Guilty

I have two blog posts started for books I've read, but said nothing about. Poor Witcher and Siddhartha. I feel like they're the guys you date in quick succession when you are really busy and later you are like, "Oh, what was his name again?"

I recommend both. Witcher takes a video-game-ish (it was turned into one) look at fairy tales. It is thoroughly entertaining. Similar to Disney, but with more fighting...which - if you think about it - is a lot of fighting because Disney actually doesn't shy away from a fight.

Siddhartha has no fighting unless you count fighting with your SOUL. It is a book about a man on a journey of self discovery. It is what we all go through. Sure, most of us don't become aesthetics on that journey, but it was still comforting to read that the journey is never over.

And finally, I'm going to have to figure out why my easiest book metaphor is dating. Worrisome.

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

Do you have a reservation

Our camping weekend began with me forgetting my wallet, and nearly all the camping sites being full.

So much for lonely cold camping.

After setting up camp and enjoying some McDonald's Dollar Coke we settled in for bed time reading.


That night I finished another Wallander mystery, One Step Behind. This time, a group of young people is missing. Nothing seems out of the ordinary until one of Wallander's coworkers is murdered for investigating the missing young adults. People continue to be murdered and no motive comes to light. Solving a growing number of murders gets added to the list of Wallander's worries (including denial about having diabetes). Wallander's usual questions concerning Sweden's decline bundle together with questions about how well we know our coworkers.

Per usual, Wallander had me up late because I can't put him down.


Saturday I read my latest guilty pleasure series. I read fantasy, but I don't usually delve into urban fantasy. However, when a fellow fantasy reading coworker brought me Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series, I had to try it.

Many times, reading books people lend you is a burden. What if you don't like it? Will you have to stop talking to them?

I was wary. The cover art includes a lion, a sexy (but tough) woman, and a giant sword. Don't stop reading.

The books are 100 percent entertainment. Kate Daniels is a mercenary with some powerfully magic blood. She goes around Atlanta kicking butt and taking names. The city goes in (no magic) and out (magic) of "tech" all the time, so sometimes she rides a donkey, others a car. There are vampires and shapeshifters and deities...oh my. Kate always gets her man, or beast, or demon. Oh, and she has a flirtatious thing with the king of the shapeshifters. Ooo la la.

Basically it is everything an overworked girl could want.

Sunday I was able to start the Witcher series (One Last Wish), which begins with scary vignettes. This morning I was reading in my tent and as the Witcher is about to battle some type of beast, Face was staring off into the woods like something was about to come kill us. He is not allowed to do that.

I never got to my final selection: Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (or as I like to call it: 1930's intellectual erotica). I have a crush on Anais Nin. I read her diaries. I think she's great. She thought Henry Miller was great. They were so influential to each other that I feel like I can't know Anais without knowing Henry. If you haven't read Miller, think of him like Kerouac but way earlier and deeper thinking and better writing and less hating of women.

Overall, I kept my reading like my mood this weekend: light.

And when I wasn't reading? I was jumping the sun:

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
Anais Nin

Storm of swords and death

"You have to get through half the book before people die," is what Face told me concerning book three of the Game of Thrones series.

And he was right. All the books are blurring together (which should happen in a series where the storyline is continuous), so I can't remember if it was this book or the second one where the beginning says HEY that last book ended with a battle and you want to know if Tyrion is dead but instead, we are going to BACK UP and tell you what other peeps were doing DURING the battle.

So I don't know if I should be annoyed at this book or still at the last one. Either way, once main characters start being killed off, the action really starts. The question is: why does it take such serious demolition of the character list to keep my attention? To be fair, I'm also all attention when the dragons are around. Who wouldn't be? They are dragons.

Regardless, I'm taking a break before book four. Because it's even bigger and the last time I waited 300 pages for something to get amazing it was Dickens and Bleak House and it got crazy amazing. Storm of Swords - in the second half - was entertaining enough to warrant reading it but I'm still mad about wasting my time on the first half.

That being said, in the second half I came to love a character I once disliked (losing a hand really changes you). A character I loathed gets poisoned (take that imaginary character!). Another characte I loathed gets pushed out a window by a man she loved (ouch). A character I root for finally gets recognized. Oh, and dragons. Always dragons.

In the end, I basically should have done what my students do and SparkNoted the first half of the book and started reading around page 400.

"I am the sword in the darkness, I am the watcher on the walls, I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men."
George R. R. Martin

Winter is coming, and it isn't just because all the store windows say I should be buying boots and sweaters

I'm finally riding a popular book wave.

No longer am I the book snob who is like: Twilight? I rejected that ages ago. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? You're only on the FIRST one? Hunger Games? Get with the times and the fight to the death and P.S. TEAM PETA.

Nope, I'm right in the middle of everyone else reading the Game of Thrones series. I was even snobbed at the other day on the bus. This hipster guy was all: "Isn't it so funny that you see everyone reading Game of Thrones now, snark snark snark."

In case you aren't riding the literacy wave like me, the Game of Thrones series is the fantastical Medieval tale of the Seven Kingdoms (and is also now an HBO show). The Kingdoms are made up of families who control sections. You have the heroic Stark family who rep the north and - like their name - are stoic and like to remind everyone that WINTER IS COMING. The Starks are quickly pitted against the Lannisters who are conniving and brutal, even though Tyrion Lannister is my favorite character. Then there is Daenerys who had to flee the Kingdoms and then gets some DRAGONS. So she is awesome.

There are also other castles and lords and children and wolves and don't forget the scary army and some type of shadow darkness north of The Wall.

All in all it is great fantasy that makes the wait for the next J.V. Jones book feel a little shorter.

"There are no men like me. There's only me."
Jaime Lannister via George R.R. Martin

Watcher of the dead

Don't be fooled. As much smack as I talk about love and emotions, I am as soft and sentimental as a Cadbury Egg on the inside.

My reading tastes have not escaped my gooey center.

Fantasy has always rated high on my rose colored memories list. Reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series out loud with the family gathered around when we were on our own great journey cemented Fantasy (and Jordan) as part of my all-time-favorite reading memories list.

Kind of like how the padre and I went to see True Grit on the same day (even though we are far apart). To pay homage to it being the first real book we read aloud together.


J. V. Jones holds a similar place. I've been reading her since high school. Her tales of clans and journeys and heroes and feisty female characters and magic and family and evil and sword fights have followed me as I've grown into my own feisty female character.

Watcher of the Dead is the fourth book in the Sword of Shadows series. Think of it like a fantastical story of good and evil and all the gray shades between. It is like the best soap opera ever.

The story is epic. Each chapter follows a different main character. Through them you see different struggles against the ever present super evil which is trying to escape and is almost succeeding. On occasion, I get annoyed by series. Like, ummm, get on with it. But with Sword of Shadows I'm liking the slow plodding towards oblivion, and I keep hoping against hope that evil doesn't win.

I could mire you down with details (like how Raif totally hates the Sull now for good reason and how I really hope Angus Lok finds his daughter and I wonder where Effie is headed and is Ash going to reach again and who is her baby daddy and I hope evil Mace dies on the field knowing Raina has taken over the chiefdom and is Bram really going to become an assassin and I hope Vaylo stays alive long enough to reunite his clan and what is the deal with Marafice), but I will just say this is a series about destiny and responsibility and growing up.

Kind of like life.

"Fantasy opens the door to experiencing the magic that is in the world around us and more importantly the magic in ourselves."
T.A. Barron