No Book Club Tuesday?

So I know I missed this weeks Book Club Tuesday and I know that you’re all probably thinking (if anyone actually reads this) that it’s the start of another inactive period, but I promise you all it’s not!

I was working late Tuesday and I had to prepare my house for the cat that we adopted on the Wednesday and the last couple of days have just been spent with her! I’ve fallen in love with Auri (as she has just been named this second) and I’ve been in a kitty bubble.

Book Club Tuesday will continue as normal from next week as well as any other posts. I will also be starting Movie Monday next week as well so you guys get two posts in a week! Lucky you! However, I might move Book Club to Thursday instead of Tuesday so that posts are spread out throughout the week and aren’t spammed on you guys. (again, if anyone actually reads this)

Catch you guys soon!

Book Club Tuesday: The Name of the Wind

Book Club Tuesday! I’m a little bit late but I’ve just gotten in from work and it’s still Tuesday so I have met my deadline!

So obviously – for my first book review since being back – I’m going to write about one of the best fantasy books I have ever read. (I’m totally not biased. This review will totally be unbiased. Totally.)

The Name of the Wind is a wonderful book written by Patrick Rothfuss. It follows the story of Kvothe… without giving too much away, it’s about Kvothe and his life as well as the place that it’s set. Kvothe is a beautifully complicated, wonderfully tragic and brilliantly written character. This book has the ability to rope you in to the point where you literally – and I mean literally, I got cramps – can not put it down. It’s the type of book and place and characters that you were wish were real. There’s a lot of books that I wish were real, and so do many others, but if I had to pick one it would be The Name of the Wind. No doubt.

It does start off a bit slow but it is so worth it. There are so many wonderfully written characters, so many plot twists that you don’t see coming. There’s so much information that you have to digest, there’s a lot of details that you don’t think are important that go on to be so SO important.

The book is set in flashbacks in a way? As I said above, it follows the story of Kvothe. Kvothe in present time is an inn keeper, he’s forgotten who he is (not literally, just figuratively) which, by the way, he’s a legend. He’s approached by The Chronicler who wants to write his story… this is where it starts. We read his story as told by Kvothe and written by The Chronicler.

The only fault that I have with this book is that it’s an unfinished trilogy and has been for the last seven years and there’s no publish date for book three or no signs of it even being remotely close to being finished. I don’t want to push a writer to write something that has so much work going into it and as much as I love this trilogy, I know that good things come to those who wait and if he’s pushed it’ll be rushed and not the books that we know and love.

I really recommend reading The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear as they are amazing books, you will fall in love and cry tears of laughter, joy and sorrow. These books with change you… BUT if you’re not good at waiting, and hate cliffhangers and rather read finished series, you might have to wait a while.

The Kingkiller Chronicles (as they are also known) are wonderfully written, beautifully set and is one of the best series’ I have ever read. It’s only flaw is that it isn’t finished and we don’t know when it will be. If you want to read and can wait, pick up this book it will be the best decision you have ever made. I promise you.

The World Through My Lens

I stopped reading for the longest time, I don’t know why or when I stopped, I just did. I can’t remember what made me want to stop, I just didn’t have the motivation for it anymore. I couldn’t sit still and get into a book like I used to and I missed that. I never read. I keep my books next to my bed, I always have, so that if I ever want to read I can always just grab one and start reading and most nights, I just laid there and stared at them. I didn’t read anymore, I didn’t need them anymore. But I had no idea why.

Soon after I stopped reading, I stopped writing too. I stopped writing my poetry and my short stories and my weird, emotional, diary sort of writings that I kept on my laptop. I shut all of it off and I just stopped. But I didn’t want to stop writing, I love writing. It’s my hobby, it’s my outlet, it’s what I want to do but I couldn’t do it any more. For the longest time, I had writers block. Every time I tried to write something, I’d just stare blankly at my wordpad or my notepad I had sat in front of me.The people who really know me know that…if I’m using a pen and paper to write, I’m trying to get over writers block. It’s my go to for when I need to write and I haven’t been able to, and it usually does help. But in this case, it didn’t.

I got more and more miserable by the day. I wasn’t reading, I wasn’t writing, I wasn’t talking or listening or caring. I just shut down emotionally. I stopped being a friend, a sister, a daughter, a grand-daughter, a person. I just basically stopped living and I didn’t see how bad I had gotten. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why couldn’t I write? Why couldn’t I talk to anyone? Why couldn’t I just be the person from a few months ago, a girl who read and wrote and was happy just to do those two things. What was wrong with me?

I didn’t realise how important it was, reading. I’ve always loved it, half of the presents I get for special occasions are books because people know that I love them and I will read them. I didn’t know that if I stopped, everything else would too. I’ve loved writing for the longest time, I really have but reading came first and I didn’t realise that I needed it to be able to write. I didn’t realise that by stopping that, I wouldn’t be able to write anymore. I felt broken and sad and alone and I couldn’t understand why and I didn’t know how it was possible. How do I feel broken from not reading? How do I feel sad from not reading? How do I feel alone from not reading? Why was it such a big part of my life that it could create such a huge hole when it was gone? I don’t think I realised that the books I read, the books we all read have an impact on us. If we’re writers, they teach us to write better. Write different worlds, write different characters, develop those characters, develop the world around them. If we’re not they teach us to understand the world, to empathise with people, to understand them. It teaches us to grasp at opportunities, to learn from mistakes and to move forward. To live how we want to live. Maybe it isn’t this way for everyone, but for me – Books are the lens I need to understand the world we live in.

As a writer, when I stopped reading, I couldn’t understand the world anymore. I couldn’t put the thoughts and feelings I was experiencing into words and I couldn’t understand people, who they were, what they were doing, the actions I saw and the things I experienced, I didn’t know how to describe them. I needed to read again, I needed to go through that experience again. I needed to feel the way I did when I first connected with a book, the way I felt when a book made me so angry I chucked across the room or when a character that I had fallen in love with dies and I cry and soak my book. I needed those feelings again, so I picked up a book and I just started to read.

It doesn’t matter which book I read, but I’ve already finished and moved onto another and now I wont stop again. I needed all of this to be able to write and now I have it. And now I’m writing again. And now I feel happier again.

I’m not broken or sad or alone, not just a book changed how I felt but I wasn’t completely okay until I started reading again. I love to read and I need it in my life, without it I just stopped functioning. It took away so much that I wasn’t expecting. I won’t make that mistake again and I hope no one else does either. We all underestimate the importance of reading, the enjoyment and fulfillment we get out of it. Once it goes away, it leaves a hole. Don’t give it up, never give it up.

“No two persons ever read the same book”

-Edward Wilson