Cooper has tagged me with a book-related meme. I'm supposed to list my five favorite books. I've been tagged with varieties of this before and I gotta tell ya..it can't be whittled down to just five. If you want to see lists and rationales for the books that have had the biggest impact on me you can go check these posts. They all contain either reviews or synopses of books I've been struck by.
Swiped from Suldog
More Books
Thoughts
Book Meme
How Random Do I Have to Be?
Ok, so if that's not enough I guess I'll come up with some more. Since the first two posts up there detail 15 books that had a lasting effect on me I count those more or less as favorites. Since this award is for those who refuse to live in the real world and since I can't ever follow rules in memes I will list books I found to most effectively transport me to another place. Granted, any engaging book will suffice as evidenced
here but these are books that leap to mind most readily.
1. The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery. Yep, this is on the list in that first link so I'm already breaking my own rule. Guess what? Too bad. This book will pretty much be on any list of favorite, great, or escapist books whether for adults of children. I first read it in third year French class. At a time when I was getting the message from most of the people around me that my perspective was wrong, this book affirmed my outlook. That which is essential is invisible to the eyes...
2. The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma. I just read this about a month ago. This book about a librarian dad reading every single night, without fail, to his daughter from the time she was nine until she went to college is a wonderful testament to the power of books in a child's life. It reminded me of how books were both an emotional refuge and an informational resource for me growing up.
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I enjoyed this far more than I enjoyed the Kite Runner. Like that book this is set in Afghanistan and Hosseini certainly transported me there. It's a tragic story in more ways than not but I was very much drawn in and emotionally involved with the characters.
4. Lamb by Christopher Moore. This imagining of Christ's unaccounted for years is both hilarious and touching as told by the Messiah's best friend Biff. It's a perfect balance between being totally escapist and yet thought provoking as it ponders how Jesus came to be prepared for his years of ministry. Irreverent and funny but not mocking. Just go read it.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I never read this until a few years ago. I loved it. I wished the American Lit teacher I had in high school had included this on our reading list as opposed to all the horrendously depressing works he opted for (I'm still convinced he hoped the culminating class activity would be suicide en masse). It's a beautifully told story about the power of respect and the tragedy of failing to cultivate respect.
6. The poetry of William Butler Yeats, Pablo Neruda, and Dorothy Parker. Ok, so I'm not listing specific collections of their work but I have a few and I quite enjoy them...and this is my rendering of the meme so there.
18 comments:
These are some great book choices.
Read Mockingbird as an adult a few years back myself, the high school version of me was suppose to but I skipped it.
But anyway, when I found out Harper's best friend was Truman Capote and that he was "Dill" in her boo threw me for a loop.
Some sterling books...a few I have read. I love books and like children it would be hard to pick favorites.
Thanks for the book summaries Michelle. I'm going to see if my library has "Lamb" as it sounds an interesting story - Dave
When you have a book, you always have a friend. Nice choices.
Ah yes - good ol' Asteroid B612. . .
Anything by Tolkien or Dr. Seuss. . .
Also CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, or his Space Trilogy.
I haven't read much of Dante's Divine Comedy, but such bits and pieces as I have read, would seem to land it in the realms of 'transporting me to a different place'. . .
Anyway, thanks for this. Perhaps English-class reading lists have changed since you or I were in school, but 'To Kill a Mockingbird' has been standard for all of our kids. . .
Yes indeed, Lamb's on my list, as is Thousand Splendid Suns. But, like you, I can't, or won't do a short list. The Year of Decision 1846 by Bernard DeVoto would have to be at or near the top, though, and I have a Churchill bio somewhere.
I don't think I could specify any particular favorites
I have a whole bunch of "Mehs," though
They're so forgettable I can't name them
If really have to pick any, they're going to be kids books because they're the ones that influence future reading
If you haven't read them yet, you might like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I read the first volume and it left me in stitches.
Dorothy Parker had uncanny wit. I enjoy lots of her quotes.
As you know, The Little Prince is a particular favorite of mine. If it didn't go against the spirit of the book, I'd say we should make it mandatory reading :-)
Glad to hear your take on Lamb. I read that about a year ago. I enjoyed it (although I do have to say that a couple of passages did make me feel a bit uncomfortable. Then again, I'm sure a whole bunchy of my own writing may do the same for some folks, so...) It does have a gentleness about it that I liked, a lot, and the funny parts are insanely funny.
Good choices.
You know a person's book list says a lot about them, I think I might like you
;)
LAMB is one of my favorites .. and i agree it would be very hard to narrow the list to a finite number .. and your poets are my poets!
Good book choices. All of them are interesting. But I like the book To Kill the Mockingbird the most. Its a classic and should be read by all.
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Great picks, although I have not read 2 or 3...at least we agree on 4 and 5 is up there on my list as well.
Like you, I hadn't read To Kill a Mockingbird until about 4 years ago and of course loved it.
I have a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns ready to read next.
Am starting to like these books. I want to have one too. I guess these books are great!
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