Thursday, February 23, 2006

A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book 1 A very Bad Beginning By Lemony Snicket

 (Book Review)

I guess there’s not (hope there’s not) any shame in admitting to reading a children’s book. Not in this day and age when even literary giants like Phil Christman is admitting to reading “Harry Potter” and Andrew is re-reading “The Chronicles of Narnia”.

So I’m coming out of the closet. I saw this book in the local bookstore. It looked like it would be pretty funny. And I never saw the movie because it was dubbed into Japanese for the theater release over here. (Children’s movies are usually dubbed instead of subtitled).

The book wasn’t quite as funny as I thought it would be. As Bork might say, “It was funny, but not ha ha funny.” Maybe that can be chalked up to the failure of high expectations. Or maybe that’s just what happens when a grown man reads a children’s book.

The book is part of a series, which I don’t have a problem with. But it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, which I do have a problem with. Call me an old man if you will, but I like my books to have a complete ending. If I want to read a serial, that’s what comic books and magazines are for. If I plunk down the money for a hard cover book, I want it to be a complete story with a complete ending. The “Harry Potter” and “Narnia” books were all complete stories as well as being part of a series. And I’m willing to make exceptions for “Lord of the Rings” because of its length. But this book is extremely small. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be combined into one volume with the other books in the series, except that obviously the publishers make more money selling them separately.

Link of the Day
Media Mouse has compiled an online list of Grand Rapids companies which are profiting from the war in Iraq.

Video Version

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