Monthly Archives: August 2012

Spending Time in Westeros

Posted by Jackie in authors, book reviews, writing and tagged with , ,
A Game of Thrones (comic book)

A Game of Thrones (comic book) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whether you think of it as Game of Thrones or Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin‘s epic saga of Westeros has been dominating my life for the past season or so. My husband started watching the show on HBO first and kept hounding me to watch it with him, knowing my resistance to most traditional fantasy/sci-fi stuff. “But it’s character-driven,” he kept saying, “You’ll love it!“

Thank goodness I listened to him, because once I started watching the show, I was definitely hooked. Then I started reading the books, and I’m completely enthralled. I love the entire ruthless, cunning Lannister clan, especially the three siblings Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion, and I adore Daenaerys Stormborn, the dragon queen. I pester my friends who’ve read the books to share their theories with me, and I already know which characters I absolutely don’t want to see die. I also confess to have spent some time thinking about what my sigil and words would be for my own clan (shamelessly geeky, I know, but no decisions so far).

They’ve reminded me why I love reading books so much; sometimes a book can create such an all-encompassing world that when you’re between those covers, you’ve slipped entirely into a different world, leaving everything else behind. In Westeros, of course, this means you might see dragons, wolves, creepy ice-zombies or murderous rogue knights, but it’s happened to me too with books like Empire Falls or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay , The Age of Innocence: by Edith Wharton or The Accidental Tourist. My favorite books are the ones that make me feel like I’m living in their landscape for awhile. Those are the books I’ll reread, over and again.

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