Thursday, January 3, 2019

I Like Big Books

Towards the end of last year I found myself drawn to the fantasy section at the bookstore and to the thick mass market paperbacks that live there. 

Before picking up The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, I didn't know anything about the Wheel of Time series, or that it even existed. What happened was I picked up one of the huge books on the shelf, saw on the back there were 14 books in the series, and I was hooked. The blurb on the back was a total non-blurb, just a sentence about the Wheel of Time. The cover art was gorgeous and detailed, and there was no way I was leaving without that first book. There were 14 in this series. That was a whole lot of amazingness that I needed in my life. 

Funnily enough, after never having seen these books before in my life, I started seeing little mentions of The Eye of the World on bookstagram, along with mention of the rest of the series. 

So far I am about 250 pages into the book and I am loving it. Having been a fan of fantasy since being a child reading Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall of Pern and David Eddings books that were on my Mom's bookshelf, it was great to come across another series of such greatness. I'm really not sure why I hadn't read anything by Robert Jordan before. 

Since buying the first book, I was finding myself just staring at it. I loved the feel of the book, the weight in my hand, how it looked on my shelf. It was massive as far as I was concerned, and I couldn't wait to devour it. I carried it around with my in my purse when I left the house, knowing I probably wasn't going to get to read it, but I didn't care. It just made me happy. 

I've sense bought the second and third one, and I received a box set of the 4th, 5th, and 6th books from my fiancee this past Christmas. 

Problem was, I had a book goal to get to last year, and The Eye of the World was such a big book. I kept putting it down in favour of faster reads, even though I've been enjoying it. I just couldn't devote the time to it because I needed to reach my goal. Spoiler alert: I didn't even reach my goal last year. 

I was also not familiar with the work of Brandon Sanderson, although I had heard of him before now. I found the first two books in The Stormlight Archive in mass market paper back size and I am in love. I haven't started reading them, but seeing them on my shelf makes me incredibly happy. 

2019 is the year of the big books, the books I want to read, and no big reading goals. I am just going to have fun with things and read what I want, which lately happens to be fantasy! 

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