I'm a book destroyer...

Soooo, confession and judgement time. I love books. I am a voracious reader (I've read 20 books since June). An ideal day for me would consist of a comfortable perch somewhere, such as a little nook, a couch, my bed, a tree, etc., a blanket to snuggle with, some munchable chocolate, a good book, and no one to disturb me alllll day. I love to lose myself in the world of a book, and I hate leaving it for any reason. I always feel like I've left half of myself in the story, and until I get back to the book I'm stuck hanging in agonizing limbo. I am desperate to return to my book as fast as possible, and quite often stay up reading until the wee hours of the morning. And yes, I have reverted to my childhood habit of reading by the light of a flashlight so that my father, who gets up around 3 or a little later, doesn't notice that I am still up by the light under my door. (Shh! No tattling!)

I especially love reading series of books, rather than just an individual, stand-alone book. Of course there are many excellent books that are not part of any series, but I dearly love finding a good series and knowing that my world doesn't crumble around me at the end of a book, but that it continues on in the next book. Excitement thrills through me as I run to the bookshelf to grab the next book, or snatch it off the waiting pile of library books by my bed, or tear open the package from Amazon that finally appeared. When I finally reach the end of the series, or at least read the most recent book and am left waiting for the author to complete the next book, I feel so lost and confused. Like someone who has just spent the past month in a cave underground who suddenly finds themselves outside, blinking confusedly in the sunlight. Although it really is more like I somehow found a magic portal to another time in another life, in another place, where I spent years losing myself in the marvels and incredible experiences to be had there until I forgot all about my other life. Then one day, everything just ended and I found myself on the other side of a closed door, back in my ordinary room, in my ordinary house, in my ordinary life, feeling completely bereft of the wonder and freedom of that other place. Eventually, after a brief period of mourning, I console myself by finding another book to escape to.

Now beyond all this imaginative otherworldiness of books that I love so much, I really love the physical books themselves. There's something about holding a book in your hands that I just really love. It's similar to how I love physical letters. Of course, I love getting electronic messages, texts, voicemails, and the like, but I love being able to hold and treasure the physical object, lovingly written just for me. It's like a little piece of that other person, sent to me to cherish forever. In a like manner, a physical book is something I can cling to, a tangible portal to another world, a marvelous gift of a magical experience just for me. And let's face it, the covers of books can sometimes almost be the best part! But for all that, the truth is that I'm a book breaker-- a book destroyer. It is a fact that my books are well-loved. I actually prefer paperback books, not only because they are cheaper, but because I can break them. Really it's mostly for practicality and to ensure more comfort and less work on my part. If the book is broken regularly you don't have to hold it open anymore, it stays open on its own. And in the end, the book actually looks worn and traveled, and to me it looks well-loved and used. When I see and hold a book that has been broken many times, I see it as a book that has been loved and fully enjoyed, that has been devoured and experienced, that has been truly owned and used.

So should you ever borrow a book of mine, do not be surprised to find that it is worn and broken, for it has most assuredly been loved. Judge me as a book destroyer if you will, but for my part it is just a sign of my love for that book.

Nonfiction Lives

I love to read. I love finding a book (preferably from a series) that I can just got lost in and become a part of that world as I read. I get to see so many places, meet so many people, and experience so many things that I could never do in real life. Magical realms and old fashioned love stories are my favorite book worlds to escape to. But regardless of what kind of book I read, one of the things I enjoy most about books is the fact that they have a plot line.

Books are written with a beginning and an end, and it's all about the journey between those points. That journey and that end are already planned out, and everything in the book leads to that conclusion. I feel safer knowing that there is a plan, that everything has a purpose, the author has it under control, and everything is going to work out somehow. Unlike real life, I can see the whole journey in the book, I can follow the plan, and I get to know the ending. I love escaping to that alternate reality. But as much as I love books, and as much as I wish some aspects of those books could make their way over to real life, there are some things that I wish could just stay in the book world.

Characters who always take the wrong approach to things, who seem incapable of understanding, and who refuse to make any changes should stay in the book world where someone can deal with them there. Because, you know, such a character will be dealt with in some way, like being made to see reason, being subdued, having sense beat into them, being banished, just something. What I don't like is when such a character is in the real world, and there doesn't seem to be any way of successfully dealing with them. What do you do with someone who ranks above you, doesn't understand that they take the wrong approach to dealing with things, cause tension instead of relieving it, cannot relate to people, who does not understand how other people will and are responding, whose first reaction is to subdue and dominate to prove that they're in control, regardless of the fact that they can never get the results they want, and who explodes and retaliates to any attempt made to reason with them?

I hate the tension that comes out and the subtle feeling of hostility in the air. The sense of hopelessness that things can never be fixed. And I hate knowing that the one person who should be the one to deal with this character, has allowed themselves to be dominated, talked down, and belittled to the point that should they make a full effort now, they would have no effect. I am torn between the desire to take over and make things work, and the desire to run away to a time, place, and situation where I can escape all that and prove that things don't have to be that way. Prove that I won't be that way. To experience a life where I know things will never get that way, and will even be the exact opposite. Mutual trust, love, and understanding. A wonderful foundation to an amazing thing. That's my reality. That's the world I am living in, and proving that it doesn't just exist in books.

You know a book is good when....

Since going on Winter Break, I've been doing a lot of reading. During the semester, I simply do not have the time to read. (I don't exactly have the time to do many of the necessary things for living, like eating and sleeping, never mind reading!) Since coming home, I have read seven books, and am making my way through the eighth book. I happen to e obsessed with Dragons, and am constantly in search of more books with dragons. In conducting a google search for books with dragons, I discovered the New York Bestselling Author Anne McCaffrey. She has quickly become my new favorite. While waiting for the first book of the Dragonriders of Pern series to come inter library loan, I started reading her books about Acorna. Scifi/fantasy is totally my favorite genre, and I loved the new worlds and the concepts she created in her books. Well, the long awaited call from the library finally came, telling me that the first book of the dragonriders series was in! I had to finish the book I was in the middle of first, then at about 3 yesterday afternoon, I was finally able to start my new dragon series.

Once I started the book (DragonFlight), I knew immediately that it was going to be good. As proof of just how the good was-- I read straight through the book with only a pause for supper, staying up until 2:30 AM to finish it! Soooo good! only problem is.... the second book has not arrived at the library yet :( I don't want to turn this into a review of books, but I just have to rave a little bit about some of the things that make this book so great.

One thing I've come to love about Anne McCaffrey is her ability to create completely new worlds and pull you into them. With her Acorna books, everything is space oriented, set in a time when the Earth age is long past, there is much space travel and many planets in different galaxies are now inhabited. She brilliantly makes you believe in the possibility of a human existence throughout all of space. The really captivating aspect for me is how she brings in an alien life-form (Acorna), and develops that character in the midst of what had been an otherwise completely human universe. I love being able to explore the new worlds through the characters, and I can easily place myself right there with them, rather than just sitting sceptically in my chair, conscious of the fact that I am just reading a book. But anyway, on to the DragonRiders series:

The world Anne McCaffrey creates in this series is a mainly human population, though takes place in another world, another existence, no Earth or anything of that sort. And there are Dragons!!! All sorts of amazing things always happen when there are dragons around! No matter what author's works you read, if they include dragons, there will be amazingness in some form or another. A uniform theme in all the dragon works I've read is the concept of a mental connection with the dragons, and the ability to speak with your mind. Quite often, that concept is accompanied by the idea that one can extend their mind, their awareness, to others around them. I absolutely love the idea that someone can reach out with their mind, with the consciousness, and brush against the minds of others, against physical objects around them and farther away from them, touch the minds of all other living things, and just be aware of what may be going on beyond their physical sight. It is such an extraordinary concept, and I am always left longing to be able to extend my mind that way, and be able to just show others what is in my mind, rather than struggling to find the words to ineffectually explain.

Another thing I love about this book is Anne McCaffrey's ability to effectively pull off time travel. In most movies or books that include some aspect of time travel, there is usually the uncomfortable, realistic thought that no, that couldn't really happen... if they went back and did this, that would change this, and then that wouldn't have happened, but it already did..... and it just doesn't work.... they can't change the past, if they did that, there'd be all these consequences..... ahhhhh! But there is no worry of any such thing in this book. The author very carefully set things up so that after the time travel had occurred, you realized that according to what had happened earlier, the backwards time traveling has to happen in order to bring about what had already happened in the past. There is a point towards the end of the book that things suddenly click. You realize that an occurrence discussed now and then from much earlier history of this world only happened because of the time traveling that had to then occur right then in the present time in the world. I could not believe how brilliantly she worked everything out, not missing a single thing or leaving any opportunities for you to say wait... what about..... She even addressed the issue of what happens when you exist in two different times at once. (Like when your present day self goes back ten years to when you were a much younger person, so you exist in that one time as both your younger and your older self.)

As much as I have already enjoyed her other series, her dragon books have now blown my mind, and I cannot wait to read more! Dragon lore is truly the most marvellous material, and I will never get enough of it! :)

Books are dangerous.

Don't get me wrong, reading is amazing. But books are dangerous. The world of a book is so enchanting, so addictive. Once you start to spend time with it, it starts to get a hold on you and slowly drag you in. The world of the book calls to you, luring you in slowly until you never want to leave. The world of the book becomes your reality, and it becomes torture to leave that world for any length of time for things in your old, superficial and pathetic existence. You yearn for the world in the book and cannot wait to escape back into it. When you've turned the last page and shut the cover, it's as if you've closed an ominous door, condemning you to return to your own, unsatisfying world. But though you've left the world inside the book, a piece of yourself still remains in it forever. For a time, it feels almost impossible to you that you could ever tear yourself away from the all-to-real experience of that book and step into the world of another, but your longing for new worlds eventually gets the better of you. The one amazing thing about our normal, mortal existence is that we are able to leave our own reality and experience so many other worlds. One caution is that with every new (or old) world you visit, you leave a tiny piece of yourself there. You can never completely leave any of those worlds, and though you may have forgotten some of them, tiny pieces of yourself forever remain in the worlds of all the books you have read. So you see, books are dangerous, but in such a seductively beautiful way that you cannot resist them.