Thursday, December 1, 2016

Libraries, Adaptations, and Books to Read

The local library continues to have great works available -- and new stuff! -- all over town. I picked up a copy of Rick Riordan’s newest this year and have had a great time reading along as he takes me all over the spectrum of mythology; it’s a lovely ride. The library has multiple copies of The Name of the Wind and Wise Man’s Fear, which are getting ready to be made into a television series and film (and, since Lin-Manuel is involved in the ultimate act of fanboy energy, there could even be a play or musical or something -- who knows? I’m certainly not going to limit the man) despite the fact that Rothfuss hasn’t written the the third volume yet. [No. I’m not upset. Nope. Not me. Not. At. All.]

In my reading journey this year at the library, I’ve picked up a couple really delightful works, most notably Crow Lake which has written its words on my heart, and How to Survive a Crash Landing which made me laugh out loud more than once.

Those last two titles aren’t in our personal kindle library, but we have a ton of others -- well, okay, maybe not a ton, but we have however much 642 digital kindle titles would weigh. Also, we have access to kindle unlimited, which gives a bunch that aren’t available through amazon prime, and of course we have prime. And kindle first. Let me know if you need the login information, since you don’t need a kindle device to read the stuff or to listen to our ever-growing audible collection.

The brick-and-mortar local library has preloaded kindles that can be checked out (at least at the South County location). But leaving aside digital formats, there are two paper format books that I’m particularly interested in checking out (see what I did there?): Rogues, a collection of short stories by a ton of different wonderful authors -- including George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman -- and Half A King, the first of the new-to-me Shattered Seas trilogy which just looks great. SciFi Now liked it too, saying the series is “[t]remendously entertaining . . . lightning-fast and filled with a wonderful collection of rogues, villains and two-faced bastards . . . From the first chapter [Joe Abercrombie] wastes no time as the reader is swept up in a gripping tale of betrayal and revenge.”