Partial Book Binge

When my arm really hurts, I have even less energy and motivation to do anything.  However, I'm always up for a book binge because they require almost nothing of me, so I had a partial one today.  I think I read for about five hours.  There were other things I could have been doing, but I feel fine about not getting to them. 

A good book binge makes me feel refreshed because it's not about me or my pain.  It's five hours of being somewhere else seeing the world through someone else's eyes.  It's nice.  It's especially refreshing when the rain is coming down at varying speeds (including free car wash speed :), and you can watch and listen to it through a window just a few feet away.

When was the last time you had a book binge?  What did you read?

What makes something worth revisiting?

I am sobbing right now.  You see, this character died suddenly and with little fanfare, and it's kind of rough.  Even though this is the fifth time I've seen the show.  In fact, this time, I started crying early, in the episode before, because I knew it was coming.

It reminds me of the way I cry earlier in The Warrior's Apprentice the more times I read it.  This is why I think I don't ever want to be involved with any prophecies of the future and stuff.  I'd be (more of) a wreck if I knew it was coming.  (Or maybe I'd get really stubborn about making a different future happen . . . :)

Anyway, all this crying and reflecting got me thinking about the topic of what gives a book good reread value (or a show/movie good re-watch value). 

Some books are harder for me to reread because of the tragedies (Mirror Dance); while the tragedies in other works are the things that make them worth revisiting.  Some comedies are great for one watch and then pointless while other funny works need to be appreciated over and over again (Hogfather).  One friend once said that he reads David Eddings' books just for the chance to hang out with the characters again, and some people reread the same mystery over and over because they love the plotting.


What is it for you?  What makes you revisit a work over and over again?  (How long do you usually wait?)  What works do you regularly revisit (and why)?

Escapism and fantasy

"Escapism is one of the places where morality comes from." - Jason Thompson

I read this quote, and then I read it again.  Ah, I thought, this is one of the reasons I read fantasy and science fiction, or speculative fiction as it is sometimes called.  It's the what-ifs, the what-would-I-do-in-these-situations (even though it could never happen because this is the real world) that atrract me.  I like the ways speculative fiction shows me what humanity is in its essence, what wouldn't change about the nature of human beings even if the setting and environment change.  What is right and what is wrong (and what depends on the situation)?  These are things I think about when I read or watch speculative fiction, which some would call escapism.

I wonder if that's what Thompson was talking about.  Any thoughts?