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It seems like lately I have been on a pretty good streak of talking about my different literary interests but for a personal blog there hasn't been a ton of personality in it. I've talked about my love for fantasy books and which ones I like the best but not a lot about why I am reading in the first place. I'd like to say that reading has always been one of my favorite pastimes but that hasn't been the case. We are going to have to flashback to a much younger Fingolfin to see how this journey starts...

The early years 

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As far as I can remember my reading career started with a handful of sesame street books. After mastering a few of those I can safely say that the only reading I did for a number of years was whatever was assigned to me in school. Probably some time around 4th grade my parents were trying to get me into reading again and introduced me to the goosebumps series. Anyone who was born in the mid to early 1980's definitely remembers these 1990's classics. This was my first taste of reading on my own and I was hooked. Once I picked up a book I would basically just read straight through until I was done, sitting for hours at a time. 

I still managed to keep my normal hobbies (playing on a few sports teams/nintendo/friends..) but at night almost all of my free time went to finishing one book after another. Sadly after a few months I was all out of goosebumps books to read. My parents tried suggesting that I could read *gasp* non-goosebumps books but 10 year old me wasn't having any of it. I immediately went back to zero reading that wasn't assigned to me in school which meant from 5th-8th grade I read exactly 2 books, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish. Both are by S.E Hinton and I enjoyed them but not enough to spark my interest again. So what was up next for me?

High school 

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I thought high school might be the place to jumpstart my former affinity for reading but I continued the trend of only reading during school/whatever was assigned in class. I suppose I was too focused on just the whole high school experience to care too much about actually learning unless I was directly forced to. 

The low point for me had to be in 9th grade when my english teacher assigned us to read The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. This was the first book that I read that brought back that love of reading feeling that had been absent for years. I flew through it, hardly putting it down at all. I even went back and read it a second time because why not? I don't remember the exact details but I know I did well on the test in class and we even got a day to watch this gem from 1977. So was this the turning point for me? Did I finally embrace my inner nerd and dive into fantasy books head first? Alas, my laziness got the best of me again. After finishing the hobbit I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "Wow, I loved this book, I really wish there was more to this story.." Now to give myself a little credit this was prior to the Lord of the Rings movies coming out but I still even refused to put in that tiny bit of effort that would have let me discover that the story did indeed continue. A full four years of high school went by with nary a novel read other than what I was forced to read. So I packed up and went off to college still blissfully unaware of what I was missing.

Fingolfin (the college years)

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College was arguably my favorite time of my young life. I was fortunate to meet an amazing group of people right from the beginning and it opened my mind to so many new things. I'd like to say this was the moment someone suggested a radical new book and I was hooked again but that wasn't the case. My freshman and sophomore years went by and I was just as ignorant of the vast world of books out there as I was when I first arrived at school. 

Finally after a few years there came the one motivating factor that lures many young men into acts they hadn't considered before- a girl. I was in my junior year when I met my college girlfriend and thats when things started to change. Although we lived pretty close to each other she had a nicer apartment and less roommates so we spent a lot of nights at her place. She had a rule where she spent an hour each night before bed reading a book, no TV's allowed on. The first few nights I tried talking to her or just going to sleep but with the light on sleep proved elusive. A few short conversations made it clear that my options were either sit and stare at the wall for an hour while she read or god forbid pick up one of her books and give it a try. The next night I perused her bookshelf and found a copy of The fellowship of the ring and was immediately drawn in. It quickly became obvious that this was the continuation of the story I had fallen in love with years ago but was too lazy to search for. While the relationship with my girlfriend ended after about a year my love of reading was back for good. 

My reading now

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The floodgates opened for me after that fateful night in college. I went out and bought the rest of the Lord of the Rings books that weekend and tore through them in about a week. I bought the rest of Tolkiens works after that (the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc..) and couldn't get enough of his fantasy world. After running out of Tolkien books I started reading other books in the fantasy genre. Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, George R.R Martin, a whole new pantheon of worlds to explore. 

I've gone on to explore other genres like suspense, horror, and biographies but fantasy remains my go to reading material. So that's my tale of going from proud non-reader to fantasy loving book nerd. Hopefully this article convinces someone out there to pick up a book and find a new passion though I don't claim to be as persuasive as a hot college chick. You'll just have to take my word that the right book is out there waiting for you.