As a certified "lover of things to be read", much of my day-to-day life is consumed by reading. I've been known to read just about anything I can get my hands on, the only real exception being school textbooks (which are notoriously boring and are generally terribly written). If you're a grammar junkie, you'll notice that I just used two adverbs in that paren. Go me!

Now, where was I? Ah yes. I read a lot. I read newspapers, I read articles, I read advertisements, I read blurbs. The bulk of my time on the internet is spent reading: articles, blogs, instructional and random sites (I spend very little time at video sites, such as this one). As you can see, I have a serious infatuation with the written word (okay, so the fact that I have a blog already gave that one away).

It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that I love to read books. I love all sorts of books, and read a great many of them (both good and bad, though the ones I love are all of the good variety). Reading books, to me, is an escape of sorts. It allows me to escape my own reality, temporarily losing myself in another's, be it fiction or nonfiction. It also offers me a glimpse of another's world view or perspective, or possibly even takes me to a new world. But the fact remains that every single book I read changes me. I learn new things, I think new thoughts, I see the same things through different eyes.

Today, I finished reading an incredible book, one that is part of the inspiration for my new page theme. I finished reading The Drawing of the Three, written by none other than famed horror novelist Stephen King. This book is part two (of seven) in The Dark Tower series, an epic novel about the world's last gunslinger.

I'm not generally a fan of horror, less because the category is creepy, more because it's never much sparked my interest. A good friend of mine told me about this series, and after my brothers all got into it, I decided to give them a shot. To say the least, I'm far from disappointed. After having only finished the second book, I can already understand why I was encouraged to give them a read. They're amazing.

To give you an idea of what I mean, I offer you the following words. Today, while at work, I happened to get a break and so pulled out my book to read. Before too long, I completely forgot that I was there, and was completely lost in what was happening. My eyes could literally not take in each sentence fast enough to satisfy the intense craving in my mind to find out what happened next. And yet, to zip through it too fast would mean to miss out on vitally important information, and thus I had to be disciplined and read it at a normal, agonizing pace.

I succeeded, somehow, and will commence reading the third as soon as I can this evening. I have no idea how people managed to get through these books as they were published one at a time. But there is no question that this will not be the last time I read these books. The sheer complexity of the story, the intricacies of the characters, the brilliance of the ideas, the perpetual sense of questioning, and the philosophical intensity capture my mind and my imagination like nothing I've read before.

I'll say no more now, except that the books speak for themselves. Now, I must stop writing this blog entry and continue reading. If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend you do the same.