Last week Tim organised the Ray Bradbury Memorial Kert Crawl, and he made a point of getting in a few of the newer beer gardens to have opened up this summer. The first stop was already a surprise, since it is basically across from my bookstore and I had not heard about it. AnKert (Paulay Ede u. 33) still lacks ambiance, but give them a break, they opened just last week. However, it is large, friendly, plenty of staff, reasonably priced, and has an indoor bike parking area. I did not eat there, but they have a grill with beef, chicken and vegetarian burgers for about 1000 huf. The second stop was Fogashaz (Akácfa u. 51), where we had a quick beer and many had pizza slices which I am told were good. We went to the next pub quickly because we did not realise that there was a Fogaskert a couple doors down. Suffering from a bad stomach, I finished the night here, but the rest carried on into the wee hours.

I believe The Halloween Tree was one of the first books I ever read, certainly suggested by my father. In later years, I avoided his pure horror stories, and preferred his short stories, as well as The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, Fahrenheit 451, and The Martian Chronicles. However, some of his sci-fi stories could still terrify. I remember being given The Martian Chronicles at school in 4th or 5th grade. My English teacher even introduced parallel texts for certain chapters, like The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe along side Usher II, which was probably also my first exposure to Poe.