A literally literary adventure

There is nothing like curling up with a good book and so a good one is equally scarce. Not to mention a lively interchange of thoughts, opinions or even feelings about one that you've read. That also is all too scarce. These days just finding an interesting work of fiction with proper diction is a rarity. Books like Pride and prejudice and Zombies or Sense and sensibility and Seamonsters are popular picks and speaks volumes about the state of the educational system they represent. Even so I know I don't have to make an argument for books because everyone knows that a book is always better than a movie. It's a given! If you disagree simply try it then let me know. So why is the general population not really inclined to read at all? rhetorical question but I'm not going to answer that. You know why - fluoridated water, can't read, addicted to tv or video games, too lazy, general break down of society- name it!. The problem with books as with a movie or food is that you wouldn't know how bad it is until you've read it or at least much of it or you could have someone read it for you - I actually know people who do this.
I -not long ago- discovered a great book entitled City of Dreaming Books by a german writer named Walter Moers one day while browsing through a bookstore. Usually my browses end unfruitful as one might have guessed from my comment at the outset but the title was inviting. I was drawn to its' fantasy and the foreword was so cleverly mysterious in its' attempt to either entice or expunge the reader from the journey the book was about to take that I delightedly accepted the challenge to see what it was made of. Such a foreboding introduction only prefaced the cryptic images and unimaginable denizens -creatures somewhat familiar as well as evolutionary - who lived in the fictional world of Zamonia. Zamonia being the fantastical stage that would hold this theatrical spectacle. At the opening of the story one is provided with an atlas of the world which is recognizable as Pangaea - the name given to the supercontinent that Alfred Wegener theorized the world consisted of prior to continental drifting causing the separation of continents as we know exists today. Zamonia even includes the legendary city of Atlantis before it sank into the ocean. In a way I rediscovered creativity and it's abyssal imagination akin to the labyrinthine catacombs the story bears. The power of books to exponentially inflate the imagination cannot be captured on film. There is just no way to replicate the views from the minds lens in all its distinct detail. I could easily imagine books infused with a signature scent, books that were boobie trapped and cursed or came to life to fight or eat like animals or even ones that bore transient material. The currency was books, residents hunted for books and killed for them. The city of Bookholm brought to mind the bible verse - to the making of many books there is no end... I would invite anyone to follow Moers down into the catacombs filled with ancient books, to the castle of the shadow king who is covered in crytographical slivers of paper and shares his dark domain with equally unfathomable and abominably dangerous creatures. It's a cult following in the making. The author bases all his stories in Zamonia and this is not his debut but so far I say his best. There is so much I would like to see in Zamonia the ingenious platform for the boundless possibilities of the imaginary world transposed over realistic elements.