Oh my goodness. I cant quite believe that I am rushing to write this blog post so soon. Altered Carbon has rather taken me way with it. I am currently VERY busy at work, but, nevertheless find that in snatched moments I am dreaming, nay yearning to read my book. I almost feel like I need to rush this puny little blog post out so that I can get back to it…
I have 2 children, and at bed time we have always read to them. This has evolved over the years, and I now find that I usually sit and read my book next to my 10 year old as he is reading his. I’m quite proud that of his own choosing he has just finished William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and is now embarking on Swiss Family Robinson. He does manage to mix in a good deal of newer stuff like Diary of a wimpy kid and Captain Underpants, so that’s a good rounded reading habit sorted out 🙂
Anyway, I digress. This evening while I was reading next to said genetically related infant, my neurochem unceremoniously jerked me from the VR reading trance I was in with Altered Carbon (notice cyberpunky lingo) to alert me to the fact that the portion of the real physical book resting in my right hand is now smaller than the portion in my left. That’s the long way of saying that I am more than half way through my book.
So, what to read, what to read?
I have been aware from the day that I started this blog that my historical and unread book collection is heavily lent towards fantasy and SciFi. This is mainly due to two facts; I used to read a lot of Fantasy, so I bought a lot and didn’t read it all. And I did a computer science degree, various cyberpunk and SciFi texts were (honestly) on the curriculum and I have tried to continue that trend by buying and not reading more of it.
With this weighting of genres in mind, I want to spread out my library a bit so that I don’t get too samey, a sentiment that I think I alluded to in my previous “next book” post. I have therefore gone from the far future of Altered Carbon and chosen from as far down the other end of the spectrum as I can. I have picked a book that I bought as a modern classic. A book that I feel I need to read as it was part of the creation of a it’s Genre. Terry Brooks The Sword of Shannara. As far as I know, this is one of the first Fantasy books, but I guess J.R.R.Tolkien was cutting the template a while before?? I might have a dig into the past of the genre when I get to writing the review? Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading it. I have always imagined that it is going to be a bit cheesy, like playing the first dungeons and dragons game when you have been playing the advanced version for years. I think that it might be a bit clunky and full of cliches. I am approaching it thinking this, but if it is/does, then I have to accept it for the trail blazer that it was. It has 4 stars on Good reads (3.74/5) so it can’t be that bad?
A note on my apprehension: I feel myself falling into a habit that I don’t think I can get out of. Each book I have lined up to read so far has come a mixture of excitement that I am finally reading it and a disclaimer about why I haven’t read it. “I think it might be s**t!” or “I’ve heard good things about this, but I think XXX.” This is the reason I have so many books in my bookcase that I haven’t read, and I am beginning to think that this is why I also put off some other things in my life. Maybe as I crack through my back log of books and into this blog, I will see other parts of my life change. And maybe, just maybe, I will tell you about them. Or maybe I won’t?