Book Signing - Libba Bray, Meg Cabot, & Maggie Stiefvater

 

I went to another book signing.  This one was at the Scholastic store in SOHO.  It had three author's participating in this signing Libba Bray, Meg Cabot, & Maggie Stiefvater.  I went for Maggie because of her Mercy Falls and Gathering of Faeries series.  

Maggie Stiefvater

 They had a host and he introduced everyone and a Q&A about their books.  Maggie's was the most interesting because she said that she was doing research for Forever she was looking up ways that wolves die and the most interesting one that she found was when a wolf fell into a well and drowned... She pretty much implied that a main character will die this way.  Now I am afraid to read forever when it comes out because I know I will be depressed because something is going to happen that I know I am not going to like. 

Meg Cabot

Of course you have to buy a book to get a book signed so I bought a book of Libba Bray's and Meg Cabot's newest book Abandon which has an interesting story of how she came up with the idea for the story.  I was just going to get Maggie's autograph, but I was there and I figured I might as well get a signature from all of them if I took the time to go in the first place and we were there for over two hours so I need to make it worth my while.

Libba Bray

I haven't heard of Libba Bray before we went to the signing, but she was very funny during the Q&A and her answers were quite entertaining, so I am sure her novels have her quirky side in them and make her books fun to read. Her new book that came out and which she is promoting is Beauty Queens and all these beauty queens get stuck on a island when their plane crashes and just that little bit of the plot could lead to anything happening in the book.  

 

 I got pictures with all the author's which is cool!

 

I didn't buy Libba Bray's new book Beauty Queen because I didn't want to read about them.  A Great and Terrible Beauty seems more interesting for my taste.  I just hope I get time to actually read all these books I keep on buying

 My signed copies! I am going to have quite a collection if I keep this up.

The world must be coming to an end...

 I have decided that May 21, 2011 might just be the end of the world because I finally have my blinds. I didn't have to work today, so I did some things I have been putting off like talking to our management company about our mice and lack of blinds problem. 

Today after I had talked to management I had the blind guy, plaster guy, and exterminator all in my apartment at the same time working. It was wonderful to see progress!

I have been waiting for these since we moved into the apartment NINE MONTHS AGO!! Our apartment is either really bright or dark there is no in between. Now we can pick if we want it to be light or dark and I can change in my room!!!!!

AH! I am so excited to have blinds especially with it getting hot hopefully this will help keep our apartment from getting too much like a sauna.

 My room has blinds this is almost better than Christmas!

 I have these glue things now to catch bugs even though I am not ecstatic about this because now I will get to see all the bugs that live in our apartment...The exterminator came today as well and I made him get every nook and cranny in this apartment. Hopefully this will help with the problem, but I doubt it will solve it.

We have also been having mice in our apartment and they get into our stove and burn to death...don't ask. I thought that they must be coming from behind the stove because that is where we seem to seem to see them, but there isn't a hole around there so we looked around our apartment and we found a HUGE one in our front closet. Now if I see any other holes I am going to get those patched up because this summer I am sure is going to be a hot one and I don't need anymore roommates!

Pompeii Exhibit

Replica of 32 remains that were found.

On August 24, 79 A.D., Mt. Vesuvius erupted covering the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, in volcanic ash and lava! These people honestly had no idea what hit them. Some people left because the eruption took a long time for it to become as bad it did when 12 miles of ash shot into the air! Many stayed after it started because I really don't think they knew what was going to happen and didn't really think they were in any real danger. They have found 1,100 victims some of them were made into casts and they have these people preserved in their death positions. 

Some of them are truly heartbreaking one is of a prisoner who was shackled so he couldn't escape. He is lying on the ground and you can tell he was trying to leave by the position he was in. Another cast was of a person sitting with their knees to their face and were covering their face with their hands so they wouldn't inhale the ash. The casts just make it seem real and you realize that these people were going about their daily lives one day and the next everything was taken from them. Makes me grateful for everything that I have.

"You could hear women moaning, children howling, and men shouting; they were crying out, some seeking parents, others children, and others wives, or recognizing them by the sound of their voices. Some were lamenting their own misfortune; others that of their families. A few in their fear of death were praying for death. Many were raising their hands to implore the gods, but more took the view that no gods now existed anywhere, and that this was an eternal and final darkness hanging over the world." - Pliny the Younger

The artifacts were cool to look at because they were things that these people would use on an everyday basis. They even have a plaster cast of a loaf of bread. They dug out tables, vases, medical instruments, coins, jewelry all sorts of interesting things that at one point were used by these people who had very little. They even had dice who knew something like that was so old and dice were actually illegal because you couldn't gamble, but of course people still did it anyway.


While looking at this stuff my friend asked if this happened to people in the United State or even around the world and we were buried for 16,000 years what they could tell about us just by the artifacts that had been left behind. An interesting thing to think about.  These people didn't even have a word for volcano and didn't even know what one was before it erupted and had no way to prepare themselves for something that literally buried them alive.


One of the most disturbing casts was of a family of four and one of the children that they cast you can see the child's face. It just seems like that would be a horrible way to die especially if you were the parent and didn't know what was happening around you truly heartbreaking.

Harry Potter Exhibit

 I am not sure what I was expecting when I saw this exhibit, but what I saw I was a little disappointed with. If you are planning to go the Harry Potter Exhibit I am not saying that I wouldn't of gone. I just think that for the money it didn't really meet my expectations, but I would recommend getting the combo pass so you can see Pompeii and Harry Potter at the same time so that will make it a little more worth it. The HP exhibit didn't take very long to go through maybe an hour, but the Pompeii exhibit you can certainly spend almost two hours there.

The exhibit mostly consists of clothing and some artifacts from the show. I wish they would of had TV's that showed how they did the special effects for Hagrid, the spider and some of the other creatures that were in the show. I think that would of been cool to see and at the end I think there should of been wax figures of some of the cast and you could take pictures with them. How cool would that of been! I should of been on the planning committee I totally could of made it rock.

The invisibility cloak and the golden age as well as Harry's outfit during the third film. One of the sets of outfits was of Harry, Ron and Hermione when they are trying to save Buckbeak and the clothes look so small. They were so young I can't believe how much time has passed since they started filming till now. Ten years is a long time!

Snape's outfit

I really liked Professor Lupin's clothes they are fun to look at and they fit his character so well. I also liked Dumbledore's outfits they his are fun to look at because it is very intricate. 

 Cedric Diggory's outfit in the tournament

Lots and lots of pink...

The gift shop is really cool and you can easily spend a million dollars there. I wish I was a child because I would of totally of got a wand or something cool like that! Going to the exhibit made me really excited for the movie and made me want to come home and watch or read the Harry Potter series.

Book Signing - Cassandra Clare

 

 I am a nerd just putting that out there and because I live in NY I get to do nerdy things like go to book signings for Cassandra Clare! These are the two books I had her sign. You had to buy a book to get a ticket to get in line, so I bought her new book City of Fallen Angels and brought with me Clockwork Angel. Now I have two signed books from her! GO ME! I need to go to book signings more often I don't think about them, but it is cool to see the different people that read the books you enjoy and how everyone is so different. Let's just say the crowd for this author is very eclectic and I will leave it at that :)  

 There was two other authors at the book signing Lauren DeStefano and Holly Black. I haven't heard of either of them, but Holly Black is popular and Lauren DeStefano is a first time author that just came out with her first book.

She read an excerpt from the Clockwork Prince from the Internal Devices series which comes out in the fall and is the sequel to Clockwork Angel which I really enjoyed!

 Rachel as we wait to get our books signed!

 It took three hours to get an autograph, but it was worth it.