicates that he is a were-wolf.

Rowling sures gives us lots to think about which makes these books fun to come back to even when they mystery is over and we know what the result will be it's still draws us in as the The Grim drags Ron under the Whomping Willow and out to the shrieking shack.

Well, see you in Hogsmeade.

Harry Potter Foreshadowing: Book 2 (Warning spoilers)

Book 2 starts off with Harry lonesome at home. Harry is instructed to stay upstairs make no sound and pretend that he isn't there. A task made much more difficult by the arrival of Dobby. Dobby gives us the first bit of foreshadowing by telling Harry that the danger he faces this year doesn't have anything to do with Voldemort. Later we find that in fact the it didn't have anything to do with Voldemort but rather with Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The more significant foreshadowing happens all through the book as we find again and again that Harry has lots in common with the Heir of Slytherin and with Slytherin himself. He speaks Parseltongue being one of the most notable. Another part of the foreshadowing occurs when Harry takes possesion of Tom's Diary. When he does the attacks stop. When he loses it the attacks start back up. This was the clue that the diary was influencing the monster. Dobby earlier had given another clue related to the diary. One of the premier examples of how well Rowling had planned these books. When Dobby warned Harry he mentioned that Voldemort had powers that no decent wizard would use. Was this a reference to Voldemort turning the diary into a Horcrux? It sures seems to be. And if Dobby knew what it was it was an impressive feat for the little elf because Dumbldore suspects that not even Malfoy knew what it was (check book 6)

Speaking of Dumbledore the most impressive foreshadowing was right here in the end of book 2. Dumbledore spends a significant amount of time talking to Harry about the similarities between Harry and Tom. The most amazing reference being Dumbledore's revelation that he suspects that Voldemort transferred some of his power to Harry explaining how Harry has the ability to speak to snakes. Significantly it is Harry's decisions that mark him as different, but nonetheless this is the first clue that Harry is in fact a horcrux and has a portion of Voldemort's spirit sharing his body.

Image sources:
Amazon.com

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

read it

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Finding some more fun foreshadowing or is it? I was looking through Harry Potter 1 last light and reading about Harry's arrival at Gringott's bank. Hagrid goes to great length's to tell him how crazy anyone would have to be to try and break in to Gringott's even Griphook brags about how "anyone but a Gringott's Goblin would get sucked in"

What were they thinking?

I would give a dollar to know what this person was thinking when they did their search. I would give another dollar to find out if they found what they were looking for.

Hogwart's Year One: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

This book was also published under the title Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the U.K. audience. Apparently the U.S. audience was simply not sophisticated enough to wrap their heads around the idea of a Philosopher's Stone.

The elements of foreshadowing in this were the frequent and obvious references to Harry's scar. From the moment we meet Harry his scar is his distinguishing mark. This scar was the first indication that there was a connection between Harry and Voldemort the evil sorcerer who must not be named. When Hagrid describes to him that he has been marked there is foreshadowing. Hagrid tells him: That was no ordinary cut. It wasn't even ordinary for a curse. Harry was the first and only to survive Voldemort's killing curse. The scar on Harry's forehead becomes the first foreshadowing of what is to come.

Robot Visions

This is my review on goodreads.com of this book.

Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is yet another in the vast sea of work by Isaac Asimov. What really made this a winner for me was the set of essays in the book about why robots will succeed and thrive. One particular essay regards the reason we will create human shaped robots. Short answer: Because they can interact with our world.


View all my reviews.

More Harry Potter Literary Elements Announcement

I posted a while back about some of the literary elements in Harry Potter, I have noticed through my feedjit feed that I am getting most of my hits based on searches for Harry Potter Literary Elements, so I am going to go through each book and look at them one by one to describe the effective elements in each book. I will release one a week on Tuesday's for the next 7 weeks. I hope that fills a need for the few of you who are actually reading the blog.

Another guest contributor

Well... after my older son contributed, my younger son had to get in on the act.  I will post their video reviews from time to time, both here and on YouTube.

Free Digital Library to All

I have been spending bunch of time watching TED talks lately.  I bumped into them via another blog I follow and I have found them to be amazing.  I don't agree with everything in all of them, but this one certainly had some food for thought.TED Talks

He will be sorely missed!

Michael Crichton passed way last Tuesday. He was 66 years old and lost his battle with cancer. He will be sorely missed.

Mr. Crichton was a fine author. His hyper-realistic style prompted many movies, the TV Series E.R. and a string of phenomenal novels. I had just picked up and read his book Terminal Man when I heard the news. I haven't been able to blog about his books, but you can read my reviews on GoodReads. I greatly respect Mr. Crichton and his attention to detail. His ability to make me believe a story was one I marveled at even as I read a book I knew was fiction. The best example of this I an relate is the book Congo (not the movie which you should only watch so you can see exactly how bad a movie can be) I read Congo literally in about 9 hours. I picked it up because I had seen the movie advertised and wanted to read the book first. A habit I have since reversed completely. As I sat in my reading chair and devoured page after page, I continually kept asking myself, ok, so is the real? Is this a novel? Eaters of the Dead was another fine example of this kind of craftsmanship.

I pay Michael Crichton a true compliment when I say reading his books helped me become a more educated person which is to say a better person. You will be missed!

Introducing Book Blog Video and my guest contributor

I want to introduce Book Blog Video.  Now not only is no one reading this, but now no one can watch it too!  I also need to introduce my son as a guest contributor.  He will be helping me from time to time.  He is very excited about it.

DragonLance

When, I was still teaching in the classroom, I saw student after student come through my class with a series of books:  DragonLance Chronicles.  The first book Dragons of Autumn Twilight was the one that really stuck out to me.  I kept telling myself, I would look at it someday.  Well some day finally came and I read them.  Exceptional books for the genre.  My general opinion of books of this type is that they are 'faddy'  the roll with the fad.  You see Pokemon books, Bakugan books and there have been other books based on Dungeons and Dragons and other Role-playing games, and they appeal to a certain crowd (I must admit I definitely empathize with that crowd if I am not a full fledged part of it.....isn't it funny how you never really know if you are part of a crowd?)

Well, anyway more than 20 years after the books were originally published they are doing what toy manufacturers have done for years.  Lets' market Mom and Dad's favorites to Mom and Dad's Kids.  Seriously, anyone remember He-Man or Transformers from their youth, well they were both re-marketd as were My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake.  Now, Dragonlance has been remarketed The Dragon Codex books are actually a pretty good series.  My son has loved all of them.  He has also liked the Practical Guide series.  If you are a fan of fantasy and are looking for a good way to introduce your kids to fantasy these are a pretty good place to start.

See my List on Amazon.com for information on getting these books:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R1WJVPHBC3BD0H/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=

Wow... Faith in Human Nature is Restored

A few weeks back I posted about losing my book Radical Evolution.  I was completely disappointed that I had lost it and no one had turned it in.  I have called the Lost and Found for the bus I ride but no luck, no one had turned it in.   Anyway, I gave it up as a lost cause.  

Then Monday, I was waiting for the bus and two different buses I can take pulled up at the downtown stop at the same time.  I had to pick so I got on one I normally don't.  A ways down the road as the bus started to empty I moved up a couple of seats to get an empty row.  A few minutes later another gentleman moved up across the aisle from me.  I was fussing around with my iPod and happened to glance away from the movie I was watching and looked across the aisle.  The gentleman was reading a book with the chapter entitled "Prevail." The next chapter up in Radical Evolution for me.  Turns out he had found my book and been so interested in it that he had to finish it before he tried finding the owner. 

Funny set of coincidences and now, I'll get my book back.....as soon as he finishes it.

More great literature resources: MS Reader

There are certainly a lot of great reading resources available and one of the best around is Microsofts' Reader. This reader has several features that increase the appeal of this free software.

Free Books:
There is a vast library of free books available for the Microsoft Reader.  Many different entities are making books available at no cost in the Microsoft Reader format.  Since Reader is backed by the largest software entitiy in the world it is a pretty good bet that it will have sufficient support to maintian itself.  This has encouraged several sources to create libraries of book available free.  Most of these are in the public domain, so if you love the Classics, Reader is a good option for you.

Powerful Annotation options:
Reader comes with a more than adequate suite of annotation resources including: bookmarks, personal notes added to any text, and the ability to search multiple titles at once.  The library option is also useful because it shows you all the books you have and whether you have opened them or not.  I also frequently use the "open to the furthest read" option to take me back where I was last reading.

Ease of Reading:

I have read 4 or 5 full books on Reader and found it very enjoyable.  As I mentioned above the bookmarking and "open to furthest read" options make it easy to pick back up.  The text was legible and when I moved one out to my Windows Mobile device it ran seamlessly and was easy to read there too. 

Cons:
MS Reader does have a few drawbacks, for those who may already have a library in another format it doesn't convert easily (there are some software solutions out there that do it, but MS Reader doesn't read anything but it's native format)  also for some they will have to resign themselves to continue being a microserf.  Personally, I enjoy having another great product that I know will be supported and compatible with the system I already have.

Relevant links:

• http://www.microsoft.com/Reader/default.mspx
• http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/
  

Annals of the Western Shore

I have been reading this Urula K. Le Guin series and I mostly liked it. Here are my comments from GoodReads

Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
So, I finished the trilogy and it makes me wonder if there is going to be more. The end of this wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped. The resolution of Gav's conflict with Hoby didn't resolve it for me. I like the deep connection I felt to Gav and the unique experiences he went through, but I keep waiting for the final conflict and resolution for the series.


View all my reviews.

Fire and Damnation!!!

Sorry, for the strong language... but since I am reading a book about the "Hell" scenario I thought it appropriate. Actually, I need to say was reading. I left my book on the bus yesterday morning after my rather verbose post. It may go to the lost and found, but a book with a nude blue woman on the cover just may not make it. Dang, it's a great book too.

I also chose the title because I just started Brisingr, Christopher Paolini's final installment of the Inheritance Trilogy....what.... Oh, sorry his latest installment in the Inheritance Cycle. So how many books in a cycle? 4, 5, 6, more? Is a cycle larger than a series? If it is 4 does that make it a Quad, Quadology or a tetraology.

Link to Amazon.com: BrisingrAnyway, when I first started Paolini's Trilogy (excuse me, cycle) I kind of thought it stunk even for a 15 year old genius. I thought I could see who he was copying and who he had read. I even remember thinking, "Cheez, I could have written this" I liked it, but more as a curiosity rather than good literature. When I got to his descriptions of how Eragon learns magic in Eldest, I was much more impressed. Now, picking up Brisingr I feel like I am back with old friends. Kudos, Mr. Paolini, I guess I was just envious to begin with.

P.S. If you follow the link on the picture above you can see Christopher Paolini's explanation of the change from trilogy to cycle.

More Radical Evolution

Ok, I am back to the book Radical Evolution after a hiatus. My hiatus was actually more of a sight-seeing trip. I have also been reading the Annals of Western Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin, but I was at the Library two weeks ago and walked by a novel that caught my eye. Fire-us. I misread it as Fire-ups and thought it was one thing but it turned out to be a book about a virus wiping out the world. It didn't kill children because it targeted part of the metabolism related to sex hormones. This left children struggling to survive in a world that had no adults. It was a pretty good book. The first volume was very good and I don't exactly agree with a lot of the reviews I read about it which said they were disappointed with the ending. I was more surprised at the "who" of the ending than the actual result. It also left the final status of the kids who had formed a family a little unresolved.

What struck me as interesting as I started back into Radical Evolution is that this book is an example of a "Hell" scenario as described by Garreau. The book describes what might happen if any of the major technologies gets out of control. Technologies he describes as the GRIN technologies:

• Genetics
• Robotics
• Information/Intelligence
• Nanotechnology

But what I also found interesting today was the gentleman Garreau is quoting and discussing: Francis Fukuyama. He asks the very pointed question what happens when we can breed some people with saddles on their backs and others with spurs and boots? (paraphrased but closely paraphrased) He goes on to pose other sticky problems. He points out an idea that resonates with my personal beliefs. We want to build a more empathic world, a world where people care more for each other, but how can that be if we therapuetically remove all pain and suffering? How can I empathize with the suffering of children in sweatshops with no point of reference. If I have never suffered long dibilitating and difficult work how do I see those children as fundamentally like me with the same fullness of emotion, hope, longing and capacity for suffering if I am so far removed from those things as to have no common understanding. Fukuyama seems to see this as a potential problem with technology. We could literally breed children that don't view their parents as the same race. I have often thought about this in terms of evolution or even animal husbandry. The Great Dane and the Chihuahua are the same breed, and I could begin breeding Great Danes back down to the size of chihuahuas. If I started only with Great Dane stock it would take a fair bit of time, but at what point does the dog I am breeding stop recognizing its offspring as Great Danes and start recognizing them as Mini-Danes. Or stated in reverse, at what point does the offspring look back at it's parents (or more likely it's grandparents) and say, "You are not me"

Well, we are reaching, or have possibly reached when within just a generation we could alter our future evolution so much as to make my own Grandchildren unrecognizable to me. Not only physically, but potentially, emotionally and psychologically as well. Another great Novel that speaks to this is Scott Westerfelds series: Uglies. In the books the heroine gets physically altered by surgery, gene therapy and technological implants, but as the concern usually is, the evil scientists, the ones with the power, they want to keep that power, they want the Utopia of their vision to come to pass, and in this case have the power to bring it to pass, the mess with the brains and psychology of people too.

This potential for intentionally or unitentionally, altering the fundamental nature of humans is what lots of people see as a risk. Radical Evolution highlights some of the best thinking on this.

Good Reads

Good reads is a great site to track your books and offer reviews of your favorite books.  I am really loving this site so far.  See my widget to get an idea.  It also offers a social networking aspect which is pretty fun.

Ursula K LeGuinn

http://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Annals-Western-Shore-Ursula/dp/0152051244/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220558784&sr=8-2

I have always loved her Earthsea trilogy from way back when... But a couple of years ago she wrote another novel called Tehanu as the fourth in the Earthsea cycle and subtitled as the last of the Earthse books. Then she wrote two more. Tehanu was a very good book and brought Ged and Tenar back together. Book 5 is called Tales of Earthsea and the final book is called The Other Wind. Tales of Earthsea was a series of short stories that among other things gave some background on how magic evolved in Earthsea and who Ogion the Silent is.

But what I am really writing about is her series calledAnnals of the Western Shore.  I checked her site, but I didn't find out whether this is the same world as Earthsea just a different part of the globe.  (I have always wondered if there is more to Earthsea than the isles)  Anyway this newer series has been very good so far.  She managed to pull me in as completely as she did with A Wizard of Earthsea. 

Literacy- Old School???

Jared suggested that I am pretty animated about the literature resources on the web and that I ought to blog about them here. So if you like this I need to thank Jared for the suggestion, if you don't then it's Jared's fault and blame him. But, seriously. There are some really phenomenal web resources for bibliophiles out there. I want to highlight just one. It is multi-media in the way we usually think of it, but it does use multiple mediums. Many books that are no longer covered by copyright, ie: public domain, are now being digitized by multiple entities and in mutliple ways. One of those is Project Gutenburg, named after the famous inventor of the printing press. You can look up literally thousands and thousands of books and read them on your computer or with just a small learning curve and a portable device you can take them with you to read anywhere you go. Visit Project Gutenburg here: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Radical Evolution

After having just finished a book pooh poohing the notion of exponential growth lasting forever and our world hurtling forward in an ever increasing technologically enhanced society, I started Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau which so far reads like a manual for hurtling towards a technologically enhanced future with exponential growth lasting forever.  Specifically he talks about biomedical and genetic enhancements.  It really is a great book and gives some of the actual science and technology behind books like: Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras by Scott Westerfeld. 

more to come

FutureHype

Well, I finished this book.  It was great really.  I particularly liked his refreshing viewpoint.  No,  we are not hurtling on to a neverending techno-future without hope.  In fact his basic premise of the entire book was that exponential growth only happens for a short time in any particular field.  I would actually argue that while this is a fair view of things we actually see that technology advancement actually matches the type of change that is used to describe evolutionary change.  Punctuated equilibrium (and if I have the term wrong be sure and tell me what is correct)  This idea is that you have eras of vast change in a species during a short time period alternated with long periods of relatively small and slow change.  Agriculture has followed this pattern for thousands of years.  Periods of rapid advancement followed by years of relatively small change. 

His spotlight metaphor was also very refreshing.  The spotlight is on computer change and growth right now, but it will shift to something else as exponential growth in computers becomes unsustainable.  As soon as we have a major innovation in another field you will see a shift in emphasis to that field (probably transportation or genetic/biomedical engineering)

A new way of digitizing books

Ok, I have had to type in the little misshapen words and letters on many websites, but I never even stopped to think about how much time it was taking. This guy not only figured out how much time it was taking but a way to make use of the time. All in all really a good idea.

Check it out at here:

• Play the Audio
  
• Link to NPR.ORG Story
  

Quotes Daddy | Over 1,000,000 Famous Quotes

Quotes Daddy | Over 1,000,000 Famous Quotes

If you are a big bibliophile you may be like me and have thousands of quotes and snippets that you love from your favorite authors. Quotes Daddy allows you to not only search, and bookmark your favorite quotes but both include your favorites from books and add your own words of wisdom. A great Web 2.0 tool

You can also create a widget to include your favorite quotes on a web page or blog:

Quotes by QuotesDaddy.com

Visions of Death- Possible Spoilers. Read at your Own Risk

Ok, I finally have had time to come back and talk about Harry Potter.

Death!!!! This is one of the huge themes in Harry Potter. From the first page to the last of the series there is a common theme of death running through the entire book. From the moment we meet Harry death has marked him, literally. His scar is a constant reminder of the the effect death has on life. It is so remarkable to me that Harry's whole life, at least what we are privy too in the 7 years he is at Hogwart's (OK technically year 7 he isn't really at Hogwart's but you get the drift) Harry is haunted by death. There are ghosts at the school. He finds the Mirror of Erised and see's his dead parents. He finds out how his parents truly died. He fights Voldemort to make sure he stays dead and almost dies in the process.

Each year at Hogwart's the spectre of death follows Harry. Year two follows the returning from the dead of Tom Riddle. Year three we address the betrayal and death of his parents again. Year four someone is trying to kill him. Year 5 showcases the death of Harry's Godfather and finally Year six the death of Harry's mentor and in some ways idol. Year Seven is when J.K. Rowling finally explicitly addreses the issue that has been haunting Harry all along and he has to come to grips with the Deathly Hallows. Will he seek out this tools that will allow him to cheat death or will he seek to rid the world of Voldemort's splintered soul. Thus death and the acceptance of it as a normal, necessary and fundamental end to life are the 'crux of the matter. J.K. Rowling played the whole plot like a fine violin by having every adult (except Hagrid) who truly cared about Harry either die or face a catastrophic near death experienc as was the case with Mr. Weasley (by the way in one interview J.K. Rowling stated she planned on having him die in book 5 but just couldn't do it in the end because she cared to much about him. Note though that this charity didn't extend to poor Fred (or was it George) in book Seven. This also explains why Mr. Weasley played a rather smaller role in books 6 and 7

Well, I am getting rather verbose, and I have made my point. Dumbledore says that it is Harry's understanding of love and his capacity to love that sets him apart from Voldemort, I say it is Harry's ability to accept the inevitability of death and to accept loss as a part of life. Voldemort spent his whole life refusing to get close to anyone, thus avoiding the possibility of loss, and trying to avoid the inevitability of death.

The road goes ever on.....

Listmania

Wow, I was really excited to be blogging about Harry Potter but I got so into them that I read them and didn't write about them. I will come back to that, but I am actually attending a Web 2.0 conference and we are talking about Read-Write Web tools. and I mentioned the Listmania feature on Amazon.com and then went in and spent some time creating a new list. I can't comment on them as much there as I can here, but if you start following my book blog then you should really also keep track of my Amazon.com profile.

Check out my amazon.com profile and listmania stuff here:

• Profile
• Listmania Lists

Literary Elements in Harry Potter

Some more on literary elements in Harry Potter

First of all I had better warn you that there are several spoilers so if you are one of the 11 people in the world who hasn't heard the ending of the books and you are also one of the 4 people who have actually read my blog then beware.

Foreshadowing:

There are some exceptional elements of foreshadowing all throught the books. The most glaring and obvious of all these is the constant references to the similarities between Harry and Voldemort. Book 2 really plays these up with the particular mention of Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue.

Another element I found particularly fun was Sirius Black. Sirius is the dog star and Sirius turns into a black dog. Well, she had this planned out from Book 1, when Hagrid mentions he has borrowed the motorcycle from Sirius Black.

Word Play:
I don't know what else to call this, but Sirius Black is an example of a play on words. So is Dolores Umbridge which has a double word play. Umbrage is a sense of offense for bad behavior. Dolores has a latin (especially Spanish) cognate or possibly psuedo-cognate and means pains. So Dolores Umbridge is a painful offense. Professor Sprout is another fun play on words and Filius, Professor Flitwicks 1st name. is based on the latin for Faith or faithful. There are other fun examples of this in the books.

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed the series as much as I did and my 2nd read through was even more fun than the first, just like visiting a favorite vacation spot but with more time to explore. Read it again for the first time.

Back after a break

Well, nothing new to say about Harry Potter or about FutureHype. I have been busy at work with trainings and I wasn't able to get much reading done in the past couple of weeks.

The only reading I have been able to do was on the new eReader app on the iPhone and iPod touch. I don't have the iPhone so I have downloaded the new software and then got the eReader app. This application is compatible with the standard .pdb format which is the old Palm format. Books can be downloaded onto your desktop computer or through a wi-fi connection directly to the iPod touch. I started reading Huckleberry Finn today.

There are around 30 free books listed on Fictionwise.com. eReader.com has a large selection of inexpensive books too. There are some other sources for free eBooks and some other format options. Next time I'll blog about that.

Also, don't miss my cross post to my education blog about Audiobook formats

Harry Potter- Effective Elements of Literature

I've been reading (rereading really, anyone who hasn't already read at least a dust jacket of Harry Potter has probably been in a coma for a about 10 years) Harry Potter and really noticing the effective use of foreshadowing. Or maybe they are just good clues in books that have won awards for being effective mysteries. I doubt I would be spoiling much but I just in case I will only refer to one good example. As I have been going through them, I have really wondered about the purpose of the apparently totally useless Divination Class that Ron and Harry are continually doing homework for without any real result. The class that J.K. Rowling spends the most time describing (aside from Defense against the Dark Arts)

The reason she spends so much time with Divination is that variously through the books Harry is the one gifted with visions of the future. The most prominent example of Divination prompting Harry's Visions is in book 4 when he falls asleep in Divination and He has visions of Voldemort which turn out to be true. Through the rest of the books you see divination and Professor Trelawney being used as counterpoint to Harry's true abilities to predict either future or far distant events. All during book 5 when Harry is plagued by awful (and true) dreams He has to make up dreams for Ron to interpret in Divination. More to come on other effective elements of literature in Harry Potter. I will also come back to FuturHype.

FutureHype

Welcome to my book blog. I am reading FutureHype by Bob Seidensticker. It is a fascinating book about why technology doesn't advance quite as quickly as we think it will. When people talk about the rapid growth of technology and the huge impact it is going to have on the world they usually underestimate the impact of earlier technology. We think of what a huge impact the internet is having on us today, but the change in the amount of information available in the 50 years after the invention of the printing press was very similar. Or what about the invention of agriculture. Which has had a bigger impact on our world? Which was more important, the invention of magnetic computers and or the invention of paper?