Welcome to the journey

Greetings and saludos.  Welcome to the first post of John’s Jots and Titles , a chronicle of what I am reading.  My aim is to review books (and occasionally movies or tv shows) that I have recently read.  Does my opinion of them really matter? No.  But engaging with a text on a critical level will help me because I wish to be a writer.  I’ve only been writing as a hobby so far, but figuring out what I did or did not like about a story, and, more importantly, why, will help me improve.  So I’m doing this for selfish reasons.  But maybe someone out there will like my opinions.

My preferred genre to read and write is fantasy, particularly young adult.  But there will be occasional forays into science fiction, mystery and the Gothic. 

And there will be comic books.  Comics and graphic novels are a passion of mine (I wrote my master’s thesis on Batman).  So expect a heavy dose of those as well.

What am I looking for in a story?  I want compelling characters in an interesting setting; either people or a place I would like to revisit.  And this is accomplished through good, clean prose which expresses the ideas clearly may even rise up with a beautiful turn of phrase or description.

To help with this, I have decided to judge books by their covers.  More specifically, I have devised a rating system of 5 Covers:

5 Covers- Exceptional

4 Covers- Excellent

3 Covers- Average

2 Covers- Mediocre

1 Cover- Poor

In preparation for this project, I have stockpiled books for the last several months and should be posting consistently for a least a while.  We'll see how this blog morphs after that.  

Welcome to the journey through fiction.