I am an Amazon affiliate and receive a small commission that does not cost you anything if you buy from this link. It helps pay for this blog! We all fight over our favorite books, but I find the more interesting question to be: what are your most frequent books? WHY DO WE RETURN TO BOOKS? With no conscious decision, there are some books I've read dozens and dozens of times, and in contrast, there are some books I love so much or that are so life-changing, I know repeated exposure will never match the feeling, so I've never gone near them again. WHAT distinguishes them? I don't know. This isn't a definitive list of the best books or anything like that, but just a peek into the weirdness and deeply personal experience of reading. I've covered my favorite libraries in fiction before, some other books I've read again and again. BOOKS I'VE READ DOZENS OF TIMES Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen Mostly because I needed something slightly engaging to fall asleep to and … [Read more...] about What Books Do You Read Again and Again?
Fantasy
The Future is Now… In Fiction
There is a big misconception that science fiction is about the future. SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY ARE ALWAYS ABOUT NOW Whether authors intend it or not, speculative fiction is always a commentary on the present. Ironically, often more than a lot of contemporary fiction. One of my favorite short stories by Asimov, and I wish I could find it again, had miners working in space with essentially, nanotechnology. But the conflict of the story was about women working in the mines, which was eventually solved with a priest. Women in the mines turned out to be fine, so long as there was somebody there to marry everybody! This is what I'm talking about. Successfully predicted nanotechnology, but thousands of years from now, everyone will act like it's the 1950s... Frank Herbert was particularly topical, whether he intended to be or not. He anchored Dune in politics, government, religion, power and those evolved to match the world from the 50s to the 80s. So I did a little … [Read more...] about The Future is Now… In Fiction
Do Judge Authors by Their Time? Dune, Tolkien, and Outrage
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune I listened on audiobook to all of the Dune books written by Frank Herbert. (There are over 30 now completed by his son Brian after his death, but I had to draw a line in the sand somewhere!) WHAT DID I LEARN? WHAT DID I NOTICE? WAS IT WORTH IT? WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW Herbert started the first book, Dune, in 1959 (published in '65) and published the last book Chapterhouse: Dune, in 1985. Those were pretty important decades in our history, and the change from the unrest and idealism of the 60s to the stability and disillusionment of the 80s drenches the text. WHO WAS FRANK? During my English major, we always debated how much of the author you could really find in a work of fiction. And whether it was useful or appropriate to play a game of Author Gotcha as literary critique. So now I'm going to do … [Read more...] about Do Judge Authors by Their Time? Dune, Tolkien, and Outrage
The Best Magical Libraries in Fiction
I love getting lost in a library. It is extra fun when I get lost in a library in a book. And the most fun is when I get lost in a magical library in a book. Here are the best ones. 1984, George Orwell Definitely not a favorite, but a HUGE influence. The Ministry for Truth, where "ignorance is strength" rocked my world as a sophomore in high school. It was really the first true dystopian novel I read and I had no idea such a thing was possible! Little did I know how relevant it would be. It was a WARNING, not an instruction manual! The Midnight Library, Matt Haig I read this recently, (the inspiration for this post, actually), and was surprised to see a true parable getting mainstream play. It's a clever book about regret, choices, and quantum physics. And like I said, it's just a straight-up, unapologetic parable. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Time and Fate fall in love in a library for all stories beneath the earth. Also, there are bees. And the … [Read more...] about The Best Magical Libraries in Fiction
4 Ways to Make Perfect Days Less Depressing
DOGS AND BONES AND HUMAN MOTIVATION There's an apocryphal story about racing Grayhounds and how when they catch the dog or the bunny, they cease to race. Though there is no confirmation of this story anywhere in actual racing circles. I am a little suspicious of it because, though I'm allergic to anything with fur, when normal dogs catch anything, they seem to be quite happy to repeat the experience all day. But it's a useful metaphor about human behavior, so let's pretend it's true, which is also very common human behavior. Either the dog is completely satisfied by that one bone and never tries to run again, or he's so pissed off that the bone or the bunny is made of cardboard, he also never runs again. This past week, I caught the bunny. Twice. One day this week, I checked off everything on my to do list. Not just the explicit list that has a prayer of occasionally looking realistic, but also the unspoken expectations I hold myself to, that if I ate … [Read more...] about 4 Ways to Make Perfect Days Less Depressing
If Law and Order was an Epic Fantasy
Photo: Lucie Bluebird-Lexington Sometimes it's all in the genre... Obligatory Forward Three thousand years have passed since the dawn of the current age. Yet we have not exited the Renaissance, and the entire world got to the Renaissance at the exact same time. In another three thousand years, historians will know when the unraveling began, where the excesses of the moment grew too much and the Great Balancer of the world, lion, the Fates, (the synonym for some kind of God figure that’s never going to be expressly mentioned), will place his fulcrum and tip everything the other way. All to be unwound, unlearned, unknown. Like a seesaw, but epic. But we do not know yet where that fulcrum will go, and whether the boy, for it is always a boy, fated to move the very lever of time itself, will succeed. Because it’s always fated and never just something some woman somewhere just gets done. The “Random” Beginning On this day, a boy named Patrick, who in the way of his clan, … [Read more...] about If Law and Order was an Epic Fantasy