From the Bookshelf of Read A Song Of Ice And Fire 2016…

What a captive read! It has been many years since I read a book with such fervor. I never planned on reading the series in the first place. I'll be honest, I watched the show first. Picking up the books afterward felt as if I was breaking an unspoken bibliophile canon. Read the books first...Read the books first.... Resigned to my fate, I left the books alone and happily binged on the shows instead. It wasn't until, years later, I found the first four books at a yard sale going for a dollar. All

What a captive read! It has been many years since I read a book with such fervor. I never planned on reading the series in the first place. I'll be honest, I watched the show first. Picking up the books afterward felt as if I was breaking an unspoken bibliophile canon. Read the books first...Read the books first.... Resigned to my fate, I left the books alone and happily binged on the shows instead. It wasn't until, years later, I found the first four books at a yard sale going for a dollar. All four books for a dollar! The choice was already made for me it seemed, and off I went with the pile under my arm.

Still, there they sat for months on my shelf, collecting dust and weary glances. I heard about this author; the one who takes years to finish his work, the one who leaves fans tortured and worried that an end may never come. Did I want to be part of this self-inflicted pity party? No thanks. I decided that I would wait, that not a page would be turned until I knew for a fact that this series would be completed. But, like countless others, curiosity got the best of me. "Just one page" turned into "just a few more pages", turned into "Oh, I'm done!", turned into "Guess I'll have to pop open this second one", and now here we are, fully invested.

I am not a fantasy genre connoisseur, so any discussion on GRRM's faults in those terms fall on deaf ears, and frankly I don't really care. This is the first book in a long while that I have carried by my side at all times, looking for moments to catapult into the lives of his characters, reading snippets between the busyness of life. I had forgotten that there is always time to read a book, if only you make time. And with that lesson relearned, I am glad curiosity got the best of me.