Ashton and I tend to read a lot of books. We plan on having an entire room dedicated to books when we actually get a house. The entire room is not just because we like books, but also because that's how much space we're going to need to store our books especially when we gather the rest of our books from the various parents' houses.
Although we both like to read, we enjoy different genres of books. I tend to have a more widely accepting range of genres. I enjoy history books just as much as classical and fantasy/adventure books, if not more. I am by no means a die-hard science fiction fan and usually steer away from, what I consider, the really weird stuff. I'm not big into aliens and the like. As it is with any genre, there are good writers and bad writers. The good writers can make just about anything interesting.
Ashton leans almost solely towards the sci-fi, adventure, and fantasy books. I think this fact became more apparent when I tried to get him to read "Eight Cousins" by Louisa May Alcott and, although it's a short book, he couldn't finish it. I probably should have known better than to recommend the book to him, but at the time it sounded like a good idea since we were talking about books I enjoyed when I was younger and "Eight Cousins" was one of my favorite stories. Live and learn.
In any case, I just finished a couple of books (I tend to read a couple at a time) that I thought that I would mention. The first book that I finished was a history called, "The Last Days of the Incas" by Kim MacQuarrie. The book is what you'd expect from the title, although it does cover the exploration of Inca ruins in more recent years. The author did an amazing job researching, going back to the Spanish chroniclers to gain information and does a good job presenting the facts, going so far as to mention discrepancies and present both sides. For anyone who is interested in Incan history or even in South American history, this is a really good book.
The second book that I just finished is "The Eye of the World" by Robert Jordan. This is the first book in a series called "The Wheel of Time." It's a fantasy/adventure book with the magic and mythical world involving humans and other creatures. Although it is fantasy, there are a lot of political strains as well as a good vs evil theme. I began reading this book because it was the book that really got Ashton interested in reading. So, being curious as to what about it made him interested in reading, I decided that I was going to read it for myself, much to his surprise.
Although I wasn't familiar with some of the things that they talked about, I enjoyed the book. The book is well-rounded in that there are good descriptions, which can be annoying when you just want to get to the action, but his characters are also well written. They have a depth and support about them that make them more real to the reader, which is important to a fantasy book I think. There is also a lot of suspense to the book and, although I can be a very nervous reader when there's suspense, it was fun to read.
I haven't decided yet whether I want to continue on in the series. Apparently the last book of the series hasn't come out yet and is being worked on by someone other than Jordan, as he (Jordan) is dead. I don't really want to start reading the series if I just have to wait for the next book to come out. However, given the fact that I tend to read multiple books at a time, it'll probably take me a little while to get through all the books, so the next one could be out before I get to it. We'll see.
By the way, if any of you have any books that you want to recommend, I'd like to hear!
