I've been thinking about books.

Today I took a small inventory, and I have approximately 108 non-fiction books of my own. This does not count the books of my siblings and parents, whose libraries are open to me. The break down into specific categories:
Fine Arts (MC Escher, D'Orsay), Animation (The Illusion of Life), Biology (Anatomy, Gardening), Other Science (Astronomy), Writing (Publishing, Comics), Crafts (Cooking, Sewing), Story Collections (Bible, Fairy Tales, Myth), German, Sociology, and Other. Other includes Blackjack Gambling, Glassblowing, So You Want to Visit Soviet Russia.


These don't include the library books, the borrowed books, lost books, or sketchbooks. And I haven't read them all.
I'm still reading lord of the rings. I spend a lot of time reading it, but I want to speed-read it again. I don't have a cohesive idea about the characters.
     I don't want to read a book by its movie. The movies are amazing, but they represent what other people think of the books. I need my own connections with the characters, outside Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen. It was the same with the Harry Potter series. Books let you have your own vision, movies are just optional visions.
     How do you read a book when you can't see characters? I feel like JRR Tolkien's writing is like a giant iron that smooths out ideas into a textbook of an adventure or characters being an emotion. Pippin is the stupid one. Gandalf is powerful, but not infallible. Sam complains and worries. Frodo is troubled. Legolas is perfect and Gimli is... stout. Boromir is a prick. Aragorn is silently concerned. I don't even know what Merry does. I really want them to be more, but I don't see it yet, and another 40 hours may not help.
     So many channels and nothing to watch.


I've been sending in portfolios, and I don't particularly like my non-figure-drawing work, except for the Tower. And today, something horrible happened- someone in art class asked my opinion. I didn't give it. If someone asks, I can be honest, but honesty isn't nice. The worst thing happens when you can say, "I think you can do better."


So that's what I've been thinking.