{"id":241,"date":"2007-02-21T11:58:44","date_gmt":"2007-02-21T16:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/21\/china-mieville-reading-un-lun-dun\/"},"modified":"2007-02-21T12:00:11","modified_gmt":"2007-02-21T17:00:11","slug":"china-mieville-reading-un-lun-dun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/china-mieville-reading-un-lun-dun\/","title":{"rendered":"China Mi\u00c3\u00a9ville reading Un Lun Dun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/china1.jpg' title='China Mieville' rel=\"lightbox[china]\"><img style=\"float: left; margin: 10px 10px 0 0;\" src='http:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/china1.thumbnail.jpg' alt='China Mi\u00c3\u00a9ville' \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/bozweb-20\/detail\/0345495160\/104-0553807-9763937\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0 0 10px 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/ec1.images-amazon.com\/images\/P\/0345495160.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_SL210_V45181751_.jpg\"><\/a>The boys and I went to see <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/China_Mi%C3%A9ville\">China Mi\u00c3\u00a9ville<\/a> give a reading of his new young adult book, <a href=\"http:\/\/astore.amazon.com\/bozweb-20\/detail\/0345495160\/104-0553807-9763937\"><em>Un Lun Dun<\/em><\/a> last night at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politics-prose.com\/\">Politics and Prose bookstore<\/a> in D.C..  This was the first time I had seen the author live, and he was quite an engaging speaker (and reader).  China read a chapter or so from the book (about 15 minutes), and then spent something like 45 minutes answering questions.<\/p>\n<p>Both boys enjoyed the reading; both even asked the author questions afterward.  China inscribed a copy of the book for Brandon &#8211; &#8220;to the one who got the name!  Cheers&#8221;.  Brandon&#8217;s question had been about the setting (London), and why the author had chosen it (answer:  because he lives there :)  ).  Dylan had a question about how the author used the term &#8220;rubbish&#8221;; he wanted to know if he got the term from a Harry Potter book.  China smiled, and told him how the term was used in England &#8211; and also that he had written a note to himself to explain that but forgot.  He also mentioned that J. K. Rowling didn&#8217;t invent the term. :)<\/p>\n<p>I recorded the reading\/talk on my iPod, but I probably won&#8217;t use it &#8211; Politics and Prose <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politics-prose.com\/recordings.htm\">makes recordings of the author events<\/a> available on their website.<\/p>\n<p>I did also get a chance to use the Movie mode of my new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dpreview.com\/reviews\/canons3is\/\">Canon Powershot S3 IS<\/a> camera.  Whoa.  Almost as nice as a dedicated miniDV video camera &#8211; but in a still camera.  I was able to record about 21 minutes of video on two 2GB SD cards.  I also took some still shots (above) without flash.  Nice to have such flexibility.  And the sound recording was *MUCH* better than the iPod sound.  I had the option of just recording sound (about 2 hrs worth) &#8211; that will come in handy too.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the event the boys and I wandered in to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/wp-dyn?node=cityguide\/profile&#038;id=1131542&#038;categories=Restaurants\">Comet Ping Pong<\/a>, next door.  Turns out it&#8217;s a funky pizzeria, with ping pong tables in the back.  That was a stroke of luck &#8211; we had fun playing table tennis in the back and had pizza for dinner.  The pizza is thin-crust, made in a real firewood oven (the wood is stacked in a hallway).  A bit pricey for the food, but ping pong was only 50 cents.  Finding the bathroom was a challenge:  find the unmarked wooden doors blending into a wooden wall.  No, the trough in the corridor is not to be used, boys.<br \/>\n<a href='http:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/china2.jpg' title='China Mieville' rel=\"lightbox[china]\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href='http:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/china3.jpg' title='China Mieville' rel=\"lightbox[china]\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The boys and I went to see China Mi\u00c3\u00a9ville give a reading of his new young adult book, Un Lun Dun last night at Politics and Prose bookstore in D.C.. This was the first time I had seen the author live, and he was quite an engaging speaker (and reader). China read a chapter or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,19,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoodedhawk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}