Cool. That's kind of my plan as well. I'm also halfway through the first book. So far it's pretty much been the same as the show. I wonder if HBO's doing one book per season? While I am enjoying the books, I will make one semi-pretentious literary observation: Martin's prose is nothing to brag about. He's better than some, but, of course, he's no Tolkien. And he definitely overuses the verb "to pad," as in "the wolf padded closer to Arya." I can see using it with animals from time to time, but he also uses it with humans! Tell me, how does one pad? I'll stop here because I've already gone overboard (Lit. majors will understand, I'm sure).