Well, when I started reading Danse Macabre this morning, I officially hit 100 books since I started adding them to the blog sidebar back in August 2005 with Empress Orchid...Yes, it's another Vaguely Pointless Anniversary™...
I'm a massive bibliophile (although interestingly enough, technically not by the official definition)... anyone who's seen my apartment can tell you that... and I have blogged about my love of books on more than one occasion... and I always have something on my bedside cabinet... whether or not I'm actively reading it at the time or whether I'm taking a little breather before I dive into something new (or on the rare occasion when something is just hard work, and I'm taking a breather).
And as I think the book montage shows I have pretty broad tastes in books... although I will admit to it being skewed towards the fantasy and/or horror genres... especially since the most recent books I've been reading have been Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series.
I have to offer up a little prayer of thanks to the woman (who's name I no longer remember) from the now defunct Alex's Books who first turned me onto the Anita books some ten or so years ago... I'd been looking for something new in the vampire oeuvre, since I was kind of over the whole Anne Rice thing and I'd just read some piece of vampire related dross that I didn't enjoy in the slightest (which was either something by Poppy Z Brite or someone who was even more forgettable)... and she asked me if I'd read Guilty Pleasures... which I hadn't... and since she was a bit of a vamp lover too (which sounds kind of skanky when I say it like that), I bought it. And it was, as they say, love at first sight... first read... whatever...
As time goes on I have something of a love/hate relationship with the series... I love reading them, and I usually can't put them down, especially if I'm reading one I haven't read before... they're just addictive, and Hamilton has a way of ending chapters not always on a massive life or death cliffhanger... well, sometimes... but in a way where you just want to keep reading or pick up the book again when you've put it down. And the hate bit comes in partly because you know the characters so well after fourteen books, and sometimes, even though you remember what's coming, or perhaps because of it, you just want to slap them around or shake them and tell them to pull their shit together. Or sometimes I just want to do that with Hamilton herself... especially in some of the later books... Anita is at her best when she's not up to her eyeballs in naked men and metaphysical sex... which I think is why Narcissus in Chains is probably my least favourite book of the series... it just seems to be lots of sex scenes with a little plot between them, at least for the first half... it's not completely a fair assessment (and on this most recent reading I realised that it actually had more plot in the first half than I originally remembered), but it's still my least favourite.
Just don't ask me which one is my favourite (possibly Obsidian Butterfly for the lack of aforementioned metaphysical sex, or Guilty Pleasures because it's the first one)...
The other part of the "hate" is that now there are fourteen books... and most of the time with any series of books I like to reread the whole thing before I read the newest installment... and with every book that she adds, it extends the time it takes to reread the whole series... this time around it was about two months... I started some time in early December I think... and here we are now in early February... which isn't that bad I guess... but I haven't read them for about two years, so that helps too.
Interestingly enough both of my trips to Melbourne have been marked by Anita books... the first one because that was just what I was reading at the time, and the second time because I was having a nostalgia thing and wanted to be reading something from the Anita series while I was there.... plus I think I'd just gotten the newest one at the time.
And tragic though it may sound, when I worked out that I was getting near the 100 book mark, I actually engineered it so that the newest Anita book would be the book that I hit 100 with... tragic, but true...
So here's to the last 100 books... and to the next 100...
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9 comments:
Congrats! I tried to see what all you've read, but the covers become so tiny, and they're different in Australia than they are here, so it's hard to recognize them. But I did notice "Dream Boy," which is one of my favorites.
I've only read 2 of your 100 books (both Dan Brown ones).... I don't think I'll ever like the fantasy type ones but might try some of the others - always on the look out for new books.
Well done for keeping it going so long anyway - I got bored with updating my blog every time I finished a book and quietly dropped by "now reading" thing, even though I normally do have a book on the go!
Have you looked at librarything.com? If I had the time I'd catalogue all my books... very nerdy I know but perversely satisfying!
Okay Tom, you're talking to someone who at one point or another had both a database containing every book in his collection including it's shelf location, as well as a list of every book he read... so the "very nerdy" tag... it's like preaching to the choir...
Librarything looks kind of cool, I might have to use it for the list of stuff that I've already read.
I sure would like to put my books in a database, I just have to make time to start and... a way to tag. Any suggestions?
100! In so short a time, you shame me. I have my stretches of intense reading, but these days I may get two books in a month.
You know, some of my favorite memories of vacations past have been quiet evenings (after busy days) spent with friends just reading. Most of my favorite people love books.
I'm reading Winne the Pooh TOO! I just bought the 80th Anniversary edition book. I love the story.
EP, you should check out the post I wrote about Pooh...
I'm guessing you have, but in case you haven't, check out The Tao of Pooh, where Eastern philosophy meets a decidely Western bear.
http://tinyurl.com/34w2n8
Actually I have heard of it, but alas I haven't read it, or it's "sibling" book, The Te of Piglet... :)
They are on the list though... maybe one day...
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