Not so great

I've been reading 'Inkheart' by Cornelia Flunke (suggested to me by a friend as a great fantasy fiction). Well he was wrong, Inkheart is not such a great book (too kiddish and girlie) . The thing is, I do like fantasy - not only great stuff like TLOTR but also new works like the Inheritance trilogy. Maybe the book wasn't ment for me, but I really did not like it. As with any other book once I start, I can't stop until I finish it. So it was a complete waste of time. But then again I found this quote at the begining of a chapter

A strong and bitter book-sickness floods one's soul. How ignominious to be strapped to this ponderous mass of paper, print and dead man's sentiment. Would it not be better, finer, braver to leave the rubbish where it lies and walk out into the world a free untrammeled illiterate Superman?

With books like these I do see some point in the quote

The world according to Marcus Aurelius

There is a passage in "The World accordint to Garp" where Garp reads the following quote of Marcus Aurelius in a bookstore in Austria,

In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his sense a dim rushlight, his body prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, his fame doubtful. In short, all that is body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapours

and comments that he must have written it when in Austria. That seems to summarise everything about the book. Even the most profound (and depressing) passages are painted with a twist of humour. Like everything about the book, every sentence, seems to have a multitude of meanings and emotions attached with them. I want it to go on for ever. All the small stories and the dreams of the characters within these stories. Everything is so vivid. Like it says in the cover, 'the book makes you laugh, makes you weep and above all makes you think' and its TRUE. This is one of the most readable and also a must read book I've come across.