Book Travelling

How do you distinguish the good books from the great? For me, it is something I like to call 'Book Travelling'. It is where I as an individual person cease to exist in this world, and become part of the book. I am in the book, travelling its pages, living there. I belong in the book. Stopping reading is like slowly rising through the stratosphere until I am once again me. In my chair, with a book on my lap.
Sure, some books are good for a light read, some are pleasant and enjoyable on an upper level, but you're left on the outside looking in. You skim the surface of the novel, without gaining entry. The truly great novels are the ones you can dive down into, breathe, live, become.

Never Judge a Book by its Cover

We've all heard that before, but I know that I personally am horribly guilty of doing just that. How the cover of a book looks will influence my decision; to read, or not to read? Obviously there are other factors too, the title for example, or the blurb. But the cover can be the difference between me picking up the book, or leaving it on the shelf amongst the other Un-Chosen Ones. Sometimes this has been a fatal mistake that has resulted in many years of missed enjoyment. I finally cave in to the reccomendations of others and read the book, only to find myself smitten. Example; 'Eragon'. John-Jude Palancar's coverart of Saphira (Eragon's dragon) was not, in my opinion how a dragon should look. It was odd to me at the time (However I have since become accustomed to it), and I refused to read the book for about six years. Then I saw that the movie was going to come out.
I thought I might check out the movie, but we all know that books are better than movies, so I thought I'd read the book first, to compare them. Also so that my view was not tainted by the movie version. (As you can tell I take a dim view of movie adaptations on the whole - future ranting warning!) I loved the book, and yes, the movie butchered it shamelessly. *refrains from listing everything wrong with it*

However, my point is that I missed out on loving the book for 6 years. All because the cover didn't catch my eye. This blog will be a combination of books I've read, cover art and artists (maybe an analysis or two), and occasional rants about movie adaptations.