I arrived back in in the UK on Sunday morning and was greated by the gorgeous Stephen Harding looking quite scrummy with a freshly shorn head and new clothes. Kos was a wonderful oasis in a busy August and I am very grateful for the rest...
Where else am I ever going to read for four to five hours a day? Oh I enjoyed is sooo much. Whilst sunning myself on the beach I managed to whip through C.S. Lewis's "The Horse & His Boy", and Stephen King's "The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three" and "The Stand" (all 1500 riveting pages of it).
The Drawing of the Three was fantastic! Different to the narrative structure and style of The Gunslinger I journeyed with a weak and battered pilgrim as he experiened new worlds and companions. Everything from the Lobstrosities to the injuries and adictions were brought to life in exruciating detail.
In a section of the book where the Gunslinger enters our world through a doorway in his own and looks around at our architecture, technology and culture he's Gob smacked by how we take so much for granted. This world is full of wonders but the people have lost they're sense of awe...
I thoroughly recommend this series and shall be hunting down the third book soon.
The Stand was a return to a story that intrugued me in my teens. Written in the 80s King explores a post-plague America where the population has been reduced to a few million and God and a Deamon are battling it out for what remains of humanity.
King has jumped to the top of my people-I'd-like-to-cook-dinner-for list. I'm curious where he gets his insights into spiritual warefar, they seem scarily acurate. He also seems to grasp quite weighty aspects of God's character and how he moves through nations and individuals, moving pieces into place and using the most unlikely people to win the battle.
The Stand isn't for the light hearted, but if your curious and fancy something that bridges his horror and drama writings this would be your book. It is frightening in places and though it is fairly accurate it's not a christian book. I love it, see what you think.
I'm about to tackle Cloud Atlas next, I'm dragging my feet and reading trashy magazines though. I think I had intense-book-overload so it's taking me a few days to get started... xc