It's my birthday, and if I want to lie around reading books all day, then that's my business. Still, I didn't expect to rip through a whole volume in one afternoon, but here we are. The terrible adventures of the Baudelaire children begins. Badly. The awful fire, the even awfuller Count Olaf and his terrible plot to steal their fortune. Well meaning adults who don't take the clever and perceptive children seriously. Bad luck and trouble following them everywhere they go. Wow, that was fast and funny and highly readable. The kids are great, the villain is monstrous and the rest of the cast are generally hapless or horrible, while the story moves with mordant wit and the grace of impending catastrophe.