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 11:27 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.
no subject
Date: Nov. 29th, 2009 12:00 am (UTC)http://www.fortworthgov.org/library/branches/central/
My sister took me. It. Was. Awesome.
no subject
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!
no subject
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)