Sunday, March 23, 2014

Bookish Thinking . . .

As part of a mini-readathon last weekend, Teri @ Henningsen Happenings posed five bookish questions:
1.  What is the best book you've ever read?
2.  What is your favorite spot to read?

3.  What person(s) inspired you to be a reader?

4.  What book do you wish you had never read?

5.  What book(s) are you most excited to read next?
My answers:

1.  Best book:   I can't possibly pick just one.  I have favorites from different genres, different times in my life, different moods . . . but here are ten that pop to mind.
Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
And Ladies of the Club 
by Helen Hooven Santmeyer

The Snow Child
 by Eowyn Ivey

11/22/63
 by Stephen King

Mrs. Aaris Goes To Paris 
by Paul Gallico

The Wednesday Witch
 by Ruth Chew

The entire Cat Who.... series by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch by Marsha Moyer

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel
The Scent of Rain and Lightning
 by Nancy Pickard

No matter how many I list, I always think, "I should have added . . ."
Wait, I should have added The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown . . .  and The Night Circus . . . and . . .

2.  My Favorite Spot to Read:  Slouch on the couch!  With a bowl of popcorn, apple slices and Diet Coke.  However, as the years tick by, I'm finding that slouching makes my back hurt, and if I get too comfy I fall asleep, so I'm doing more of my reading from an armchair that requires better posture and has better lighting.  I still want the popcorn and apples.

3.  Who Inspired Me:  The overall answer is "I have no idea".  I have been an avid reader since I learned to read.  I give big props to my mother, who is definitely not a reader, for buying me books from every Scholastic book order at school, and driving me to the library.  

I can identify four other people (or groups of people) who have influenced my reading at various points in my life -- my high school English teacher, Dave's Aunt Ginger, the library where I used to work, and the book blogging community.  Each has lead me to books I wouldn't have read otherwise.

4.  A Book I Wish I Hadn't Read:  There are always books that get great reviews, or even win prizes (The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes) that I think are just awful and I regret having wasted me reading time. 

The current trend of self-publishing has produced a flood of low-quality gibberish posing as novels.  The ones I agreed to read for review left me with more regrets of wasted hours, and led to my vow to never read another.

And The Amityville Horror!  I was a horror story nut in my younger days, so I checked it out (totally clueless) from the public library.  To this day I will not sleep on my stomach if my husband is also sleeping on his stomach.  If you've read the book, you'll understand why.  If not, you don't want to know.  That book seriously messed me up for life.

5.  What I Can't Wait to Read:  That's another endless list, but here's a sampling of what I want to get to soon --
The Solitary House by Lynn Shepherd
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
 by Margot Livesey

Bellman and Black
 by Diane Setterfield

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child
 by Bob Spitz

The Invention of Wings
 by Sue Monk Kidd

The Bookstore
 by Deborah Meyler
Care to share your answers?  Feel free to leave them in the comments or if, like me, your answers are lengthy, add them to your own blog and leave a link. 

2 comments:

  1. It's funny that I see And the Ladies of the Club on your favorite list. Our tax guy came by this week and he loves to look at my bookshelves and he asked about that one because he loves fat books. I've had it since at least college and I still haven't read it! It still sits on the shelf, hopeful :)

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  2. I swear I read Amityville Horror and I can't remember that part. I must have blocked it out much better than you did!

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