A few months ago I endeavored to read a book outside of my usual favorite fiction genre--that being straight-up fiction. The book was a mystery you may have heard of called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Yeah, that didn't go so well. I heard it gets really good once you get through the first 30 pages of tedious exposition, but unfortunately I never made it that far.
With this in mind, I was a little reluctant to stray again into the shelves of the unknown, but in the spirit of this project I've decided to take the leap.
Today's New Activity: Delving into Fantasy
There are a couple of reasons I've decided to go with fantasy as my next new genre. First is that I'm still not ready for sci-fi, and I know I've liked some movies based on fantasy books. The Neverending Story comes to mind, though there have been others for sure.
But the main thing that appealed to me about George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones series was that a number of people I know are reading and enjoying it, and they range from people who almost exclusively read sci-fi/fantasy, to those who occasionally do or never have outside of this series. With that kind of broad appeal, I figured it might just grab me too.
I'm two chapters in and was already impressed with how the author established three characters pretty clearly within a page and a half (small-sized mass market format, so a page and a half is not a lot of time). All three of those characters were dead within the next 8 pages of the book, so this could be a long ride...but still, I appreciated that skill. And I've been told that there are tons of characters, all well developed in the now 4-book series of tome-like books, so that's a whole lot of people to keep track of. But I also hear it's fascinating, political, and addictive. So then, here we go...
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
12.13.2010
The GGA Project -- Day #2 "Chuck"
Lately I'm having a terrible time finding (making) time to read. Facebook time: no problem. Reading time: problem. I have to say a big part of this is that I don't have a good reading spot these days. I used to always read while lying down in bed, but now that my baby boy and I share a room, I am reluctant to risk waking him with the reading light, and I just can't seem to get comfortable anywhere else.
The compromise I've made is to listen to books on CD during my long hours spent commuting to and from work and driving the 20 mile minimum I travel at least 3 times a week in order to visit any of my friends. I'd never listened to a book before about 3 months ago, and I'm liking the new discovery.
Sooooo, I went to the library this afternoon with every intention of finding a sci-fi book on CD to check out. This fit squarely (yes, the word choice is significant) into my try new things project as I've resisted sci-fi for years, despite the strong-armed encouragement of a host of friends and former coworkers (Kenneth). Unfortunately (fortunately), there were only a few options, none of them viable because they were parts of series where the 1st installment was not in stock. Anyway, I thought checking one of these out would be unfair anyway because their almost guaranteed suckiness in the grand scheme of even the sci-fi genre would have been too convenient an excuse for me to poo poo the whole movement for all time. I thought that if I'm to read/listen to a sci-fi book, I should at least give it a fair shake and find a decent representation of the genre.
Plan B jumped off the shelf: Today's New Activity: Chuck Palahniuk. Diary, specifically.
I've never read a novel by Palahniuk (best known for Fight Club). To be honest, I'm kind of scared of him for some vague reason. My friend Jesse is a big fan (or maybe just a fan?), and maybe he told me something once upon a time...the overall sense is that perhaps Palahniuk likes to flirt with the grotesque...along those lines anyway. Also, I feel like he's a real guy's kind of author. The only people I've ever known to be fans were young men or else girls who are into ultra guy type things. Anyway that assumption and speculation is about to be put to rest because I'll be listening to it come tomorrow morning.
I think I'll save the sci-fi adventure for month 10 or 11 of this project. It definitely feels like a kind of final frontier for me. And by then my mind will ideally be more open to new ideas and forays into imaginary universes. Really. I look forward to the day I can embrace that prospect with open arms :)
The compromise I've made is to listen to books on CD during my long hours spent commuting to and from work and driving the 20 mile minimum I travel at least 3 times a week in order to visit any of my friends. I'd never listened to a book before about 3 months ago, and I'm liking the new discovery.
Sooooo, I went to the library this afternoon with every intention of finding a sci-fi book on CD to check out. This fit squarely (yes, the word choice is significant) into my try new things project as I've resisted sci-fi for years, despite the strong-armed encouragement of a host of friends and former coworkers (Kenneth). Unfortunately (fortunately), there were only a few options, none of them viable because they were parts of series where the 1st installment was not in stock. Anyway, I thought checking one of these out would be unfair anyway because their almost guaranteed suckiness in the grand scheme of even the sci-fi genre would have been too convenient an excuse for me to poo poo the whole movement for all time. I thought that if I'm to read/listen to a sci-fi book, I should at least give it a fair shake and find a decent representation of the genre.
Plan B jumped off the shelf: Today's New Activity: Chuck Palahniuk. Diary, specifically.
I've never read a novel by Palahniuk (best known for Fight Club). To be honest, I'm kind of scared of him for some vague reason. My friend Jesse is a big fan (or maybe just a fan?), and maybe he told me something once upon a time...the overall sense is that perhaps Palahniuk likes to flirt with the grotesque...along those lines anyway. Also, I feel like he's a real guy's kind of author. The only people I've ever known to be fans were young men or else girls who are into ultra guy type things. Anyway that assumption and speculation is about to be put to rest because I'll be listening to it come tomorrow morning.
I think I'll save the sci-fi adventure for month 10 or 11 of this project. It definitely feels like a kind of final frontier for me. And by then my mind will ideally be more open to new ideas and forays into imaginary universes. Really. I look forward to the day I can embrace that prospect with open arms :)
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