James Clavell wrote an Asian time-lined historical fiction series starting with his epic SHOGUN circa 1600 and continued with TAI-PAN 1841, GAI-JIN 1862 and NOBLE HOUSE 1963. I know this only because I'm staring at them on my fireplace mantel right now. They're front of mind for me right now because I need a little mental expansion and transporting.
Racing bikes is tiring but also takes discipline to recover properly. I suspect many guys lucky enough to have the time and flexibility to recover properly do it in the same mindless way I too often do. But the thought of sofa surfing and watching cable is getting too mind constricting for me. I don't look forward to it at all. The programming is like a mellow level of purgatory making me mentally dull and bored to tears. I keep my laptop handy to read on-line journals and I write a little at the same time too but there's only so much of this I can do. After a while the combination leaves me cross eyed with sore finger tips and for some reason it also leaves me with a flutter of anxiety. I'm not exactly sure why? Perhaps it's shuffling between the TV and laptop screens that gets me; their manufactured colors, neon light, the constant stream of visceral visuals? Whatever the case, it's not relaxing at all.
A couple of years ago my mom bought me Clavell's series mentioned above. She knew I loved reading SHOGUN about ten years ago and thought I'd appreciate having the follow up novels. Last night I figured enough was enough; killed the idiot box and pulled NOBLE HOUSE off the shelf, laid down in bed and began reading. NOBLE HOUSE is about 1,400 page's and I only made it through like 15 last night but it was a good start....And before I drifted off into 7 hours of relaxed sleep, I was 'transported' to a midnight rain storm in Hong Kong as Alaster Straun reluctantly handed over tai-pan leadership of Noble House Shipping Company to Ian Dunross. -Refreshing!
Peace and roll strong.
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