"I think I'm quite ready for another adventure!"

Oh 2023, what a whirlwind start to a year. Without droning on about details unnecessary to this post, let's just say I was really ready to invest in myself again. In September of 2023, I found a book that looked enticing at my local cafe/book store. It's cover was both disturbing and beautiful. So I bought the book, "What Moves the Dead" by T. Kingfisher, and I brought it with me to Germany.

Over the last 9 months before Germany, I had been seeking something that would bring me a sense of something completion. Something that would actually satisfy my brain. Despite what felt like many attempts at satisfaction, my brain still had an itch to scratch. We were part of a tour group in Germany that travelled by bus from city to city. Starting in Berlin and ending in Munich with many stops between. We had a lot of time on that bus. So I decided to start the very bite-sized book that I had packed for the trip. I was absolutely engrossed. That tickling itch in brain was finally getting the satisfaction on nails against skin. I was hooked. This was it.

The book was different, fascinating, gross, intelligent, all the things that sparked something in my wrinkly marble. "What Moves the Dead" is a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher". It takes the already sinister and decrepit Usher Manor of Poe's imagination, and refreshes it with real science, mycology, and botany. Somehow this added science helped to create a complete character of its own within the monster of mold. It was an amazing place to start. T. Kingfisher wins the prize for getting me really going on this journey. I returned to the States. Almost immediate, I returned to the bookstore/cafe, and I purchased two more of her books.

Since then, I have completed over seven books. More than 1 book per every 2 months. I doubt, since graduating from high school, that I have finished even one single, new book. If you have read any other posts on this site, you may already know that I had (have) a reading and language disability growing up. I had to take on the challenge of time and embarrassment by going to special evening classes to catch up with my fourth grade comrads. I couldn't make it through a short chapter book at the time. I always craved to be a book person. Some reason behind my nerdy and ostracized ways. My siblings were book people. My friends all were too. And as a child, I had loved listening to books as my father read to us. The frustration I felt when I realized I was so far behind made me decide, early on, that I am just not a book person, I guess.

In high school, I managed to find more interest in literature, again. Mainly and predominantly through the Shakespeare heavy AP Lit class that I was taking. Shakespeare is beautiful and complicated and lyrical and relatable while also having an air of superiority that my younger-self so craved in high school. It was also, something better watched than read. I have seen a dozen or more different Shakespeare plays live, and dozens and dozens more on film. I could be my desired level of intellectual without even reading. Despite the original ulterior motives, I did come to discover that I really loved the discussion in class and (shockingly) my classmates' insights. Watching and listening to someone who was experiencing the works for the first time or tenth, and then hearing their entirely opposite or differentiating or adjacent views of the classic works.

So here I am. Now returned to literature. This time for me. Because I want to devote the time to the book and, therefore, myself. So I actually read. To enjoy, not to prove. To absorb, to question, to express. But I find myself missing the discussion. I miss hearing those other thoughts. Sharing my love for a book and getting to receive that love of another book back at me. I have always loved music because it reaches out and touches others. Brings them together with a new and different type of communication. Both individual and universal. I find that is where my new found love of books lies.

So with absolutely no organization or plan, I hope to beginning sharing my insights here. Writing as I finish or perhaps after I've really marinated on a book. I will warn on spoilers versus none. But I truly hope, you will join me to disagree, to agree, to challenge my thoughts in each book I share.