So in a combination of wanting more variety to my posts (Death in the City of Light is STILL dragging out… SHEESH) and picking up some tips from other blogs I love, I’ve decided to add a weekly feature of Friday Favorites. Every Friday, I’ll post on a book, author, or series I consider to be at the top of my biblio-list. I like this plan, especially because I really don’t like blogging about books I read that I didn’t enjoy… and sometimes that happens.
And how could I forgive my 8-year-old self if I didn’t start my list of favorites with the Chronicles of Narnia?
I was pretty much obsessed with these books for the latter half of my elementary school career. I saved up my allowance quarters for weeks and bought the very boxed set you see pictured here out of the Scholastic book orders they handed out in school (remember those?). In a fourth-grade biography assignment, I researched and wrote about C. S. Lewis. When I came home on breaks from college, I still reread them frequently.
When I first read these, I was young enough that the Christian allegory didn’t sink in at all. I’m actually not sure how it would’ve changed my perception of the stories had that happened—as it is, they’ve always remained just amazing magical stories to me. And, like Harry Potter, they’re not just books for kids. In fact, IndieBound doesn’t even list them as children’s books. And who could forget the Lonely Island’s breakout hit??
I figure at this point, especially with the recent movies, if you don’t know the general plot to the Narnia books, you’re probably living under a rock and don’t read this blog in the first place. So I won’t go into it. But fellow Narnia fans should (maybe) read The Magicians, the Lev Grossman book that I blogged about earlier. As a big Narnia/HP fan growing up, I was pretty shocked by Grossman’s treatment of fantasy worlds and magic. I’m actually not sure if fantasy fans would necessarily enjoy The Magicians—but it’s definitely worth a read if you like questioning your own perspective. Has some pretty good meta passages about reading in general, for sure.
Have a good weekend! My goals for this weekend include finishing DitCoL and not drowning in small-town ennui.
On the Verge of a Usual Mistake 