In order to get blogging more, and blog something I think people may be interested in, I am starting a Books I Love sequence. These are books that, at some point in the past or even currently, I have enjoyed enough to read more than once.
It seems fitting to start at the beginning.
Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey
Blurb:
The beautiful planet Pern seemed a paradise to its new colonists–until unimaginable terror turned it into hell. Suddenly deadly spores were falling like silver threads from the sky, devouring everything–and everyone–in their path. It began to look as if the colony, cut off from Earth and lacking the resources to combat the menace, was doomed.
Then some of the colonists noticed that the small, dragonlike lizards that inhabited their new world were joining the fight against Thread, breathing fire on it and teleporting to safety. If only, they thought, the dragonets were big enough for a human to ride and intelligent enough to work as a team with a rider…
And so they set their most talented geneticist to work to create the creatures Pern so desperately needed–Dragons!
Before my friend pushed this book into my hands and said “read” in a no-nonsense tone and a stare I didn’t want to argue with, reading was something I did almost everything to avoid. I was an active child, my toys largely consisted of my own tool box, a large supply of leftover nails from our building project, and a large supply of leftover bits of wood. I would sometimes scrounge a pulley and ropes. I built things. I ran around in the bush.
However, then came High School and being diagnosed with a heart condition, and the appearance of a friend who would give me something new to love. “Read this and don’t give up until you pass at least page 50,” she told me. “If you don’t like it by then, you can put it down.”
So I waded through those first pages. Dragonsdawn is slow to start, but by page 50 there was no way I was putting it down. This book marked the beginning of a hobby that I could do, no matter what else I couldn’t. Starting with Dragonsdawn, I read. And I wrote.
I enjoyed that one too, though I haven’t gotten around to reading more of her novels yet (I have a BIG reading list). I don’t remember my first book… I’ve been reading books (mostly in bed, late at night, instead of sleeping) for as long as I can remember.
I wish I had started earlier, but at least I got started! So which book is the one that you would never tire of re-reading, then?
Strangely enough, this is also on my list of favourite books
It’s also on the list of “books which changed my life” which I really should get around to writing my own blog series on but I keep getting distracted.
The book which produced my own reading & writing epiphany? David Eddings’ “Pawn of Prophercy”. I still love that book, and pretty much everything else he wrote as well.
Funny thing is, I have David Eddings’ Pawn of Prophecy at mum and dad’s place with a bookmark halfway through. I never got further. Just didn’t ‘do it’ for me. Wouldn’t it be a boring world if we were all the same?