Writer's Block: Book worms unite!
Nov. 28th, 2009 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackwabbit[Error: unknown template qotd]
Best:
This is hard to answer, as there are many, so I will do the ones I specifically remember reading for the first time:
1-Huckleberry Finn. I was nine when I read this book, and I had never encountered anyone so cool in all my life. I wanted to be Huck more than anything ever. I mean, he was cool enough to fake his own death. That takes balls, man.
2-White Fang. I was nine when I read this one, too. I was truly drawn into this animal's struggle and how he was only what he'd been made. (Social Darwinism FTW!)
3-Um...having a hard time here...Ender's Game. Dude! Who didn't want to be Ender? EDIT: My Side of the Mountain. Yeah, I wanted to be Sam, too. The whole running away and living on my own thing did it for me as a kid (I think I read this book at about thirteen years old), and as an adult nothing has grabbed me as well as these did when I was younger. Nothing has made me just yearn to be the character so much. But Ender's Game stays, too, and for the record, I read that at twenty-seven.
Worst:
1-The Great Gatsby. Just kill me. Kill me now rather than make me read this book. I thought maybe I just didn't get it as a kid, but no. I've tried to read it as an adult, and just...no. Never. Kill me now.
2-Wuthering Heights. If I'd rather death than read The Great Gatsby, I'd rather the most painful torture imaginable than read this. Worst. Book. Ever.
3-and as if one Bronte wasn't enough, I've got to go with the one book in school I couldn't finish. The one book I cheated on. The one book I Cliff Noted. Jane Eyre. I thought surely it couldn't be as bad as Wuthering Heights, and maybe it isn't, but after Emily nearly killed me, I wasn't going to give her sister the same chance. She had to prove to me she was worth it. She didn't. I gave her a sporting chance, but after a few chapters, I just couldn't finish it. Gone with the Wind falls into the rare "didn't finish" category, too. Read about half. It never got good.
Best:
This is hard to answer, as there are many, so I will do the ones I specifically remember reading for the first time:
1-Huckleberry Finn. I was nine when I read this book, and I had never encountered anyone so cool in all my life. I wanted to be Huck more than anything ever. I mean, he was cool enough to fake his own death. That takes balls, man.
2-White Fang. I was nine when I read this one, too. I was truly drawn into this animal's struggle and how he was only what he'd been made. (Social Darwinism FTW!)
3-Um...having a hard time here...Ender's Game. Dude! Who didn't want to be Ender? EDIT: My Side of the Mountain. Yeah, I wanted to be Sam, too. The whole running away and living on my own thing did it for me as a kid (I think I read this book at about thirteen years old), and as an adult nothing has grabbed me as well as these did when I was younger. Nothing has made me just yearn to be the character so much. But Ender's Game stays, too, and for the record, I read that at twenty-seven.
Worst:
1-The Great Gatsby. Just kill me. Kill me now rather than make me read this book. I thought maybe I just didn't get it as a kid, but no. I've tried to read it as an adult, and just...no. Never. Kill me now.
2-Wuthering Heights. If I'd rather death than read The Great Gatsby, I'd rather the most painful torture imaginable than read this. Worst. Book. Ever.
3-and as if one Bronte wasn't enough, I've got to go with the one book in school I couldn't finish. The one book I cheated on. The one book I Cliff Noted. Jane Eyre. I thought surely it couldn't be as bad as Wuthering Heights, and maybe it isn't, but after Emily nearly killed me, I wasn't going to give her sister the same chance. She had to prove to me she was worth it. She didn't. I gave her a sporting chance, but after a few chapters, I just couldn't finish it. Gone with the Wind falls into the rare "didn't finish" category, too. Read about half. It never got good.
no subject
Date: Nov. 28th, 2009 11:20 pm (UTC)I liked James and the Giant Peach, too. I also loved The Black Stallion books and the Ramona books. (The original The Black Stallion almost made the cut, but not quite. Alec still lived with his parents.) Let's see...Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys...and then I discovered Star Trek.
no subject
Date: Nov. 28th, 2009 11:27 pm (UTC)But you're lucky! Our library had no Trek at all... I had to move on to historical fiction after I'd exhausted the puny Sci Fi selection. I was hauling around The Bastard and The Rebel by John Jakes when I was 13--you should have seen the look on my English teacher's face when she told us to read something of the (dreaded) White List, and I waved JJ under her nose.
She handed me a copy of 'The Hobbit'... my introduction to fantasy literature. Bless that woman!
no subject
Date: Nov. 28th, 2009 11:58 pm (UTC)And yes, I was very lucky to live here by age thirteen:
http://www.fortworthgov.org/library/branches/
I could ride my bike to one branch, and read a regional node (huge) within ten minutes by car. Yeah...urban living isn't so bad as some make out.
Incidentally, The Hobbit was life-changing for me, too. Not like it was for you, obviously, as I'm not much of a Ringer, but I remember not being able to put it down and for a hard sci-fi type like me, it opened me up to fantasy.
Oh, and I read North and South/Heaven and Hell/Love and War in my early teens. Also, I got into some WWII historical fiction hard for a while there.
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 12:00 am (UTC)http://www.fortworthgov.org/library/branches/central/
My sister took me. It. Was. Awesome.
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 12:04 am (UTC)Clive is wonderful! I discovered him much later, but he's kept me riveted! *sighs* Dirk & Al!Love!
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 12:13 am (UTC)Some places I've lived have affected me more than others, but probably none so much as Fort Worth (it's not Dallas, people!), which I lived in or around from eighth grade to age thirty, off and on.
I wouldn't change that. Fort Worth is a lovely city, and I wouldn't trade my education there or the Southwest Regional Library for anything (central is awesome, but I didn't go there often due to its total downtown-ness). I am indeed grateful.
no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 12:15 am (UTC)SPOILER IF YOU'RE NOT UP TO DATE ON CUSSLER!
I haven't liked the newer books quite as much as the older ones, but the kids are alright. Even if he gave them fanfiction names.
(Really, Clive?)
no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 01:41 am (UTC)Fortunately my grade school in Wilmington, NC had a really good library because it was originally a neighborhood school that went from grades 1-8 (no kindergarten in public schools in those days, I went to the local Presbyterian Church for that). I think I was in the last 8th grade class.
Unfortunately the school burned down and the library with it a year or two after I graduated high school. It was rebuilt but it was never the same and only grades 1-4.
My other refuge was the public library down town. I quickly abandoned the childrens section upstairs for the main collection.
And I was introduced to historical fiction. John Jakes was a favorite author along with NC writer Inglis Fletcher. My grandmother had several of her books (autographed) and I read every one and all the others I could get my hands on.
She wrote about a fictional family in eastern NC from the first attempts at settlement of the area by John White and the Lost Colony (even before Jamestown) to just after the Revolution. I was very familiar with the region and history because my family is from the area she wrote about and I could easily visit sites she mentioned and even some family names she used were familiar.
And I still read every horse book and good historical fiction I can get my hands on.
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Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 07:26 am (UTC)The show is very good... the books are remarkable. For a lover of historical fiction, I would heartily recommend them!
Re:
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 01:58 am (UTC)