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Books to Try While Waiting for Legend of Zelda Games
Image by Stephen Leonardi from Unsplash.
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If there’s one thing Nintendo is good at, it’s making money. Whether it’s new games coming out or taking old games and remastering them, they clean up every time. With Link’s Awakening and onward, they’ve shown a willingness to remaster and re-release Zelda titles that haven’t gotten a lot of recent attention, and Skyward Sword is the perfect example of that. Being a Nintendo Wii game, which meant a low-powered (but nifty) console running it as well as adding in motion controls, quite a lot of people skipped it or soured on it. Now, though, with the re-release of the HD edition, people who haven’t played it yet, or want to give it a second chance, will be able to on the Switch with prettier graphics and hopefully better controls.
But enough about video games. We’re here to talk about books, so with that in mind, let’s supposing you’re looking for more books that give you the same sort of feel as Legend of Zelda and its expansive world.
Posted by Peter Damien
Drink Tea, Read Books: Pairing Books with Tea Varieties
[Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels]
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The second book in the Little Kid, Big City! series comes out today, and where we previously got to explore New York, this time we're going to be poking around London. A travelogue of charming pictures and descriptions, written as a sort of choose your own adventure, is a fantastic way to read a travel book no matter what, but you know what would improve it? A cup of tea. Always a cup of tea, you can trust us on this one. So, to help you with this, we're picking some books and some teas we think go pretty well together, so you can settle in properly.
Posted by Peter Damien
Time Travel Agencies and Associated Paperwork
Photo by Jordan Benton from Pexels
Fresh on the heels of the time-traveling and reality altering adventures of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel is back to bend minds and generally sow time-based chaos with a limited TV series, all centered on Loki. In the trailers, we see Loki grabbed and taken away by agents of The Time Variance Authority, of which he becomes an agent (in his own chaotic way, presumably).
The Time Variance Authority looks suitable, surreal, weird, and like a lot of fun, but it’s interesting to note that it is hardly the first organization trying to apply rules and paperwork-detail to time and space. Here are a few more organizations trying to do the same thing.
Posted by Peter Damien
Four Video Game Soundtracks That Are Perfect to Write To
Music gives the less writerly-insane parts of our brains something to do while we're putting words on a screen, and soundtracks are an excellent choice. Personally, I used to write to movie soundtracks (the TRON Legacy soundtrack is proof the universe wants me to be happy), but those can be tricky. John Williams' Star Wars soundtracks are amazing achievements but you're working away and here's the Imperial March and now you have to go march around your house like you're Darth Vader.
So for the past few years, I've switched to game soundtracks. Not the Tetris music (can you imagine? I would lose my mind), but the gorgeous and symphonic soundtracks with atmospheres. See, game music has recognizable themes, but also ambient background music, for those less exciting bits when you're running across a vast landscape or staring blankly at a jumping puzzle. This means you get wonderful ambient mood-music drifting through the background.
Want to try some videogame soundtracks out? Here's some suggestions.
Posted by Peter Damien
Famous Writers Who Weren’t Truly Recognized Until They Were Long Gone
It's easy to assume famous writers were recognized as geniuses in their own time. A classic now is a classic then is a classic always, right? Not so. In fact, sometimes the authors themselves died first and went to their graves with no idea about their impending cultural and literary prominence. Here are few examples you might not have expected!
Posted by Peter Damien