Tuesday 22 April 2008

This was supposed to cheer me up


I'm already about 100 pages into an emotionally gruesome novel called A Disorder Peculiar to the Country but have decided to put it away for a little while. I'm sad. I need happy, or if not happy, at least distracting books right now. My sweet bunny Penny died suddenly and horribly yesterday and I just really don't want to be confronted with pain in my reading when I'm trying not to dwell in it in real life.

I decided a children's yarn would be both distracting and safe and so picked up George R. R. Martin's The Ice Dragon, which my husband bought some time ago, as a sad replacement for the final book in the Storm of Swords series that is already 1.5 years overdue.

The Ice Dragon was good, but it definitely wasn't safe. The long and short of it is, the ice dragon ends up dying to save the damned sprog that couldn't make up her mind between going to the place of always-winter or going home to her family.

I'm Wodehoused out but I really need something light that will lighten my heart a bit. Advice?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

you read martin ! thats awesome

i got my mom/brother/brother's girlfriend to read through the series as well, and they all loved it :). Robin Hobb is really good too, if you dig Martin. He does some really great stuff with fantasy conventions.

I'm very sorry about your bunny :(

Anonymous said...

i'm sorry about Penny. maybe Terry Pratchett would help? it's been a while since i've read him, but i remember he was funny - oh and scifish too. it really troubles me that i can't think off more easily funny writers off the top of my head ...
oh - Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. and also Diary of a Nobody.

praymont said...

Sorry to hear about Penny.
As for light, happy books, how about Futility by William Gerhardie? It's one of those neglected-but-great novels.

Bookphilia said...

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. Right now I'm getting some good chuckles out of Life, the Universe and Everything.