Book Lists and Omnibuses

I truly admire people who have tracked every book they've read over the years. I wish I had done so! Last week I bought R.A. Salvatore's omnibus, The Cleric Quintet. I hunkered down, ready to quietly escape, only to experience deja vu as the plot and characters rolled out on the viewscreen of my mind. How frustrating. After some mulling and stewing, I finally remembered the chain of events... of not being able to find one or more of the volumes, and finally giving up. I actually own the 4th volume, after borrowing the others.

The most aggravating psychological thing is, I truly dislike re-reading a book by accident! Now, up until a decade ago, I read Scott's Ivanhoe every two years since first reading it at age 10. And I could sit down today and read it again, with pleasure... as long as it was intentional. So, pooh. I can't seem to convince my mind to shut up and let me enjoy the Cleric Quintet, which, now that I've renewed my acquaintance with it, is a most enjoyable read.

However, I have just located a copy of Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy omnibus, and I know I haven't read that one (those three?).

I love the omnibus collections now. I find an omnibus to be a book of a reasonable length-- I can't finish one in a day or two, which is always a plus with me. And I don't have to go searching for the next one in the series-- i.e., including waiting for mail...

And here's a plug for LibraryThing (and other such collectors) and the mobile web: I can at least look up what I've cataloged so far to see what I own by the author while I'm wandering the shelves in quest of another good read. Off and on I've tried to keep lists of my reading... annotated bibliographies and such grandiose schemes... I suppose I should just stick with a straight list, instead.

So now I'm off to buy the Icewind Dale Trilogy...

Living Books

I love to read what other people think about books... not titles, but books as objects. In Lebbon's Dawn, there's a wonderful passage about books:

All her life, she had known that books were living things, not just a convergence of concept and and ink, intellect and paper. They did not breathe or think, but they grew and gave a sense of potential so much larger than whatever was written on their pages. ...no one there to read them. Its pages would be closed and the spaces between the leaves dark and inscrutable, but the words were still there, telling their truths and hinting at so much more. ... Her own interaction with a book would change it, and someone else reading it would alter it again. ... Like a person, only a book could ever really know itself. (pp. 16-17)

Isn't that rich? Isn't it true?


I read Lebbon's Dusk last year and was so taken with it. The book is very dark; his worldbuilding is incredible. I was *there* in every scene. Dawn is of course the sequel. So far, it's every bit as good.


But most of all, one of the main characters is... a librarian!