Watership Down readalong schedule

Poll results are generally leaning most strongly to next week and/or late May, on the whole. Since section-by-section posts are also winning the poll, I think what I'll do is put up weekly section-by-section posts, starting next week, with links back to earlier ones. That way people who are eager to get going (.... me) can start early, and other people can jump in when they have time - the posts will continue through June and I can also do a wrap-up post at the end. So everyone gets to participate that way, I think, even though some people might not be able to join in the early posts immediately!

So far, the one person I know of who's reading it for the first time says she doesn't mind spoilers, so I'm gonna say advance spoilers are fine unless we have more first-time readers jump on who request otherwise.

I'll put up the first post next week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday, for "Part 1: The Journey."

ETA: It looks like you can get Watership Down in ebook from all the usual online retailers, although it's appallingly expensive because of course it is. My version is the old 1970s paperback with the monochrome rabbit cover and tinted paperback edges. I think there's a distinct possibility it's the same one we had when I was a kid and I stole it when I left home.

Book WTFery: The Ice Limit

rachelmanija just posted an absolutely delightful book report on The Plants by Kenneth McKenney, which you should go read. (Her post, not the book. The book sounds terrible.)

While she was reading it, there were some emails passed back and forth which got me talking about The Ice Limit (Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child), a hilaribad thriller I read years ago. What reminded me of it is that the plants, at least early on, are not particularly dangerous and don't really do anything, they're just described with a looming sense of menace as if the scariest thing in the world is a tray of bean sprouts.

The Ice Limit also does this with its antagonist, which is ... a giant rock.

You are constantly told about the air of menace looming around the rock, the way everyone is afraid of it, etc. At one point it rolls and kills a guy because the characters have been digging underneath it and didn't shore it up properly. It is, however, still just a rock. It doesn't move on its own. It just LOOMS. Menacingly.

But THEN I went to look up The Ice Limit on Amazon and now I am DYING because ...

https://www.amazon.com/Ice-Limit-Douglas-Preston-ebook/dp/B001GXP7SK/

.... it has the wrong tag line.

National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters delivers a moving, classic love story with a coming out theme and a modern twist.

I hope no one buys this book expecting a moving coming-out story, because that most certainly is not this book, and Julie Anne Peters, whoever she is, did not write it.

But the rest of the blurb is actually about this book!

A frightening truth is about to unfold: The men and women of the Rolvaag are not taking this ancient, enigmatic object anywhere. It is taking them.

IT'S A ROCK. It's not a sentient rock. It's not a radioactive rock. It's just a big rock. It's only a danger to them because they spend the whole book trying to dig it up.

Speaking of which, I have GOT to tell you what happens in the thrilling and suspenseful climax, which I'll put under a cut just in case you decide to read it yourself and want to have the full impact of the characters' apocalyptic stupidity.

( Spoilers )