I snagged this from my friend, Ian. He got it from somewhere official and writery, but since I got it from him, he gets the credit here. He is, after all, official and writery himself.
The Book I Enjoyed Most In School: I can't remember being assigned a book in school that I really loved. There weren't many I hated, either (although Frankenstein was shockingly bad for a "classic"). But while I was in school, my mother gave me a book titled Chocolates for Breakfast. It made me feel like I had a secret, in a good way, and I loved it. I have never wanted to revisit it, just in case it isn't as stunning as a grown-up.
A Book I Read In Secret: Flowers In The Attic. I'm the generation that read this first. We whispered about it. Read it at sleepovers. I still remember spending the night with Tina, in Austin, and the two of us reading this, hoping her mother wouldn't catch us.
The Books I've Read Over and Over: The Harry Potter series. The Autobiography of Henry VIII, by Margaret George. The Other Boleyn Girl, by Phillipa Gregory. The Father Blackie novels, by Andrew Greeley. The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas.
A Classic I'm Embarrassed to Say I've Never Read: This would be easier if it was a question about movies, because there are a bunch of those. There's one, but I'm saving it for the last question and I feel like using it here, too, would be kind of cheating so...Ah! The Seagull, by Chekov. I really, really should have read The Seagull back when I was a theatre person. Yeah...shame.
A Book I've Pretended I've Read: Crow and Cats are about to headdesk, but The Chronicles of Narnia, by CS Lewis. I've read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but never the full chronicle. I fell so deeply in love with the characters in Lion that, when they weren't in the others, I wasn't interested. As an adult, I've just never revisited them. I know; I'm ashamed here, too.
A Book I Consider to be Grossly Overrated: Again, I could cheat and simply repeat Frankenstein, but I won't do that. Anything by Hemingway. He's a hack. His characters are 2 dimensional caricatures; his plots are contrived. And let's not even talk about how he writes women, or people of color (happy native, anyone? Ugh.).
The Books I Wish I Had Written: The Father Blackie novels. Those are so much my style, they actually made me wish to be a writer.
My Favorite Movie Versions of Books: As much as I think they're overrated, and as sour a taste as they leave in my mouth for personal reasons, I think Peter Jackson did a damn fine job bringing the Lord of the Rings trilogy to the screen. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but not the other 6. Oh, and 101 Dalmatians. Mind you, I did this one backwards. I saw, and adored, the animated movie as a child, then read the book by Dodie Smith.
What I Am Reading Now: Marketing compliance guides, and medical journal abstracts. My life has taken a very strange turn in the last year...
How about you?
Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.
3 comments:
So you did ask, "how about you?"
The Book I Enjoyed Most In School: "The Westing Game" (one of my absolute favorites, from 6th grade when we read our way through the Newbury Award winners) and "Tale of Two Cities" (from sophomore year, which still surprises me how much I really liked it).
A Book I Read In Secret: The Great Brain Books by John D. Fitzgerald, only because I was supposed to be sleeping, not reading.
The Books I've Read Over and Over: "London" by Edward Rutherfurd, "The Railway Children" by E. Nesbit, "Crocodile on the Sandbank" by Elizabeth Peters.
A Classic I'm Embarrassed to Say I've Never Read: "Moby Dick", "Silas Marner" and "Les Miserables"
A Book I've Pretended I've Read: "David Copperfield"... I read an abridged version for kids and never felt the need to go back.
A Book I Consider to be Grossly Overrated: "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf (Orlando was brilliant, this wasn't), and "The Shipping News" (I have yet to meet someone who's liked it).
The Books I Wish I Had Written: The Dresden Files novels (I can hear Harry's voice in my head and I love the witty banter with the reader) and The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness.
My Favorite Movie Versions of Books: Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing", hands down (it counts even though it's a play, right?) Close second are Kevin Sullivan's TV movies of Anne of Green Gables.
What I Am Reading Now: Skin Game, by Jim Butcher.
Anne Pike ~ YES! I always mean it when I ask "what about you" and so few people leave the answer. Thank you! London, by Rutherfurd is soooo good. You, and AppsRUs who recommended it to me, are the only other people I've ever known who've read it!
My parents were both educated and kept an eclectic bookshelf to which I had full access from the time I learned to read. That influenced this list, as did an engineering education. So here we go, with difficulty spanning the number of years involved:
The book I enjoyed most in school: Esquire collected short stories (circa 1945)
A book I read in secret: Worlds in Collision, Immanual Velikovsky
Books I’ve read over and over: Report to Greco; Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
A classic I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never read: Lots! Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn anything by Mark Twain
A book I’ve pretended I’ve read: Nothing comes to mind
A book I consider to be grossly over rated: Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
A book I wish I had written: The Tipping Point
A favorite movie version of book: Treasure Island (1950)
What I am reading now: Greenvoe by George Mackay Brown
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