I love reading. A good book is a friendly retreat or a safe, comfortable place you can go back to at a moment’s notice. I’ve got a lot of books on my reading list, several of them at my bedside. This is kind of the problem I’m having at the moment. The only time I have to read (and it’s the most enjoyable time for me) is when I crawl into bed. Unfortunately, I get so comfortable that I will quickly fall asleep, usually within only two or three pages. It doesn’t matter if the book is super-exciting or not, my eyelids will get heavy, I forget what I just read and have to reread paragraphs, and then the book will slip from my hands. I really want to get a nice chair and maybe a table to read at, but I’m not sure where the best place in the house to read would be. I’m pretty sure that this setup will buy me at least 20 pages of quality reading. I think it’s time for a trip to IKEA to see what I can get!

I enjoyed reading Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” a couple years ago and was pretty excited to hear about the movie. Well, I finally got around to watching it (it was in my Netflix queue forever) and thought it was really good. As opposed to Stardust, I thought the screen version of the story matched exactly what I imagined when I was reading the book. Sure, they are real world locations in DaVinci Code, but still, it was so weird that while watching the movie, it seemed like I had seen it before. The movie was just sort of an enhancement of the written story. I guess if you never read the book, the movie might be kind of weak, but I thought it was wonderful. Tom Hanks did a great job as Langdon, and Audrey Tautou was perfect. Now I am looking forward to the film version of “Angels and Demons”, which I thought was even better than Da Vinci Code.

I’m a big fan of Leo Laporte’s podcasts and one of his sponsors that he mentions each week is Audible.com. After hearing the pitch for a while now, I decided to check it out. I figure I can spend $15 a month out of my monthly budget for some audio books. But when I was checking out the membership plans at Audible, I saw that for $14.95 per month, you get 1 credit. This credit is equal to one audio book. Am I crazy, or does $15 for a single audio book sound expensive? Is that the normal rate of a book in audio format? It would seem reasonable to pay about half that amount, or get two credits a month. On a happier note, I see my local library has a bunch of audio books in their catalog that I want to borrow. I’ll be getting some later next week!

For the past few months, I’ve been visiting the Cedar Park Public Library pretty regularly. It’s a relatively small library, but has some excellent materials. The dvd and cd sections are pretty good, and they even have quite a lot of anime, not that I’m really into it. They also have a teen manga section, and an anime/manga club. In fact, I saw a little flyer for a guest speaker, a computer game artist from Bioware Austin, who presented to the club. Check out their events calendar (which is a Google calendar that you can subscribe too) and you can see their upcoming schedule. The kid’s section is really nice as well, and they have lots of computers to work on. And of course, Wi-Fi Internet access is available.

The main stacks have a decent selection. I’ve found a bunch of Neil Gaiman books, and now I am working on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, of which the library has about seven on the shelves. But what I found really cool about the library is their use of technology. They have a self-checkout station where you scan your library card, put your books on a magnetized scanner, and you see the titles appear on the monitor above. When you have scanned all your books/dvd’s/etc, you can either print out a receipt, or have it sent to your email address. This is so cool because I can then just add it to my Google calendar so that I won’t be late returning items. Also, from their website, you can see your library account and even renew books online. You can even browse their catalog online to search for a book. It’s so convenient!

Other cool things at the library that I see on their website are: teen gaming tournaments, Movie Mondays, chess club, Family Gaming Nights, adult knitting club, book clubs, and downloadable audio books. While I love bookstores, libraries are cool too, and free!! If you haven’t been to your library in a while, now’s a great time to visit.

My second favorite genre of books has to be travel essays. I even love to read tourist guidebooks from Frommers and Lonely Planet. I guess it’s the part of my personality that some people descibe as wanderlust. At this point in my life, my real-life traveling is mainly family vacations and doing stuff with the kids. But I always used to love traveling on my own, even if that meant going to a bookstore across town, or taking the train to somewhere I hadn’t been before. Usually I’d just have my camera and cd player with me.

Nowadays I have to travel vicariously through others, and their travel essays. One of my favorite books so far is Jupiter’s Travels, where Ted Simon rides his Triumph motorcycle around the world. It’s an interesting trip, and lots of fun. I’ve also read Vroom With a View by Peter Moore (thx for the recommendattion Nina) where he rides his Vespa around Italy. And continuing with moto-adventures, I read Long Way Round by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. Good stuff!

I’ve read several books about traveling in Japan, like the The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth. It’s fun to relive my time in Japan by reading similar experiences that others have had. It really makes me look to the future when the kids are a little older and we can have more adventurous travels again.

I’ve recently joined the Travel Literature group over at Goodreads.com, and look forward to getting some recommendations as to some more good books. Of course, money is tight, so I’ll check the local library as well, and the used bookshops too. Maybe even try out a book-trading site like Bookmooch.com. Except I don’t like to let my books go. But I am learning to live “lighter” and not keep as much stuff as I used to, so I really should give Bookmooch a try.

Since I am in the midst of a Neil Gaiman kick, and just finished reading Stardust, I decided to rent the movie from Netflix and give it a watch. I guess my hopes were too high based on some reviews I have read and some personal recommendations, but I was really disappointed in the movie. Maybe it was because I thought the book was excellent, and I was hoping for an accurate movie depiction of the exact plot and characters, which wasn’t the case. First off, I have to say the settings that were created for the film were really cool, and visually matched what I had imagined from reading the book. For some reason, though, I imagined the wall separating the town of Wall from Faerie to be a lot higher… makes me want to reread the book.

One of the problems I had with the movie was that the plot really strayed from the book version. (Possible Definite spoiler alert!!) For instance, the whole idea of the market at Wall which happened only once every nine years was barely part of the story. One thing I liked about the book version of the market was the idea of all the exotic characters traveling from around the “world” to visit the market. Also, the magic of when Dunstan and Una met was kind of cool in the book, but in the movie, they just met, and went at it after a minute of dialogue. The book had some interesting dialog, magic spells, then a nighttime rendezvous under the stars. I know you have to hurry things up in a movie version, but I was hoping that Stardust would be more of a drawn-out, epic tale a la Lord of the Rings, rather than The Princess Bride (both of which I loved).

The movie also did not explore the whole “real world vs. faerie world” aspect, which was important in the book. In the movie, when Dunstan, and later on Tristran (Tristan in the movie, btw) crossed the wall, it was nothing significant. We just know that there is a guard who says you can’t cross. But what we don’t know is that Tristran is half Faerie, and that he hasn’t really fit in with the normal population of Wall. During his adventure in Faerie, he sort of rediscovers himself as belonging to that world.

Some parts of the book’s plot were altogether missing from the movie. For instance, when Tristran sets off to find the star, he meets an old man who journeys with him and they have a mini-adventure in which some of Tristran’s faerie “skills” are revealed. After an overland journey, in which you get a sense of the magical world, he finally finds the fallen star.  In the movie version, Tristran is in his house in Wall and receives a magic candle from his unknown mother, and left with his father to give to him. They light the candle, and whoosh! Tristran shoots through the air and literally falls on the fallen star, who he thinks is his mother. The book version was much more interesting, because Tristran set out to just find the fallen star, and had no idea about his mother until it is revealed much later. Also, the part about the sky pirates was strange. In the book, Tristran and Yvain are stranded on a cloud and picked up by an airship crewed by a friendly group of “lightning hunters”. They mend Yvain’s broken leg and the couple become part of the crew. In the movie, the airship is crewed by a bunch of pirates, and the captain is a man living upon his reputation as a scoundrel but who is in fact a man who like to dress up in women’s clothing. Yes, bizarre!

In the book version, near the end, when the plot returns to the market at Wall, the complications and conflicts work themselves out in really clever and charming ways. The epilogue is pretty cool in that Tristran grows old in time and dies, and Yvain, being a star, keeps on living and rules the kingdom, but always looks up to the moon and stars with longing. In the movie version, in true Hollywood style, there’s a chase scene and a large fight scene at the witch’s palace. The epilogue has Tristran and Yvain using the candle to take their final resting places as stars in the sky.

Also, the movie didn’t represent Tristran’s object of desire, Victoria, in the same way as the book. The movie portrayed her as shallow, vain and somewhat mean. The book had her as beautiful, but conflicted, yet with a good heart filled with regret for sending Tristran out on his fool’s errand.

Lastly, I thought that there were some problems with the casting. Charlie Cox’s portrayal of Tristran was excellent, and Claire Danes was great as Yvain. I was bothered by Michelle Pfeiffer’s character, though, because she can’t do a British accent. It just sounded weird. On the other hand, Claire Danes’ accent was entirely convincing. Robert DeNiro was ok, but really, you can’t get into the character because you are thinking, “That’s Robert DeNiro”. And kind of the same thing with Michelle Pfeiffer. The actors who played the princes of Stormhold were excellent, and Ricky Gervais was hilarious.

I mentioned that the movie was more like Princess Bride than Lord of the Rings, which disappointed me a bit. But some of the Princess Bride-y scenes were really good. The way they did the ghost princes was clever and super funny, and Ricky Gervais was reminiscent of Billy Crystal’s character in Princess Bride. I was really laughing during Gervais’ scene.

Like I said, I was disappointed in the movie version as compared to the book, but I feel that this is a case of, “I shoulda seen the movie first”. If I had, I think I would have liked it more. I do think that Bay and Koa will like it although some scenes might be a little scary for them. So my recommendation is to see the movie first, then read the book!

I just recently began reading Neil Gaiman and I am loving his work. I’ve heard his name here and there, I guess because of The Sandman, but because I’m not really into comics, I didn’t give it much thought. But then I started seeing posts on blogs or maybe a meme about reading, and people kept mentioning his name. I did a little search on Amazon and it seemed like I’d be into his books, so I went to the local bookstore and picked up Neverwhere. I was immediately hooked! I can’t really explain so well why I like his writing, but I’ll just say that it’s because it’s funny, has magic mixed in with a bit of reality, and the main character is easily identified with (at least by me).

I finished reading Neverwhere over Winter vacation and then found Anansi Boys at the library and read that in a few days. That book is lots of fun! Another loveable loser protagonist who encounters a strange new reality. Next up was a used copy of Stardust, which I enjoyed more than Anansi Boys, and maybe as much as Neverwhere. It’s a real fairytale, which blends the real world with the fantasy world. I now have the Stardust movie on its way from Netflix, followed by the TV version of Neverwhere. Next up on the reading list is American Gods (currently shipping) and Coraline, which I ordered for Bay. Now I’m thinking of heading to the store to have a look at The Sandman.

It took me a while to jump on the Neil Gaiman bandwagon, but I’m glad I did. I am enjoying it so much. BTW, if you are on Goodreads and want to be friends, let’s hook up!

I have a bunch of books that I would like to read, but the laptop/Internet combo sucks up all my free time. But that’s only part of the problem. The other part is that I am reading too many books at once, and can never get through any of them. So, I have decided to just read one at a time, all the way through. Hopefully I can work through my stack of books with more regularity. And also, maybe limit my laptop time. It’s just that there are too many things I want to do in the couple hours a night I have between when the kids go to bed and when I fall asleep: books, browse Internet, Japanese dorama, and video/computer games. But I am gonna concentrate on books for now.

Speaking of books, I have been cataloging my books on Goodreads, which is a pretty cool site. There are a few other sites like this, but I like Goodreads the best. Plus I have a couple friends using it too and it’s fun to see what they are reading. If you are using it, why don’t we add eachother as friends?

A few weeks ago, with the help of my friend Tony, I started to get interested in the new MMO, Age of Conan. Since it wasn’t out yet, I decided to start re-reading the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. I first got a used copy of the Ace Fantasy “Conan”, which features some great stories, including The Tower of the Elephant and The Thing in the Crypt. The beginning of the movie Conan the Barbarian, where Conan is being chased by wolves, then falls into the cave and finds the sword, is loosely based on The Thing in the Crypt. The original story is much better, of course, since (spoiler alert!) Conan not only finds the sword, but the skeleton of the sword’s previous owner comes to life and he and Conan have a classic fight scene. I haven’t read all the stories in this paperback, but keep it in my camera bag for times when I have a few free moments.

Last week I picked up The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, which is a larger compilation of early Conan stories, written by Robert E. Howard himself. Many Conan stories were written by other Fantasy authors, and supposedly many of them were pretty bad, so I felt good reading these original stories. Howard’s writing is straightforward and refreshing, getting right to the meat of the stories. And the stories are great! There’s tons of action, of course, but the settings and characters are so fantastic. The world that Conan lives in is brutal and savage, filled with warriors, thieves, and sorcerers, all wanting wealth and power. Conan is no different. In some stories, he is a simple thief, in others he is a fugitive, and in others, he is King Conan of Aquilonia. The stories are not in chronological order, and Howard didn’t write them as a Conan biography. He wrote them in the same manner as someone would retell parts of his or her own life, taking stories from here and there. It’s actually pretty cool to read them in this way. Although Conan’s status changes, his basic outlook and determination is constant.

Now that the Age of Conan game is out, we have been playing it a bit, and I think it is a great MMO. The graphics are really awesome! A nice change from the cartoony WoW style (which I like too). I have just left the starter town of Tortage, and traveled to the cities of Old Tarantia and Khemi. They really capture the feeling of the books. I read that the people who created the game did a lot of research into the Conan stories, and it really shows. I had read a passage the other night about how the city of Khemi looks, and when I visited the game version, it was spot on. Besides the overall atmosphere, the combat in the game matches the brutality of the books. Age of Conan is the first major MMO to receive an M (mature) rating, for its gore and nudity. There really is a lot of blood being spilled in combat, and occasionally your character will pull of a “fatality” move, where your opponent dies a fantastic death, sometime with his head flying off. It’s really kind of cool. (There is a setting to turn off the excessive gore and nudity, if you want) My main character is a ranger, whose main ability is archery, but also has some cool melee skills. It’s a really good game, but of course as an MMO, you gotta be careful not to play too much!

By the way, I am a huge fan of the first Conan movie, which I feel is a classic. It also captured the feel of the Robert E. Howard stories quite well. One thing that I noticed is that the archery in the game feels very much like Subotai’s archery in the movie. I like that.

If you are into Fantasy novels at all, I totally recommend picking up a Conan paperback. It may seem a little cliché, but Conan is one of the true originals of the genre. It’s kind a strange to think that these stories were written back in the 1930’s because they are still so fresh! And Robert E. Howard lived in the Hill Country of Texas, by the way. In fact, his vision of Cimmeria (Conan’s homeland) was largely based off of the Hill Country landscape. The biggest difference is that Conan’s Cimmeria was frozen, while the Texas Hill Country gets super-hot!