Life Changing books part 3: The Hobbit

Yes, The Hobbit!

Tolkien's first masterpiece can hardly go unrecognized by anyone of my (or virtually any) generation.

Bilbo Baggins' adventures stem from the coaxing of the great Gandalf the Grey to accompany a group of dwarves on a quest for treasure.

The visuals in this book still cause my imagination to salivate every time I think of their journey through Mirkwood, their escape from the wood elves by way of wine barrels and their eventual arrival at the Lonely Mountain, home of Smaug the dragon.

Is it obvious I've read the book a few times? I have.  I've listen to the audio book with my daughter one summer on our 12-hour drive up to Maine. She enjoyed it just as much as I.

The first time I read The Hobbit was far too young to appreciate the world Tolkien had created.  The richness. The depth.  The lineage of characters, the histories of cities, the languages -all of it amazing.  All of it, all the detail and back-story would have been wasted without a good story in which to intertwine Tolkien's creations.  We all know, the story alone is nothing short of spectacular. 


Pure escape into another world from the very first sentence.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

and on it goes and the reader goes right along with it.  Far and few between are the stories that truly allow you to completely immerse yourself into a world and ignore the goings on of reality.  Every time I pick up this book that is exactly what happens. For taking me away again and again and again, The Hobbit is a life-changing tale.


And for your enjoyment, I've attached the trailer to the upcoming movie! It should be a great one -dare I say, the best of the year? 

As always, find interviews, writing samples, videos, contests and more on my re-vamped website.

www.TheNeverChronicles.com

In bookstores 6-5-2012

Life Changing books part 2

"They prowled on but found no mysterious midnight spheres of evil gas tied by mysterious Oriental knots to daggers plunged in dark earth, no maniac ticket takers bent on terrible revenges. The calliope by the ticket booth neither screamed deaths nor hummed idiot songs to itself."

This book was written by one of, if not the greatest living American author. Ray Bradbury.

The book is Something Wicked This Way Comes

This is the first book I ever read as a child that resulted in problems falling asleep.  When I closed my eyes I could hear the calliope playing outside my window and I knew what had rolled into town and was waiting -lurking, just outside, just for me.

What a great and horrifying visualization.   Fall in a small town, a carnival arrives by train in the dead of night.  The entire thing feels wrong...and yet, it's a carnival, they're fun!  Get the kids! Lets go!  If only you knew what really lurked in the shadows of the booths, tents and rides. If only.

This book was the catalyst to my interest in the horror genre.  Stephen King soon followed and my love for the genre has never waned. Without the violence and the gore of a King novel, Ray Bradbury stitched together something just as terrifying -and the subtlety of it all made it even more so. 

“For these beings, fall is ever the normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth....Such are the autumn people.”

Life changing books part 1

Books change lives, we've all heard it.  YA saves -a variation.  I thought it was time to pony up and get specific. So, I dug deep into my memory well and pulled this one up from the depths.