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. 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.
no subject
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)