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Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

MoonGalSenior Contributor11 Oct 2015, 4:57 pm AEDT

Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

Are there any other reading fans here?

Although reading is a solitary pursuit. I enjoy reading spending time with the characters in books, they are undemanding and don't talk back. I love series of books where characters grow and learn and their whole life stories are told. So I do get fully immersed with my "book friends" as my partner calls them.

I read a lot, I feel very grateful and privileged to live very close to a great library where I can order just about any book online and have it transferred in. I am currently enjoying the fantasy genre again after a 20 year hiatus. I have immersed in just about any genre though over the years.

Anyone else a Fantasy Genre Fan? What books and genres do you like? Any reccomendations?
______________________________

Here's a list of Fav books I am reading now or have read recently.

I love the metaphors in fantasy and learn a lot from really good writers both in writing style, but also life lessons. Nothing is ever easy for the heroes and heroines of these stories - kind of like real life really.

Currently reading this series by

Kate Forsyth

Witches of Eileanan

Dragonclaw (currently on)
The Pool of the Two Moons
The Cursed Towers
The Forbidden Land
The Skull of the World
The Fathomless Cave

Just finished last week

Sara Douglass

The Wayfarer Redemption

• Sinner

• Pilgrim

• Crusader

The Crucible

• The Nameless Day

• The Wounded Hawk

• The Crippled Angel

___________________

Since January have read all of Robin Hobb's series.

These series all relate in some way to the others, it’s an astoundingingly huge world and body of work she creates. I loved them all.

The Farseer Trilogy

Assassin’s Apprentice
Royal Assassin
Assassin’s Quest

Liveship Traders Trilogy

Ship of Magic
Mad Ship
Ship of Destiny

The Tawny Man Trilogy

Fool’s Errand
Golden Fool
Fool’s Fate

The Rain Wild Chronicles

Dragon Keeper
Dragon Haven
City of Dragons
Blood of Dragons

The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

Fool’s Assassin
Fool’s Quest
Next not yet published.

_____________________
This Trilogy has no reference back to the others. Still very good writing.

The Forest Mage Series

Shaman’s Crossing
Forest Mage
Renegade’s Magic

49 replies

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In response to: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

PeppiPattySenior Contributor14 Jan 2016, 7:57 pm AEDT

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

yes yes @PeterPan78 ! i was an avid Agatha Chrisie reader when i was about 13
@Scorpian and @Gypsy message are sifferent and love their different creativity .... in that @Scorpian reads Ann McCaffery and @Gypsy is in touch with what can handle
......i think i would rather watch dvd myself..... crowds are not me.
Ann McCaffery is intellectual ....isnt she : i just remember trying to read one of her books @Scorpian ........

In response to: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

MoonGalSenior Contributor04 May 2016, 8:17 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

Hi readers @PeppiPatty, @SCORPION, @Gypsy, @Terry, @Peter_Pan78 (and adding in @Silenus in case you are a bibliophile too).

Just saw this interesting article about *BIBLIOTHERAPY... I knew we were all on to something healing and helpful!

Ask a bibliotherapist: how books can help soothe troubled minds

__________________

*Internet definition =

bibliotherapy

noun

the use of books as therapy in the treatment of mental or psychological disorders.

In response to: Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

NebSenior Contributor04 May 2016, 8:51 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

I am lucky in having a community library around the corner from me. I have always read, but as a young teen read The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings....which I adored! Also read Beowulf, as many of the Icelandic Sagas as were available. I discovered poetry and haiku, which led me to read the classics, and such books as Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Gloriana, the Pillow Book of a Japanese Lady ( I forget the writers name).

Ann McCaffrey was a favoured author, I read one of Thomas Covenant , but as I had nursed lepers by this stage found the books uncomfortable. Space opera and sci fi are favoured genres, I also enjoy some detective books, but I am very very fond of historical naval fiction, audio books etc.

i collect children's books....I have the Billabong books written at the beginning of the 20th century which are very dated indeed. Currently, I am reading a British author known as BB who also illustrated his books.

In response to: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

Peter_Pan78Senior Contributor04 May 2016, 9:14 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

@MoonGal thanks for including me in your bibliophile discussion I am most certainly a bibliophile and proud of it.

I totally believe in bibliotherapy. Helps keep me "well" and helped me to find information that supported my gut feeling that I was not weird or abnormal. The most important thing I discovered in my reading is that not everybody regards mental illness to be an obstacle but instead "a natural, normal way our mind reacts to stress." I finally felt like I was finally understood when I read this, that I was not alone in thinking that mental "illness" had been poorly defined and viewed for such a long time. Books have been a great friend to me.

In response to: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

SilenusSenior Contributor04 May 2016, 10:40 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

Hiya @MoonGal 🙂

I'm definitely a bibliophile. I've got over a thousand books in my personal collection...

Having said that, I don't read much these days. As a writer, most of my therapy comes from the process of writing rather than reading.

I tend to flip between being an alpha writer and an alpha reader... giggle... 🙂

In response to: Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

MoonGalSenior Contributor05 May 2016, 12:01 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

@Neb - I love my Library too - I have just counted up the books I have read in the past 12 months and it now stands at 53, so I do about a book a week or so! I order titles on line from all over our State's library network, so can get just about any title. It's fab and well worth paying rates just for this alone! I read Thomas Covenant books in my 20's I was not particularly discerning back then about misogyny, I picked up Thomas Covenant again thinking to re-read them last year and hated it - his use and portrayal of women left me cold. I also read Anna McAffrey in my 20s (30 odd years ago now!) they are the Dragons aren;t they of , ummm Pern? I love kids books too - My fav are Winnie the Pooh and the velveteen Rabbitt. I sometimes read series written for teens -

Like recently Julliette Marriellier's
Shadowfell Series
- Shadowfell
- Raven Flight
- The Caller

I too loved Lord of the Rings. So glad you chimed in Neb. ❤️

@Silenus- I am surrounded by books, back when I had an income I would buy books regulary. I used to work in a bookshop and we could take books home and have them deducated from our wage (at a big discount) One week I went to collect my pay and I owed then $20! LOL. Books are friends to me.

In response to: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

SilenusSenior Contributor05 May 2016, 3:13 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

Hahaha @MoonGal ... owing them $20... that's gold!

I would have done that too...

Wow @Neb - fellow space opera tragic here... E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman series is one of my all-time faves...

I love the Dune series by Frank Herbert, and the Saga Of The Exiles by Julian May. I've read them all multiple times...

In response to: Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

MoonGalSenior Contributor05 May 2016, 4:58 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

@Silenus - OMG! Dune by Frank Herbet I read them in Sydney in the '80's when I was sleeping rough, I found a great little second hand book shop that would let me swap the finished one for the next in the series (for nothing! and they would always give me a cup of coffee, good people). I remember very little of the series (being a period of my life that I was off the planet for a couple of years), maybe if I run out of things to read I can start them again. Thanks for the reminder!

In response to: Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

SilenusSenior Contributor05 May 2016, 5:10 pm AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

Dune was a truly amazing book. It was written in 1965 (from memory), and has one of the greatest pieces of Mindfulness I have ever read. The Litany Against Fear, quoted below...

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain."

Another version states: "I have no fear, for fear is the little death that kills me over and over. Without fear, I die but once."

I would recommend everyone who has anxiety or worry issues to read this and take it to heart. It is a truly beautiful thing, and it has helped me in my life...

In response to: Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

NebSenior Contributor06 May 2016, 7:40 am AEST

Re: Books: Reading for relaxation and enjoyment

Silenus.....the litany against fear was etched into my consciousness....i read it at a very bad time in my life. Wasn't EE "Doc" Smith fabulous? No one has mentioned Robert Blish, Isaac Asimov....Foundation etc. and of course the wonderful Robert Heinlein....his books matured from writing at geeky teen boys as the genre matured into Stranger in a Strange Land.....earning him a banned book award, and a cult following. I have been collecting his works and some are so gorgeous in being very dated....he had some weird concepts and his women were ? My current favourite of his is discovering a WW2 German Fascist base on the moon!

robert silverberg wrote the beautiful Valentine books, and Patricia Kenally-Morrison the superb Kelts in Space. Yup, she was married to Jim Morrison of "The Doors" fame.

the velveteen rabbit is a beautiful tale, as is "The Little Prince" and "The Secret Garden"

books I never read are horror and thrillers, along with some too graphic detective books. I have shied away from non fiction stories of mental health issues, being afraid I might identify too closely with them.

there was a book sale as a charity event last week and came home with a half dozen books. My income prohibits me from spending money on brand new books, but I pick them up cheaply and then recycle them. It is a shame that books are so dear,I am sure it is the middlemen who swallow up the greatest percentage of an authors work.

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