Beginnings

I'm making this blog as a way of enjoying the life of a bibliophile, from the love of the shape of words, the feel of pages, and most of all, the smell of ink. (You can even buy the smell for ereaders, an interesting phenomenon in itself.) This blog is going to be a platform to talk about the nature of stories and the ways in which we enjoy them, primarily from books. As a departure from my previous blog, Frodo Lives, here I will discuss my ideas about books that seem to overrun much of my life (and I wouldn't have it any different). I'm intending to put my academic training to use and perform literary analysis on the works I read--which you'll see, are not the Great Works of Literature from the Canon of Dead White Men.

My personal tastes in reading run all over the place, which is in part due to my education in academia and my job at a library. I primarily read contemporary fantasy, usually of the epic, dark, or both flavoring. Is the term grimdark still in vogue? It applies to what I enjoy reading the most, from Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, and Lee Battersby variety to Patrick Rothfuss and Miles Cameron, who deal with dark themes but aren't as gleefully cynical as the previous authors named. I'm currently working my way through the Most Valuable Authors list on the r/fantasy sub-Reddit, which is not official but may as well be.

I'm also making a study on the origins of fantasy, mainly to understand how we got from Lord Dunsany to Neil Gaiman and G.R.R. Martin in the last century or so. Tolkien can't be ignored, and I love his works not just because they're excellent stories, but also because he did a lot of groundbreaking in the field of academia I'm eyeing to go into, medieval literature. In particular to illuminate the origins of fantasy, I've found Farah Mendelsohn the most accessible read, so she'll pop up quite a bit as well.

Besides fantasy, I enjoy tackling Viking history and will check out any book on early medieval Icelandic/Norse history I can get my hands on, good or bad. The literature of conquest of England is fascinating and I can't but be enthralled by how much the Vikings influenced English history. Occasionally I read history outside that of ye olde medieval, but not much. Instead of trying to memorize every name of every man/woman who was featured in those stories (Ivar the Boneless aside), I usually try and absorb the most interesting stories and see how whatever impact they had can be related to today, in literature or culture broadly.

I've also been reading a ton more nonfiction over the last couple of years. I love reading about how video games and intellectual discourse intersect, although I can almost hear one of my former professors droning, "There is no call for that kind of analysis." I think video games as a medium are one of the most unappreciated forms of art (RIP Ebert, you fought the good fight but I beg to differ), and so any academic cred they get, I'm checking it out. Another form of nonfiction that I have spent years combing over are books on writing, specifically fantasy, and I love gushing or eviscerating the advice doled out by writing coaches.

Occasionally I dally in mysteries. I love Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce series and Ian Samson's Mobile Library Mysteries. I'm still head over heels for Sherlock Holmes in a nostalgic way--for me, the show has made changes to the original stories that can make them not as easy to enjoy. (Once again, I have the same former professor's voice in my head, "There's nothing intellectually interesting about Sherlock Holmes." I beg to differ!) I love discussing the actual written stories, though, so for anyone who wants to talk about them, fire away.

As part of this blog, I'd like to include a list of the works I'm reading, along with a blurb on my thoughts. The more interesting works will get their own bonafide blog post. Right now I've just started:

1.) The Thirteen Hallows by Michael Scott. Although it can be too easy to categorize genre works like fantasy, to best generalize this book, I'd say: urban fantasy horror. I was very interested in the GoodReads reviews on this book, because many people gave it a low rating because they expected it to be like Scott's YA series. No, children, this is genuine gory fantasy. The premise is that there are Thirteen Hallows of ancient origin that have to be protected from the hands/agents of demons, who are killing off the Keepers of said treasures to unite them and give the demons full access to our world and the yummy cuisine of man. The main storyline follows a woman who has been entrusted with one of the last pieces.
My reaction: I'm only a quarter of the way through this book, and already I have counted four home invasions. We are talking about people or demons going in and savaging you, your possessions, and your family (not necessarily in that order or all at once). It's enough to make me jump at small noises and look over my shoulder constantly, because this book exactly plays on the fear of the safety of the home. I'm not normally a fan of horror, but the story is compelling enough that I'm muscling my way through the gratuitous gore.

2.) A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan and Todd Lockwood. The sequel to this book, Tropic of Serpents, just came out and that finally prodded me into opening this. I have longed wanted to read it, as it follows the adventure of a faux-Victorian lady in her discovery and study of dragons.
My reaction: I love everything about this book, from the first person narration that veers between curious to stuffy, to Lockwood's illustrations and the brown color of the ink. Isabella is likable as a narrator because she doesn't care for the stiff mannerisms of her time--they get in the way of learnin'!--but she's graceful enough to put up with it until she can get back to her dragons.

3.) Red Country by Joe Abercrombie. Another one of those books I've been intending to read for a verrry long time, and am just now getting around to it. I'm not crazy about the US cover, but the UK cover was hellaciously expensive, so US it is. This story follows Shy South and her companion Lamb as they discover that the family farm has been razed and Shy's siblings kidnapped, and thus Shy and Lamb pursue the kidnappers. The plotline of The Searchers is coming to mind, but what I love about Abercrombie is how appearances can be deceiving. This not a Wild West fantasy fulfillment story. I haven't quite figured out what is it yet.
My reaction: As much as I love Cosca's razor sharp wit, especially filtered through Temple's biting view, I'm considering skipping the chapter I'm on just to get to what's going on with Shy and Lamb. Cosca has gone from dangerous to officious, and while the reader never loses sight of how dangerous a company of mercs are, Cosca is beginning to remind me of a used car salesman instead of the rogue I remember from The First Law Trilogy. I'm hoping that's just another one of Abercrombie's tricks again.

Books, books, everywhere! I spend a lot of time reading and shamelessly get books from the library...Thus, why I rarely read books the same year they're released. Sometimes, like in the cases of Scott Lynch and Patrick Rothfuss, I do that on purpose so as to avoid "catching up" when the next book in the series hasn't been released yet.

I genuinely love talking about books of all shapes, sizes, and genres, and so if there's any feedback, fire away. I plan on writing future content for good websites for book lovers (yay, Book Riot!) and fun literary criticism on books I've finished recently. The inspiration for this blog came from A Natural History of Dragons when Isabella discusses being "ink nosed"...I love that expression, and so I modified it to something I identify with. To be ink nosed! What joy there is in it.