Lilterary Orlando?

Orlando is a city of ten lane highways, cheap roadside motel, glaring billboards, vast concrete car parks and outlet malls. It is not a city generally hailed for it's literary repuation. John Green's Paper Towns--the story of the enigmatic Margot Roth-Spiegleman, who mysteriously stops turning up to school, Q, the love-struck boy who sets out on a romantic road trip across America to find her-- is the only book I can think of set in Orlando (at least, I'm fairly certain it is, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend). So I was rather surprised when it was in Orlando that I reached my first literary milestone of the trip: finishing Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (the 1006 page epic I presumptuously boasted I would have knocked off by Vegas). How did I finally come to achieve such a feat? Well, we were meant to visit Universal Studios yesterday, but Mads had a cold so it became our first designated reading day.
Initially I was not thrilled about this. Our motel, which greatly resembled the ones they're always staying at in Supernatural, with the rooms on either side of the car park, traffic wooshing past on the highway out the front and nothig to sit on aside from white plastic lawn chairs, did not apear the kind of place set up for the kind of intense literary contemplation I had in mind. However, wandering around the back of the motel in search of better surroundings, I came across a quite different and altogether morepleasing setting. There was a large lake or swamp (I can't tell the difference anymore) with reeds and tall grasses swaying gently in the breeze at its banks, giant old trees hung with grey moss, and a little pier with benches just made for spending lazy afternoons reading on (Dawson's Creek fans: it was pretty much as though I'd stepped into Capeside).
This was the highlight of Orlando for me. We went to Disney World the day before, but that turned out to be a little underwhelming to be honest. It was like Vegas for children, and there were soooo many children. All the fun rides were closed too, which didn't help :(
But away from the depressing and back to books!!! For those of you who have Jonathan Strange somewhere on that never ending list of things you eventually want to read, bump it up to top spot, especially if you're interested in early 19th century history or literature. The story is rather complex (and at over 1000 pages you kinda want it to be). It's the turn of the 19th century and magic has returned to England. Mr. Norrell, a somewhat stuffy, pedantic chap, and Jonathan Strange, a whimsical impulsive fellow out to impress his sweetheart, are the only to magicians who know how to weild magic. The growing competition between them influnces the Napoleonic wars, the poetry of Lord Byron, and captures the attention of a partiularly malevolent fairy who would rather keep the secrets of magical history for himself. Awesome stuff.
As we head away from sunny Florida and into the South, I've begun epic number two: Gone with the Wind. I shall keep you posted as to how it goes, but I have a sneeking suspicion I'm going to LOVE it, if the first 50 pages are anthing to go by!

Love,
Margs
xo xo xo

P.S. I don't have spell check or a dictionary, so I appologise for the numerous mistakes sprinkled through my posts!