Elijah David

I've talked before about books I love to reread and elements of my childhood , but today I want to take a different slant. Last week, Mirriam asked her friends and followers for blog topics, and I suggested "Which books do you reread the most and why?" and she responded with this post about the books that shaped her childhood (and her writing). Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams I didn't actually realize just how much this series influenced my writing until I started rereading the first volume, The Dragonbone Chair , in anticipation of the sequel, The Witchwood Crown , coming out this June. This was the first fantasy with flavors of Tolkien that I encountered that was not simply a carbon copy. It has been called a deconstruction of Tolkien's story, but really it's just a more modern take on high fantasy. It turns a number of tropes on their heads (including prophecy, which is still one of the coolest things about this series). This series ...

Current Reads: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke                         The View from the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier                         Mountain of Black Glass by Tad Williams Current Writing Projects: Thesis material, currently a story titled "A Young Man with Grassy Arms" Ray Bradbury passed away this week. This is probably the second or third time I can remember an author whose works I love to read passing away (the last was Brian Jacques, and if I remember correctly Madeleine L'Engle was in there somewhere as well). What makes this even more sad, scary or possibly frightening is the fact that in my large stack of thesis reading material this summer there sit four books of his short stories for me to read, study and subsume. I don't believe in coincidences, especially where authors are concerned. I sat on my couch for a good fifteen minutes trying to ...