Books and Imagination

Just finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. What with all the stuff of life going on around me, and not particularly keen on most of it, finding a book to get lost in is such a delight.
And what a book it is.
It has all the ingredients I need and love.  A magician.  An illusionist.  A sorcerer.  An enchanter.  A fortune teller.  A love story.  A dark story.  A fin-de-siecle.  Life and death.  Endings and new beginnings.  Slight of hand.  Deception.  Loyalty.
A mysterious circus that..... 'arrives without warning. Opening at nightfall and closing at dawn'.
It is one of those books that from the moment you begin to read you are immediately hooked. The characters come to life like a waking dream.
A real work of the imagination that taps into and demands the attention of your own imagination. I love books that do this. I've always loved books that have done this. Some of the happiest memories I have are of reading books that do this.
To me the experience is as real as any of the true life stories I have read.
And there waiting for me, next in the queue, top of the book pile, is part three of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Another feat of and feast for the imagination. Another love story playing out over time. Time itself becomes distorted. No one quite seems to know what is real and what is imagined (rather like life itself, yes?). Two central characters and a strong supporting cast.
And I have just found out that Carlos Ruiz Zafon has written and will be releasing sometime soon The Prisoner of Heaven, the third in his series featuring the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere and Sons bookshop.
And what I love doing as well is finding out about the authors and their lives and there art. Just as interesting as the stories they write. Just as stimulating to the imagination.
Books and Imagination.
I love these.