Taven Moore » Reading For Fun and Profit

Star Wars and Lord of the Rings – Loose Connections

Tami — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:03:52 +0000

So there’s this blog called Loose Connections. It doesn’t have many posts, but there are two that are just PHENOMINAL.

Lord of The Rings

I have not read the Lord of the Rings, I’ve only seen the movie (this is the point where several of you make hex symbols in my direction).

That being said, I have heard a great many people say that the lack of the Tom Bombadil character in the movies did not diminish them.

After reading Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil, I can honestly say I am BLOWN AWAY. Knowing just how much detail was crammed into the Silmarillion, I can only say that it seems incredibly possible that the author of this theory hit the nail on the head.

May I one day write something so sneakily awesome.

Star Wars

The second awesome theory on the blog references R2-D2 from Star Wars, hinting at a much tighter connection between the older (better, *cough*) trilogy and the newer (lamer, *coughcough*) one.

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope follows the same logic leaps to describe a network of intelligence that sheds new light on the actions of both Artoo and Chewbacca. It’s enough to make me want to watch the whole series again (fast-forwarding through most of the first episodes should make it take a lot less time).

Guild Wars 2 Manifesto

Dog-Eared Old Friends

Tami — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:15:06 +0000

I’d say most of us here love books. Probably have one or two (or three or four) bookshelves lined with adventures and stories and knowledge cultivated through the years.

What books have stayed with you? Which ones did you love as a child? Which ones kept you smiling through high school, and which ones do you STILL get a little nostalgic when you see the title standing there in your bookshelves, waiting patiently for you to read it again?

I’d like to restrict the list to titles you found before high school, if possible.

Tami’s List

Beauty, by Robin McKinley. A retelling of Beauty and the Beast, this was the book that made me fall in love with writing. [ Amazon Link ]

Lad, a Dog by Albert Payson Terhune. This is the story of Lad, a standard collie, and the trials and tribulations that took he and his family through wars, dog shows, thieves, and puppies. [ Amazon Link ]

Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders. Based on a true story of a dog cruelly mutilated as a puppy and raised by a family that loves him, this was the first book on animal cruelty that I truly understood. [ Amazon Link ]

Watership Down by Richard Adams. This one came later in my list than the others, but follows a group of rabbits as they try to rebuild their warren in the face of humanity, but also more dangerous rabbits. This is still my favorite book ever. [ Amazon Link ]

No related posts.

Audio Book Magic

Tami — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:14:20 +0000

Unwelcome Change

I grew up with paper books, flipping pages and reading words. The thought of having someone read TO me has been distasteful for a long time. What if I wanted to go back and re-read a particular section? What if I wanted to skim through some boring bits to get to the good stuff? What would I DO while listening? I imagined myself sitting on the couch, hands held awkwardly as I tried to figure out what the hell to do with them.

I love the ACT of reading. I don’t view an audiobook as a shortcut – a great way to avoid having to squint at words and flip pages. Instead, it seems a hindrance to the way I typically enjoy a book. Some OTHER person injecting themselves into my reading time and inflecting the story with THEIR interpretation just feels … awkward. An uninvited guest at a dinner table, so to speak.

However, I don’t have as much time for reading these days as I used to. Ah, the golden days of high school, when responsibilities were pretty much insignificant and days stretched before me without things like work and bills and cooking and cleaning to gobble up my free time.

Audio Books of Yore

Friends told me how much they loved audio books. How they allowed for books to be consumed while doing other tasks (such as commuting or cleaning or cooking or even working in a quiet enough environment).

I tried a few only to immediately dislike swapping tapes or cds every hour or so. The cds would be scratched or the tapes not rewound.

I discarded the notion and simply savored my reading time where I could steal it.

Recently, though, I tried again and found that swapping cds was a small price to pay for an audiobook’s company on a long car drive.

Audio Books of Now

Then a librarian showed me their new mp3 player audio books – just plug in your own earbuds and the tiny device could be plunked down in your pocket for the duration. No cds, no tapes, no extra equipment required.

With their help, I finally read Hunger Games.

Five hours in, I finally abandoned my distrust of audio books.

Now, halfway through Poison Study on my little ipod shuffle (thank you, Audible.com!) I feel compelled to evangelize.

Audio books will never, ever replace the feel of READING. My eyes ache to seek the words the narrator is speaking, and I’m not sure I’ll ever quite get over the feeling that something is MISSING as I have a book read to me.

On the other hand, I’m READING again. Maybe not “reading” – but I am consuming stories. I am enfolded into the world of books without having to desperately carve out a few uninterrupted hours to devour a book.

There’s a magic in that. I love books, and being so far from them for so long has weighed on me.

Give Them A Chance

If you’ve discounted audio books as I did, but miss READING, please give them another chance. Libraries are free, and I know the mp3 audio book format is growing in popularity.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve left my heroine in a tree with pursuers below her. I think I can see her safe to the ground by the time I’m done shopping for groceries.