Comfort Reads Redux

My Cheesy Readers may remember my post a few months ago titled Comfort Reads in which I debated which genre book qualified as My Comfort Read --- that one book or series that I've read many times, where I turn to time and time again, where I can jump in the book anywhere and find myself caught up in its story again like returning to an old friend.

I mentioned that I had thought it was The Lord of The Rings series because I reread at least one book a year, but if I thought about random reading, I always turned to Dune. So I handed the honor to Frank Herbert's classic.

Remember that conversation? Of course you do.

Well, I was watching a documentary on the making of the sets of the LOTR movies and for the segment concerning Minas Morgul, they quoted text from the chapter "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol." Later I picked up The Two Towers and started reading the chapter they referenced. Next thing I realized, I was deep into the story of the climb with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, and had read way past the part they described in the documentary. Quite an unexpected turn of events. I had just done what I said I had only previously done with Herbert's Dune. And then instances of other times this had happened came back to my memory, like the time I picked it up and relieved the death of Boromir and the splitting of the Fellowship, or the time I found myself randomly reading the confrontation at the Black Gate at Mordor. Hmmm... Maybe my previous decision was a bit hasty. 

So with that in mind, I felt compelled to log back on here and modify my previous statement. I had awarded the honor to Dune, but now I have to rescind that again --- the score is still tied, which is really the way it should be. If I'm in the mood for the fantasy genre, it's LOTR, and if I'm in the mood for science fiction, then it's Dune.

Simple enough. Now if I recall, the last I left our hapless heroes, Sam has just realized that spider venom doesn't immediately kill its victims....

Until next time...
Tie-ingly Yours,
Michael