Reading holds a special place in my life. It fuels my love of communication and sharing knowledge. # Formative Books Kids growing up in Australia are probably familiar with [[Scholastic's Book Club]]. I don't think my parents ever said no to buying a book I showed interest in, which was probably a sound investment. ## [[Eragon]] and the [[Inheritance Cycle]] A comment from a local Author and Publisher, Jaye F.R Coates, was that [[Christopher Paolini]] wrote Eragon with a thesaurus in their off hand. Going back and rereading, I have to agree. But if anything, that meant I learnt to use a dictionary, and expanded my vocabulary greatly. ## [[Ranger's Apprentice]] "Tread lightly and be humble" is probably the lesson from this one. # Favourite Books and Series ## [[The Culture]] - "The Culture is my secular heaven, the place I'd like to live" - Iain M. Banks Written by the late [[Iain M. Banks]], The Culture is a series of ten books, set in the distant future. The themes and content presented in the universe could be an accurate and positive prediction of our future. Or at least, I hope so. The name of this site is a little play on words for The Sleeper Service from [[Excession]] If you'd like to read them, I recommend starting with [[The Player of Games]]. There is no real reading order, the first book is just a little harder to get into. ## The Cosmere [[Brandon Sanderson]] has a number of books, all set within the same universe, or "Cosmere". It is extremely impressive that a number of worlds, people, and systems of magic, can interweave and be effective as laws of physics. - [[The Stormlight Archive]] - "Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination." - [[Mistborn]] - Wax - "Your grasp of language is startling, considering how you so frequently brutalize it.” - Wayne - “Ain’t nobody what knows the cow better than the butcher, Wax.” ## The Terraformers Written by [[Annalee Newitz]] - "We are all allies in the great bargain"