Books! Books!! BOOKS!!!

I'm knee deep in A Dance with Dragons and as much as I'd like to post about it here, I don't think I could possibly keep from derailing into talking about a Song of Ice and Fire in general if I did. Since I don't have ten hours to write, I don't think I have enough time to do that right now, but I'll get to it eventually. So I thought I'd just ramble about books.

I like to think of myself as a reader. I have a bookshelf overflowing with a number of my favorite authors. I can and have devoured novels in a single day. I've read before I go to sleep so often that I now practically can't get to bed at all without thirty minutes of a good book. But I have been in a bit of a dry spell recently - not in reading itself, but finding new material to eat through. I do enjoy myself a good series but the time always arrives when I've gone through a dozen books of some new author and end up asking myself 'now what?'. 

It can take a bit of searching before I grab a brand new author off the shelves. It's not so much a terrible lack of money (though that contributes) so much as dedicating myself to a new imagined world. I've grown somewhat critical and cynical when it comes to reading. I'm overjoyed when I find an author that meets both my tastes in books and standards in quality. Oh, this isn't to say I won't ever read anything but the best of the best, no, I just tend to only explore new stuff when theres nothing left to pick through from source I've grown to trust. Also it tends to help if some one lends you the first book of a new author. The difference between some one handing you a book and feeling motivated enough to pick it up off the store shelf is noteworthy. Thus I find myself re-reading old favorites. Not a chore by any means, but after a couple months of that I start to get hungry for something new.

So it's with no small amount of happiness that I look toward the coming months. It seems there's a new book from my favorite authors coming out in each of them, each and very one continuing a long beloved series I've been following. We have, as I mentioned before, A Dance with Dragons out just now, and Ghost Story coming from Jim Butcher later in July. After that we have a new book from Pratchett contributing to his Guards story line, and then an additional Dan Abnett book in October to follow things up. For a summer that I feel is lacking in movie releases it's incredibly relieving to see a number of long awaited novels making a good showing.


Now if you'll excuse me I think I've typed my obligatory pile of senseless words today and I'm going to get back to G.R.R.M.'s latest work.