Childe Roland to The Dark Tower came.....

I am obsessed with Stephen King's Dark Tower series!

 I have just finished reading the Marvel comic book series which starts with the past events depicted in Book 4: Wizard And Glass and carries on with new and original stories that take us right up until The Battle For Jerhico Hill which sees Roland first start off on his quest to reach The Dark Tower.

This has prompted me to read the Stephen King novels again as well. So far I am up to Wizard And Glass and throughly enjoying them once more but, as I remember (and I have only read the end books once), the series begins to decline from here onwards as Roland gets closer to his goal! Wizard And Glass though is truly amazing and really helps us understand the boy that once was The Gunslinger before he started out on his life's journey. It is good because in Wizard And Glass, we do not just get a flashback story but  also get to pass through an alternate version of the world featured in King's novel, The Stand!

On a slightly different note, this has also prompted me to finish my painting of The Dark Tower that I started back in Febuary. I will post a photo here in a couple of days but if you check out my Profile on FaceBook, I will also be posting photos of all my other paintings too! I cannot believe it has been nine years since I last painted anything except for a birthday card I drew for Emilie recently with a Toy Story theme. Hopefully this might inspire me to do more painting......it would be good if it did!

Anyway, I am a bit behind with my list of 1001 books and authors you really need to read before you die and haven't updated for a while so it is time to give you another!

This time, the book I wish to include is (20) The Stone And The Flute by Hans Bremmann. It tells the story of a young man, Listener, who comes to the aid of a fallen enemy in battle named Arno who gives him a mystical stone amulet in gratitude. Listener spends all his life trying to discover the secrets of The Stone and has lots of adventures in the meantime that see him turned first into a Faun and then later into stone for several decades. As well as all this, Listener is also able to find true love and ultimately he comes to the realisation that what he has finally found may be far more valuable than anything else he might have sought!

This is less one story but instead several different sub-stories all cleverly inter-linked and joined together to form a cohesive whole. It is a book I first read at a very young age but which has stayed with me through until adulthood and is still a firm favourite of mine. The test of a good book is one that stays with you through the years and loses none of its magic or charm. This is truly one of those books!