There were no book stores when I was a kid. The library was a mile walk. But the grocery store was only a quarter mile away and it had all these books. What the hell is it about? There's an awesome skull - the sorcerer's ostensibly - and a buff man and his pet tarantula about to get into a fight with a greenhouse. Perhaps it has something to do with Time Bandits, which my father decided I wasn't old enough to watch. There's very obviously a "#2" on top of the book, but I bought it anyway. And read about a third of it, and then decided I probably ought to read the first book, despite the fact that it looks ridiculous: Which is how, in second grade, too young to watch Blade Runner, I found myself reading an orgy scene involving a wicked sorceress riding a rhinoceros for its dildonic powers. Beverly Cleary it ain't and, even at the ripe old age of 8, I could tell it wasn't good. I mean, talking spider named Krek. I still read all six books by the time I was in 3rd grade. Made the Chronicles of Narnia seem, well, juvenile.
Those books look awesome. 'Cenotaph' is one of the words I'd never come across before moving to NZ; there's a prominent one at Auckland's war memorial museum.
Weird sex things in books your parents weren't suspicious of because books must be like finding porn in the woods. Mine was the kids having sex in the sewers to ward off the monster in Stephen King's It. I am sure if I were to read it again that scene would make much more sense than the "and then the children spontaneously decided that getting it on would save them from the monster, and indeed it worked" I remember, but I don't think I want it to.Which is how, in second grade, too young to watch Blade Runner, I found myself reading an orgy scene involving a wicked sorceress riding a rhinoceros for its dildonic powers.
Yeah, King is always good for a little weird tail at inappropriate moments. I think It was 6th or 7th grade for me, by which time all the chicks were reading Flowers in the Attic which, while I've never read, is a really weird fuckin' movie so It wasn't any great shakes. Fuckin' Flowers in the Attic, man. WTF.