World-building books
Sep. 28th, 2008 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hmpfI think I've mentioned before that I love books that do really good world-building - this is one reason why I love Finder, for example. I'm currently reading two wonderful examples of the genre, and reading them very slowly, because I want to savour them.
One I have mentioned before: Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia. The landscapes in that are as vivid as those in The Lord of the Rings, and just as beautiful.
The other I received last week: Ursula Le Guin's Always Coming Home. I'm not as far into that yet as I am into Islandia, which I started reading a few months ago, but I already love it so much that I can't read it fast. I want to make it last.
Both books are like doors to Other Places, just waiting for me to enter them every night. They remind me how much I love the world. (This may seem paradoxical, as they seem to offer escape from the world. But they're reflections of the world, of course. And also, travelling into the inner worlds of Wright or Le Guin is part of living in this world - my idea of 'the world' includes the personal, inner worlds of everyone, and it's one of the greatest marvels of being alive that we can open these inner worlds for other people to visit them.)
One I have mentioned before: Austin Tappan Wright's Islandia. The landscapes in that are as vivid as those in The Lord of the Rings, and just as beautiful.
The other I received last week: Ursula Le Guin's Always Coming Home. I'm not as far into that yet as I am into Islandia, which I started reading a few months ago, but I already love it so much that I can't read it fast. I want to make it last.
Both books are like doors to Other Places, just waiting for me to enter them every night. They remind me how much I love the world. (This may seem paradoxical, as they seem to offer escape from the world. But they're reflections of the world, of course. And also, travelling into the inner worlds of Wright or Le Guin is part of living in this world - my idea of 'the world' includes the personal, inner worlds of everyone, and it's one of the greatest marvels of being alive that we can open these inner worlds for other people to visit them.)
