Just Readin'

I don't know about you, but I love a good viking novel. I've been interested in history since I was a kid, and I've always been fascinated by the vikings. There's something about the stories of dragon ships and adventures on the sea that capture the imagination.  And, I'm certainly not the only person who thinks that way because there are a lot of books about vikings on the market. Of course, there are plenty of non-fiction books out there, and I've read (or listened to; I love audiobooks) to a couple of them, but novels about vikings seem to be much more popular. That being said, not all novels are equal. Personally, I prefer viking novels that encompass the perfect amount of adventure, drama, and (sometimes) romance.  Since I've been home a lot recently, I've been reading/listening (I love audiobooks) to some old favorites and to some new novels as well. So, today, I want to share some of my favorite viking novels (in no particular order) with you. Ha...

I was first introduced to The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff by the movie version of the book, The Eagle . The Eagle was a great movie, mostly because it involved face paint and Channing Tatum. So, after I saw it, I decided to read the book, and, after I read the book, I hated the movie, because the book was so much better. The Eagle of the Ninth tells the story of a Roman centurion, Marcus, stationed in Roman Britain. Marcus comes from a long line of soldiers. His father marched with the Ninth Legion, which disappeared in the old Roman province of Valentia. Marcus is haunted by the memory of his father's legion and longs to lift this shame from his family's name. After Marcus is injured in battle and forced to leave the army, he decides to journey north of Hadrian's wall to try to recover the lost Eagle of his father's legion. What follows is a stunning adventure that spans the length of Britain. The story is that the author actually based the book o...

I realized today that it's been a while since I wrote one of these favorite book blogs. So, today I want to tell you about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader . The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is one of the books in The Chronicles of Narnia series, technically, it's the third book in the series (in publication order), but it makes the most sense to read it as the fourth book. It frustrates me that, when people think of The Chronicles of Narnia , they automatically think of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe . Not to say that it's not a great book, but the Narnia books are so much more interesting, so much more complex that. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is so monumental in scope . They made a movie version of it, but it didn't really capture what the book was all about. They tried to make it an adventure story, which it is, but it's so much more than that. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader we see so much more of Narnia than ever before. It really begins to tak...

After writing my non-fiction recommendations a little while ago, I got to thinking about what my fiction recommendations would be. These are a little bit harder, because I read a lot more fiction than non-fiction and there are so many wonderful books that I could recommend. To counteract this problem, I've decided to write a series of blogs about my favorite books. As someone who reads a lot, I usually find it hard to answer the question, "what is your favorite book?", it's like asking a parent to pick their favorite child. However, after much thought and deliberation, I have decided to that Ivanhoe , by Sir Walter Scott, is my favorite book. Ivanhoe , in my view, is an unlikely classic. In the words of my friend's father, who is an English professor at Penn State, Ivanhoe is the classic "that no one ever reads". I can understand that; it's a story about chivalry, love, and honor and other virtues that are looked upon as 'medieval' in t...