10 | August | 2014 | Bride of the Book God

So a couple of weeks ago I was pretty unwell and off work for a couple of days, but thankfully was able to read my way through being stuck on the sofa wrapped in a blanket with a hot water bottle (which is weird for late July it must be said) and was so absorbed that I managed to stop feeling sorry for myself (quite a feat as that’s one of my best skills right there).

I’ve been more or less under the weather since then and finding real solace in books, and as the latter half of this week has been particularly tiring and I am well into August crime month I have found myself in a major binge read, almost exclusively of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs mysteries. And when I say a binge read, I mean four not-inconsiderable novels in three days. And it has worked; I feel distinctly more cheerful than I did when I started, I’m sure because these are very easy reads; that’s not to do them down, I just mean I find Winspear’s style flows so lightly that before you know it you’re a couple of hundred pages in and so absorbed int he story that you have to get to the end.

That being in the zone where reading is concerned, for whatever reason, brings me to my dilemma. There are two people whose opinions I value greatly, my other half the Book God and my closest friend Silvery Dude. And they are both strongly encouraging me to start reading the Song of Ice and Fire cycle by George RR Martin, the former because he has read them all, the latter because he’s just discovered them and come over all enthusiastic, and both because they think I would really enjoy them.

But.

I have a complicated relationship with certain types of fantasy (setting Tolkien aside) and I can find the sort with swords and stuff set in other worlds or versions of our own world a bit of a problem. Add to that the fact that I’ve seen (and to be fair enjoyed) all four seasons of Game of Thrones on TV and I’m asking myself the question “what more can I get out of reading the books?”

So that’s a question for you all – should I give them a go or leave well alone?