The Volume Set

[Nibs]

Maybe you guys could help Lee complete her collection by getting her this for Hannukah:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006111 ... 8?n=283155

[Snuffles]

Don't be silly - Lee already has Book the tenth, she just needs books the oneth through the ninth (skip the tenth) and then book the eleventh and the twelveth, and then we need to write the book the thirteenth and give it to her to complete the collection.

I heard a rumor that we are going to start reading Watership Down soon... pretty exciting! How long did it take you and Schlop to read?

[DJ]

Snickets!

That's really all I have to say...

For now.

[Nibs]

Whoa...look at this thread!

We were talking about snickets a year ago! crazy!!

That's so funny...the days before you guys had read Waterschlop Down... such nice and innocent days...

Ok- we can use this thread to talk about Snickets... when I have time Ill see if I can move the other posts over...

[DJ]

Good work Nibs.

Maybe we should all use alliteration in our subjects, just like the book titles.

[Nibs]

Hey guys!!

Lee and I finally finished Book One today- The Bad Beginning.

I must say, it's a pretty great read. I was also impressed because it did not turn out at all the same way that the movie did!! This plot centers around Count Olaf trying to stage a play in which he marries Violet, the oldest orphan, only he tries to rig it so that he is legally marrying her, in order to get the fortune. Anyway, the result was not at all the same as the movie... so that was cool.

I'm hoping we can read more of the books in the series. Also, I took a closer look at the books that Dave sent Lee for her birthday and one was really interesting... it seems to be an addendum to Book the Thirteenth with extra clues and things. I noticed already that Book the First had an obscure reference to lady named Beatrice and this extra book is called "The Beatrice Letters" Interesting!! There's more to the Snickets than meets the Eye!

Anysneech, that's the snicket report!!

[Nibs]

Here's an excerpt that I particularly liked from Book the First:

"Lately," Cout Olaf said, "I have been very nervous about my performances with the theater troupe, and I'm afraid I may have acted a bit standoffish."

The word "standoffish" is a wonderful one, but it does not describe Cout Olaf's behavior toward the children. It means "reluctant to associate with others," and it might describe somebody who, during a party, would stand in a corner and not talk to anyone. It would not describe somebody who provides one bed for three people to sleep in, forces them to do horrible chores, and strikes them across the face. There are many words for people like that, but "standoffish" is not one of them. Klaus knew the word "standoffish" and almost laughed out loud at Olaf's incorrec tuse of it. But his face still had a bruise on it, so Klaus remained silent.

[Nibs]

Hey guys

Me and Lee finished Book the Second. It was pretty scary and suspenseful. Lee was impressed at yet again how different it was from the movie though.

Anysneech... here are our favorite excerpts:

"'Doog!' Sunny shrieked, in a generic cry of frustration, and pounded her little fist on the floor. The word 'generic' here means 'when one is unable to think of anything else to say,' and Sunny was not alone in this. Violet and Klaus were of course too old to say things like 'Doog!' but they wished they weren't. They wished they could figure out Count Olaf's plan. They wished their situation didn't seem as mysterious and hopeless as it did, and they wished they were young enough to simply shriek 'Doog!' and pound their fists on the floor."

and here's another one (yeah Shnoodles, I can make an mp3 out of it for you...)

"It is now necessary for me to use the rather hackneyed phrase 'meanwhile, back at the ranch.' The word 'hackneyed' here means 'used by so, so many writers that by the time Lemony Snicket uses it, it is a tiresome cliche.' 'Meanwhile, back at the ranch' is a phrase used to link what is going on in one part of the story to what is going on in another part of the story, and it has nothing to do with cows or with horses or with any people who work in rural areas where ranches are, or even with ranch dressing, which is creamy and put on salads. Here, the phrase 'meanwhile, back at the ranch' refers to what violet was doing while Klaus and Sunny were in the Reptile Room."

[DJ]

I like pancakes with ranch dressing!

Snickets.

[Nibs]

Dj... aren't you forgetting something? Maybe you meant to type "Raucous Ranch" or "Ranch Rules" ?

Maybe we should all use alliteration in our subjects, just like the book titles.

[Nibs]

Nibs here!

Lee and I read Book Three of Snickets today. It was so cool. Lee remains continually amazed at how many cool things from the movie aren't in the book!! Like the whole stuff about the old lady in the house being afraid of things that later ended up happening,like radiators on fire and doorknobs exploding. That was such a cool idea but it wasn't in the books at all- arg!

Also, there is so far NO mention of the spyglass or the whole plot about the eye. What gives?!? Anyway, it's exciting that now we can finally dive into new books where we dont know what happens and who lives or dies.

There were a lot of quotes that made us laugh out loud in this book. Here are a few:

"If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats."

hoo hoo hoo. I should post that in the Cat Thread. [Ahem, CAT THREAD, mininibs]

"In front of the cave there was a sign saying it was for sale, and the orphans could not imagine who would want to buy such a phantasmagorical - the word "phantasmagorical" here means "all the creepy, scary words you can think of put together"- place."

So true!

"Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable it, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it might be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it."

And finally...

"But even if they could go home it would be difficult for me to tell you what the moral of the story is. In some stories, it's easy. The moral of "The Three Bears," for instance, is "Never break into someone else's house." The moral of "Snow White" is "Never eat apples." The moral of World War One is "Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand."

Gulliver, maybe one day you can read these books and we can swap quotes. They're really good!!

[Gulliver]

Hi Nibs.

Those were funny.

But how many paws did you give it? It looks like you liked it so I would guess two paws, but how many paws did you give it?

[Nibs]

Hi guys

Lee and I finished Book the Fourth. We are really cranking away now. I didn't like Book the Fourth as much as the others. It was a lot darker in some ways and also made up of a lot of over-used plot elements, like hypnosis and someone being tied to a log with a saw blade bearing down on them. But we still like the books a lot in general! And Gulliver- yeah, I definitely give them 2 paws!

And there were still some good lines, so I must report my favorites to you:

In the days that followed, the Baudelaire orphans had pits in their stomachs. In Sunny's case it was understandable, because when Klaus had divided up the peach, she had gotten the part with the pit. Normally, of course, one does not eat the pit part of the peach, but Sunny was very hungry, and liked to eat hard things, so the pit ended up in her stomach along with the parts of the fruit that you or I might find more suitable.

Sneeches really liked that part too!!

Violet picked the glasses up, and they looked like a piece of modern sculpture a friend of mine made long ago. The sculpture was called Twisted, Cracked, and Hopelessly Broken.

Those are the top quotes this time around. The next book takes place at boarding school... hopefully it's not a hogwarts rip off.

[Nibs]

Hey guys

Lee and I read Book the Fifth on the airplane. I drank some Ginger Ale too! No, I wanted to... but Lee wouldn't let me.

Anysneech, this book was alright. Better than Book the Fourth. And the first hint of an overarching deeper plot- IT'S ABOUT TIME! But the main plot consisted of some plot elements that could've been much cooler... very neat ideas used in very mundane ways (Lee would equate it to Jonathan Strange).

Not too many overly memorable quotes in this one, here are some I liked though...

The expression "following suit" is a curious one, because it has nothing to do with walking behind a matching set of clothing. If you follow suit, it means you do the same thing somebody else has just done. If all of your friends decided to jump off a bridge into the icy waters of an ocean or river, for instance, and you jumped in right after them, you would be following suit. You can see why following suit can be a dangerous thing to do, because you could end up drowning simply because somebody else thought of it first.

Hm, this is another long one too..sorry guys...

There was that phrase again, "if we're lucky," coming out of the mouth of a Baudelaire, and once again it felt about as appropriate as "if we're stalks of celery." The only difference was that the Baudelaire orphans did not wish to be stalks of celery. While it is true that if they were stalks of celery they would not be orphans because celery is a plant and so cannot really be said to have parents, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not wish to be the stringy, low-calorie vegetable. Unfortunate things can happen to celery as easily as they can happen to children. Celery can be sliced into small pieces and dipped into clam dip at fancy parties. It can be coated in peanut butter and served as a snack. It can merely sit in a field and rot away, if the farmers are lazy or on vacation. All these terrible things can happen to celery, and the orphans knew it, so if you were to ask the Baudelaires if they wanted to be stalks of celery they would say of course not. But they wanted to be lucky.

[Nibs]

Hey Guys!

Lee and I finished Book the Sixth last night! It was good! Much better than Books 4 and 5. So far 3 and 6 are our favorites!

The coolest part of this book was that the thing the children were looking for turned out to be in a red herring statue... pretty funny, right?!

Here are the best lines:

It was darker than any night had ever been, even on nights when there was no moon. It was darker than Dark Avenue had been on the day of their arrival. It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea.

Hoo hoo hoo. And this one I liked:

They felt like burglars as they split up and began searching the apartment, although there have been only five burglars in the history of robbery who have specialized in rope. All five of these burglars were caught and sent to prison, which is why scarecely any people lock up their rope for safekeeping...

The overall plot is getting more fleshed out too. And now Lee and I are halfway though the series! Alright!