![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've been in a voracious reading mood lately, one of those moods I describe in my own mind as "wanting to stuff books into my mouth with both hands" (which seems like a time-saving fantasy; I think I'm a slowish reader because I do read phonetically --- think phonetically in large part, actually).
Anyway, I finished the Prydain stuff. Not my favorite of Lloyd Alexander's work so far, but glad to have read it. The others didn't have quite the slapdash quality of "The Book of Three" if only because the elements had already been introduced, although a bit of it comes back at the end in "The High King" (at one point I was like "How many gods have you got in this machine anyway? I mean sure, you showed me when you stuffed 'em in there but that only helps so much..."). "Castle of Llyr" was my least favorite, and yes, it did annoy me that that one should by all rights have been Eilonwy's story and she was barely even in it. "Taran Wanderer" and "The Black Cauldron" were probably my favorites, and I'd say they were the ones with the strongest bildungsroman elements. "The Foundling" is naturally a mixed bag; I especially liked the backstory for the sword.
And following that, I just finished "Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" by Fletcher Wortmann. I happened across it as fic-writing research* but would recommend it in general --- okay, so it gets slow and overly self-referential in the early-middle high school and college parts, but the actual dealing with OCD stuff is great and insightful not only about the disorder but I think life in general. The author also has a blog at Psychology Today.
Next up, I have a shabby old copy of "The Left Hand of Darkness." It's actually been a good while since I read grown-up scifi, so trying to widen my comfort zone back in that direction maybe...
*I have bogged down on writing the last few weeks, so over-researching is perhaps a danger, but I'm interested now. Does anyone have any recs for fics or books that deal well with OCD, particularly in a viewpoint character?
Anyway, I finished the Prydain stuff. Not my favorite of Lloyd Alexander's work so far, but glad to have read it. The others didn't have quite the slapdash quality of "The Book of Three" if only because the elements had already been introduced, although a bit of it comes back at the end in "The High King" (at one point I was like "How many gods have you got in this machine anyway? I mean sure, you showed me when you stuffed 'em in there but that only helps so much..."). "Castle of Llyr" was my least favorite, and yes, it did annoy me that that one should by all rights have been Eilonwy's story and she was barely even in it. "Taran Wanderer" and "The Black Cauldron" were probably my favorites, and I'd say they were the ones with the strongest bildungsroman elements. "The Foundling" is naturally a mixed bag; I especially liked the backstory for the sword.
And following that, I just finished "Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" by Fletcher Wortmann. I happened across it as fic-writing research* but would recommend it in general --- okay, so it gets slow and overly self-referential in the early-middle high school and college parts, but the actual dealing with OCD stuff is great and insightful not only about the disorder but I think life in general. The author also has a blog at Psychology Today.
Next up, I have a shabby old copy of "The Left Hand of Darkness." It's actually been a good while since I read grown-up scifi, so trying to widen my comfort zone back in that direction maybe...
*I have bogged down on writing the last few weeks, so over-researching is perhaps a danger, but I'm interested now. Does anyone have any recs for fics or books that deal well with OCD, particularly in a viewpoint character?
