Happy New Year, one and all!
Over the holidays I’ve been re-reading Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; if you haven’t read this sci-fi classic before, I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something lighthearted, original, or just plain funny to read.
Even though we own the hardcovers of the books, I’ve been reading Hitchhiker’s on my Kindle app, which is is always a little odd at first. The familiar opening (“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun…”) just looks strange on a digital screen instead of on a crisp white page…but I’ve just about switched all my reading to the Kindle, so no going back there. As it should be — always forward we go.
(The link above takes you to the Kindle edition, all books in the series for $13.99 — not a bad deal for five full length novels.)
The reason I bring up that particular book is that lately I’ve been thinking about the power of books to be whatever you need them to be. This December, I yearned for a lighthearted read and I knew I could find it in Adams’s world. On planes, I like to read more thriller-y stuff. Occasionally I’ll reach for a cozy mystery. Etc. The last non-fiction book I read was the tale of Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Antarctic voyage, Endurance. I may have read it during the last week of the election. I may have also skipped over the dog parts.
Books are like that. Whatever you’re feeling, there’s always a book to meet you half way. If my own novels have offered anyone a few hours’ worth of an enjoyable escape into the imaginary…well, that makes me a very lucky writer indeed.
This quote from E. B. White summarizes it well: “Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.”
I know we’re all book lovers here, so I won’t belabor the point, other than to say this: Here’s hoping that 2017 brings you a memorable/just-what-you-needed read or two and many lovely, good things!
Neve
Neve Maslakovic 