At the moment I am reading not one, but three books.
It is not just a sign of my scatterbrain and apparently short concentration but really, it all depends where inspiration leads me. There are other two books that I enjoy as well in different ways and seriously planning to finish them, however the moment when I entered the crew library on the ship (which means very first day, because this is what I do first to check what's there) second (and a third!) part of the saga caught my eye and I actually laughed out loud from excitement.
Now, I truly did enjoyed TV serial "Game of Thrones" and watched all of them with greatest pleasure so once I decided to check out the novels, somehow the first one didn't really feel so exciting because I already knew what will happen and reading seemed a little bit pointless. Surprisingly, the second part of the saga actually feels like almost completely new experience because it is so full of details and characters omitted from TV serial that suddenly this is a fresh perspective on the whole story. For example, at the very first chapter we are in gloomy Dragonstone ruled by stern Stannis Baratheon (brother of deceased king Robert) and here we have countless characters not showed in TV serial, like court clown Patchface described in a few sentences as extremely interesting personality, kind of madman saved by Gods from drowning (he apparently survived three days at the sea after a ship sunk and something happened to him that he became almost madman, where previously he was witty and entertaining). Like before, every chapter is told from perspective of a different person which gives interesting feel to the story that is basically a mosaic with thousands of puzzle pieces that reader is supposed to connect. Even though I am familiar with the story itself, reading it in the book is this time actually fascinating because everything is described in a great detail - so naturally I left other two books aside for now and really can't wait each night to finish my work to dive into mythical world of George R.R.Martin, it is really that good. I am bit apprehensive about the sheer volume of these books because it seems time consuming and perhaps I could read several other titles while going trough one of these, but never mind - its not about numbers and quantities anyway. Someone once surprised me by asking "how many books did you read this year?" and although I know the answer because I always write it down, it is not the numbers that matter to me, it is the quality that stays with me - the long list of fluffy entertainment that didn't register always pale compared with perhaps one or two really moving titles that come my way. Also the volume does not always promise greatness - sometimes the big book is simply long book - some of the most satisfying books that left deep impression on me were actually very slim volumes, like "My Ántonia"by Willa Cather that I absolutely adored, beautiful and powerful book that was hidden behind completely simple little volume that could fit in my pocket.
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