Randomness #1: Reminiscing and Books

If you read my (ridiculously long) post during Dewey’s Read-A-Thon you would have come across one of the mini-challenges I participated in called Literacy Mini-Challenge. The point of that challenge was to celebrate the reading child in some way, I chose to do so by discussing my relationship with reading when I was younger. For those who don’t want to scroll through that crazy-long post here is what I wrote:

I was a very lucky kid when it came to reading and books in general. My mom is a high school teacher and my grandmother was a librarian, so my love of books began almost immediately when my mom and grandmother would read to me before I learned how to myself. A little after I turned four years old I started reading by myself, small books at first, but chapter books followed soon after. Reading to me still reminds me of that time with my family, even if we weren’t reading the same thing it was a closeness that we shared and still do at times. I also remember feeling that because I could read I was growing up, I was capable of doing the same things as the people I looked up to the most and that made me feel special. I’ve never lost that love for reading, books fascinate me in a way that nothing else can and I am forever thankful to my family for sharing that gift with me.

As you can see my love of books stems from an upbringing that allowed me to surround and immerse myself in them from a very early age. Now, you may be wondering why I am bringing this up again. I went with my mother and sister to a 2-day gigantic book sale held by Half-Price Books where EVERYTHING was 3$ or less. I should have taken pictures of the event itself to give you an idea of the sheer size but alas I did not. You walk into this giant area where on rows upon rows of connected long tables there are thousands of boxes of books. There were also rows of cds and dvds but my focus was solely on the books. Of course, if they are offering them at 3$ or less you won’t find many new books, but the selection was still quite astonishing. How does this connect with reminiscing? It was the kind of books I found and ended up purchasing. Did someone ask for pictures? Why yes I do have some!

As a kid I immersed myself in fantasy books and as such there were three main series of books that I loved dearly. (I apologize for the photo quality, all I have is my phone =/)

The Pendragon Series by D.J. MacHale:

The Star Wars Books:

The Dragonlance Books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman:

Only the Pendragon books could be considered a true “series” just based on length and having one true ending. The Dragonlance and Star Wars books, amazingly, are still being continued with no true end in sight. I don’t see the interest, especially in the Star Wars books, dying out anytime soon so they will keep being written for quite some time.

All three sets of books captivated me when I was younger, sending me into different times and realms, filling my head with intergalactic battles, a variety of alien races and even a romance or two. My imagination was at its peak while I was reading these books and I wish I could thank the authors for that with more than just a blog post.

With all of the new books out there now, and a seemingly never-ending stream of ones being written as I type these words I can see how it would be hard to go back and read some of the books that you enjoyed as child or teenager. So my questions to any who read this are:

What kindled your passion for books?

Do you ever go back and read the books you loved when you were younger?

Did you keep all of them so that you could re-read them or did you, like me, have to give away or sell them at some point?

While reading this what books were you thinking of and are you now more inclined to go back and read them?

To be honest I have no idea when I will get to read any of these books. I may be participating in another read-a-thon next week (more on that in a later post if I decide to do it) which could help with this but I have a hard time keeping up with the new books I get as I imagine many of you do as well. Blogging every day and reviewing about three books a week keeps me pretty busy so as much fun as reliving my childhood by reading these books would be, I don’t know when I will, though I know I will get around to it someday.

You may be wondering how I could only get books I’ve read the majority of before when there were countless rows of books to choose from. Don’t worry, I got some other ones too! One of my favorite authors is Stephen King but I don’t actually own that many of his books (it pains me to admit) so I picked some up while I was there.

The Stand, Pet Sematary, IT, Everything’s Eventual, Four Past Midnight, Lisey’s Story, Hearts In Atlantis

I can’t wait to read these, though again I don’t know when I’ll be able to.

Finally, I did pick up some random books! Here you go:

Tersias by G.P. Taylor, Snow Garden by Christopher Rice, Red Leaves by Thomas H. Cook, Bad Moon Rising by Sherrilyn Kenyon & Emperor: The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden

These ones I had never heard of and simply got because they sounded really interesting. I’m a bit of a Roman history nut so that’s the reasoning for that one.

Thank you for putting up with me while I took a bit of a trip back to when I was younger. I really appreciate it. ^.^ Please leave comments if you enjoyed this kind of post so I know whether I should do other “randomness” ones in the future and if you’d like to answer those questions I asked earlier feel free! That’s all from me for now (thankfully), as always thanks for reading. 🙂

October 16, 2012 | Categories: Randomness | Tags: Book Haul, Childhood, D.J. MacHale, Dragonlance, Pendragon, Randomness, Reading, Reminiscing, Star Wars | 3 Comments