Current Readings

You may, or may not (depending on how well you know me or how long you've been reading this blog) know that, as well as a movie fan, I am a huge book fan. I love to read, I think it's wonderful to immerse yourself in a book and let your imagination run wild and your feelings be touched for a few days.
When I was younger, I used to juggle a lot of books at the same time, since I had a lot of time to read and got my hands on every new book I could. Nowadays, with less time, more responsibilities, and more ways to spend money, I don't read as much anymore. But recently, thanks to December being the month of gifts and thanks to my wonderful Cosmic who lends me so many books, I've been building a respectable stack of books on my bedside table.
And now you ask, what have I been reading? And what am I about to read? Well, don't go away, 'cause I'll tell you right now.

Comics-wise, this week started off awesome, as I read volume 2 of Scott Pilgrim, "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" and volume 6 of Invincible's trade paperbacks, "A Different World". Scott Pilgrim is still great, I enjoy the writing and the art so, so much, and one of the things I love the most about this book is the underlying nerdiness of it. A lot of things play out like it's a game - catching items, leveling up, learning skills, and it's pretty fresh and awesome. Invincible is one of my favorite books, I just wish I had more money because everytime I'm finished with one TPB I want to move on to the next one. Volume 6 had more of the usual twists and turns, hooking you even more into the story - Robert Kirkman sure know how to write - and more of the brilliant art Ryan Ottley got us used to. One of my favorite things about these TPB is the few pages of sketches and layouts at the end of the story, and this volume is no exception. Great stuff.

On other books, I'm almost finished with a wonderful book I'm reading courtesy of Cosmic. It's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. This has to be one of my favorite books of the last few years, and I haven't even finished it yet. I just know that this book is making me feel so much, and I think it takes a brilliant writer to press the emotion buttons like that. I think the last book that touched me in a similar way was Blankets (that is, by the way, perfection in the shape of a graphic novel), although the book's subjects are very different. In this one, we follow Oskar, a 9-year old depressed inventor, astrophysicist, scientist and all around brilliant kid, on a quest to feel closer to his father, who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Oskar's journey makes his path intertwine with a lot other people, and brings us stories of joy, sadness, failure, hope, making for a heartbreaking but very sweet and moving book. Foer's writing is excellent, and I love his little experiments with images and typography. I'm close to finishing, but I really didn't want to - it's one of those books that's so great you just don't want it to end.

Fortunatelly, once I finish Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I have more reading material to pay attention to.

Also courtesy of Cosmic, I have Chuck Palahniuk's Choke. I'm pretty curious to read this one because I think that after Fight Club, it's Mr. Palahniuk's most famous work, and as such I'm eager to see what awaits me on those pages - besides, the movie's coming up and I want to be an informed reviewer when I see it.

One of my good friends also lent me Nightwatch, by russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko. I enjoyed the movie (I didn't see Daywatch, which I heard was pretty ridiculous), and books are almost always better than movies, so I'm bound to like this one (plus, the cover I have is not nearly this cheesy).

Last but not least, I have what was a birthday gift from some of my friends that I still couldn't find the time to start: A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin. The first of a series of 7 books, I'm also very curious to start reading this one. Seems to be in the same fantasy vein as Lord of the Rings (that I loved, back when I read it, a good bunch of years ago), and I miss reading quality literature of that kind (last books of the sort I read were Eragon and Eldest, and honestly I didn't think they were that good).

Did you read any of these books? What did you think of them?