I can always tell when I'm stressed--I bury myself in a book and ignore all my responsibilities (laundry, cleaning, financial, whatever). I suppose it is my version the mythical ostrich sticking its head in the sand. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist.
It's rather comforting to know that still I have a few juvenile responses left.
What have I been hiding...um...reading lately? Well, I have been rereading Garth Nix and his 'Seventh Tower' series as well as his newer 'Keys to the Kingdom' series. There are elements of Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' in Nix's writing as well as Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere' (I HIGHLY suggest you read these authors if you haven't already done so, they're mesmerizing!).
As I think about it, the reason I enjoy thse books so much is that there is always a protagonist who interacts as a go-between twixt here and other. This character never completely understands why they're involved in strange happenings, but they seem to be in the thick of age-old plots, multiverses, magic, mayhem, and running from sinister folks in pseudo-Victorian garb. Perhaps it's just that I want to be doing these things and not just sitting around languishing in the mundane. I guess this genre trips some of my fantasy reading buttons.
I have other reading fixations, too. But I'll leave those for later...
Do you ever find yourself drawn to a particular angle of a genre?
4 comments:
I am partial to stories of the ordinary person caught up in extraordinary circumstances.
Sometimes that ordinary person isn't so ordinary (i.e. s/he turns out the be the "chosen one" or something) but they don't know that going in.
Take, for example, main characters in "Neverwhere" and "American Gods"(thanks for turning me on to Neil, Infomatrix!), "Dragonbone Chair", and even Harry Potter--plus, movies like "The Matrix."
I guess these appeal to me, becuase I imagine it could happen to ME. That *I*, the ordinary person, could be caught up in extraordinary circumstances.
I know all about your other reading fixations too dear...XCircMan bought me all the HARDcover (early) Laurell books available for my birthday!
Now THOSE are some extraordinary circumstances I'd LOVE to be caught up in!!!!
Sort of the same but different. Have you tried the Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Full of terrible puns and a great plot with literary characters popping out of their books in a wild blackmail plot.
I have read the Jasper Fforde books and enjoyed them very much. I love clever literary references and these books are chock full of them--to the Nth degree... Interestingly enough, the 'Keys to the Kingdom' series by Nix has some similarities to the Fforde books (which reminds me that now I need to find a cloned dodo for my very own!). The written word having its own personality and character.
I saw him do a reading and he can actual say all those long complicated pun sentences outloud. It is amazing.
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