Tag Archives: Madeleine L’Engle

Favorite Author Meme

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Heather at Errant Dreams came up with a wonderful meme–enjoy & consider yourself tagged!

* Answer the questions as you see fit. Although they’re all phrased to ask about a singular author, feel free to respond with multiples, or even a list.
* Where possible & convenient (you don’t have to go as crazy as I did!), include a link here or there to an author’s website, your review of one of their books, or a review that inspired you to try the author(s), so your readers can get more information on anyone that sounds interesting.
* Tag five people and drop by their blogs to let them know you tagged them, or open-tag your readers.
* It would be nice if you included a link back to your tagger.

1. Who’s your all-time favorite author, and why?

I think I would have to say CS Lewis. I’ve read all of his books, many of them several times. I’ve read the Narnia Chronicles at least a dozen times, and books like The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters have meant a lot to me at certain times in my life.

2. Who was your first favorite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favorites?

The first author I remember being obsessed with–as in, I’ve got to read everything by this person–was John Bellairs. He wrote gothic stories for kids illustrated by Edward Gorey that were imaginative and just scary enough, and the first one I read was The House with a Clock in its Walls. I’m saving a few for Superfast Baby when she’s old enough. I had read multiple books by other authors, but I was more into the series, than the author, as with the All of a Kind Family books.

3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?

Robin Hobb, without question. She’s a superlative storyteller and I just lost myself in love starting with Assassin’s Apprentice. I’d also add Leo Tolstoy and Jhumpa Lahiri to the list, having read both of them for the first time in 2007.

4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Stephen King, Madeleine L’Engle, CS Lewis, Robin Hobb, George RR Martin, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Charles Dickens, Kathleen Norris, Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, Dan Allender, Edith Wharton, Jhumpa Lahiri.

Nothing really to add on further reflection. I spend a lot of time thinking about my favorite authors!

The Smartest Book Meme in Town

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As created by Eva, who will enter you in a drawing if you leave a comment on her post. Thanks for the, Sheila! I’m tagging Alissa, Terri, Megan, Rhinoa, and Ian–or Ian’s dad

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I was in the midst of a horrific breakup while reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I put it down halfway through and have not Chabonned since.

In addition, he just can’t shake the stink of pretension in my eyes. He’s in the same company as Jonathan Lethem.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

Now that I’m a mom, I’m flooded with insecurity and questions about child-rearing. So I’d like to spend a day at the park with Marmee from Little Women, Meg Murry’s mom from A Wrinkle in Time, and Kristin Lavransdatter from The Cross. I’d just sit and listen to them tell me everything they’ve learned from raising such fantastic children.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

Christian Metz’s The Imaginary Signifier. I hope I don’t have my master’s revoked for admitting that I could never get past page one.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

Um… see previous?

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?

That has never happened to me. I can’t imagine what that would be like.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, because it was an intoxicatingly pleasurable reading experience.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

Like Sheila, I’m going to go with Russian. My second choice would have to be French (and dammit, at one point I was so close).

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread one a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

War and Peace… having finally read it, I feel like it’s an imperative to read this book as regularly as possible.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?

Booking Through Thursday has been fun. Author-wise, I don’t think I would have read Henry Green or Robertson Davies if it hadn’t been for blogging.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.

Well, Sheila basically described what would be my dream space, I’m going to also add a touch of magic. Bookshelves that never run out of room. Books that never go missing. Books that are always available to lend out–even if they never come back, there’s always a copy available. And a magic clock, so I can stop the hands of time and steal an hour to read.

May I Introduce… (Booking Through Thursday)

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  • btt button
    1. How did you come across your favorite author(s)? Recommended by a friend? Stumbled across at a bookstore? A book given to you as a gift?
    2. Was it love at first sight? Or did the love affair evolve over a long acquaintance?

    You can find my favorite authors listed in the first sidebar column. Here’s a rundown of how I met them all:

    • CS Lewis–My father read the Chronicles of Narnia to me when was a little girl. For my 6th birthday, I had a cake featuring the old cover art from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In college, I attended a two-week symposium in Cambridge, England, sponsored by the CS Lewis Institute, and that’s where I fell in love with his non-fiction.
    • Edith Wharton–I hated Ethan Frome, but fell in lover with Age of Innocence in college. I tore through the rest of her books. Still don’t like Ethan Frome, though.
    • Flannery O’Connor love came from reading Wise Blood in high school.
    • Jane Austen–now that’s an interesting case. I had to read Pride and Prejudice in ninth grade and hated it. Just a few years ago, I decided to give her another chance, and read Sense and Sensibility. I adored it, and adored all the rest of her books… including Pride and Prejudice.
    • JRR Tolkien love grew from a lifelong adoration of Middle Earth from reading The Hobbit and watching the animated movies. On that same trip to Cambridge, I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time and my passion was sealed.
    • Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, and Barbara Vine were library reads. I had heard good things about them, and decided to take a chance.
    • Shirley Jackson I picked up while working in development for a film producer. We were looking for material and somebody suggested I check out her work. Ah, me! One taste and I was lost. I found a book scout in Canada who tracked down all her out of print books for me.
    • Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising was assigned reading in sixth grade. I immediately got my hands on the rest of the series, and have since reread it several times. I can’t wait to introduce them to Bean.
    • Walker Percy was yet another author I discovered in Cambridge. I read Lost in the Cosmos, then his fiction, then the rest of his non-fiction essays on semiotics. He played a big part in forming my identity in my early 20s.

    You may also notice I have a list of Author Sites I Love. Here’s how I met those folks:

    • Dan Allender was thanks to counseling with a former pastor.
    • David Bordwell from a grad school course on film narrative.
    • George RR Martin was a recommendation from my best friend from college.
    • Jeffrey Overstreet is a great blogger.
    • Laurie Halse Anderson wrote Speak, and there’s a whole story about me and that book that I’ll save for another day.
    • Libba Bray was recommended to me by an eighth grader at my old high school. I did a speaking engagement, and this girl was my mini-me–frizzy hair, socially awkward, and a huge bookworm.
    • Madeleine L’Engle I’ve blogged about before, in a post on books that evoked a strong emotional reaction in me.
    • Robin Hobb was a recommendation from the girlfriend of a college friend of my husband’s. This guy teases Melissa for reading what he calls “vampires in space” books. My husband likes to say, “How can you write a book about a dragon?” She and I hit it off immediately.
    • Save the Cat! is the site of a recent book on screenwriting that my manager made me read. I wish I had read it ages ago… it really does live up to its own hype.
    • Scott Westerfeld was discovered by me during a search to find young adult books that would make great movies. The Uglies series is being made into a movie, though not with me.
    • Stephen King saved my life freshman year in college, before I made friends and a life. I whiled away many a long boring night with one of his gazillions of books, checked out of the library.
    • T. Greenwood’s book Nearer than the Sky is quite special to me. A friend and I have an option on it and hope to turn it into a movie.

    And there you have it–wow, it’s amazing what I can do while the baby takes a nap!

    • Live and In Person (Booking through Thursday)

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    This week’s questions:

    * Have you ever met one of your favorite authors? Gotten their autograph?
    * How about an author you felt only so-so about, but got their autograph anyway? Like, say, at a book-signing a friend dragged you to?
    * How about stumbling across a book signing or reading and being so captivated, you bought the book?

    Continue reading →

    The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle

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    Synopsis:
    A summer job turns into a game of strategy with potentially deadly consequences for a young aspiring scientist hoping to learn more about the implications of the regenerative powers of starfish.

    Review:
    Of course I had to read a L’Engle as soon as humanly possible, and I wanted to read one I hadn’t read before. I was unaware that The Arm of the Starfish featured some of the characters from the Wrinkle in Time books, most notably, Polyhymnia O’Keefe from An Acceptable Time. I believe I never read it when I was a kid because of the awful cover. The one it has now isn’t much better, but the old one really didn’t make it look like a book I wanted to read. Continue reading →

    As Madeleine Put It

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    I read a book for work last night set in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. I have zero interest in traveling anywhere even remotely challenging (though I do like to car camp). I prefer to travel in my imagination. So, in further honor of our beloved Madeleine L’Engle, here are a few of my favorite quotes of hers, typed as tears stream down my face with gratitude. I don’t think I’ve ever cried like this over the death of someone who wasn’t known to me personally.

    From A Wrinkle in Time: Continue reading →

    Madeleine L’Engle Must Be In Heaven

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    …leaving the rest of us woefully bereft. She passed away today at the age of 88. Read the full story here.

    I have loved Madeleine L’Engle’s books since I was a little girl, with Meg Murray’s mouse brown hair and nearsighted eyes giving me hope that girls like me could have our lives become great stories.

    My best friend and I met her in the summer of 1994 in Cambridge, England, at a two-week CS Lewis conference that was one of the best times in my life. My friend took a writing seminar with her, and she also spoke at several sessions. She signed my copy of A Wrinkle in Time with the words, “Tesser on.”

    I’m sad, and I’m not sad. She had an amazing life and left behind a tremendous body of work. She lived to an old age and died peacefully. She was a gift to everyone who read her books, and I imagine she’s now getting her very deserved reward.

    Essential Books For Children

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    I want to start a conversation about what readers think are the books that no child should be without. I’m building a library for Superfast Baby, and here are my 10 must haves for boys and 10 must haves for girls:

    Boys:
    1. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
    2. A House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs
    3. Don’t Care High by Gordon Korman Continue reading →

    The Books of My Life

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    Here’s another meme (HT Poodlerat) that’s been going around that I’m finally able to do. Last night’s book read was an incredibly tedious memoir. Thanks for sharing!

    A book that made you cry: A book that seems to make a lot of my lists: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

    A book that scared you: Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin. It’s five accounts of supposedly true possession and exorcism accounts, and it scared me so bad that I read it twice then gave it away in case I was tempted to read it a third time. Continue reading →