I love to read.
I have always loved to read, honestly, since I could read. I actually don't remember when I couldn't read. I read "Dick and Jane" over and over in first grade. But I don't remember learning to read. It has just always been. And it's a trite thing to say, but books can really open up your mind and the world and now that I've been a PSA, I'll stop.
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When I was a young girl, these books were my favorite reads:
Black Beauty
I think I read this book about thirty times. I always cried at the part about Ginger. I talked my parents into riding lessons because of this book. It also helped shape the way I treated animals for the rest of my life.
The Nancy Drew series
These books sometimes gave me nightmares, (because I was kind of a chicken) but I would not give them up. I did freak my mother out when I asked if maybe George, Nancy's best friend, might have a crush on her. (By the way, I love that these are postcards and now want some.)
Just So Stories
"I am the Cat Who Walks By Himself. All places are alike to me."
Enough said.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Yes. I was a geek early on. What can I say? I loved the romance of it.
LORD OF THE RINGS AND The Hobbit
This book ... it started me on the path to being an adult and an adult reader. Whatever that means. I love this book and still re-read it every few years or so.
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The favorite books of early adulthood ...
The Number of the Beast
His writing can be sexist. Some of it is a bit ... well ... Why do I re-read this book, over and over again? I have no idea. But I love it.
The Stand
I remember reading this book at 2am on a school night and getting so frightened, I was afraid to get up and go to the bathroom. I think I was about thirteen.
The Tidewater Tales
I love this book. I can always see these people in their boat, all pregnant and overly socially conscious, floating along, meeting a modern day Odysseus and contemporary Don Quixote.
Invisible Man
This is THE quintessential American novel. It is the novel to read if you haven't read it. Really.
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What I'm reading now...
House of Leaves
Really complicated. But extremely great. It's like a gothic novel on mescaline.
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Okay, gonna stop. I'm starting to look like a book nut.
What are your favorite reads? What opens the windows in your head?
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Thanks to:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/anna-sewell/black-beauty.htm
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/nancydrew/
http://www.learningthings.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=PPB-0140367020&eq=&Tp=
http://www.popartuk.com/art/a-midsummer-nights-dream-86383-16-poster.asp
http://www.tolkiensociety.com/media/What_is_LotR.html
http://69.89.31.120/~davidlo1/barth/wp-content/uploads/tidewater-pbk.jpg
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Comments
Nancy Drew and The Jungle Books were favorites of mine, and the Elizabeth Enright books: The Saturdays, Four-Story Mistake, Gone-Away Lake. More recently I've really (to my complete surprise) enjoyed the Harry Potter series.
Mostly non-fiction for me these days, but when I want to relax with a novel I pick some early 20th century American writers: Edith Wharton, John dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis.
The basics of my comment was that I enjoyed a lot of the same books and authors that you did. Argh. Damn OS software sucks.
Not with you on the first two -- Dawg wasn't neutered then, so Hardy Boys and Tom Swift as equivalents. Jungle Books, of course. In fact, doing another piece, re-played for the 1000th time, "How the Elephant Got its Trunk" with Jack Nicholson's unforgettable ssssnake. With you all the way on the others, except Stephen King, and that despite the fact he's a Red Sox fan!!
Reading a lot of books in translation right now: Roberto Bolaño's Amulet, Orhan Pamuk's Snow (re-re-read), Mario Vargas Llosa's Feast of the Goat. And a lot of non-fiction: just finished Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, Pankaj Mishra's Temptations of the West.
Great post.
WOOF
I don't know what PC or Operating System you have, but I've become a convert to the Mozilla Firefox browser on a Dell PC/MS Windows XP (I don't know if Firefox on Apple behaves the same) for just that reason. If Open Salon logs you off, after signing on again, Firefox recognizes that you were in the process of sending something and asks if you want to resend. That's saved my bacon numerous times over the last few weeks.
WOOF
Thanks for the memories! I could actually re-read all the Nancy Drew mysteries and be happy as a clam!
It's the funniest book in the world, bar none. It's not stuffy or traditional at all, and when I describe it to people most of them are surprised how avante garde it is, even compared to books published today.
For people who know nothing about it, Don Quixote is in two parts. In part one, Quixote goes through a series of hilarious adventures. In part two, where things get really interesting, Quixote decides to go on another quest, but this time a book about his first quest (part 1) has already been published, so all the people he meets in part 2 have read part 1 and know who he is. Most of part 2 is about people playing games with Quixote based on what they have read about him in the first book. It's very surreal, and beats "Waiting for Godot" for it's modernest feel.
Start reading it today. You'll thank me. The charging windmills part has almost nothing to do with the greatness of this book.
was at a rummage sale over the weekend (where i found the squirrel recipes) and they had a dozen or so of the old hardy boys books, the actual older editions. i'd forgotten how much i loved those when i was a kid.
Anything Nancy Drew--a wonderful mix of girl power and 1950s repression. Too funny. Take-away message? A girl can do or be anything, as long as she's wearing the right twinset and pearls.
Gotta do Alice in Wonderland, preferably an anotated edition. It's even better when all the obscure references are explained.
Here's a book I'd love to get my hands on again: Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It. Stylish Victorian strangeness at its best. Enjoy with a good cup of tea, paisley, velvet and fringe. (Earl Gray works, if you like it. I prefer Irish Breakfast.)
Rated for sentimental reasons
I don't have a lot of time right now, but wanted to mention PEACE LIKE A RIVER as an excellent novel. Not sure why it captured me, but a real writer's novel.
(And yes, I loved Nancy Drew and used to walk down the street to borrow them one at a time from an insanely privileged girl who actually had the whole collection on her shelf. In my head she was another class of being--people who BOUGHT books! Could it be? What an incredible luxury.)
The Jungle Books and Kim, in particular, are all-time faves. Strange how Jekyll-and-Hyde great writer/blind imperialist Kipling could write what, IMHO, is still one of the best books on India - Kim. That and E.M. Forster's "Passage to India".
I read a lot of books by South Asian authors. Just finished (*before* it got this year's Booker) Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger". Quite brilliant.
The reason I mention it is because the book clearly derives not so much from the current crop of great South Asian writers (Rushdie, Kureishi etc.) but (as Adiga acknowledges) from black American writers, specifically Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, James Baldwin even Malcolm X. In fact, the book reminded me of Wright's "Native Son" set in another context. Great read.
Biblio: I've been thinking, since you wrote, of pulling out some Dos Passos. Good stuff.
undertow--Aw. You 'bumped' me. That was nice. I am also a huge Jane Austen fan. And now I have a new book to read, because I've never read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.
Susan: I cannot count the times that that has happened to me. With posts, too! argh. I'm glad we read a lot of the same books. Please feel free to re-list your favs anytime. (Or do a Susan Mitchell favorites post). You can see I'm trolling you all for books. It's fairly shameless.
CCC: I'm actually pulling up a file I keep right now and adding those book titles to my list of "Books to read after the dissertation." It's a long list.
Cathy: I agree! I keep meaning to reread the Nancy Drew books. They bring back such wonderful memories.
MzEll: I hope you don't mind, but I'm borrowing your 'Mom' excuse and using it as my own.
Michael: You know, I should have added Don Quixote. What an amazing book. Thanks for putting it there.
Umbrellakinesis: Aww. Lad: A Dog. I cried my eyes out. And now, I'm going to have to go find a copy and re-read it.
squirrel: Gin? Just gin?
My brother had all the Hardy Boys' books. I liked them, but I made him mad when I suggested that Nancy Drew's friends should date the Hardy Boys. He got indignant and said girls were stupid.
pretend farmer: A Wrinkle In Time and all those books. That was a beloved book, and oddly, when I think about it, I remember the school were I was going when I read it and how it looked and smelled. Somehow, that book is associated with that grade and that school. Memories are funny, aren't they?
Monique: Alice in Wonderland is even better when you read it as an adult. Lots of things that passed me by become very clear. My. It's kind of not a children's book, is it?
Lainey: Thank you! I'll put Peace Like a River on my list. You know, I didn't have all the books either and knew this girl that did. Her mother was very odd though and freaked out when the girl tried to loan me one I'd never read.
Smith: Native Son is an amazing book. And I'm going to add those books you mentioned to my now very full list. Thanks.
I recently took a course in Non-Western Lit and read some of the most eye-opening and life-changing books during that time. 'Things Fall Apart' by Achebe and 'My Name is Red' by Orhan Pamuk really stood out to me, though we read many more...