I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the final Harry Potter book comes out in only 18 days. You know this. The whole world knows this. What I want to know is: where is all the fanfare? Surely this is the biggest thing to happen to young adult literature since... well since the last Harry Potter book came out. Shouldn't we be seeing little witches in the streets by now? Shouldn't there be reports of stores unable to keep brooms in stock? And for crying out loud, where are all the lightning scars?!?

Ouch. The whole lack of Potter madness is giving me a headache. There are only 18 days left, people! Where are you?!?

I suppose I should count my blessings that it hasn't gotten crazy yet. I'm still only halfway through Book 5. I'm a man on a mission. Between what I have left of The Order of the Phoenix and The Half Blood Prince, I'd guesstimate that I have about... oh... 800 pages or so to go. That comes out to just under 50 pages a day. No sweat, right? Right. No sweat, mon!

Anyway, Order of the Phoenix is getting realllllly good. Things are heating up between Harry and Cho. Harry is secretly teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts to a bunch of students and they call themselves Dumbledore's Army! The forces of good and evil are preparing themselves for battle against each other. And the calm before the storm is full of such raw intensity that I almost don't want to turn the next page for fear that the very book might explode in my face! Omigosh. It's so good.

I understand I'm probably the only person on the planet that hasn't read all 6 books yet. But come July 21, if all goes well between now and then, I should be all set to crack open The Deathly Hallows with the rest of you when it arrives in my mailbox.

So 18 days... let's see some magic.

When you picture the FBI, what do you think of? Guys in bad suits and Ray-Bans, flashing their I.Ds and their loaded pistols in their holsters, screaming "FBI, get down!" to the bad guys. Drama, suspense, intrigue. Do-gooders who put all the pieces together in the puzzle and bring order back. Yes, certainly this is the case. And no more so than their recent brilliant sleuthing efforts--recovering the lost manuscript of Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. 

Apparently, one of Buck's ex-secretaries stole the manuscript, and the thief's daughter tried to sell it at an auction house. Not too smooth, thief's daughter! Did you really think you could get away with putting something up for auction that is both famous and stolen? What, there were no original copies of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that you could steal from his heirs and sell on eBay?

Well luckily the manuscript, which has Buck's handwritten notes, is back in the hands of its proper owner.

What a relief! (And no, that wasn't sarcasm--it's an awesome book.) The story about a poor Chinese farmer who must sell everything--except his land--to survive has been a classic since is was published in 1932. It was even selected as a choice for Oprah's Book Club in 2004. Now that's staying power!

Come on, you know you read the book in school. And you know you liked it, which isn't always the case of required reading books. (Sorry, Mrs. Gazzola, but I didn't like everything you made me read in tenth grade.) And if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? (Just, please, don't steal it! Unless you want the FBI coming after you.)

So what are you reading?

We all ask this question and get asked this question. But when it comes to becoming a better writer this question can mean more than your everyday small talk.

I took the opportunity to attend a lecture at Manhattanville College's Summer Writer's Week, where Francine Prose read from her book on this topic, Reading Like a Writer (2006). Prose looks at "the greats"--Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov, to name a few--and examines why their works have endured through the years.

Prose, who also teaches at Bard College, wants aspiring writers to savor the language of the masters and decipher why they choose particular words to convey certain feelings.

I think Prose's book has some valuable advice to a reader like me, who also wants to write. When I read, I usually speed my way through a story, anxious to know what comes next. It takes a special kind of writer to make me slow down and get lost in the language of the book. Sometimes, I get both.

By poring over the finer details of a story, Prose proffers that the reader, for instance, can learn about creating character and advancing the plot through dialogue.

But then there is Anton Chekov. During the lecture, Prose read from her "Learning from Chekhov" chapter, which examines how Chekov broke all kinds of "rules" for writing fiction. He practiced "writing without judgment" and be the "unbiased observer" of his characters. 

In the spirit of Chekhov, Prose also advises, "Forget about what you read. Go out and look at the world."

With this, I came away with two pieces of advice that somehow don't conflict: learn and then unlearn. This way, the writer has a store of knowledge and tools at hand. Yet, the writer still makes room for the muse.

So what is Francine Prose reading? Well, she said she had just finished rereading David Copperfield. How 'bout you?