7 Day Book Challenge – Day 1

So my friend Jon challenged me to one of those stupid “post your  x favourite ____ and then tag bunch of your friends” chain letter spam things on Facebook recently. Normally I ignore them passionately because I personally hate the gullible sheep mentality they breed and I simply hate spam. This time however, I was intrigued. The challenge is thus:

Day 1: I have accepted a challenge to post the covers of 7 books I love — no explanation, no reviews, just the covers. Each time I’ll ask a friend to take up the challenge. Let’s promote literacy together. Today I challenge: ____

Pretty innocuous right? I mean it’s books! This was a challenge I was born to participate in. So I started thinking about it… then I thought about it some more and then today  I caved and took up the challenge.

I started rummaging around in my head for the books that I love. Books that have shaped my identity and my world views over the years and realized that I had way more than 7. The number might be closer to 700 truth be told. This might be harder to narrow down than I had originally thought.

On top if this, just posting without any explanation makes me twitch out. I’m the kind of person that needs to know why. I need to understand the reasons. The story behind the story if you will. I’m sure there’s more than a few of you out there that feel the same.

Now, so as to stick to the spirit of the rules, if not the letter, I’ve decided to post the original over on Facebook and then link each day to a new post here with the juicy details about why these seven books are so important to me.

Let’s begin.

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

I picked Sandman first namely because it, and it’s author have had such a profound effect on my life and opening up my imagination to worlds and ideas beyond the regular scope. Sandman was the first comic that I read that wasn’t a Marvel/DC super-hero comic. It was the first time I realized that stories were important. Sometimes the bad guy wins. Sometimes, nobody wins. Life happens. Even when you’re the personification of the multi-verse’s hopes, dreams and nightmares.

I also loved the Season of Mists storyline for the concept alone: The King of Hell (that’d be the fallen angel Lucifer, for those of you playing along at home) quits and gives up the keys to Dream (aka The Sandman). We then watch as a bidding war for a prime plot of psychic real estate happens between numerous gods, demi-beings and abstract concepts. It’s brilliant!

I could ramble on for days about this story arc, the comic itself and even its author, but I shall refrain but for this:

Read his work! You will not be disappointed.

Tomorrow we shall talk about history…