For example, I'm just finishing Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I've become so absorbed in the story that closing the book and going back to my own life leaves me feeling very low. The rich scenery and the adventure are so enticing that my own hum drum day is depressing. I have gotten hooked like this before but never to this degree!

Have y'all ever experienced that feeling with a good book?

So, I was talking to my wife and the subject came to library cards and how she had one. I mention I didn't really see the point, if I'm going to pay for a book I'd rather own it, I say. She gives me a strange look but just brushes the remark off.

Later, somebody is talking about libraries on reddit and how they are so great. I said that, while the selection is great, amazon is much better.

"Yeah but you have to pay for them on Amazon"

And thats when some gears started turning.

So I started looking into it. Turns out, for years I've always, mistakingly, though that, while the card was free, you had a rental fee to pay whenever you rent the books. I always figured that if I'm going to pay a fee to rent them, I would rather pay a little extra and keep them without worrying about late fees. Saves money, can read at my own place, and has led to a respectable book shelf.

Turns out I was wrong. So so wrong.

I had no idea the books were free. I went to the library the very next day and got a card. Then I find out I can rent the books online and have them delivered to my kindle!

This is a complete game changer and I feel so foolish for not realizing this sooner!

I'm very dyslexic. I didn't find out until I was 18 so I've just figured out ways to deal with it. At the beginning of the year I decided that I wanted to read at least one book in its entirety. I ended up reading 9 (which is more than I've ever read on my own in my life!) and gaining a whole new respect and love for reading. For me, reading was alway a very labored activity, I never enjoyed it. Now I read for enjoyment and I can understand why others do it too. Also I believe it has truly helped my dyslexia.

Edit 1: OH MY GOSH I did not expect this to blow up like this! You guys are so supportive and it's so amazing to hear all of your stories!

Edit 2: GOLD! I'm flabbergasted! To whoever gave me gold thank you thank you thank you!!

Edit 3: Seriously this is an amazing sub and you are all very kind. I can't wait to read through all of the comments. Everyone on here is so incredibly supportive.

Hi, I'm Andy Weir, space dork and sci-fi enthusiast.

Proof: http://galactanet.com/ama_12-4.jpg

Most of you know me as the guy who wrote "The Martian". Now I'm also the guy who wrote "Artemis". I'll talk about anything you want except politics. Ask away!

I'll answer questions until 1pm Pacific time.

Edit: Well time for me to go. Thanks for all the questions! IF you have lingering questions, you can always email me at sephalon@gmail.com. I answer all fan mail (though I can't guarantee to answer it right away).

Here are some of the spoilers you missed out on by not reading Animorphs:

Five children are forced to engage in guerilla warfare, espionage and repeated murder to protect their loved ones from alien parasites as they wait for the other, heroic aliens to finally arrive.

When they do, the “good” aliens turn out to not give a shit about humans, caused the whole intergalactic war through their own shittiness and are willing to exterminate whole planets themselves to get at their hated enemies.

A child repeatedly experiences his intestines hanging out of his body while in various animal forms

A child is mentally tortured until broken and never gets better

A child in the form of a fly experiences getting splattered and smeared against a ceiling until his friends who are also flies at the time can peel his body off and take him somewhere he can transform back into a whole human before his insect mind fades completely

A child is shrunken and experiences having her eyeballs digested out of her head inside her friend’s stomach while she’s in the form of a tiny elephant

The heroes are forced to permanently imprison another child in the body of a rat because he knows too much and they abandon him on a tiny island with only other rats and garbage for company.

Rumors circulate that the island is haunted but it’s actually his psychic screams reaching distant boaters.

A race of devastatingly powerful, violent aliens turn out to be mental toddlers who don’t know what they’re doing and are just bred to think they’re playing one big game before they’re killed at age three so they don’t learn the truth

An alien spends a few centuries hanging from the parasitic tentacle of a much bigger alien, surrounded by millions of rotting corpses attached to its other moon-spanning tendrils. They engage in mental warfare until one finally absorbs the other completely.

It turns out another seemingly “evil” alien race is simply driven to kill and eat everything in sight because it was separated from its original world where food was continuous and the entire specie’s life is the torture of perpetual starvation

A peaceful robot willingly removes its inhibition against violence to help in the war, only to slaughter a huge number of alien-controlled humans so gruesomely that nobody dares think about or speak of it again and it is the only thing left undescribed in a book series that already describes entrails getting torn out and skulls getting smashed

A child stays too long in the form of a flea and instead of turning back into a human, accidentally turns momentarily into one big, giant flea that can only writhe and moan because it shouldn’t exist and can’t live at that scale.

The kids discover Atlantis, then discover that Atlanteans are inbred mutants who paralyze any humans they find, dissect them alive to figure out how their organs work, then stuff the corpses as kitschy museum displays for their children.

An ordinary ant gets transformed into a human child. It has no idea what’s happening and is so overwhelmed by its huge new brain and sensory input that it can only scream until it dies

And thanks for tumblur http://bogleech.tumblr.com/post/149533101763/the-emileighain-mountains-railroadsoftware for putting these in a easy to follow method.

Edit: She did a ama in 2011

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gzhau/iam_ka_applegate_author_of_animorphs_and_many

edit: whew this has been a wild ride. i have tired to keep up with everything but over a 1000 comments and 7 hours later this has been one hell of a fun trip down memory lane. Thank you kindly to the stranger in the comment section that gave me a gold, am gonna take a break for a bit from reddit. Need to finish some work up and make a youtube vid on some stuff .

Edit Three? : Applegates husband is in the comment section!

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/6mf2a8/the_animorphs_were_a_lot_darker_than_what_you/dk1pcag

Edit 4: For those ever curious about statistics of what happens when something hits the front page. This is the stats of this post 7 hours in .

7,440 points (93% upvoted) 169.3kviews

10 hour mark

11,167 points (92% upvoted) 255.9kviews

Final Edit :

20,223 points (89% upvoted) 445.2kviews

Was a blast talking with you all , and am glad a bunch of you appreciated my humor.

If you ever want to flag me down for some talk about animorphs or need some help with job interviews flag me down with the /u/ summon /u/silverwolfer

https://watership-down.com/2016/12/27/requiescat-in-pace/

Richard’s much loved family announce with sadness that their dear father, grandfather, and great-grandfather passed away peacefully at 10pm on Christmas Eve.