As you can see over at the right — well, at least right now, though it won’t last long — I’m currently reading the last of the released Harry Potter books. Fun stuff, that. I’m really enjoying them.

So, a couple of months ago, right around the time Half-Blood Prince was released as a matter of fact, I’m idling on the #wordpress IRC channel and somebody has a layout question. They post a link to their site. The topmost entry on their blog is a giant, 72-point type spoiler for the book. Those of you who have read the book probably know the gist of the spoiler. I was moderately irate.

What kind of mouth-breathing, ass-sniffing child fondler thinks it’s humorous to ruin other peoples’ fun? The spoiler was certainly accurate enough, and when I got to that part in the book today I can’t say I was surprised. I can imagine the shock I would have had had this no-brain neanderthal not thought it the height of hilarity to be a tiny-penised piece of filth.

Hey, forgotten cretin, I have a spoiler for you: you’ll die alone, penniless and still underwhelming in bed.

Ha-ha! I have (belatedly) been passed the Book Baton by Shawn. I only had to browbeat him a tad to get it but now it’s mine.

I read a lot. However, I’m picky and it takes a lot for me to “accept” an author into the fold. So, without further ado, a delightful look into my reading habits! I KNOW!

How many books do you have on your shelf?

Probably around 150, mostly soft-cover but a smattering of about 30 or 40 hard-cover. We pared it down after the move — yes, smarter money would have been to do that before the move so we wouldn’t have to actually, you know, move the damned books but I’ve rarely been accused of being smart — by a hefty amount, probably 100 books.

What was the last book you purchased?

Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering by Robert Shaw. What can I say? When I get excited about something I tend to immerse myself fully. And when it’s something I’ve been interested in since near birth I go whole hog. I grew up in Pensacola, the home of the Blue Angels. My dad worked at the base, so every year from the time I was 7 or so we went and saw the air show. Often my dad would take me out to the base for their practices. So, in that vein I bought the quintessential fighter pilot manual. I figure if nothing else I can learn a few real tactics and a bit of the theory behind modern air-to-air combat to enhance my virtual experiences.

What book are you currently reading?

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling. I got in on this a bit late, I know. I just bought this one late last week after finishing a book and needing something to read. I had to ask where they kept the Potter books. “Back there, in the children’s section.” Of course. So I’m standing in line to buy my children’s book and the young waif in front me is walking out with Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Yeah, I felt real brainy like.

What are the last 5 books you read?

I ain’t uploading pictures for all these so just deal.

• The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams
• A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
• A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
• Deception Point by Dan Brown

To which 5 people are you passing this baton?

I don’t know five online people. But since I must I’ll find some.

• Adam Stacoviak
• Dan @ Extrasonic
• Karla
• George Bush
• God

UPDATE: I found another human on this here INTARWEB — or she found me — so I’ve passed the baton on to Karla as well. She replaces the erstwhile Martha Stewart whom I don’t think actually reads anyway. Note, I didn’t go the obvious route there. That’s what we call “restraint.”

Hell. Now Spectra, the US publisher of George R. R. Martin’s next book A Feast For Crows, is reporting that the release date is November 8th. That totally sucks in comparison with my original hopes for an end of July release.

What’s even worse is that those sorry bastards in the UK get the book in mid-October. October! There is no justice.

It’s done! It’s done! It’s done!

Well, kind of. It’s not everything Feast was meant to be, but you can’t always get what you want. Martin chose an interesting way to deal with the seemingly enormous girth of the book. He could have merely split it in half, right down the middle and sold it as Feast 1 and Feast 2. However…

We decided not to do that. It was my feeling — and I pushed hard for this, so if you don’t like the solution, blame me, not my publishers — that we were better off telling all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters. Cutting the novel in half would have produced two half-novels; our approach will produce two novels taking place simultaneously, but set hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, and involving different casts of characters (with some overlap).

It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out. I can’t say I’m not excited. Looks like I timed my re-reading of the initial books almost perfectly!

UPDATE: Looks like Amazon has a July 26th release date. That would work. That would work well.

Following the move — you’d think that this would have been more advantageously done before the move, wouldn’t you? — when we were putting everything back into the home office we decided to pare down the book collection some. Primarily this was me paring down the collection as I’m the one with the books. So, once I get done there’s two good-sized, hernia-inducing boxes of books sitting at my feet and a lot of room in the stacks for new ones. Huzzah! (For those keeping score, every book by the following authors is in the ditch bin: Stephen King [recent books haven’t hit me right], Tom Clancy [recent offerings have soured even past glories], Robert Jordan [the entire Wheel of Time series is dead to me], and most of Orson Scott Card [though I did keep the Ender series].)

So, I figure I’ll bring them to the used book store to sell. Oh, that’s rich. To make a long story short, they skimmed only the best offerings and gave me $26 for around 5 hardcovers and 20 paperbacks. They weren’t even kind enough to offer me a bit of lubrication before jamming me in the exit door.

The rest of these books will soon be on Half. At least I stand some chance of getting a wee bit of cash for them that way.

UPDATE: That was fairly painless. In the market for some books?