And, since it is Bastille Day, here's another 3-book list. I'm planning on our Skype session on the 14th! It sounds like everyone has a lot going on, so I can't wait to catch up and chat about Anna (there's so much to talk about in this book!).
3 Grown-Up Books For The Hogwarts Grad
July 13, 2011
The Harry Potter franchise has its last hurrah on Friday, and fans like me are facing a forcible graduation from the protection of a fictional universe we've always known. I was 7 when Harry began, but I'm 21 now, and it's time to broaden my horizons beyond Hogwarts.
But what to pick up first? To me, the perfect post-Potter book isn't an imitator, but rather something entirely different (darker, perhaps, or less padded with childhood optimism) that's laced with threads of familiar territory. Through striking and unexpected lenses, these three books give new life to my favorite foundations of Harry's literary magic.
By Lev Grossman, Paperback, 416 pages, Viking Adult, list price: $16.
Cry derivative all you want — Lev Grossman's novel, hailed as Harry Potter for adults, is all that and more. Combine Narnia, Potter and your sullen, booze-fueled college existentialist phase, and you'll have the world of Quentin Coldwater, a high school senior from Brooklyn who finds himself enrolled at Brakebills College, where he studies to be a magician. It's everything you'd want from a freewheeling postgrad wizardry experience, and the magic itself is wonderfully scientific — messy, sprawling, while technical in a way that Potter forgoes. But it's in the self-reflective thread of Quentin's journey, which culminates in a true-to-genre magical quest undercut by a vein of harsh realism, that The Magicians shines. The endgame is a heartrending, cathartic examination of the nature of magic and our relationship to the stories we wanted to live in as kids — required reading for anyone trying to recover from a lifelong love affair with a fictional world.
By Orson Scott Card, Paperback, 352 pages, Top Science Fiction, List Price $6.99.
The first installment in Orson Scott Card's classic science-fiction series offers a gripping study of how to make a soldier, told through the eyes of child prodigy Andrew "Ender" Wiggin. Set at a futuristic school where kids learn the art of war through battle simulators, Ender's Game shows the vicious toll that thankless expectation exerts on young people, while Ender's own journey has an uneasy sort of "chosen one" edge to it. Card expertly twists your emotions as you watch the boy genius molded — not entirely with his own permission — into the perfect leader, with his capacity for love and hurt compartmentalized behind ruthless cunning. Ender's voice is a mesmerizing mix of childlike wonder and calculating cynicism, and it's stunningly easy to get lost in his war games. This exemplary piece of sci-fi is a chilling and heartbreaking take on what happens when children inherit war.
By Donna Tartt, Paperback, 576 pages, Vintage, list price: $16.
Donna Tartt's acclaimed novel centers on a group of classics majors at a small college in New England whose aspirations toward antiquity careen terrifyingly out of control. But folded into the thrilling story, which is tinged with a crisp, dizzied academic appeal, are dark ruminations on the gifts and curses of the ancients. These ubiquitous archetypes, models and moral codes make up every story we know to some degree — whether it's a reluctant hero's quest, a battle between good and evil or simply a journey through a life. In The Secret History, Tartt offers a fascinating perspective on the influence of the classics on our lives, with a stunningly written moral narrative that warps and coils in on itself to reveal truths about good and evil that most would be afraid to discover.These books aren't the fantastical J.K. Rowling adventures of my childhood, and they're certainly far less cheerful than a certain epilogue. But they embody what I'll always love about Harry Potter — meditations on magic, morality and growing up, shot through with the understanding that while real life isn't always just like storybooks, there's learning in that, too.
Annie Ropeik is an intern at NPR's All Things Considered and lives in Silver Spring, Md.
6 comments:
Yes, Enders Game is one of my favorite books, but even better than that is Enders Shadow, a series Card wrote that parallels the Enders Game series (written from the perspective of another character in the book) Amazingly enough, the Shadow series is even better. I Can't believe you only made it to book 3 of Harry Potter Mer! The last books are the only ones worth reading! Seriously, the last book is pretty good, my favorite of all, and absolutely worth putting on your to read list.
confession:I have tickets to see HP tomorrow night (I was tempted to do a midnight showing, then I realized that I wasn't tempted at all)
:)
Long live Hogwarts! Last night Dan and I went for Frozen Yogurt and there was an entire family dresses in Hogwart's cloaks. The kids were little so it was cute.
I have heard fun things about the Ender books. Maybe next year? As far as HP goes, I liked the third book but the thing that really got to me was how she spent the first hundred pages of each book recapping the entire series...it got old. Like, do people really start in the middle of the series? That said, can I just read #7?? LOL. (On top of this, I was reading copies of HP that several family members had read before me and someone had marked all of the editorial errors with a pencil! Kind of distracting, haha.)
You can totally just read the last book. It's really the only one worth reading.
Ok cool. I will read #7 and pretend I read all seven books, haha. So, here's my next question: What is an appropriate age for kids to read Harry Potter? Would you say the same age for the books and movies? I only ask because I found the last movie definitely dark and rather depressing. I understand the function of the film in the overall story, but I didn't like it. (That, and Ron Weasley got my nerves, haha.) Movie 7 better be amazing...
They split the last book into two movies because the book covered too much to fit in just one film. The book is rather dark (maybe even darker than the film) and is pretty sad for a good chunk (as seen in the last movie), but I think I liked it because it delves into some real life issues and not the annoying teenage angst of the other books. I have a feeling you will be rewarded in the next "half of the movie." Fingers crossed!
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