Ask any writer what one of the most important things is for writing, and they will tell you “reading.” If you’re interested, I have another post here where I go into more detail about that. This post today is to give you an update on how I’ve been doing with that.

What I’ve Read

I am happy to announce that I have indeed read at least one book this year so far! Yes, I am very well aware that many people by this time have read a countless number of books. So, I’m just gonna blame it on life and leave it at that. 😛

What book did I finish? Well, almost exactly on the last day of January, I finished reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. And while I had read it several years ago, I have since forgotten a great deal of the story, despite somehow talking about it a lot. It was great to go through that journey again and relearn and reimagine it all over.

What surprised me most about it, though, was how humorous it was. Even in the midst of absolute terror, there were still bits of humor thrown in there somewhere. Now, I do have a theory for this. The Hobbit was published in the 1930s and plotted in the trenches of WWI. After going through a world war and a great many other hardships in the following years, I think Tolkien knew that people needed something to laugh about, something to smile about.

Throughout the story, there is always hope, always a way out, even if the characters can’t see it yet. But the reader knows they’re going to be okay because of how Tolkien narrated the story. After so much pain in the world, everyone needed a tale of adventure with hope, a story where characters enjoyed good food, songs, the company of friends, and just sitting there and enjoying what you have.

Of course, I could be reading way too much into all of this, and Tolkien could have had a completely different idea when he wrote it. But there’s something in it that still rings true to me. And even if he didn’t mean it that way, it is still nice for me to read a story like that. Not to mention, his descriptions are fantastic.

What I’m Reading

The current book that I’m reading is The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. It is the first in the Queen’s Thief series, and I do want to read the entire series at some point. As it sits right now, I’m about a fourth of the way through the book.

So far, I am enjoying it. What has surprised me the most is that it seems like nothing has really happened in the story, but I am still quite interested in it. I think the reason for this is that there is something the main character doesn’t know, nor does the reader, and both want to find out. I want to know for sure what this secret is.

Something I do really enjoy is the ease of how she puts the descriptions into the story. There aren’t any huge chunks of just meaningless descriptions thrown throughout the story. Instead, they’re introduced as the characters interact with the environment around them, whether it be physically or emotionally.

As soon as life calms down a bit, I am absolutely spending more time reading this book.

And Seaweed insisted that I show you how much he is enjoying reading The Hobbit since I am finished with it.

He is welcome to read any book I have so long as I’m not currently reading it and that he doesn’t get them wet. So far, he has been a very good otter and has dried his paws each time before reading. Now, if I could only get him to share his snacks.

With Blessings,

Nicolle

What have you read this year so far? What are you reading now?