22 March 2017

Who am I kidding? I love series!

For the longest time (certainly for the lifetime of this blog, at a minimum), I have been anti-series. I talk about it in this post back in 2015 when I picked up Percy Jackson against my better judgment. Since then, I've picked up Game of Thrones (oh excuse me, A Song of Ice and Fire), the Jack Taylor novels, Bright Empires, and maybe one other? I forget now.

So I'm officially giving up on my anti-series postulating. Here, I lay it to rest.
Mostly because I've started two new series (and restarted an old one) and I don't need to hear about it!

I finally picked up The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. It has been on my list for a little while after seeing a friend put it on their list. I finished it in a few days, and I fell in love almost as soon as I opened it. Irene is a junior librarian at The Library, and most of her job involves going into alternate worlds to obtain specific books, either to preserve the link from The Library to that particular world or to prevent "inappropriate technology" from causing trouble in the world. I tried to beg, borrow, and anything else short of actually stealing to get my hands on the next book as soon as humanly possible. I ordered it from the public library, through interlibrary loan at the office, AND as an ebook through the public library's digital collection ALL at the same time. I've read the first three and have to wait until December for the fourth. THIS is the reason I used to despise reading series. The wait. The worst. Ugh.

On a whim (and in post-The Invisible Library slump), I picked up a book called Evil Librarian. After reading about librarians (mostly) being the good guys, let's get a baddie in the mix. It felt a bit sophomoric (I mean, it does take place in a high school, so totally appropriate), but the story was still very good. Recommend it to the theatre/book nerd/Buffy fan in your life. You won't be sorry (and neither will they). I didn't realize it was a series until a passage in the book made me think, "There's no way they are just going to end this after one book...Oh great. Well done. You've picked another series. What other life long rules can you break in a month?" It wasn't nearly as good as The Invisible Library (in my opinion), but I'm still probably going to go after book two when I have time.

In TV news, I've started The West Wing and holy crap. How have I not seen this show before now? It is GOLD. I mean, pure gold. It is smart, it is funny. It is quick and witty in a way I was not expecting. The characters are strong, and the story is good. I cry at least once a season, mostly during the Christmas episodes. I'm only at the beginning of season 3, but I've started trying to ration my episodes, so I don't finish too quickly. In an effort to keep the show from really ending, I've also started listening to The West Wing Weekly podcast. The guys (Josh Malina and Hrishi Hirway) go through each episode in exquisite nerdy detail. Josh will join the cast of TWW soon, but I haven't gotten to his part yet. They ask on actors from the show to guest and talk about their time on set. They also talk about some of the political points that are brought up on the show and have real life congressmen and people in the political world come on and speak to how things actually work.
I love love love it and the show and recommend y'all get moving on this so we can talk about it!

Believe it or not, that basically catches you up on the reading I've been doing this month. And will you believe it? I'm still ahead of my reading goal! Pro-series. Ahead of my reading goal. Look out. Something big is coming!

What are you guys reading? Anything so good you've lost sleep because of it?


2 comments:

DebRiss said...

Just binge read Big Little Lies. I started watching the HBO series and I just couldn't wait any longer...the suspense was too much. So I ran out, got the book and....now I know. Must say, I did like the book but I am glad I started watching the show first. I can still appreciate the show on its own as it is just different enough from the book that I can view them as separate. So I recommend both.

laura said...

Thanks for the tip about the show! I read and loved the book and was a little nervous about the show, even though so many great people are in it.