Books

I love reading.  I enjoy movies as well, but reading has so much more potential to suck you into the world that the author crated than movies will ever have.  Sure, there are times when I'd rather just watch a movie and be wow'd by the visual effects and how the director took the world in his mind and made it visual for everyone else to see.  But that's always someone else's idea of how it looked, how the story played out.  When you watch a movie made from a book you've previously read, you will inevitably be disappointed because this character didn't look the way you imagined them, or that character wasn't played the way that they should have been, or this place wasn't as fantastic as you had imagined it.  Even if all you have is a vague idea in your head of what something should have been, a movie will disappoint.  One of the beauties of books is that even with all of the description an author puts in, each person who reads will still interpret the characters slightly differently.  The "movie" playing in your head as you read the book will be different from person to person, and even from one time you read the book to another.

The one thing I dislike about books, however, comes directly from their ability to engulf you in their world.  After you finish a book, the world is over.  You can no longer continue to explore the world as the character. Yes, you can go back and reread the book, and you'll probably catch things a second time that make the book new again.  Or if you haven't read the book in a while, it will become new as you try to remember specifics about the characters or plots and rediscover them.  But in the end, after you finish, you're thrust back into reality where the world you were so much a part of is just a story.  There is one way around this: reading a book that is part of a series.  I loved Harry Potter, with each book you read, you get to know the characters even better.  You get to continue to explore their universe with them.  The story doesn't end.  Ok, so it eventually does end, but it lasts so much longer than just a single book!  The same happened when I read  The Chronicles of Narnia.  As amazing as those books were and as great as it was to continue to live in the universe that the authors created, I still got to the end of the series and had to leave their world.

One of my all time favorite books is Ender's Game.  If you haven't read it, you should.  It is such a great book!  I just finished reading the last book that follows Ender's life.  Children of the Mind.  Even with having to go to work, I still was able to finish the entire book in just over 3 days.  It really love how it ended.  It really was just a continuation of the 3rd book Xenocide.  I could hardly put the book down (just ask Julie).  But even though I finished a story line from the Enderverse, I'm not done.  I still have the entire Shadow series, which starts off with one of the best books in the entire Enderverse: Ender's Shadow.  Man I'm excited!  So, even though I got to the end of one of the story lines, I can still throw myself into that same universe for a while longer and enjoy the brilliant characters Orson Scott Card created.  Again, if you haven't read them, all of the books in the Enderverse come highly recommended from me!

PS. I know I'm horrible about posting on here and in all honesty, should have probably posted something about our wedding or any of the other more significant things that have happened over the past few months, but a post about a book is better than nothing, right?  But I really do love being married to Julie.  It really is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  Perhaps I'll post something of a little bit more meaning later, but I wouldn't hold your breath ;-)