Good Books

I just finished this book and I really enjoyed it. I honestly wasn’t very excited to read it after I read the back cover but it surprised me and was a really good book. So I highly recommend it.

Now my sister and I are on a King Arthur kick. We watched the newest movie with Clive Owen and Keira Knightly because, well honestly Clive Owen is dreamy and Keira Knightly is gorgeous and we love her in Pride and Prejudice. While the movie was fairly awful, at one point Kiera Knightly goes into battle wearing what can only resemble a liter-hosen, it did remind us how much we love King Arthur stories. We were big King Arthur fan’s as kids. We had a few different children’s renditions and then there was the move Kid in King Arthur’s Court which was a favorite of ours. So after Keira Knightly and her liter-hosen we watched Mists of Avalon and First Knight. Julia Armand is a much better Guinevere than Keira Knightly, it pains me to say it but it’s very true. Next we are going to rent the movie Excalibur which was made in the 70’s and should be highly entertaining.

Mists of Avalon was incredibly entertaining yet perhaps the most ridiculous movie I have every seen. We have christened it the soap opera version of King Arthur as it boasts, murder, hidden identities, multiple love triangles, incest, revenge, affairs, deceit, betrayal and a three some between King Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. I have never read the book but I can’t really believe that all of that happens in the book. So I will have to read it and see if it is better. But first I’m reading a King Arthur story our Pastor loaned me. It’s a trilogy the first one is called Taliesin by Stephan Lawhead. So far it is really good and I’m enjoying it a lot. It begins on the lost Island of Atlantis. Normally I don’t read science fiction or fantasy. I spent most of my childhood reading Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, The Secret Garden and so on. But there were a few exceptions. I had a weakness for stories about magic, kingdoms, dragon’s and knights and ladies. I love to be pulled into a completely different world and reality where I have to imagine what everything looks like.

My favorite stories in this genre are:

Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis: how I wished I could find a secret wardrobe when I was a kid...
Lord of the Rings: I first read these on a camping trip and spend the entire trip reading. I couldn’t put them down until I knew how the story ended.
Tales of King Arthur
Harry Potter: you don’t even want to get me started

Do you have childhood favorites you still come back to? What are your favorite books?