Books, Books, Books!

Lately over the last few months, I've actually started reading books. Books, not manga. Mind you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with manga. I love manga to death, however, I've been slacking on my manga because I just don't feel like reading them at the moment.

Over the last few months, I believe since September or October, I've read 4 books all at least 400 pages long. Specifically I've been reading the Harry Potter series. I'm positively in love with this series. I'm becoming more and more the HP fangirl everyday.

I borrowed the books from Jeremy, and first started reading Goblet of Fire, because I heard there are quite the number of differences in the book vs. the movie. It took me a while to finish the book, but I finished it. I then followed with book 5, Order of the Phoenix, by far the longest HP book, I believe hardback was like 900+ pages. I finished that book with in 9 days. It's by far my most favorite HP book and am eagerly anticipating the movie release this summer in July! I then followed with the most recent book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Very good book as well. I took my time with it and I think I finished it with in 2 weeks or so. I then went backwards and read Prisoner of Azkaban, because Jeremy informed me that that book was the most different vs the movie, and I would have to agree. I enjoyed reading the book more than the movie and am quite upset how different the movie was and the changes they made.

Eventually I'll read books 1 & 2, Sorcerer's Stone & Chamber of Secrets, but that's after I finished reading a few other books, which I'll mention later.

In addition to my HP fangirlism of reading the books, I'm also addicted to the fan based HP Podcasts. Mainly the one from http://www.mugglecast.com (mugglenet.com). I've listened to 20+ of their podcasts and am getting the earlier episodes that I've missed. They are about an hour long type talk shows of these Potter fans around the world and they discuss theories, opinions, discussions and debates about elements of the books, future books, and what the upcoming movies might bring. Yes very geeky stuff, and I'm damn proud of it! Listening to this podcast has kept me amused many times during the day as I work. I also recently downloaded another Harry Potter podcast and it's pretty decent and found more stuff to keep me entertained during the day! I need to find more podcasts like this. It's refreshing listening to "talk radio" at times vs music during the day.

Currently the new book I'm reading is Eragon. Yeah, the book that was recently made into a movie. Jeremy and I watched the movie, intrigued because it's a fantasy type movie and nothing is cool like a movie about dragons! ^_^ The movie was pretty decent, at times I feel the plot was rushed and not enough character development of the main character, Eragon and the relationship of him and other characters, still overall, enjoyable.

Jeremy and I both picked up our own copy, because we figured, they are going to make a sequel of this movie, because the book series is a trilogy, and it would be cool to see what happens next. Also the author, Christopher Paolini, wrote this book at the age of nineteen. NINETEEN! Geez. That's pretty amazing for a best seller. Anyways I'm currently 1/4 way through the book and already I enjoy the book more than the movie. Many differences from the movie and hope that as I read further, I find out that they butchered the movie vs the book. But definitely a very enjoyable book. Currently Jeremy and I are kinda on a race to see who finishes the book first and I'm ahead of him by far, but then again he hasn't really started reading, but he's a fairly fast reader vs me, so I guess over the next few days I will be reading a lot.

But yeah, I'm on a current binge of reading books. I already have half the year planned on my reading. After I finish reading Eragon, I'm gonna pick up the sequen, Eldest. Then I'll read books 1 & 2 of Harry Potter, then reread Order of the Phoenix before the movie comes out and reread Half-Blood Prince, because it's very highly speculated that the final Harry Potter book, Deathly Hallows is coming out early July and I want to have the story fresh in my head. After that I might get into the Dan Brown series. He's more commonly known for his book, The Da Vinci Code. I might read the Da Vinci Code, but I've seen the movie and I'm not sure if I want to read that book, however there is a prequel called Angels & Demons, that Jeremy raves is great. So another book to add to the list.

So yeah, books. Reading. I'm honestly very impressed with myself from my recent addiction to reading books. It feels very refreshing reading books and enjoying them and doing something different vs playing video games or WoW. From all the reading, I can honestly say I've read more in the past few months than I possibly read in all of high school.

I can only hope I find more books down the road that will keep my interest in reading.