Email from my sister, Kristin.  Thought I'd share this with the rest of you HG nerds today.  How many of these facts did you know, and pick up on as you were reading through? 

"As I went to my favorite website ever (dictionary.com) I was interested by this. They gave us this sweet little nugget of wisdom on our reaping day. :)"



Katniss

related to the Latin word sagittate, meaning shaped like an arrowhead.

Primrose

a type of flower named after the Latin number one.

Gale

a very strong wind.

Madge

a female given name, from a Greek word meaning pearl.

Cinna

an advisor to Caesar who conspired to kill him in Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar.

Seneca

Roman philosopher and writer of tragedies who advised Emperor Nero and was forced to commit suicide.

Plutarch

Greek biographer, who valued morality and character in leaders.

Flavius

a Roman male name, probably originally meaning "yellow-haired."

Coriolanus

legendary Roman military hero and tragic Shakespearean general who defected from the army.

Claudius

former Roman emperor; also Hamlet's deceitful uncle.

Rue

a strong-scented perennial herb with grey-green bitter-tasting leaves; an irritant similar to poison ivy.

Today, Tomorrow, most of the next.... and then it happens.

Better yet, it's getting good reviews! Trying not to get my hopes up. :)

A few glimpses from The Hunger Games book club. I will say just this, I had a fun time planning, prepping and even at the party itself, even if it didn't go quite as planned. :)

I am a member of two book clubs, a secret literary society, and an unknown reading group.  Makes it hard to decide which book I should pick up next.  Last night, I just gave in and picked up the one I really have been wanting to read for weeks. 

That was after I spent an hour googling "How to throw an amazing Hunger Games themed party."  Tomorrow night I am hosting one of the book clubs, and we have been reading The Hunger Games.  I'm a bit bummed that Natalie won't be there this week and only four of us will.  But that isn't going to stop me from throwing a pretty fantastic evening.  Should you find yourself free tomorrow night, and wishing to discuss the boy who baked bread and the girl who was on fire.... text me.  There will be bread, hot chocolate, something with berries, something for dinner (that's what keeps stumping me!), and some interesting decorations that I began last night.  So very fun.  :) 

PS. My sister Kristin got roped into reading the series, since she started this particular book club (which is actually a book & recipe club), and though she thought she'd be immune.... I happen to know she is currently debating some pretty desperate measures for  how to finish the last 20 pages of book two, while she is at work. ;)  

You can't stop this.

“I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again."

-The Hunger Games  

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It's February - just let me. ;)

[from here.]

[from here.]

New Hunger Games Trailer

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Obssessing much? Yes, yes I am. 

Just spent a little time on the official Hunger Games Movie website.

The world will be watching.  Will you?  Read them.  Now. 

On second thought, perhaps take a nap first, because you may not be sleeping for a while.

We are all SUCH nerds.  But yeah, it's been on my calendar for a couple weeks.  I've even been considering how to best ask for Friday off from the job I haven't even started yet - so I can go to a midnight showing. :) I haven't felt like this since 5th grade and my first introduction to The Chronicles of Narnia. 

28/25

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My thoughts this morning have been a constant dialogue with Collins.  I just keep telling her, "You better make this count, Collins.  Please make this count."  And yet, I'm approaching book three with a dread, as many people have now warned me... and I've yet to hear one person say "Aw, the end is so good!" Or, "Just wait 'til you get to the end!"  Nope.  It's like we're all on a long death march together, but we can't pull ourselves out.  So, instead I keep encouraging, or rather threatening Collins, make it count. 

Truly, I can't say enough, what she's accomplished up until this point is amazing.  And I just don't want her to let it suddenly simmer out in the end, never actualizing on all she's made the readers invest.  Never pulling us all through into something. When I think of 'teen fiction' and the topics and issues that saturate it, I want to hug Collins.  She's managed to create a compelling read for teens and adults that forces major issues and crisis that we never encounter.  She's drawing on the past, the future.  What's been and could be again, wrong as it is.  And she's drawing on those few with courage, or stubbornness, to fight.

You better make it count, Collins.  

*chills!*

I believe this series is teen fiction - so I'm a bit embarrassed that I just went on and on about them to one of my attorneys.  But then again, I'm not.  Getting someone to cry within the first 25 pages of your book is darn good writing.  And the world of The Hunger Games is some kind of a Futuristic-Nazi-Roman Empire.  It's wild.  And I'm genuinely hooked. And this morning when I got caught just standing reading at the front door to the office, I felt I had to explain myself.