Thursday, April 10, 2008

Rainy days and good books

It's a very wet and rainy day today. In fact, the entire Ozarks is soaked, and if the soaking continues, flooding is going to become a major problem in this area. Missouri truly is an odd place. We go from drought for several years to an overabundance of water...why cannot there just be a happy medium?

I like rain. I like rain under very specific circumstances:

1) when it's pouring outside (think monsoon) and I'm in bed all cozy with nowhere to go, or I'm curled up with a good book (with nowhere to go), or even if I'm just at home doing housework and whatnot, with nowhere to go (seeing a pattern here anybody?)
2) when it's a very light drizzle, just enough to tickle your nose and bring fond thoughts of a good misting in England. Not so much to soak you and leave you uncomfortable and make buildings smell of wet socks because everyone is slowly molding in their rain soaked clothes, just a gentle drizzle easy to walk in and somewhat refreshing to experience.

Today's rain was not either one of those rains. Oh it was monsoonish, but I have had to go to work, to drive in, walk in, get my pant legs soaked in it, and turn my little space-heater on in my office to dry off my more, soppy feet. This rain is not my idea of a good time!

On the other hand, I have recently experienced a highly enjoyable time with a new book, in fact a new author whom I think I'm going to be obsessed with for awhile. My Amber introduced me to this author - Jasper Forde - and for that I eternaly greatful.

He is great. I read his book The Eyre Affair. He has created a world that feels like Earth as we know it and vaguely resembles Earth's history, and yet involves people who can walk into (and out of) the pages of books - good books - books that well-read, well-educated people are familiar with, books that are mentioned with an expectation that the reader knows what is being talked about rather than dumbing all references down to pop culture and long explanations. His world has characters called things like Thursday Next and Acheron Hades (I personally think that is one of the best names for a villain that I have ever read!), and involves creatures like book worms which eat stories and poems and emit apostrophes and even hyphens when they are upset.

I am now hunting down whatever other books of his I can get my hands on because I'm pretty sure I'm going to have as much fun with them as I have had with this one.

So, rain, carry on, well, stop so I can get home tonight, but otherwise I'm going to ignore you and wander off into a more interesting world.

3 comments:

Amber said...

Yep, Fforde is great.

I need to just buy his books, as I have had several checked out of the library for over two months now.

Mercutio said...

Do you think Ouph's idea of a happy medium includes thoughts of home? I'm thinking "MONSOONS!"

Ouph said...

Yes, yes they do :)

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