Medieval Bookworm

To all my American visitors, happy Thanksgiving!  This is my second year not celebrating.  I was tempted to go all out myself, but to be honest, I may be the only American that’s not crazy about Thanksgiving food, and my family is too far away right now for me to bother.  Regardless, I hope you are all having a fantastic day, whenever you read this, if you even do!

It’s easy to forget just how many things I have to be thankful for.  When my brother passed away in 2005, I realized just how precious life is, and I am grateful every day for the continuing health of all of my surviving family members, those who have been with me throughout my life and those I’ve just added in the past two months.  I’m grateful that my parents continue to accept my distance from them, and are willing to support me and love me no matter what I decide to do in the future.  I’m thankful for my friends, who remain supportive and keep close to me even though they are on another continent, making special arrangements to see me when I’m home, and making my life a whole lot less lonely than it could be.

I’m extremely thankful for my husband and for the fact that we can be together after years of a very long distance relationship.  I am still very nervous about the prospect of getting my visa and hope everything goes smoothly, but whatever happens we are going to deal with it together.  I’ve been involved in a number of online communities over the years and I have seen relationships like ours fail time and time again, so I am proud of us for overcoming the distance and the limitations and making it work.

I’m grateful for much smaller things, for my newly regained internet access, for the fact that my husband’s company has remained in business through some tough times recently, for my education and the fact that I don’t find even the most difficult of books intimidating.  I’m thankful that my parents read to me every night as a child and that teachers continued to provide me good and thoughtful books to read over the years, turning me into an eclectic and capable reader.  I’m grateful for this blog, and even more for all of you who keep on reading it and letting me know that you’re out there.  I’m grateful for this community and the friends I’ve made, and hope that the coming year lets me actually meet some of you.

I’m grateful that for only the second time in my life, I’ve finished something that I can call a novel, and that I will continue to write and see where it takes me in the coming months and years.  It may be a piece of garbage, but I can make it better, and I know now how my writing has changed since I was a child.  I’m even grateful that I had the spare time to make the task of writing almost ridiculously easy.  Honestly, I needed the direction, and now that it’s over, I’m not sure what to do next until I get a job.  Perhaps I will write another novel, except a more publication length, before I tackle fixing up this one.

For right now, I’m going to go be thankful for my books, as I plan on reading one, and that we can afford to go out for curry tonight.  I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

It’s probably been about a week or so since I sat down and thought about a blog post.  This is very odd for me as I’m normally antsy about not having much non-review content around here.  I know I post a ridiculous number of reviews (and I read a ridiculous number of books) so I do like to post other things every so often.

I’ve been back in the UK since Sunday morning.  I’ve mostly existed in a fog of exhaustion since then.  I spent most of Sunday sleeping, although my fiance and I did manage to fill out our application for our Certificate of Approval.  If we’re accepted, we can finally get married.  We are planning on mid-to-late October and just hoping that there is still time for us when/if our application is approved.  I spent most of Monday traveling more and then working on my dissertation chapter, which I sadly neglected while I was home.  I had a great two weeks, most of which I spent with my parents since I won’t be seeing them again for so long and I didn’t have much time.  I did have an amazing day with a couple of my friends from college in New York City.  Here’s a shot from Central Park:

I did manage to read quite a few review books, which had piled up while I was gone, but I haven’t been as speedy with the reviews as I would have liked.  I have 10 reviews to write and I read two of the books before I even got home, so I should probably get cracking.  My dissertation chapter is my top priority at the moment, though, and needs to be finished by tonight (I’ve done most of it so this isn’t a problem), so they may be waiting a little longer.

I also wanted to point everyone’s attention over to Book Blogger Appreciation Week, a weeklong celebration of book blogging, complete with giveaways and awards.  This event, one of My Friend Amy‘s wonderful ideas, is a ton of fun and introduced me to so many new bloggers the first time around last year.  I even won best history/historical fiction blog, about which I was incredibly thrilled and flattered.  Now that I’m a bit more informed about the blogosphere, I’m even more amazed, and I have several theories as to which blog will win this award in September.  Nominations for awards are now open and I encourage you all to go over there, register, vote, and get excited!

Lastly, just a quick reminder that I am still running two giveaways.  You can enter here for a signed, autographed copy of Pope Joan, and here for a paperback copy of The Spies of Warsaw. I’ll be announcing another giveaway tomorrow, so stay tuned.

As we learned in last week’s Booking Through Thursday, today is Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers day.

When I was fifteen, I had trouble finding new books to read.  I was too old for YA fiction, or so I thought, but my introduction into adult fiction had mostly consisted of the romance novels my mom liked and the classics I read in school.  The book fairs and book orders had long ended in school and I wasn’t sure where to look to expand my reading tastes.  The kid who sat next to me in Russian class was always reading, though.  So one day, when he had a big fat fantasy novel in his hand, I asked him about it.  He was reading one of the books in the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.  He told me about it and I thought it sounded awesome, like the books I used to love as a kid but better.  The next time I went to the mall with my parents, I sought out the fantasy shelf and found The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.  I stood there and opened it up.

Almost immediately, I was sucked in to the book.  I forgot that I was in a bookstore.  I forgot that I could be in people’s way.  I wanted to know who these characters were and what happened to them.  I inhaled that series.  I somehow got my parents to buy me the first nine and I read them all in record time.  My TBR pile was small back then and right next to my bed; I have a vivid mental image of several of these huge tomes sitting next to me, waiting for me to read them.  It was wonderful and epic fantasy has been one of my favorite genres since then.

I have fallen in love with plenty of other genres since then and even returned to reading romance novels.  These days it seems that I even like science fiction.  Fantasy, though, edged me into a wider world, with huge stories, deep characters, and fascinating new worlds.  Around the same time I discovered Japanese RPGs with their own gigantic worlds and complex characters.  It was like my world was exploding.   It takes an investment of time to read these books, but I’ve found it to be so worth it.  As Nymeth so eloquently stated in her post on fantasy today, just because it’s set in another world doesn’t mean it can’t teach us something about ourselves.