CURRENT: Witch & Wizard

My summer dry spell continues. After successfully cleaning up my office and donating books to many worthy causes (including sending several to a program on Rikers Island- you can learn how to the same here) I was left with very few books on my shelf.

If you guys remember all my Book Expo 2010 planning, you'll remember that Little, Brown sent me a bunch of copies of James Patteron's newish YA novel Witch & Wizard. While I found several deserving teens to hand the books out to, I was left with several hardcover copies on my shelf. After my massive clean out, I still had one left. I've never read James Patterson before, despite his popularity. I figured maybe it was time. I've read the first few short chapters and the story is pretty good. It's about some totalitarian near-future world where the government has been supplanted by someone sort of dictator called 'The One.' The brother-and-sister Allgoods, the novel's protagonists, are captured by this government in the beginning. While it hasn't been revealed why, I think it's safe to assume that it's probably because they have some sort of latent magical powers. Definitely a mysterious mood at the beginning as we discover this new world, and the action is a nice change of place since it's been awhile since I read something exciting that wasn't a graphic novel. I'm thinking of keeping the book at work and reading on my break time, as opposed to lugging it around with me everywhere I go. I think I might even finish it quickly this way.

I apologize for not blogging more. It's been happening with my work blog as well; it turns out that when I'm not reading, I have nothing to blog about it. I have been continuing my trend of watching movies lately, and a backlog of housework is really cutting into time for fun stuff like reading. I'm actually partially reading the Patterson book just so I have something to blog about. This is probably a bad reason to start reading a book, but I'm optimistic that I actually might enjoy it. It's also nice not to really be in a rush to finish a book, with a book review deadline or trying to nominate it for a booklist committee. I'm thinking about starting to read the Suzanne Collins books since Mockingjay is coming out in less than a month. What do you guys think should I read it?