Hello!

Why a book blog you ask? Well, there are few things I love more than getting lost in a really good book. I fall madly in love with characters, I day dream about amazing fictional places, I lose sleep over the words of my favorite authors – so what better way to express my love of the written word than by sharing it!

When I say that I love books it’s nothing compared to how much I love talking about books – and listening to others talk about books!  I love to talk about my favorite characters, and I love to hear why other people love them too (or even better, why they hate them – I’m interested in it all!).  Unabashed enthusiasm about books is just so much fun!  You want to talk about how the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was the coolest thing ever even before the movie?  Sign me up!  Got issues with the Three Laws?  Let’s hear ’em!  Just want to talk about how awesome dragons are in fantasy literature (or in general – come on, dragons!)?  I am so in.  If I could spend the rest of my life doing just one thing it would be reading and discussing books, and also eating bagels, but books would definitely come first (I’m pretty sure).

You’ll probably see a whole lot of fantasy and YA fiction around here since those are my favorite genres to talk about, but science fiction will get its fair share of attention as well.  I may even venture out into the realm of biographies and memoirs – I do love to read about the lives my favorite famous people.  There will be some reviews, probably some rants, a lot of general book-related chatter, possibly a little (a lot of) fangirling, and hopefully good times will be had by all!

So, welcome to Kitty Cat Reads!  I’ll be in a bit of an “under construction” phase in regards to the aesthetics of the blog and how everything works since I just plan on jumping straight in to the deep end and figuring things out as I go but I hope you’ll stick around to see what I have planned, I think it’s going to be pretty great!  Don’t let my overuse of italics and exclamation points scare you away (you’ll totally get used to it, promise!).

I’ll leave you with a quote from one of the kings of epic fantasy, Mr. George R.R. Martin himself, that perfectly describes just why I love to read:

The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real … for a moment at least … that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to middle Earth.