Reading for Pleasure Wednesday Meme
Even though no one tagged me, this meme is going around. I know NK didn't tag me because she doesn't like to enable my procrastinatory habits...
- One book that changed your life?
Tough call. But maybe John Christopher's Tripods series, because it was the first time I think I identified something I was reading as sf, and then started picking up books that said "sf". I'd read sf before, I think mostly Andre Norton, but to me they were just good stories in the way that Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Mary Renault and Joan Aiken were good stories. So, voracious reader that I was, I read all the sf on the family bookshelves. Still not sure reading Stranger in a Strange Land and The Left Hand of Darkness at 12 was something my mother intended -- but I don't think it was her book! The other was at about the same time ... maybe a little earlier. Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising books. I'd like to say that they turned me into a medieval historian, but no. They just opened up fantasy and Arthurian/Celtic legends to me. From there to the Mabinogion, which just helps when I'm reading other stuff. - One book you have read more than once?
Persuasion (it's one ... I've read all of Austen more than once ... most things I love I re-read). But Persuasion is my favorite Jane Austen, I think because I identify with Ann Elliott more than her other heroines. - One book you would want on a desert island?
Maybe War and Peace, because I'm never read it, and it's long and it's the Napoleonic Wars that I don't know reasonably well (i.e., not naval or Iberia) - One book that made you laugh?
Tons. Pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett. And, sadly, Robert Aspirin. But I think the last real guffaws were when I read High Fidelity. NO, wait --- Holy Blood, Holy Grail. - One book that made you cry?
Again, too many to count. The first? probably Charlotte's Web.
- One book you wish had been written?
Patrologia Latinae for Dummies or maybe The Idiot's guide to Sources for Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Of course, if such a book existed, I'd be out of a job, so maybe scratch that. - One book you wish had never been written?
Atlas Shrugged - One book you are currently reading?
Dürrenmatt, Der Richter und sein Henker - One book you have been meaning to read?
Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost and a metric ton of sf. (good thing this is about pleasure reading) - Now tag five people: Seeking five volunteers, please ...
More photos coming. I'm just looking for the right shots!
12 comments:
I can't agree with you on Atlas Shrugged, as it's one of my favorite books, but you should definitely read Instance of the Fingerpost - it's a fun read.
Oh, dear, I never managed to finish the Instance of the Fingerpost! I can appreciate that it's very well done, but it bored me to tears. (I'm very bad with the 17th c., though.)
And I hope you don't mind not being tagged!
No, I was just kidding!
New Kid, don't feel bad about getting bored in the middle of The Instance of the Fingerpost. I am a 17th ce British historian and I can't finish it!
I finished *Fingerpost*, but it didn't really grab me all that much.
I never managed to start "Fingerpost". I rather suspect it wasn't unconnected to the fact that I bought it when I was completely fed up with Oxford and Oxford University. It glares down at me from the fiction shelves to this day.
oh i love love the tripods. really. and I love the left hand of darkness. and i think of all jane austen's novels, persuasion is my favorite.
check it out, we have some things in common.
Not all *that* surprised!
I read Fingerpost, and I finished it. I couldn't wait to get to the end, just so I'd be done with the darned thing.
But for some reason I can't even remember what it was about. Hmmm...sounds like I was skimming more than reading. :)
Why would you be sad about Robert Asprin making you laugh?
The fact that I like the puns soooo much is kind of sad!
The Alchemist changed my life, read Cheaper than the Dozen more than once, would definitely bring the bible to an island, Huckleberry Finn made me laugh and To Kill a Mockingbird made me cry.
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