Readers got to read

I've been a Reader all my life (note the capital R). I distinguish this from someone who can read, in that I've always read and likely always will.

It started out with comic books, and when I was in the third grade, I was the kid with gigantic novels with forbidden looking titles and naughty looking covers. Other kids my age would obsess over video games -- and I thought those were pretty great, too... but for my money, there was never anything quite on par with a good book.

It wasn't easy growing up a reader in Quebec -- English books were difficult to find, especially in my small town without an English bookstore. I made do, saved pennies for those days that we would visit Ontario and splurge in a used bookstore. In the meantime, I would re-read my favourites... Heinlein, Spider Robinson, Laurell K. Hamilton (back before her character became a trashy whore, that is).

Then, a dark age, mostly surrounding college... I had neither the time nor the income to pay for books.

I'm getting back into it now, slowly. I recently stumbled upon an interesting series called the Parasol Protectorate, courtesy of Vamp Angel. Strangely awesome... As if Jane Austen and Charlaine Harris had a love child, in fact. It's an alternate history, in Victorian England. Our protagonist, Miss Alexia Tarabotti, does not have a soul, which has a number of effects on her and others, giving the book a slightly Dexter-ish twinkle, but without the urge to kill. I started reading this 384 page book roughly 18 hours ago, and am around halfway done. Give it a read, Readers.