Books of the Month

I love to read.  Have ever since I was little.  When my school used to have the MS Read-a-Thons I always had one of the highest totals.  You'd get sponsors for every book you read, and I know at least once I had 100 books read.

When the old high school library had a book sale, I bought grocery bags full of books.  (We had two libraries - the grade school and the high school.  You had to be in junior high to use the high school library, so it was awe-inspiring to go into the big library to buy books.)

Sadly, my librarians were never this good-looking

And I never did come across this book

When a friend emailed me about a $100 gift card giveaway from Half-Price Books, I signed up for the chance.  What a perfect thing for a bibliophile!    It was part of the company's Resolution Program, and when you signed up it asked you how many books you planned to read this year.  You had a choice of a book a month for 12 books in the year, or a book a week, for a total of 52.  I didn't think I'd be able to read a book a week, so I did the book a month.

Well, I've already topped that.  I just finished my fourth book this month.  So I decided to keep track of how many books I can read a month, just for the fun of it.  I'll post the totals here, along with the titles of the books.  I'm not going to wait for each month to start to start a new book; I'll just note the book I started at the end of the previous month.

This month I finished up the DragonLance books that I have.  Last month I read the Chronicles, which is the first trilogy.  ("Dragons of Autumn Twilight," "Dragons of Spring Dawning" and "Dragons of Winter Night")  This month I read the second trilogy, the Legend series, "Time of the Twins," "War of the Twins," "Test of the Twins," and the one book from the Tales trilogy that I have, "The War of the Lance," which is a collection of short stories by various authors.

The DragonLance Chronicles are very good; I've read them several times.  Written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, they're set on the world of Krynn, which is populated by humans, dwarves, elves, kender and magic-users.  The first three books tell the story of the Heroes of the Lance, a group of unlikely companions who must band together to stop the spread of evil across their world.  Led by Tanis Half-Elven, and occasionally aided by a befuddled wizard named Fizban, they have to learn to work together, despite their differences, to defeat Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness, who is trying to cross through the Portal into Krynn.

 

The second trilogy, the Legend series, deals with two of those heroes - warrior Caramon Magere and his twin brother, the dark mage Raistlin.  Raistlin desires to become the most powerful wizard on all of Krynn, and challenge the Dark Queen to a fight to the death.  Caramon (accidentally accompanied by Tasslehoff Burrfoot, the irrepressible kender) must travel back in time to stop his brother from bringing Takhisis through the Portal and destroying the world.



Now I'm starting "Cabin in the Woods," the novelization of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's topsy-turvy horror film.

You think you know the story...

 After that I plan to reread Amber Benson's Calliope Reaper-Jones series so I'm ready when the fifth and final book, "Golden Age of Death," comes out in a couple months.  I like to refresh myself on the story before each new book comes out.  I'm going to be sad when this series ends; it's smart, funny and a joy to read.  It starts with "Death's Daughter," which is about Callie, a young woman who really just wants to pursue her dream of being in the fashion industry, but instead finds herself having to take over her father's business when he and several board members are kidnapped.  The small hitch?  Her father just happens to be Death. 

The lovely, sweet, funny and talented Amber Benson, with two of the books

Jan. 30 - Just finished "Cabin in the Woods," so that's five books in one month. Not a bad start!  Amber's series is next.  Amazon lists February 26th as the release date of "Golden Age of Death."

Preparing for a live show

Coming up next month is the Sleigh Rally Live Show in Columbus, Wisconsin, so I thought I'd give you a little look into how I go about getting ready for a model horse show.