To Re-Read, or Not to Re-Read...now that IS the question...

For those of you who have no idea, and that is probably going to be all of you...I own a ton of books. Maybe not a literal ton, but enough to have breached the 300 mark. And whenever I talk to my friends about books in general and the number of books that I own comes up there are a bunch of different questions that they ask me.
"Why not just go to a library?"
"Do you really read those books again?"
"Why would you spend so much money on books?"
And the questions continue onward, those three being the main questions. And to be honest, they are not bad questions at all. Which brings me to the friends of mine who are also big readers, and they have told me that they generally do not re-read the books that they have unless that are extremely out of this world. And so to them it is strange that I have re-read some books a couple times and then when it comes to the Harry Potter series and my books by Tamora Pierce which I have read easily 5-10 times. It seems otherworldly that I would want to read a book again even though I already know what happens and I already know what the ending is.

It is funny because for me, re-reading a book is almost like re-watching a movie. Plenty of people watch certain movies all over again despite knowing how it will end and what the journey is like. And for some people, likening a book to a movie in that sense is enough for them to understand; not so much for others. So when that simple explanation does not work, I find myself in that odd place of trying to explain the passion I have for books. And it is a very strong passion indeed; the characters, the stories, the good things, the bad events, the cliff hangers, revisiting the cover of the books, and even the smell (which will come up again later).

For me the best part about re-reading a book, especially with the amount of books that I own; it is relatively easy for me to find a story that speaks to me and the situation that I currently find myself in in some deep way. The journey of a book is the most magical part of reading, because for me no matter how many times I revisit a book I fall in love with the characters and the world all over again. And every time I re-read a book there is some connection that I missed the previous time around that I find again; making the book still feel new in a sense.

And I feel like the comfort that I get from reading, and the magical feeling of living in another world and seeing it through another person's eyes is enough for me when it comes to answering the last two of the three questions that I mentioned. The first question is a logical one, especially for someone in my financially struggling situation (in between just graduating and trying to find a big kid job). And I will never say a bad thing about a library for the most part, and I feel like they are great things and a wonderful way to introduce yourself to different authors without making a financial investment. A big part of why I do not really go to a library is because when I read something, I will have the urge to go out and buy it. For me, a library would put me further in the hole then not going to one. I will find a book that I love, and I know I will read again, so I must buy it. It is simple as that, I want to be able to have that book at my expense at a moments notice instead of having to trek out to the library and hope it is there or wait forever on a request waiting list.

The other thing that I love about MY books compared to the library books is the smell. There is something amazing about an aged book, and one that you have taken care of in your own way smell a little different than the ones from a library. Those at the library have crossed so many different hands and have gone through so many different situations that they smell a little weird to me. Which is sometimes not a bad thing, but for me there is just something comforting about settling in to a book that has the smell you are used to and it just brings you to a happy place (despite the possibly unhappy contents of the book).

On a side note, one thing I have noticed about the library is that whenever I have gone I am always way more likely to pick out a book that I dislike. And when I make the financial investment at a bookstore I have yet to buy a book that I did not love in some way. That has always been something that interested me; and something I believe that is linked to the idea that I can risk my time on this book because I did not also waste money on it.

I also do not like time limits. I realize that I can recheck a book out, but I do not like feeling as if I need to finish this book in a certain amount of time. There is a big difference between rushing through a book because it is new and exciting and rushing through a book because it needs to be returned by a certain day and there is no way I was going to leave the library with just one book so I also not only have to finish the current book but the other three or four I foolishly checked out because I am a foolish person at times.

Do you guys re-read your books? Or do you have some sort of quirk when it comes to your books or getting books from a library? Why do you re-read books? I would love to hear from any of you who do read my pages :)

Adults Reading Young Adult Books - with a mini review of Tamora Pierce books

Before getting to the actual discussion and my views; I had read an article on bookriot.com and this was one of the subjects for their articles. Now we fast forward and I finally managed to get my butt into a book store for the first time this whole summer (it is amazing I hadn't withered away or made it this long without buying a book) and when I go to a bookstore I do the rounds for my supremely favorite authors and it occurred to me that one of the authors that I read is always filed away under Young Adult/Teen sections.

So I just wanted to know what everyone else thought, because there were some comments that were so-so or felt that it really shouldn't matter where you get your books as long as your reading. While others felt like they were allowed to make fun of us adults who dabble a little bit in the young adult section; mocking our reading abilities and such.

For me personally, Tamora Pierce and all of her books placed in Tortall are easily in my favorites. I got into her books when I was in 6th Grade/Middle School (about 8 years ago). I still to this day re-read those books because I love the characters, outside of Terry Practchet Discworld books, I had never fallen so in love with a character in a book before. But then again that could be explained by the books I had access to which weren't Harry Potter (loved it by the way). And I absolutely love the story that is being told. I have read them many times and know exactly what is going to happen and when, but for me the way she has written those books I do not even care. I will keep those books forever and still read them 10 years from now.

And so when I think about it, I really do not think that it should matter whether adults decide to peruse the young adult section. Do I think most of the books will interest them? Maybe not, but I think that if it has an intriguing story that pulls you in, then it should not matter where you get your reading in. The only thing I would question is whether you are an adult going into the kids sections for books to read; however I don't know your life and you probably have a good reason. I also feel that some people over look the potential the books in the young adult section have on developing people. Going back to Tamora Pierce, I think the part that really pulled me in was the fact that the protagonist was a strong woman, and a woman that is going to go against the grain in some way, and one that is fallible in a realistic sense and NOT a ditzy sense.



For example, the Lioness Quartet is focused on a woman who wants to become a knight in a country and world where lady knights have pretty much gone extinct. She disguises her self as a boy and takes her twin brother's place going to knight school. And she struggles with trying to come to terms with turning into a woman in secret. She still struggles with the idea of trying to be a strong woman but wanting to have moments of being soft and having a man in her life. She falls in and out of relationships, makes mistakes, but learns from them and definitely comes out in the end as a woman that would make a good role model.



The second series is the Immortals Series, which focuses on a woman who is born with Wild Magic, and immense amounts of it. She was born in an area of the world that is bandit ridden and quite backwards. So no one realizes what she has, and she sort of adopts the ideas and thoughts that are thrown at her that she is not right in the head. Her family is killed and she deals with the struggle of her Wild Magic and thinks she went mad when she hunted the bandits down with the local group of wolves. She comes to Tortall, and it is a complete 180 from what she knew, and she struggles with becoming more comfortable with herself, her powers and making a change to this new life of hers. The Lioness from the previous series makes a reappearance and so does her husband who push her in the right direction. The main male in this series starts off as her teacher, because he is the only major wizard who has any idea how Wild Magic works and actually believes it is a kind of magic. But once he helps her get on her own two feet, she is indeed a strong woman.


The third big series is the Protector of the Small. The woman in this book attempts to follow in the Lioness' footsteps and tries to become a knight. It shows an interesting world on the brink of change, she has to deal with similar struggles as the Lioness, but has the benefit of not needing to keep it all a secret. And to be honest, out of the three this small series is my favorite. She has a key different struggle however, she is a woman who cares more than the average noble about the common folk and those under her command and she has to struggle with being able to extend the protection that she wants to achieve but do so in a manner in which she is still accepted. And in this book, the Wild Magic woman makes a couple appearances and gives her a couple mini lessons, and you find out that the Lioness has also been helping her along in an indirect way.

I apologize from this major deviance, but I felt that it would do much better to tell my side of things by looking at the books from one of my favorite authors to show that there are still things to find in the young adult/teen section even when you are a grown adult.

So pretty please comment for me either how you feel about the topic in general, or a book series you are still in love with from the young adult section even though you have 'outgrown' it.

Malazan Book of the Fallen - Characters Pt. 2 Masters of the Monologue

The idea for looking at a couple more characters came from a mini story that was told through Mappo Runt, Icarium's former travel companion, in which the idea that the more wise you are the less you end up talking. In the mini tale, it talks about a battle that was going to take place between the Trell and a group of expansionist humans. Typically the outcomes of most battles does not favor the Trells; mainly because they rely on battle lust and charging downhill at their opponents with the aim of potentially running them all over and smacking them into oblivion. The Trell that were going to lead their people into the battle had all essentially put themselves in a coma, leaving one elderly Trell who had never really been in battle and never spoke. Needless to say his battle strategy won the battle for the Trell, and continued to do so for years to come. He attempted to unite the different Trell tribes, and in the end lost to the idea that civilization promised the younger Trell resulting in less traditional Trells existing. This resulted in this Trell leader losing himself to alcohol and he could be seen talking nonstop, and nothing that he spoke was wise in any way.

That above blerb made me think about the idea of wisdom always being accompanied by silence. And there being two characters in this series who ONLY speak in very lengthy monologues, and yet they are both powerful and wise in their own way.

Kruppe
 
(Artwork from malazanempire.com)

Kruppe is without a doubt one of the most interesting characters, despite the tedious monologues he puts all the characters through to their discomfort. He finds himself an ally to K'Rul; and Elder God and the source of the power for the warrens (I believe they say it is his blood). They speak and plan through the use of Kruppe's dreams. And there are times where it is difficult to tell whether the knowledge Kruppe is speaking is gifted from K'Rul or something that Kruppe actually knows. Early on in the series you begin to figure out how intelligent he is, once it is revealed that he is the secret leader of an intelligence group. He also gives Ganoes Paran (Master of the Deck) the push in the right direction in where he needs to look and act next. He keeps everyone that he talks to on their toes as to whether he is being truly ignorant about certain things or if he is hiding information. Out of the two masters of monologue, he is definitely my favorite. 

 Iskaral Pust


(Artwork from DeviantArt by dassemultor)

This picture above is exactly how I imagined Iskaral Pust. The difference between his monologue and Kruppe's, is that Kruppe essentially uses way more words then he really needs to; essentially 50 words for when 10 would suffice. Iskaral on the other hand is...different. His monologue consists of doing the spoken train of thought. He says his thoughts and feelings and verbally speaks about no one knowing what he is thinking despite him just mentioning it. And when people speak about something that was meant as a thought on his part, he acts as if he has no idea what they are talking about. His intelligence comes I believe from either being truly mad, or being a very good actor to keep others on their toes so they underestimate him. Which in my opinion does not seem to be too far fetched. It is easy to gauge his strength because he is the Magi of Shadow, which is not a role to sneeze at. And the fact that he has a tussle with a very strong D'ivers, and comes out a little bit winded after killing a few of them. I was open mouthed when reading that part in the book because I thought Iskaral was toast. To add to his mystery is his donkey. I will say no more about his amazing donkey, hopefully to get you to read the books out of curiosity :) 

Through thinking about these two characters, and the plot line in general, nothing in his books is really how it seems. He has exquisite plot twists, that completely change how you see the people you thought of as bad guys. A theme that reoccurs throughout the series is that when there is a war among the gods, the first blood that is spilled is by mortals. And it is interesting to see that has the series progresses that despite the amazing power that gods have, that messing with mortals is a risky business and it can have very dire consequences for said god. 

Quick Book Review - The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician Series)

This short book, 200 or so pages, came to my attention this morning via Amazon Prime giving me the opportunity to choose one free kindle book to read. Generally I have not been too impressed with the choices I have been able to pick each month, there have only been two others that I have felt worthwhile to download let alone finish. And the amount that I despise reading on a screen of any kind (for some reason I have a miraculously short attention span reading on a screen vs. reading on paper) it is amazing I even finished those; which says a lot about those books in my mind. I downloaded and finished this book today. And I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the book.

As a rule I tend to avoid books that are short because half of the time there is just not enough time for the author to really develop the character, or if they attempt to it comes off as being obviously rushed. And to top it off, the plot generally just does not seem all that thought out. I was honestly surprised to know that this was her debut book. I thought that her take on what magic could be was rather refreshing. Especially so for me because paper magic, which is the main magic the reader learns about, is essentially being able to do origami and make it live and I do origami in my free time; so I might be biased. 

I thought that the main character was one that I enjoyed reading from the point of view from, she did not want to be a paper magician, however there was a logical way of her changing her mind that did not seem rushed at all. The main character is inquisitive and a hard worker, she rushed through school in a year and despite being put somewhere she did not want to be she knew that she couldn't let all the hard work go to waste. It also helped that her teacher Thane did a wonderful job showing her the different aspects of the magic. A woman who practices blood magic comes and takes his heart after a month of him apprenticing Ceony, and she is determined to save him. At first the driving force is that 1) he is someone she has started to grow fond of, and 2) because she knows that there is so much more for him to teach her.

The author made a very good decision on making the quest through Thane's heart the method of getting the reader to learn more about the back story of Thane, Lira his ex-wife and blood mage heart stealer, and a little bit more about Ceony. You are able to see the good, the bad, the hopes and dreams, and the doubts of Thane, while slowly watching as Ceony realizes her feelings towards him becoming much stronger.

I also wanted to put out there that for some reason I really loved Thane, the fact that he has very emotionally expressive eyes but is able to sort of hide emotions on his face for some reason really endeared him to me. And maybe it is just because I am good at imagining characters in books, or whatever it is, I felt that her descriptions of the main characters were really good. They weren't drawn out into long paragraphs at a time, they were a few sentences that were thrown throughout to sort of really drive home the most characteristic parts of each person. Thane with his eyes, Lira with the hard face, the pursed lips of magician  Aviosky (for me I pictured a much younger version of Professor McGonagall).

For me this book was definitely a page turner, and one that I will definitely buy in paperback when it comes out September 1st of this year. I was also happy to notice on the Amazon page for this book that it looks as if this is going to be a series. I REALLY REALLY *insert many more reallys here* hope that there are quite a few more books following and that they are longer than this one. And for me, that is the only bad part of this book, for the space there was the plot and the characters was excellent and I would love to see what Holmberg could do in the space of a longer book. So I strongly urge those of you who do not have much time for reading these days, but want something worth the little time you have to spare to check this book out whenever you have a chance in September.

In order to make your lives easier, here is the link to the page on Amazon.