To Be Read
The screen goes black and the laptop closes shut. "My favorite time of day," I gleefully thought to myself.
The "time of day" that is being referenced relates to the exciting jump from one reality into the next. No, I am not talking about multi-dimensional travel or string theory. I am simply talking about when I finally get to give my eyes a rest from the screens and flashing lights of email and microsoft teams notifications, and trade them for an immersive experience into a new world written by one of my many favorite authors.
In the early days of the pandemic, like many people, I found myself with constant hours of dread that I had no idea how to fill. I had exhausted every TV show, movie, and video game that caught my eye and was deperate for a new hobby.
I was reminded of an old childhood book that I fell in love with, Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. I used to carry that book around on all lengths of car rides, sports games, and anything that wouldnt require my devout attention. It was then that I decided to dive back in to the world of Fantasy that I once so easily fell in love with.
“Fantasy IS escapism, but wait…why is this wrong? What are you escaping from, and where are you escaping to? Is the story opening windows or slamming doors? The British author G. K. Chesterton summarised the role of fantasy very well. He said its purpose was to take the everyday, commonplace world and lift it up and turn it around and show it to us from a different perspective, so that once again we see it for the first time and realise how marvellous it is. Fantasy—the ability to envisage this world in many different ways—is one of the skills that makes us human.
I chuckled to myself, "This sounds crazy, but what if I were able to combine my love for this genre with my work as a developer?"
I paused, realizing that what I was about to do was a trend that many people attempt to share to the public; and time and time again the public has reminded me that it simply does not care. This severely increased the chance of my project being mocked after launch. What was the specific trend I remembered? A yearly to-be-read website, full of reviews and book rankings for the fantasy genre.
- to•be•read
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noun
a list in which the reader lays out his/her plans of which books they plan to read in the upcoming year
The Wheel of Time(14)Gentlemen Bastards(3)First Law Triology(3)Discworld, Small Gods(1)- Discworld, City Watch (8) 1/8
- Discworld, Death (5) 1/5
Dresden Files(17)The Band, Kings of the Wyld(2)- The Bloodsworn (2) 1/2
- Malazan, Book of the Fallen (10)
- Stormlight Archive (4)
- Lord of the Rings (3)
- Mistborn (3)
- Lightbringer (5)
- Age of Madness (3)
- Jade City (3)
- Poppy War (3)
- Farseer Trilogy (3)
- A Chorus of Dragons (4)