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My answer for this week is going to be short and sweet.

When I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy many years ago, I kept a dictionary open right next to it. There were so many new vocabulary words included in it that I kept having to stop reading to find out on what Earth the characters were talking about.

To be fair, I was in middle school when I read this series. Some of those words might be more familiar to me if I were to come across them again as an adult. But the memory of looking up words regularly during these hours of reading is a strong one for me.

If you’ve read this series, did you have the same experience?

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Wow, I came up with a lot of answers this week.

I love discussing:

History. The most interesting parts of it are the ones that chronicle how ordinary people live and how medical care has evolved and improved over the centuries in my opinion.

Art. If you want to talk about the possible meanings for a piece, I’ll happily jump into that conversation.

Ghost Stories. Whether they’re fictional or based on the personal accounts of real people, I find all of this stuff fascinating.

Fitness. I enjoy hearing about types of exercise folks do or don’t like and why. For example, I’ve never been able to get into jogging, but I love yoga, dancing, and weightlifting.

Astronomy. My favourite subjects here generally revolve around space exploration, the possibility of sending people to Mars, and the discoveries of new planets.

Food. Cooking, meal planning, the latest scientific understandings of good nutrition, and even the history of various foods/dishes all catch my attention.

Archeology. Learning how different groups of people lived hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of years ago is always interesting to me. We’re such an adaptable species in general.

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I’m an adventurous reader who bounces around among all of the genres. While there are certain genres I visit regularly and others I only visit occasionally, it takes a lot to turn me off from a story entirely.

This is the fairly small list of topics that I refuse to read about.

Glorifying Prejudice. That is to say, I strictly avoid anything that makes it seem honourable to hate or discriminate against  others because they’re not like you in some way. Why not encourage inclusion and acceptance instead?

Preachiness. This is a universal nope from me no matter the subject matter or whether I happen to agree with the author.  If someone wrote a book that tried to browbeat its readers into believing that purple is the best colour in the universe, I’d stop reading before finishing the first page despite my deep love of that colour.

Hopelessness. I used to be a huge fan of stories like The Walking Dead or Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. While I do still enjoy some horror in small doses, everything I read and watch needs to have a hopeful message included in it these days.

Dead Pets. There are far too many books out there that kill off beloved pets at the climax of the plot. I’ve had my fill of this trope until the end of time itself. Let Fido live!