Post by * amanda on Jun 16, 2011 22:10:57 GMT -5
Yes... it happens every few years. I find a book or series of books that captivates me so much that I literally cannot think of anything else while I'm in the middle of it.
Don't get me wrong, I read good books - books that I love, even - all the time. I read Shadow of the Wind last fall, which was fabulous. I recently read a great little Canadian lit historical novel about a girl who came to Montreal from an orphanage in France in the 1500s (if anyone's interested, I'll give it to you when/if you come to PCAPE). So, I definitely read a lot of books that are great and stay with me for a long time after.
BUT... there are some books that, just, I don't know what or why they do it, but grab ahold and don't let go.
Take Harry Potter. We all know what it's like to be utterly beholden to him.
Twilight was another. Now, I know it's hard for a lot of people to even like this series. Obviously I liked it, but it also reached out to me in a unique way. Usually, I don't fall so head-over-heels for love stories. Especially teen love stories. The bottom line is that I loved how the story was told, and the characters, for whatever reason, really spoke to me. I couldn't help it...I liked this series and really, really was captivated by it.
So, *wistful sigh* at last, I have found another series that has magically "spoken" to me like so few others do.
Unlike Harry Potter and Twilight - which I had the fortune of discovering slightly ahead of the curve, ahead of the fame and mania that eventually consumed them - this series has been out for a while (2 decades, to be exact) although, shockingly, it's still continuing. It is a series that is a staggering size: 7 books (thus far), each nearly, or over, 1,000 pages each.
Before I begin, I will say that I only just started book 3. I read book 1 last week and book this week. Since I only took about 4-5 days to read each 1,000 page book, you can tell that they were good.
It's really a bizarre series "on paper" when I try to explain the concept (but so were Harry Potter and Twilight, too) but basically (and this doesn't give anything away) the idea is that the main character, a 20-something former WWII nurse (the first book starts out in 1945, just after WWII ended) happily married and reunited with her husband after their separation during war, are vacationing in Scotland. There, she stumbles into some sort of strange time warp near a mysterious rock formation and finds herself in 1743. In this strange environment, she falls deeply in love, gets caught up in the fate of an entire clan/country, makes, friends, enemies, gets really hurt, gets lost, found, helps people, hurts people, and generally goes on a million insane adventures as she navigates turbulent events in an unfamiliar time and place. But did I mention that she falls deeply in love? Yes, a love story definitely glues this entire adventure together (I hear groans from men reading this...from my casual observation, women tend to like this series more than men, but that's not to say it's chick lit).
Sure, it sounds a bit...cheesy? But like JK Rowling (and -as some of you would agree - Stephenie Meyer) this author, Dianna Gabaldon, has an incredible storytelling gift. The narrative is consistently infectious and absorbing, with perfect dramatic pacing, and the author simply has a beautiful way with words. One startling thing is that she does not have any fear of approaching taboo topics and distasteful sides of humanity (in other words, this is not a sugarcoated historical novel) yet does so in such a surprisingly poetic way.
It's hard to place the series in a specific category. Usually, bookstores categorize them in the general fiction section. The fantasy aspect plays a minimal role - except for the "small detail" in which the main character can travel between centuries, there's really nothing else that is sci-fi/fantasy about these books. (I was afraid she'd fall into the trap of having to make up too much fantasy/sci-fi to go along with the time-traveling adventures, but so far, that is very minimal). They are definitely in the category of historical fiction, since the author clearly painstakingly researched the era in which the main character finds herself and really ties in some rich parts of Scottish (and, although I haven't gotten to them yet, later on, American) history in her books. There is also war and adventure described in vivid detail. There are also aspects of this book that are interestingly ... erm... R? Nc-17? Rated. I usually don't find that detailed and expansive descriptions of intimacy in an otherwise good novel are ever all that well done or welcome in the overall context of a novel, but somehow, like I said, this author has a gift, and it is all well done and works. She also breaches some interesting taboos - I suppose common then, and even now - and describes them in vivid detail, which again is not something I'd typically read about but, again, is done so well. I think her forays with darker and more sinister topics/subjects really add to the overall story, which is rare in historical literature (so often either an author will safely gloss over anything distasteful about the past, or conversely, an author will throw in some nasty aspect of life in history, just for the fun of it).... but not so in these books, everything works well in the overall context of the story and helps it reach greater and more dramatic depths than most literature succeeds to do.
So... I think this series is so well done that I have to give it one of my rarely awarded "Amanda's Choice" awards for books. (hah.)
Gayle, if you have not yet read this book, I will give it to you in Montreal and you can read it on the plane back home (not before....if before, we won't see you the entire week you're here).
The only downside to this series is that it has given me an incredibly stiff neck from reading it for hours on end. I read it every spare moment I have, but am consistently sitting down with it at around 10pm at night and not moving until about 2 or 3 am, then waking at 8-ish and (if I have time) reading it before grabbing my coffee in the morning. I have been wandering around the past 2 weeks a bit like a zombie, with only one singular purpose: to read! and that's how you know a series is good.
Don't get me wrong, I read good books - books that I love, even - all the time. I read Shadow of the Wind last fall, which was fabulous. I recently read a great little Canadian lit historical novel about a girl who came to Montreal from an orphanage in France in the 1500s (if anyone's interested, I'll give it to you when/if you come to PCAPE). So, I definitely read a lot of books that are great and stay with me for a long time after.
BUT... there are some books that, just, I don't know what or why they do it, but grab ahold and don't let go.
Take Harry Potter. We all know what it's like to be utterly beholden to him.
Twilight was another. Now, I know it's hard for a lot of people to even like this series. Obviously I liked it, but it also reached out to me in a unique way. Usually, I don't fall so head-over-heels for love stories. Especially teen love stories. The bottom line is that I loved how the story was told, and the characters, for whatever reason, really spoke to me. I couldn't help it...I liked this series and really, really was captivated by it.
So, *wistful sigh* at last, I have found another series that has magically "spoken" to me like so few others do.
Unlike Harry Potter and Twilight - which I had the fortune of discovering slightly ahead of the curve, ahead of the fame and mania that eventually consumed them - this series has been out for a while (2 decades, to be exact) although, shockingly, it's still continuing. It is a series that is a staggering size: 7 books (thus far), each nearly, or over, 1,000 pages each.
Before I begin, I will say that I only just started book 3. I read book 1 last week and book this week. Since I only took about 4-5 days to read each 1,000 page book, you can tell that they were good.
It's really a bizarre series "on paper" when I try to explain the concept (but so were Harry Potter and Twilight, too) but basically (and this doesn't give anything away) the idea is that the main character, a 20-something former WWII nurse (the first book starts out in 1945, just after WWII ended) happily married and reunited with her husband after their separation during war, are vacationing in Scotland. There, she stumbles into some sort of strange time warp near a mysterious rock formation and finds herself in 1743. In this strange environment, she falls deeply in love, gets caught up in the fate of an entire clan/country, makes, friends, enemies, gets really hurt, gets lost, found, helps people, hurts people, and generally goes on a million insane adventures as she navigates turbulent events in an unfamiliar time and place. But did I mention that she falls deeply in love? Yes, a love story definitely glues this entire adventure together (I hear groans from men reading this...from my casual observation, women tend to like this series more than men, but that's not to say it's chick lit).
Sure, it sounds a bit...cheesy? But like JK Rowling (and -as some of you would agree - Stephenie Meyer) this author, Dianna Gabaldon, has an incredible storytelling gift. The narrative is consistently infectious and absorbing, with perfect dramatic pacing, and the author simply has a beautiful way with words. One startling thing is that she does not have any fear of approaching taboo topics and distasteful sides of humanity (in other words, this is not a sugarcoated historical novel) yet does so in such a surprisingly poetic way.
It's hard to place the series in a specific category. Usually, bookstores categorize them in the general fiction section. The fantasy aspect plays a minimal role - except for the "small detail" in which the main character can travel between centuries, there's really nothing else that is sci-fi/fantasy about these books. (I was afraid she'd fall into the trap of having to make up too much fantasy/sci-fi to go along with the time-traveling adventures, but so far, that is very minimal). They are definitely in the category of historical fiction, since the author clearly painstakingly researched the era in which the main character finds herself and really ties in some rich parts of Scottish (and, although I haven't gotten to them yet, later on, American) history in her books. There is also war and adventure described in vivid detail. There are also aspects of this book that are interestingly ... erm... R? Nc-17? Rated. I usually don't find that detailed and expansive descriptions of intimacy in an otherwise good novel are ever all that well done or welcome in the overall context of a novel, but somehow, like I said, this author has a gift, and it is all well done and works. She also breaches some interesting taboos - I suppose common then, and even now - and describes them in vivid detail, which again is not something I'd typically read about but, again, is done so well. I think her forays with darker and more sinister topics/subjects really add to the overall story, which is rare in historical literature (so often either an author will safely gloss over anything distasteful about the past, or conversely, an author will throw in some nasty aspect of life in history, just for the fun of it).... but not so in these books, everything works well in the overall context of the story and helps it reach greater and more dramatic depths than most literature succeeds to do.
So... I think this series is so well done that I have to give it one of my rarely awarded "Amanda's Choice" awards for books. (hah.)
Gayle, if you have not yet read this book, I will give it to you in Montreal and you can read it on the plane back home (not before....if before, we won't see you the entire week you're here).
The only downside to this series is that it has given me an incredibly stiff neck from reading it for hours on end. I read it every spare moment I have, but am consistently sitting down with it at around 10pm at night and not moving until about 2 or 3 am, then waking at 8-ish and (if I have time) reading it before grabbing my coffee in the morning. I have been wandering around the past 2 weeks a bit like a zombie, with only one singular purpose: to read! and that's how you know a series is good.