A Series Of Unfortunate Events
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a ...@dircon.co.uk (Richard Kennaway)
I've just been reading a children's book I would never have discovered but by chance (a recommendation from my brother for a suitable present for one of his sons). After the cloyness of Harry Potter, this comes as a breath of fresh air. Or perhaps cold, dank air from a place where one might accidentally step on a dead toad, for as the author warns at the very beginning, "if you wish to avoid an unpleasant story you had best put this book down." It is "The Miserable Mill", the fourth in the series of books about the Baudelaire orphans, their ineffectual guardian Poe, and the evil Count Olaf who is trying to steal the orphans' inheritance. The author is the impossibly named Lemony Snicket.
Imagine a combination of Edward Gorey and Mervyn Peake. The author thinks nothing of using words that few eight-year-olds will be familiar with, and then defining them in this sort of way: ...somebody had taken a ballpoint pen and drawn a few windows on the gray cement walls. The window drawings somehow made the room even more pathetic, a word which here means, "depressing and containing no windows." Violet, the eldest, invents machines. Klaus reads insatiably. Sunny, the baby, speaks only in invented words, but everyone understands her. In the interstices -- a word which, one might say, here means, "the pattern made by the parts of the carpet that aren't the pattern -- of the story about how the orphans are sent to Paltryville to work in the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and of how they once more encounter the evil Count Olaf, there is a story about how to read texts, not just written ones, but the texts of society.
Lemony Snicket, according to the author bio, "grew up near the sea and currently lives beneath it. To his horror and dismay he has no wife or children, only enemies, ***ociates, and the occasional loyal manservant.
His trial has been delayed, so he is free to continue researching and writing the tragic tales of the Baudelaire orphans."
-- Richard Kennaway
Lee Ann Rucker lruc...@mac.com
They do look line fun, but I'm waiting for them to come out in omnibus paperback - $13 is too much for a book I can read in half an hour.
"Brenda W. Clough" clo...@erols.com
When is this going to happen?
(A Scholastic Book Club edition would also do me.) Brenda
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Brenda W. Clough, author of DOORS OF DEATH AND LIFE Reading on Wednesday December 19th at 7 pm at KGB Bar, 85 east 4th St., New York City http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
rita ...@cruzio.com (Lucy Kemnitzer)
If you know anybody in middle school, they're being sold through Scholastic Book Services. For much less: that's what they always do.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Lois Tilton ltil...@shell-2.enteract.com
They have an omnibus of the first 3 out noow.
But I t hink it may be HC.
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LT
Richard Horton rrhor...@prodigy.net
Indeed, Scholastic has already offered (at least through their cl***room book sale sheets) an omnibus of the first three or four.
The books are very enjoyable, I will say.
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Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard.hor...@sff.net Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
j ...@molehill.org (Todd Larason)
Lemony Snicket is AKA Daniel Handler. His _The Basic Eight_ is great fun for people who are who who have been in high school. It may have been discussed here before -- it's one of those books I found on my shelves and can't figure out where it came from, which usually means someone suggested it and I forgot who.
Andrew Wheeler acwhe...@optonline.com
I burbled quite a bit about _Basic Eight_ here a few months back, so I might be the one you're remembering. I think it's a great example of a kind of book I like a lot (the "Unreliable Narrator Who Edges Up to the Big Secret" genre -- there aren't enough of those for my taste).
His second novel, _Watch Your Mouth_, is not quite as good but along the same lines. It also has a somewhat SFnal gimmick, but mentioning it would be a spoiler.
The Lemony Snicket books are great fun, too. And they are pretty cheap
-- the early ones list at $8.95 (or did when I bought them), which is reasonable for cute little hardcovers with good b&w art. They probably won't hit regular paperback, so the Scholastic editions might be the only way to get them much cheaper. (And they look so nice lined up on a shelf, too.)
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Andrew Wheeler Editor, SF Book Club (USA) -- speaking only for myself No Ideas But In Things!
t ...@panix.com (Thomas Galloway)
Um, why wouldn't they hit regular paperback? They're selling quite well (3 of them are in the top ten at 6, 8, and 10 on the NY Times Children's Chapter Books Bestseller Lists) and have been on there for more than a year in the case of the first book in the series. Not to mention that "Lemony Snicket" actually outdrew Neil Gaiman at a Silicon Valley bookstore (and Neil packed the place).
tyg t...@panix.com
Kate Nepveu kate.nep...@yale.edu
That's _exactly_ the reason.
I believe books in the Harry Potter series are lagging about two years behind the hardcover for the trade paper size; the m*** market version of the first only came out this year.
I'm not sure whether it's kids or parents, but YA books sell _well_ in hardcover, apparently. Kate
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http://www.steelypips.org/elsewhere.html -- kate.nep...@yale.edu Paired Reading Page; Book Reviews; Outside of a Dog: A Book Log "I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Andrew Ducker And...@Ducker.org.uk
Kids can't wait for the book to appear in TPB, neither can geek fanboys. Adults are much better at restraining their excitment.
Which may explain my complete Pratchett HB collection.
Andy D
rja.carne ...@excite.com (Robert Carnegie)
I know that one isn't supposed to do this, but does /anyone/ know what that word means?
To be sure, there is no immediate news of an _Unfortunate Events_ movie - but a surprising number of mentions of Potter's movie alongside the Snicket oeuvre. An Events movie merchandise event -
little bags of lemon snickets sold at candy counters - might cloy.
I'm weighing up whether to get into Snicket, or whether I _am_ too old for this one; 35 and excuse^Wchildlesss. I've seen those slim, attractive, covetable hardcovers at discount (UK) price.
slav ...@hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost (Simon Slavin)
http://www.lemonysnicket.com/ http://www.dymocks.com.au/asp/lemonysnicket.asp Simon.
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http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | I have a hunch that [] the unknown sequences No junk email please. | of DNA [will decode into] copyright notices | and patent protections. -- Donald E. Knuth The French Was There.
scottbee ...@home.com (Scott Beeler)
And, as Andrew said, the cute little hardcovers are only $8.95 each.
A paperback edition wouldn't be drastically cheaper, as opposed to PB editions of standard $25-30 hardbacks, so there's not as much of a reason there to do a PB version.
The omnibus edition mentioned upthread sounds like the way to go if people really do want to get them cheaper.
And to add my recommendation as well, I've read the first three Snicket books and quite enjoyed them. I've got to catch up -- he keeps writing them so fast...
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Scott C. Beeler scottbee...@home.com
"Brenda W. Clough" clo...@erols.com
I have leaned on my son to bring home the Scholastic Books order form, so we shall see.
Brenda
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Brenda W. Clough, author of DOORS OF DEATH AND LIFE Reading on Wednesday December 19th at 7 pm at KGB Bar, 85 east 4th St., New York City http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
j ...@molehill.org (Todd Larason)
Mine, either.
Lee Ann Rucker lruc...@mac.com
That's the trouble - 8 (?) so far, at $9 each, and it takes me under 30 minutes to read each one - ouch! And cute as they are, I don't think they'll be top of my "read over and over" list.
If I had a small child to give them to when I was done, it might be worth it.
"Michael Caldwell" absur...@es.co.nz
"Lee Ann Rucker" wrote Younger siblings? Cousins? Nieces / Nephews? Local Schools (who would love you quite soundly)? I'm currently giving them to sib1 for xmas / birthdays / brownie points, while giving sib 2 the Philip Pullman stuff. Ah, presents that you get to use yourself, wonderful.
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