Quirk Classics, Awesome.

I've always liked reading novels. Of course over the years I've tended to enjoy books on the fantastical side of things, horror novels, apocalypse novels, books with violence in them. Same with movies, I prefer horror movies to all other movies. But I don't just watch or read these books for the violence, I like the stories too. I like the character development and how the characters interact. I'm the guy that is always trying to figure out what's going on. It took me about half of The Sixth Sense to know what was happening. I like the flow of the story and I'm disappointed when I see what appears to be obvious holes which is you can imaging is a common disappointment in horror movies and books.

I went to the University of Toronto and studied English. I of course had read some 'literature' books at that point, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fifth Business and a bunch of Shakespeare for example. It was University that I really began enjoying better written books, Hawthorne and Lovecraft were my favorites, of course the problem with them is they can be rather boring. Still, I enjoyed the style of writing, the intelligence behind it, even if they're describing some boring person trying to have a relationship with some other boring person and the most exciting part of the story is when there is a brief misunderstanding between them and one storms off in a huff.

After university I went back to fill in some gaps, you know the books you've heard of, that everyone seems to have read but you haven't. Cather in the Rye comes to mind, a book that should be read by teenagers by the way. So I read both types of books now and I'm rarely significantly impressed with any single novel.

One of the books I've never gotten around to reading is Anna Karenina. It's been touted as the greatest novel ever read, it's also huge and I know it would have me sleeping 15 hours a day if I tried to read it so I've never owned a copy. I guess a couple years ago it had a resurgence because suddenly I saw it all over the place, new editions, people on the subway reading it, and I mean I've seen over ten people with it on the subway in Toronto. So it along with many other books were on my to read list in the doubtful section, until now.

There is a publisher called Quirk Books and they've come up with a freaking awesome idea. I was in a book store around Christmas looking for gifts and books for me to read (I can spend hours deciding which book I want to read, I'm quite particular these days) when I noticed a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Now if you know me you know I love zombies, they've my favorite monster and there is a good reason for that but that discussion is for another day. I've not read any Jane Austen although her books are also on my list under the category of doubtful. Who wants to read about some stuffy rich 18th century girls whose only concern is what to wear to the next ball and how much money the men who are courting them are worth. The writing style is fantastic but the story is incredibly boring, unless of course something like zombies could be added. So of course I bought the book and read it in a few days.

I've wikipediaed the Austen novel and I've spoken to a couple people who have read it and my best determination is that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is just like Pride and Prejudice except with Zombies. The writing style is the type I like and it's got Zombies, it's by far one of the best books I've ever read.

You can imagine my excitement when I found Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, another fantastic book. Then a couple weeks ago I found a new version of the best novel ever written, Android Karenina. This version is much more up my alley than the original and it didn't sacrifice the great writing style of Leo Tolstoy. I feel like I'm still reading a classic but I'm much more thoroughly entertained. The only problem is that I read them too quickly, as is the case with all great books.

Android Karenina is actually the android of Anna Karenina who is still the main player in the book. Anna still has a human husband and still has an affair with a human but all these humans also have androids, it's a rich person thing. So it's the same story, same characters, but now there are androids involved too. They don't interfere of change the course of the novel in anyway, they simply add colour. Levin still lives out in the country as in the original but now he owns a groznium mine. Groznium is a metal discovered that allows for people in the Android Karenina world to build fantastic things like androids. In Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters the main characters travel to an underwater dome instead of London England. In Android Karenina Kitty travels to space instead of a health spa abroad.

I love these books and can't wait to see what else Quirk Books publishes. The content is fun and entertaining and I'm still looking up a word in the dictionary every few pages as I read.