There is nothing in the world like that little frisson you feel around books. Sometimes you get it in a library or bookshop, looking at shelves upon shelves of books, knowing you could pick up any one of them. Other times it’s just you and a single book, old and much-loved or brand new and full of possibility.
There’s nothing like knowing a story’s about to take you away to somone else’s life, or another world–to take you on an adventure, thrill you, scare you, excite you, make you gasp or cry or grin like an idiot.
When I was in grade six, my school librarian was Mrs. Amiet. She was amazing. She caught us up in stories, read to us, took us to see a huge range of authors and always knew the book that was right for you. I loved her library with all my heart.
One day she told me that despite loving every book in her library, she did have a desert island book–it was an omnibus edition of The Dark Is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper, holding all five books. In November that year, my friend Stacey gave me what I believe was my first ever book voucher, for the whopping sum (in those days) of $20. I knew exactly what I wanted.
It turned out Mrs. Amiet was dead right, as usual. The books were AMAZING. The characters shifted back and forth between our world and one populated by Arthurian legend, dodging innocent parents and spending school holidays fighting the Dark, with life and death stakes. I love every book in the series, but every Christmas without fail I haul out my battered old omnibus edition, fat and frayed with tissue-thin pages, and re-read The Dark Is Rising.
To celebrate the six-month countdown to 2013, a group of authors with debut books coming out next year have banded away to give away books taht have influenced our journeys. Click through for the chance to win a HUGE haul!
In other news:
With SKYLARK available on 1 August, there are ARCs, swag and pre-orders up for grabs! Click here for details!
I’ve been blogging on Pub(lishing) Crawl about:
- Finding Time To Write: Making Hard Choices
- 3 steps For Taking Your Writing To The Next Level
- WWMCD: Creating Depth And Motivation In Your Characters
Great post! I love that ‘frisson’ – and it’s such a thrill to come back over and over gain to favourite books (like Susan Cooper’s) too.
Thanks for the updates. What a great giveaway!
What a great post. I’ll have to check out the books. They sound amazing. Hope you’re doing well.
I hate to say this, but I’ve never read this series. I have 2 copies of the whole series in my classroom, but haven’t gotten to it yet. In my defense, there are SO many great books to get to! I’ll bump it up on my list!
How nice that you had such a great librarian. I don’t remember ever talking to our librarian. I just crawled through the shelves and took as many books as they would let me have every week. Thanks for the link to the giveaway. Wow.
Sounds like a great series of books, and whoever wins the competition over at The Lucky 13s will have a chance to read it! Great stuff
Hi, Amy,
Cool Masthead. I’ve been looking at your articles on Publishing Crawl. I need to remember some of that stuff when I need to settle down to write.
What makes this book so unique is that Stewart portrays Merlin as a real human being with emotions, fears, and dreams, unlike the legends show. She lets the reader see into his head and understand that he was just a highly intelligent human used by the gods, not a sinister wizard. After reading it, the real Merlin Emrys becomes an odd but graspable character with whom one can connect. This true mastery shown by Mary Stewart beckons me to read the next two books in the trilogy.