BOOKS#001 The story so far...

I never read all that much before meeting Claire (my girlfriend http://paran0ir.blogspot.com), but she's opened up a world to me that I will never shut out.

I was one of these people that would prefer the film version of things, too impatient too read the "boring long winded" version. Oh how young and stupid I was. Now, you wouldn't catch me on my way to work without a book in front of me.

The commute is where I get 99% of my reading done. In fact, I'm not sure what I'd do if I worked close to home!

Since I started reading books I have opened my mind to many different lives and experiences, such as:

• Roland's journey towards the Dark Tower (Stephen King - The Dark Tower series)
• Harry's adventures at Hogwarts (J K Rowling - Harry Potter series)
• Alex Cross fighting crime (James Patterson - Alex Cross novels)
• Dr. Luke Rhinehart's dice therapy (George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man)
  

...and a few more odds and ends here and there.

I never thought I would be one of these people that would read the same book more than once. I never saw the point. The Dark Tower series however, deserve the attention of all.

As Stephen King writes:

Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again.

This quote is from "The Stand", the latest book I have added to my "Books I have read" list (and a damn important one in there too). Anybody who has read the Dark Tower series can probably understand the significance of this quote and why it made me smile so much when I read it.

And that's the point. Whether it's because I notice cross overs in Stephen King novels (in particular with The Dark Tower), or it's something a character says while having sex in a Ben Elton book, I get pleasure from reading.

5 years ago, this would not ever have happened.

Claire, thank you.


M