"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Books and more books. What else?


Please answer the questions and let me know your answers in the comment section (or via e-mail, if you’d prefer.)
1. One Book That Changed Your Life – Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. This book showed me that really good literature is out there and it changed how and what I read. It was the first book that I can identify as the book that got me into reading…and eventually my new profession as a librarian.
2. One Book That You've Read More Than Once --Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. At least once-a-year I have to have a Jane Austen fix. Pride and Prejudice is my current favorite but I often reread Persuasion.
3. One Book You Would Want on a Desert Island – Besides The Bible I’d like to have The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I love all of the books in the set and find so much in them to ponder and enjoy. By the way, please read them in the order that Lewis intended them to be read starting with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
4. One Book That Made You Laugh – In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. I actually love all of his books that I’ve read. He is very funny, but not in an over-the-top sort of way. Another laugh-out-loud book is Winterdance by Gary Paulsen. My sides were splitting while reading sections of this book about Paulsen’s experiences running the Iditarod.
5. One Book That Made You Cry – The Off Season by Catherine Murdock. It is the sequel to the young adult book Dairy Queen about a girl living on a dairy farm in the Midwest whose boyfriend can’t accept her for who she is. I’m not sure why I wept so much while reading this book but it really touched a raw nerve.
6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written – How to Lose Weight and Keep it Off Without Dieting or Exercising or Even Trying. Ha!
7. One Book That You Wish Had Never Been Written – Any book that has been used to increase prejudice and terror on another population or has decreased the rights of its citizens. Hitler's Mien Kampf or Mao's Little Red Book come to mind.
8. One Book You're Currently Reading – As usual I am reading more than one book right now. They are: 1. Guernica by Dave Boling; 2. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle; 3. Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork; and 4. You've GOT to Read This Book!: 55 People Tell the Story of the Book That Changed Their Life by Jack Canfield.
9. One Book You've Been Meaning to Read – Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Can you believe that I've never read this book?
10. Favorite book of all time- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This book is such a gem. I can get Scout’s voice inside my head and she speaks to me from all corners of my life.
OK. Now it is your turn. What are your answers to these ten questions about books?

12 comments:

  1. 1. Book that changed my life- Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli because of the timing of reading it and the death of Debbie M. It was a meaningful coincidence.
    2. Book I've read more than once- some of the Harry Potter books; To Kill a Mockingbird.
    3. Book I'd want on the deserted island: The Harry Potter series.
    4. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was the last book that I read with humorous parts.
    5. A book that made me cry was the second book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.
    6. Skip
    7. One book I wish had never been written was Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. I hated that book.
    8. Right now I am reading: Evermore by Alyson Noel.
    9. A book that I haven't read but hope to: The Lord of the Rings series
    10. Favorite book: Great and Terrible Beauty series.

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  2. 1. One Book That Changed Your Life – The Nancy Drew series, one of which my 2nd grade teacher read to the class. (RIP Mrs. Blewer) I hadn't liked to read much before that but got very interested in mysteries; I still am to this day. I had the opportunity to let Mrs.Blewer know the impact this had on me before her death this past month.

    2. One Book That You've Read More Than Once I usually re-read bits and pieces of a book, not the whole thing. I would love to pretend I'd never read the Harry Potter series so I could read them (as new) and enjoy them all over again.

    3. One Book You Would Want on a Desert Island – There are too many; I just don't know. A positive quote book perhaps to keep my spirits up.

    4. One Book That Made You Laugh – Lots of books make me laugh, but the most consistently was David Sedaris "Me Talk Pretty One Day."

    5. One Book That Made You Cry – Many books have touched me enough to make me cry, most recently Half Blood Prince when you-know-who dies.

    6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written – How to Lose Weight and Keep it Off Without Dieting or Exercising or Even Trying. I'm going with Anne's answer. A Foolproof Parenting handbook would certainly come in handy too.:)

    7. One Book That You Wish Had Never Been Written – Any book that has been used to increase prejudice and terror on another population or has decreased the rights of its citizens. Mein Kampf by Hitler or The Little Red Book by Mao come to mind. Good answer, Anne. I can't come up with a better one!

    8. One Book You're Currently Reading – The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, The Abominable Man by Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall. I have to have a mystery to read!

    9. One Book You've Been Meaning to Read – Lots! The classics come to mind.

    10. Favorite book of all time- I have many favorites in different genres. The book that has probably been the most helpful in my life has been "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People."

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  3. 1. One Book That Changed Your Life – The Will of God as a Way of Life by Jerry Sittser. This book really helped me understand that making big decisions don't have to be so scary. That you don't have to worry about making the wrong decision and get yourself off of God's plan for you, but rather that God's plan for you is to simply live your life with him in mind, so that every decision you make, made with God in mind is the right choice.

    2. One Book That You've Read More Than Once - I'm going to be redundant and say the Harry Potter books. There is just something incredibly magical about them.

    3. One Book You Would Want on a Desert Island – I'd want my book full of every Shakespeare play/poem ever written. It contains every emotion for every occasion the desert island would present to me. Plus once I got rescued I'd probably have acquired a Shakespearean accent.

    4. One Book That Made You Laugh – I just finished Because of Winn Dixie and laughed at parts of that.

    5. One Book That Made You Cry – Ezperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. It's about a girl's hardships after losing her Dad and having to escape to California. A great childrens book.

    6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written – I started a book called All Gods Must Fall, but I'm stuck as to what to do with my characters next, but I would love it if it could be written and read by teenage girls.

    7. One Book That You Wish Had Never Been Written – I think there is value to be found in every book whether it was written by someone to be admired or someone to be hated. Most books are just meant to be a story and nothing more, I wish people never took books so seriously that they start mini wars over them. It's just a book!

    8. One Book You're Currently Reading – I'm currently in the middle of Lord of the Rings-Return of the King. Not my favorite series, but glad to be reading it finally.

    9. One Book You've Been Meaning to Read – the Davinci Code and Angels and Deamons

    10. Favorite book of all time - it's a toss up between Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine and A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray.
    I Love Cinderella stories (Ella Enchanted) and I love mythological stories and the Victorian age (GTB)

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  4. Anne--The last 10 pages or so of Elegance of the Hedgehog made me sob, so put that in place of HP in #5. The book was worth it for the last 1/3 or so.

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  5. Thanks for answering the questions. Don and Carly and I had a fun conversation over dinner one night as we shared our answers with each other. Here are Don's answers:

    - One Book That You've Read More Than Once – I generally don’t read books twice unless it was for class assignments back in high school, like Huck Finn.

    -One Book That Made You Laugh – Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Paulsen. I laughed out loud several times, even on an airline flight.

    -One Book That Made You Cry – A Long, Long Way by Sebastian Barry.

    -One Book That You Wish Had Never Been Written – Mien Kampf by Hitler.
    -One Book You're Currently Reading – The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien ; just finished the parent side of the book: Winning the College Admission Game.
    -One Book you’ve been meaning to read – Plato’s Republic
    -A Favorite book - 1776 by David McCullough ; all favorites are non-fiction.

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  6. 1. One book that has changed my life was when I read Crime and Punishment. I put into perspective for me why some people can be the way they are and how some people just don't care about others in life because they think they're better than everyone else.
    2. A book that I've read more than once was when I was into fantasy/science fiction novels. It was called the Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. Really good read and well thought out by Brooks.
    3.Book on a desert island..hmm..the Bible and a book of Shakespeare plays. They're so well done and the plays are spectacular when looking into the depth of human emotion and character.
    4.Book that made me laugh..that has to be when I read Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare. One of the funniest comedies I think he wrote.
    5. A book that made me shed a manly tear , lol, probably had to be when I read Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. It was sad how Lenny was ended by George in the end of the novel...
    6. A book that I wish had been written is "A collection of writings from the Library at Alexandria before it burned down." No luck there ever haha.
    7. A book that I wish had never been written was the Communist Manifesto. Without it we would be seeing a lot fewer problems in the world including Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and several other nasty and despotic dictators.
    8. A book that I am currently reading is called "American Lion," a biography about Andrew Jackson. It's really good so far and is written more like a story than a mindless collection of facts, numbers, dates and places.
    9. A book that I've been meaning to read is definitely the collection of all of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The best mystery stories ever written in my opinion.
    10. The greatest book of all time..well thats up to interpretation and opinion but I think a really good book to read was the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The commentary on the times in which it was written are fascinating as long as you can dig through enough of the books to catch those parallels from the world of Middle Earth and World War Two era Europe.

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  7. I love it that you all took time to answer the questions. Thank you!

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  8. 1. One Book That Changed Your Life – Is it too trite to say The Bible?

    2. One Book That You've Read More Than Once – The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis. Never gets old for me. Also “The Dark Is Rising” Sequence by Susan Cooper. More than just kid’s books, this series (unlike Twilight or its successors) is smart and captivates adults, too. I love Cooper’s incredible imagination and her deft way with words.

    3. One Book You Would Want on a Desert Island – Gone With the Wind. I haven’t read it yet and plus it’s good and long. If I could bring two, I’d also bring Europe: A History by Norman Davies. Now that’s a big book, full of drama!

    4. One Book That Made You Laugh – I Love a Man In Uniform by Lily Burana. For the record, it also made me cry. Should be required reading for anyone thinking of marrying a military man. I also love Dave Sedaris. Holidays on Ice is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.

    5. One Book That Made You Cry – Bridge to Terabithia. I just remember reading this during “reading time” in 6th grade and trying to hold back tears so I didn’t get made fun of. I watched the movie on a return flight from Europe and cried my eyes out along with the beautiful Italian girl next to me.

    6. One Book You Wish Had Been Written – My first novel. I wish I were already done with it.

    7. One Book That You Wish Had Never Been Written – This is terrible of me to say, but honestly, it’s The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. I found it to be incredibly dull and slow-paced and awful. Besides, it’s a long story that I won’t go into right now, but it nearly ruined my junior year of high school for me. Ugh.

    8. One Book You're Currently Reading – As usual I am reading more than one book right now. They are: 1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Volokhonsky and Pevear translation) 2. Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks; 3. I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres 4. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.

    9. One Book You've Been Meaning to Read – Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I can’t believe I haven’t read this yet!

    10. Favorite book of all time- That’s difficult to answer. I love a lot of books for different reasons. The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides, is up there. Again, The Magician’s Nephew. I love all those high school classics – To Kill a Mockingbird, A Separate Peace, Great Expectations… oh, and I love Never Let Me Go. There are just too many great books to say I love one more than all the others.

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  9. Heather, thanks for posting. I used to tell people that Gone with The Wind was my favorite book, so I think it will make a good companion for your desert island experience. I am definitely going to pick up and read The Dark is Rising by Cooper. I am always on the hunt for good books to recommend to my students. I also am adding the book Never Let Me Go to my must-read list. Thanks.

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  10. 1.One book that changed my life: The Scarlet Letter, as a teenager I picked up a first edition and read it in a rose garden....I was transported to another place and time!


    2. One book I've read more than once: Harry Potter series over and over and over, out loud, for several years.

    3. Book on a Desert Island: Blank journals so I could write.

    4. Made me laugh: Anything by Pat McManus...oh my gosh, tears of funny!

    5. One Book that made me cry: Where the Red Fern Grows is my first memory of bawling while reading....many came after. The first time reading I Love You Forever I didn't cry, now I start on the third to last page every time.

    6. One I wish had been written: How to keep up with socks in the laundry....I abhor socks.

    7. Never should have been written: I really don't know.

    8. Currently I just finished the book club read and picked up Sunset Magazine....no book in hand...

    9. "One" I've been meaning to read sitting collecting dust: Wicked, War and Remembrance, Dear American Airlines, there are others...

    10. All time favorites: Lamb by Christopher Moore.
    Thanks Anne this was fun.

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  11. Hi Poohbug,
    I can't believe that you read a 1st edition of Scarlet letter? Isn't that thing ancient? I can picture you reading in a rose garden, though.

    I, too, cry when I even think about "Where the Red Fern Grows". I'd better have a re-read of that book soon.

    Have you read many of Christopher Moore's books? I have a population at school that only like to read irreverent books and Moore seems to fit the bill. Do you think I would like him?

    I didn't care for Wicked. Kids who read it either love it or hate it. Have you started it yet? I'd be interested to learn which camp you fall into.

    Thanks for your fun post.
    -Anne

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  12. I started with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend by Christopher Moore and LOVED it! I really enjoy his dry humor, your quick witted kids will really enjoy reading the stories.
    He has a few vampire stories that teens would probably love to start with....You Suck: A Love Story and Bloodsucking Fiends; to be read in that order to understand what's happening.
    They should probably all be read in order of publication because he likes to throw in characters from previous places.
    I loved The Stupidest Angel....zombies, really funny!
    I followed his blog for a few years, I think you would enjoy his political writings!
    Tan

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