Recently read books

I mentioned in a previous post that I was (some might say) obsessively reading fantasy books. Fantasy is the genre I indulge in when I need to relax or escape from whatever is going on in my life at the moment.

Right now, I’m reading books by Raymond E. Feist. I read the first few of his Midkemia books quite a number of years ago (10 or 11, I think) and haven’t read anything since then. I have just finished his two latest (in paperback), Flight of the Nighthawks and Into a Dark Realm, which are set in the same world as those first few books I read years ago. In fact, I seem to have jumped over a good 6 or 8 books in the series to get to these. Normally, I don’t like to do that (I prefer to read a series in the order in which it was written), but I was at the university bookstore and their fantasy selection is rather small so these were the only ones of the series available. Fortunately, the author writes these books in sets of trilogies so that I’ve essentially started at the beginning of a new storyline, so I’m not horribly confused (which would not be relaxing at all). The last book in this most recent trilogy has been released in hardcover, but I’m not sure I want to spend the money on a hardcover right now.

In general, I tend to buy books rather than borrow them from the library. First of all, because I love books and love owning books and love the feel and smell of books so I much prefer to own a book than borrow a book. Second, because I often read books over and over again and it’s easier to do that if I own it. Third (and possibly most importantly), I really suck at returning books to the library. Therefore, I rack up huge fines and in the end it is not much cheaper for me to borrow a book from the library than to buy the book (if it’s a paperback). When I was a kid, I ended up with so many fines the library wouldn’t allow me to check out books anymore (I had no way to pay the fines). So, I would read books in the library. This required me to hide whatever book I was currently reading so that nobody could check it out until I was done. I’m not sure if the librarians ever caught on. The books were always where I had stashed them, so if the librarians did know, they were kind enough to allow me to keep the book on hold, as it were.

At any rate, I’m now going back and reading the books in between the first books I read in the series and the books I just read starting with the trilogy just before this one. Of course, I know which characters make it to the next trilogy so the life-and-death passages are not so gripping, but I’m still enjoying them.