books books books books books books books
Feb. 1st, 2003 02:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fearlesstempFYI: I was stuck at eleven books for like fifteen minutes and finally ended up cutting Toni Morrison (Sorry "The Bluest Eye"! Maybe next year) instead of any one of the three young adult novels on this list. So, you know. Bear that in mind when you click on the cut tag and adjust your expectations accordingly.
Comments on each book in italics underneath, and some cheating because in said comments I sometimes include more passages from the book.
"The morning before Easter Sunday, June Kashpaw was walking down the clogged main street of oil boomtown Williston, North Dakota, killing time before the noon bus arrived that would take her home." Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
I own two (2) copies of this book and STILL had to go on Amazon to get the first line because I can't find either one anywhere. Which is neither here nor there, but the search was so frustrating that I had to share it with someone! And also, that Amazon "peek inside" feature is very useful. Anyway! This book put me on a Louise Erdrich kick and I read like four of her novels in a row. This one is still my favorite, especially "The Red Convertible" which just breaks my heart every time. I love this opening line, too, and the ones that follow, because the image it creates of June Kashpaw walking along that road is so something that stays with me.
"The people in their group, Group 6, were all sixteen, all five of them, and none of them was fat." Julian F. Thompson, The Grounding of Group 6
The one that stayed when Toni did not. I bought this book at a used bookstore while on vacation in Cape Cod when I was fourteen and brought it out to dinner with me at the restaurant. I proceeded to readin the waiting room and even at the dinner table, I think, such was the high quality of the book (and low quality of my table manners). I couldn't get enough and still, looking it over now, I think it's a really fun read, and at the same time very scary. Six kids sent to this last-chance boarding school who discover how truly last-chance it is -- their parents have sent them there to be killed. I know! Isn't that terrible? OMG! Just noticed that someone drew a crude goatee on Nat on the cover of the book! Stupid younger brothers. Why do we teach them how to hold writing instruments?
"First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey." Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
I. love. this. book. It was assigned for one of my college classes and I burned through it in a night even though I didn't have to and then proceeded to be one of those annoying book missionaries, shoving it in everyone I knew's face and telling them they had to read this book, no really, they had to, NO REALLY, RIGHT NOW! I have to give you the next sentence here because every time I read it, it kills me -- "They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack." Lieutenant Jimmy Cross! Oh! Also, I love what Tim O'Brien says about telling stories in this. So cool.
"This is one of those romance novels." Louise Plummer, The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman
I so heart this book. Kate Bjorkman decides to write a romance novel about her Christmas romance, complete with "Revision Notes" every few chapters where she goes over how the novel is progressing. It's a really fun read, and I love Kate Bjorkman herself, who is tall, cursed with glasses (astigmatism), and smart. And, most of all, pretty much okay with all those things. It's funny, too. I keep peeking through it and cracking up. It's my comfort book -- I tend to take it with me in my bag almost everywhere because I can always pick it up and read it and usually get a laugh.
"Now, I don't like school, which you might say is one of the factors that got us involved with this old guy we nicknamed the Pigman." Paul Zindel, "The Pigman"
Oh, Lorraine and John! I haven't read this one in a while but I remember loving it in high school, so it gets on the list.
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
I think J.D. Salinger was the first author who made me realize that I could enjoy the act of reading as much as I enjoyed the worlds the words were creating, if that makes any sense. I love Franny and Zooey too, but I read this one first and the most, so it gets a spot.
"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." Jane Austen, Emma
I kept veering between this and Pride and Prejudice, which I do love love love, but Emma gets the nod because the first time I read Austen (in a four-novel bender consisting of these two, Persuasion, and Sense & Sensibility), Emma was my fave. And I do heart it.
"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"
My first favorite book, and the inspiration for one of my cats' names and, by extension of that, part of my screenname (the Scout of Scoutmol).
"There they are, nice Chinese family -- father, mother, two born-here girls. Where should they live next? The parents slide the question back and forth like a cup of ginseng neither one wants to drink. Until finally it comes to them: what they really want is a milk shake (chocolate), and to go with it a house in Scarshill." Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land
Cheating! I know, totally cheating! I should just put the first line but I love that whole beginning part so much, and feel like it completely captures everything I love about the book, that I had to include it. I read it last year and it was probably the favorite novel I read in 2002. I love it! Funny and well-written and full of great characters and oh, there's nothing I didn't love about it. A friend of mine read it and didn't find it to be anything extraordinary, but I just thought it was beyond fabulous.
"1801 -- I have just returned from a visit to my landlord -- the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with." Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Cathy! Heathcliff! Their love is, indeed, so tragic! Still love this book. Again, cannot find my copy even though I had it what, two days ago? It has vanished into the Laundry Vortex that is my bedroom.
Phew! That took longer than I thought it would. Oh, doing this list has reignited my love for all these books! This is such a fun meme.
Comments on each book in italics underneath, and some cheating because in said comments I sometimes include more passages from the book.
"The morning before Easter Sunday, June Kashpaw was walking down the clogged main street of oil boomtown Williston, North Dakota, killing time before the noon bus arrived that would take her home." Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
I own two (2) copies of this book and STILL had to go on Amazon to get the first line because I can't find either one anywhere. Which is neither here nor there, but the search was so frustrating that I had to share it with someone! And also, that Amazon "peek inside" feature is very useful. Anyway! This book put me on a Louise Erdrich kick and I read like four of her novels in a row. This one is still my favorite, especially "The Red Convertible" which just breaks my heart every time. I love this opening line, too, and the ones that follow, because the image it creates of June Kashpaw walking along that road is so something that stays with me.
"The people in their group, Group 6, were all sixteen, all five of them, and none of them was fat." Julian F. Thompson, The Grounding of Group 6
The one that stayed when Toni did not. I bought this book at a used bookstore while on vacation in Cape Cod when I was fourteen and brought it out to dinner with me at the restaurant. I proceeded to readin the waiting room and even at the dinner table, I think, such was the high quality of the book (and low quality of my table manners). I couldn't get enough and still, looking it over now, I think it's a really fun read, and at the same time very scary. Six kids sent to this last-chance boarding school who discover how truly last-chance it is -- their parents have sent them there to be killed. I know! Isn't that terrible? OMG! Just noticed that someone drew a crude goatee on Nat on the cover of the book! Stupid younger brothers. Why do we teach them how to hold writing instruments?
"First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey." Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
I. love. this. book. It was assigned for one of my college classes and I burned through it in a night even though I didn't have to and then proceeded to be one of those annoying book missionaries, shoving it in everyone I knew's face and telling them they had to read this book, no really, they had to, NO REALLY, RIGHT NOW! I have to give you the next sentence here because every time I read it, it kills me -- "They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack." Lieutenant Jimmy Cross! Oh! Also, I love what Tim O'Brien says about telling stories in this. So cool.
"This is one of those romance novels." Louise Plummer, The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman
I so heart this book. Kate Bjorkman decides to write a romance novel about her Christmas romance, complete with "Revision Notes" every few chapters where she goes over how the novel is progressing. It's a really fun read, and I love Kate Bjorkman herself, who is tall, cursed with glasses (astigmatism), and smart. And, most of all, pretty much okay with all those things. It's funny, too. I keep peeking through it and cracking up. It's my comfort book -- I tend to take it with me in my bag almost everywhere because I can always pick it up and read it and usually get a laugh.
"Now, I don't like school, which you might say is one of the factors that got us involved with this old guy we nicknamed the Pigman." Paul Zindel, "The Pigman"
Oh, Lorraine and John! I haven't read this one in a while but I remember loving it in high school, so it gets on the list.
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
I think J.D. Salinger was the first author who made me realize that I could enjoy the act of reading as much as I enjoyed the worlds the words were creating, if that makes any sense. I love Franny and Zooey too, but I read this one first and the most, so it gets a spot.
"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." Jane Austen, Emma
I kept veering between this and Pride and Prejudice, which I do love love love, but Emma gets the nod because the first time I read Austen (in a four-novel bender consisting of these two, Persuasion, and Sense & Sensibility), Emma was my fave. And I do heart it.
"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"
My first favorite book, and the inspiration for one of my cats' names and, by extension of that, part of my screenname (the Scout of Scoutmol).
"There they are, nice Chinese family -- father, mother, two born-here girls. Where should they live next? The parents slide the question back and forth like a cup of ginseng neither one wants to drink. Until finally it comes to them: what they really want is a milk shake (chocolate), and to go with it a house in Scarshill." Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land
Cheating! I know, totally cheating! I should just put the first line but I love that whole beginning part so much, and feel like it completely captures everything I love about the book, that I had to include it. I read it last year and it was probably the favorite novel I read in 2002. I love it! Funny and well-written and full of great characters and oh, there's nothing I didn't love about it. A friend of mine read it and didn't find it to be anything extraordinary, but I just thought it was beyond fabulous.
"1801 -- I have just returned from a visit to my landlord -- the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with." Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Cathy! Heathcliff! Their love is, indeed, so tragic! Still love this book. Again, cannot find my copy even though I had it what, two days ago? It has vanished into the Laundry Vortex that is my bedroom.
Phew! That took longer than I thought it would. Oh, doing this list has reignited my love for all these books! This is such a fun meme.
