Stuff I Love: Howl's Moving Castle

I’ve decided that every Sunday night, I’m going to post about something that I 100% adore. 

This week, it’s Howl’s Moving Castle. 

I first read Howl’s Moving Castle when I was about 16 years old or so.  I was going through my “I only read CLASSICS” stage; I would sniff disdainfully at my peers who had a Stephen King or a Dean Koontz under their arm, and proclaim the superiority of Elizabethan playwrights. 

I was not a popular kid.

However, I did have a shamefaced secret.  I was a voracious and indiscriminate fantasy reader.  I haunted a used paperback store near my house, and gobbled up all of the dragons, knights and damsels I could get my hands on.  Unfortunately, since I was shopping at a junky used book store, I read a lot of crap.  Sometimes, it seems like any author who can spell dragon thinks they can write a fantasy novel.  Most of these were straight up Tolkien rip-offs.  Some took Star Wars as their guiding text.  Others just novelized the D&D handbook. Objectively, I would say that 85%  of what I read was terrible.

I remember the day I found Howl’s Moving Castle on the shelf.  In my memory, it was shrouded by a golden glow, in a shaft of divine light, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case.  It cost $1.50, which was a whole hour of babysitting for me.  Normally, I only paid $0.25 for my paperbacks; but something told me to blow my budget for this one.