Books, books, books

Hey guys, it’s Charlie! Today the topic is books: books that I love, books I’ve read recently, and books I think you should read. So settle in, because I’m going to try to keep this post short, but it will probably be really long (that’s what she said!). Ok, I love fantasy and science fiction books, so I love The Lord of the Rings (big surprise, right?) I also love every book R.A. Salvatore has written. Seriously. I really love the Dragonlance novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I haven’t read one I didn’t like. I really enjoyed The Last Season: A Team in Search of its Soul by Phil Jackson, which is about his last season with the Lakers before he retired. Of course, he had what is now known as Favre Syndrome and came back to coach them to a championship (this isn’t in the book, I’m just a huge Lakers fan.) If you’re a Lakers fan or just a basketball fan, you should really pick this book up. I recently read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, which is a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it. I’ve started reading other books by Cory, and he is an awesome science fiction author, and if you’re a sci-fi fan, go get a Cory Doctorow book. You won’t be disappointed. I also just finished reading Just A Geek and Memories of the Future by Wil Wheaton. I’ve got to tell ya, Wil is just an incredibly funny guy. I laughed out loud so many times while reading Memories of the Future, which was kind of bad, because I read it on the Stanza app on my iPod while I was out and about. I got a few strange looks… but I didn’t care because I was busting a gut. The stories on his blog and in his books: Dancing Barefoot, Sunken Treasure, The Happiest Days of our Lives, and Just A Geek are unflinchingly honest and laugh-out-loud funny. So, go buy everything Wil Wheaton has ever written, and follow him on Twitter (if you have one; if you don’t have a Twitter, I only have one question: What’s wrong with you?) And don’t hate him just because he played Wesley Crusher, because that’s profiling, and profiling is wrong. Another book that everybody should read is Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. It’s just a great book, and Selby’s writing style is really innovative and all-around fantastic. So, these are books I love and that I think you should read. Go buy them right now. Trust me, I’m famous… ok, I’m not really famous, but you should seriously go read some of these books. I am going to leave you with an excerpt from R.A. Salvatore’s Sea of Swords.

We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope – nay, the iron will! – to find a memory in every action.To be alive, under sunshine or under starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance every step, be they through gardens of bright flowers or through deep snows.

The young know this truth so many of the old, or even middle-aged, have forgotten. Such is the source of the anger, the jealousy, that so many exhibit toward the young. So many times have I heard the common lament, “If only I could go back to that age, knowing what I now know!” Those words amuse me profoundly, for in thruth, the lament should be, “If only I could reclaim the lust and joy I knew then!”

That is the meaning of life, I have come at last to understand, and in that undrestanding, I have indeed found that lust and that joy. A life of twenty years where that lust and joy, where that truth is understood might be more full than a life of centuries with head bowed and shoulders slumped.

I love those three paragraphs. Let them roll around in your head. Signing off! Bye!