Blind Prophecy

Yesterday was my 34th birthday. It was mostly a quiet year for my birthday. I went out with a few friends to get drinks at Marie’s Crisis in the Village after spending the morning just enjoying the sun and weather.

My big present this year was a Kindle. Already I can’t imagine life on the subway without it. Also, now that my music collection has gone digital and my movie collection has ceased to grow (instead of buying DVDs, I just rent online), books are the last big pain-in-the-ass to move from place to place. Especially those sorta-trashy fantasy books I enjoy, will never read again, but can’t bring myself to throw out or trade in at the used bookstore.

But, I just bought a handful of those trashy books and they take up no space at all. My first Kindle read is Mercedes Lackey’s Intrigues: Book Two of the Collegium Chronicles because I love her Valdemar books. I’m about halfway through. From a fantasy writer who has tackled issues like terrorism, gay teens, depression, suicide, rape, and sex trafficking in remarkably sophisticated ways (although Haven is a bit of a utopia where things are basically guaranteed to work out for the best thanks to magic talking horses who always do the morally correct thing), it’s interesting to see her take on abject poverty, xenaphobia and school bullying in these stories about the early days of the Collegium where the heroes of the stories learn to be heroes.

I also bought the trilogy for The Hunger Games, which will be my next read. After that, I don’t know yet. Suggestions?

Anyway, today I’m off to the park for a picnic with my friends and more taking advantage of the sun before I start working tomorrow. Even though my work day doesn’t start until 9:30, my goal is to get up at 6 and hit the gym before work all summer. We’ll see how long that lasts. Probably only until we hit the late, late nights of the Trial Ad summer competition (we have 123 students signed up to compete over the course of 3 nights – eek!).

Filed under: books by Jere Keys