Tidbits: Olympictures and other such bookish things

I'm going radio silent (unless Finnick is cast or Dumbledore comes out of the closet again) for about the next week, as I will be frolicking through the rolling hills of North Carolina, like our girl Katniss (except I will not be playing Fight Club for kids - just eating a lot of popsicles).  So until then, keep yourself busy with some of these links:

Make this a poster already, J.K. Rowling!

• Why isn't this a poster already? I want it every Harry Potter chapter illustration on my wall, yesterday.  I'm totally serious, I would spend money on this, J.K. Rowling.   You know, in case your children need another very expensive tree house (that I would like to live in as a real house). 

• Don't let Mo Willems drive the bus, ever stop writing fantastic children's books, or ever stop sharing his adorable fan mail with the Internets.  EVER.  

• The dames over at ForeverYA have created a Code Name Verity inspired cocktail.  I think James Bond would approve.

• Do you like to read, and find yourself in need of a bathing suit? These two seemingly unrelated interests, can, in fact, pair well.  Best website of the summer contender. 

• Today, I tuned into the Olympics at just the wrong moment, causing my jaw to drop like a gymnastic judges when, during the USA v. China women's volleyball announcer shouted "Destinee Hooker was stuffed out of the middle!"  I mean...I am a boy of fourteen trapped in the body of an adult woman.  There was no way this would ever fly under my radar.  And then someone sent me this link, to the best best names of 2012 Olympians (totally some Cases of the Terribles amongst them).  Some I think are a stretch, but I am delighting in numbers 10 and 16. 

• After seven or so misguided years spent playing girls basketball in my youth, I was delighted that the BBC Olympic body match quiz would finally prove to my parents what all 5'2" of me has known for years: I was not a basketball player.  I was pleasantly unsurprised to be assigned a category I'd long suspected: gymnastics.  And then, mid fist bump, I realized it was...men's gymnastics.  Yep. 
   
• If you are in London, and are one of the many people blowing up my feeds with spoilerz of Olympic proportions, I think you owe it to both of us to go and visit this maze of books while you take a time out from the spoiling.  Additionally, not a chance I wouldn't accidentally knock it over.  None.  

Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein: The spy that made me cry

Before I begin my review, I'm placing a big fat spoiler alert on it.  As per usual, I will never intentionally drop any bombs without fair warning.  But this book has such a major gasp-inducing reveal that essentially rewrites the entire prior story, that this is your major spoiler warning!  If you fully trust my judgment that this may be one of the best, if not the best, new books I've read this year (and maybe more, it is really that great!), then just stop reading and go and get at a copy right now!
If you're on the fence with my superior judgment skillz, just keep reading, judger.  I will do my very best not to spoil the story!

Code Name Verity
by Elizabeth Wein
Disney Book Group: New York, 2012
Nook Copy: ISBN-13: 9781423153252

     It is 1943 and war is omnipresent in Europe.  It is the reason a young female British operative is being interrogated after crashing in Nazi-occupied France.  By her own admission in the first lines of the book ("I AM A COWARD"), uncertain that her pilot, her best friend, has even survived the crash, she has lost hope of escape and agrees to trade her knowledge in writing to forgo being tortured any further.  While at first glance this seem solidly to be a work of historical fiction, this complex, tightly wrought story is one of the strongest portaits of female friendship short of the real thing, and has a reveal that will have readers jaws on the floor and flipping back to look for clues.  While it is marketed to a YA audience, it will do best with sophisticated readers grades 10 and up, and will find a foothold with the adult audience.  It is strongly recommended to all high school and public libraries. 

In case you have short term memory loss and have forgotten what I said earlier: this is THE best, if not one of the best things I've read all year (perhaps even longer!), in total seriousness with no exaggeration.  Behold a tweet I made upon finishing:

Yes.  I cried in public on a park bench.  And then again on the subway platform the next day THINKING about it.  Girl Scouts honor here, I am not exaggerating - people in my neighborhood now think I'm crazier than the hobo that normally occupies that bench.  It should come with a "has been known to make people cry in public" disclaimer on the cover.  This book is truly fantastic.  Get at it immediately!

It should probably also be required reading for dudes mystified by ladies and lady friendships.  At its core, it is a story of the strength and power of female friendship, and our love for our dearest friends.  The truth in this line slays me: 

Tidbits: A cassoulet of movies, talents in South Beach, other things

Below, my friends, is a hot mess (of links)  I believe the French call this a cassoulet.  Touche!  I have been le busy - I made the brilliant plan to run a book a week book club, and train for a half marathon allll at the same time.  Miraculously, I survived both!  I have a goal to eventually write review and recipes for Middlemarch (preview: it wasn't enjoyed), Slaughterhouse Five (preview: not easy, but powerful stuff), and a few other things I've been ripping through, chiefly CODEREDOHMYGODREADTHISNOW: Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein.  Yes, it is good enough to demand all those caps and no spaces in between.  It may be the best thing I've read all year, and it made me cry on a park bench normally inhabited by a hobo (so you know it's good!).  I'll write more - if you promise to read it.

• I defy you to deny that Lebron James, has, in fact, taken his talents to South Beach.  Behold, the photographic greatness, spotted on Jezebel:
  
  
  YESS.  Please get more boys to read!
  
  
• Have I told you, lately, that I love you, @Queen_UK?  This is all that is right with Twitter and the Interwebs.  My favorite of all the twitter feeds in all the lands, "The Queen" always brings a self aware silliness to the table.  Articles like this don't hurt either.

• I am a younger female faculty member in an environment with lots of teenage boys, commonly know of by its formal name, a high school.  This means it is always high comedy to ask me to the prom.  Somehow, it never gets old to anyone besides, oh, me.  In case the whole "being an adult" diagnosis wasn't enough evidence of why it's a bad idea, some lady proved it.  "[S]he went to last month's Condon High School prom with a boy from the track team because the boy felt bad about not having a date and had been struggling in English class." Struggling in English? Why didn't you say so? That TOTALLY makes it not weird! This is too terrible to even earn a Case of the Terribles rating (Spotted on Jezebel).
  
• The Great Gatsby trailer is out, finally!  And yet...I have no recollection of this story.  Except for Daisy.  And I don't remember much about her, other than that she was flighty and blonde and tragic.  And I like what I'm seeing:
  
  
  

  If the trailer soundtrack is anything like what the movie soundtrack will be like, I'm sold.  And please oh please where can I get me some of those dresses? More importantly, when does the next Bright Young Things book dropping already?
  
• The trailer for The Perks of Being a Wallflower drops soon!  FINALLY.  June 3, during the MTV Movie Awards, which I probably haven't been able to sit through since 2002.  That's why I keep you around, Internets. 
  
•  Word and art lovers, check out this super cool cut paper artwork by Annie Vought.  I would love to see famous letters of bygone days or love letters or clandestine paperwork with redactions get this treatment (can you tell I have Code Name Verity on the brain still?) - but can't actually pull an example for my brain.  But still, this is super cool.  (Spotted on Colossal)