The Books of My Life

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.

A book that made you laugh: Naked by David Sedaris–the essay about the Rooster always has me on the floor.

A book that disgusted you: Some of the pictures in my childbirth books are pretty revolting. John had to put tape over some of them so I wouldn’t be afraid to turn the pages.

A book you loved in elementary school: My favorite girls in elementary school were Anastasia Krupnik and Ramona Quimby.

A book you loved in middle school: We read Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising in seventh grade, and I re-read it a bunch of times along with the other five in the series. “When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back; Three from the circle, three from the track…”

A book you loved in high school: Woman in the Mists by Farley Mowat, a biography of gorilla researcher Dian Fossey, who came to a brutal end in the Ugandan jungle. It was made into Gorillas in the Mist, starring Sigourney Weaver. One time, back when I worked at a video store, a customer came in and asked for “Gorillas in our midst” and that made us laugh for weeks.

A book you hated in high school: Pride and Prejudice, if you can believe it. It was assigned for summer reading and I deemed it the most boring book I’d ever encountered. I’d like to slap my high school self silly for denying me the pleasures of Jane Austen until I finally read her (and loved her) a few years ago.

A book you loved in college: A Cinema of Loneliness by Robert Kolker, an in-depth look at the works of some of the great auteurs of 60s/70s New American Cinema.

A book that challenged your identity: Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos. It turned my way of looking at my place in the world completely on its ear.

A series that you love: I’m going to choose a series that I haven’t talked about ad nauseum on this blog. I love Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy, though I tried one of his other series and couldn’t get into it.

Your favorite horror book: The Shining by Stephen King. I think it’s his best and most enduring.

Your favorite science fiction book: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. The rest of the books in the series were worth the read, though I probably would not revisit them.

Your favorite fantasy: Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders. Just typing the words makes me see the Rain Wilds river open up before me.

Your favorite mystery: Barbara Vine’s The House of Stairs.

Your favorite biography: Boy by Roald Dahl. It’s screamingly funny.

Your favorite “coming of age” book: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. It’s not technically a “coming of age” because Melinda is only 14, but it’s about her struggle to grow through a momentously changing time in her life so I’m counting it.

Your favorite classic: Jane Eyre.

Your favorite romance book: The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann.

Your favorite book not on this list: CS Lewis didn’t make any of these entries. My favorite non-fiction book of his is The Great Divorce.

If you feel like doing it, consider yourself tagged, and please leave a link to your response in the comments so I can read it. I love reading memes like this.

10 thoughts on “The Books of My Life”

  1. I’m a new blogger and have enjoyed reading yours so… I’m tagging myself.See my answer at my blog above shortly (is that the proper way to respond)?
    best, Ted

  2. Ok, I did it but on my Vox blog, which, as it turns out, means that if you had the good sense to resist the vox pod and not register, you can’t comment. At all. And one is only allowed to put 3 links in the sidebar that aren’t to a vox blog.

    :/

    http://bookaholic.vox.com/

  3. I just posted something on my site about the movie version of The Dark is Rising and came here to see if you had read it. Obviously you did and it made an impression.

    I haven’t read it, but was on set for the 3-day reshoot of some of the scenes. I’ve been reading some vicious remarks about upset fans who think Hollywood has ruined the story.

    I don’t know about that, but I do know that being on set for those 3 days made me want to read the books.

  4. The trailer doesn’t look much like the books. I was really excited to hear that these were being made, but now I’m nervous. They’re just very different from the Narnia books. I’ll probably go see the first one just to see what it’s all about.

    I am jealous that you got to be on set 🙂

    Read the books!

  5. I will, I promise! I’ve still got most of my reading challenge books to read because our librarians have been on Strike for a month!

    I better read them before the film comes out so we can discuss…

    I’m SUPER nervous about the His Dark Materials film. That trilogy is one of my all time favourites.

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