the cemetery of forgotten books

It's funny, you know, that this title is only really relevant to people who have read 'The Shadow of the Wind', literally one of the best books I have ever picked up and read...and the only other person who I've ever met who has even HEARD of this book is Christianne. Ah well, more references for her =P

But, to move away from that, the point of this post was about books! I love books. I love reading, and I love to write because of it. According to my mother, I learned to read (things like name tags, cartons of things in the fridge, book titles, movie credits, etc) when I was 2 1/2 years old. I vividly remember, when I was 3 or 4, having those little 'young adult' novels in my hands, starting with the Clue books; each 'chapter' is a separate mystery, and in order to find out the solution, you need to turn the book upside down, and read the back page of every chapter upside, which has all the details you need to know for the solution. Apparently, again according to my mom, people used to think I actually COULDN'T read, because they'd see this little kid holding a book upside down, laugh, and walk away. Well, sucks for them, because I've now read more books than I can count, and have amassed what amounts to a small library here in my room (I've not counted, but one small section of my book collection has almost 200 books in it, and that's not even getting to the larger bookshelf that I have...you know what, I think I'll take some pictures for the first time, and post them up here for you guys):

It doesn't look like it, I know, but that right there is over 100 books in terms of the actual novels. Each book cost me 10$, and are individually between 200 to 300 pages each. I've spent so much money on them over the years...and yes, ALL of the books in this picture are Star Wars books. I own nearly all of them, and I'm proud of that, considering I collect a ridiculous amount of Star Wars memorabilia. Near the bottom right part of the picture, is a book inside a plastic case...that is the only book there I have not read: it is the original Star Wars novel, published before 1977, which was the year that Star Wars was released, and made into one of the most popular pieces of cinema ever to grace theatres. I'm almost afraid to touch it, as if its collector's status will disappear if I do....maybe one day I'll read it, when I have time to be more careful, but until then, I guess I'll wait.

This is another bookshelf, and as you can see, I've amassed more books here. The SATA thing in the corner is just a random box, I was too lazy to move it out of the way (it has the damaged hard drive from when my laptop died, hehe), and next to it further on the right (right at the edge) are my comic books, but I didn't take a picture of that. Anyway, Robert Ludlum and Clive Cussler are here, two of the better spy and action writers around, respectively. Ludlum, as some of you may know, wrote the books that spawned the movies, the Bourne Identity, and if you look closely, you can see them there. Agatha Christie and Tom Clancy also have books in that picture, so...yeah, those are some more books there, about 30-40 of them.

woooo, more books! I had to zoom out for this one, but that is my bookshelf (the final shelf is obscured by the bottom of my bed, but ah well). It's so far zoomed out, in fact, that you can't really see each shelf and the titles on each one; I won't go so far as to name them, but suffice to say that each shelf has about 100 books on it, for a total of approximately 550-600 books (the lowest shelf, the one you can't see, has more of my textbooks and all that school stuff than actual novels I read). Finally, yes, I have read every single book shown in these pictures, most of them more than once. I've DEFINITELY read the Star Wars books ALL more than three times each, and I've read most of the books on this last picture once or more. In the 2nd pic, I've read a lot of them only once, but I've definitely read them all at LEAST once. Also, yes, in the bottom right hand corner is my Indiana Jones DVD boxset. wooooo!

But, yes, I love to read. I'd name some of my favourite books/authors, but...it would be a pretty damn long list. A few would be the aforementioned Cussler, Ludlum and Christie...they are absolutely fantastic authors, especially Agatha Christie. Her murder mysteries are SO good. Michael Crichton, Isaac Asimov and Orson Scott Card are pretty fantastic...George R.R. Martin is great, too. Matthew Stover, Aaron Allston, Timothy Zahn...those three are up there too. Any of their books (Foundation, I Robot or Caves of Steel by Asimov, Ender's Game by Card, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, or pretty much anything by Crichton, there are soooo many) are great...I could definitely keep going, hehe, and end up naming hundreds of books, but I'll call it quits here. Like we did for the last post about movies, I again invite you guys to name some of your favourite authors or books; I'm always on the lookout for more novels to read, so...gogogo!