Top Ten Books I Wish I'd Read as a Kid

Ready...set...GO! 

The first ten that come to mind...

Stargirl

It's okay to be quirky.

Anne of Green Gables

It's okay to be quirky.

(You can't hear this often enough when you are thirteen.)

The Giver

A Utopia might not be Utopian. 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

How different my life would have

been if my dad's family in the Deep South

had been born black.

The Hiding Place

Not all Christians

put on their Christianity

on Sunday morning and

take it off

after Sunday service.

Because of Winn-Dixie

Just the simple act of

loving people

can solve a lot of troubles.

Where the Red Fern Grows

This book was my initiation into

the Amazing Fun Boys Were Having

while we girls sat home and crocheted doilies.

The Phantom Tollbooth

Brilliant.

Clever.

Words can be delightful.

Tadpole's Promise by Jeanne Willis

(For those who do not know this story,

it's about a caterpillar who falls in love with a tadpole.

"Promise me you'll never change," Caterpillar whines to Tadpole.

See where this is going?)

A cute fellow is lovely,

but let's hope there's more to him

 than just a pretty face.

Zen and the Art

of Motorcycle Maintenance

There's more than one way

of seeing the world.

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Book a Day

I finished a book a day last week. All were nice solid reads. Nothing that's going on my Best of 2011 list (the two best reads were rereads and therefore not eligible), but nothing I wish I'd abandoned at chapter one either.

Here are my seven Very Quick Reviews:

Anna and the French Kiss...Anna is forced by her parents to spend her final high school year at a school in Paris. Oh poor Anna. The miseries of adolescents these days. She meets a clever and cute boy (those are always the best) but he seems to be taken. Sigh. Still, they can be friends. Very good friends.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy...On the cover, the author's name is significantly larger than the title. This is important, fellow readers. Alarms always go off in my head when I see the author's name displayed in type that is significantly larger than that of the title. Silly me, I had assumed this was a new Conroy book. Wrong. It's a collection of recycled essays that are (mostly) about Conroy's reading life. Lots of nice pieces.

Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik...I loved this book when I first read it about ten years ago. This time, not only was I murmuring, "Oh, lucky ducks, this family is in Paris," but I was also gushing, "Yes, yes, I went there, too!"

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster...A reread, a happy reread. You must bear in mind that I adore silly wordplay and this book is the King of Silly Wordplay.

The Devil in the White City...I don't like scary books and this book has the subplot of a mass murderer with the kinds of gruesome details that give me bad dreams. I must honestly say that I raced through the scary parts as fast as I could and spent most of my time relishing the parts about the world's fair. The world's fair was a very cool idea. Do we still have these world's fairs?

Table of Contents...Short chapters of interviews with authors about the writing process and what motivates the authors to write and, best of all, favorite recipes of the authors. I was surprised to see that most of the recipes were very elaborate; the recipes are probably more fun to read about than to actually cook. Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy of this book.

One Day by David Nicholls...A novel that is getting a lot of buzz these days as it is being made into a movie. Our main characters, our contemporary Harry and Sally if you will, meet in college and continue to bump into one another as the years pass. Dexter, our Harry, spends way too much time pursuing drugs and women for my taste, and Emma, our Sally, falls into writing and fame and fortune way too easily for my belief system to accept, but, other than these flaws, it's a nice little read.

That's it. A lovely reading week. What did you finish this week?

Required Reading: Don't Get Me Started....

Welcome to this week's Literary Blog Hop hosted by The Blue Bookcase!

This blog hop is open to blogs that primarily feature book reviews of

literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion.

Discuss a work of literary merit that you hated

when you were made to read it in school or university. Why did you dislike it?

 

 

   

 Required Reading...

How can we go so wrong

in the name of doing something so right?

How many people now loathe reading 

 as a result of Required Reading?

If a book is so wonderful that

 it should be Required Reading,

why can't we trust that

people will flock to the book on their own?

And are there really books that

should be Required Reading?

 Why?

And for everyone?

If I could share tales of the horrors

of Required Reading

I've heard as a librarian,

it would make you,

 my fellow readers,

sob.

Top Ten Inspirational Characters

My Top Ten Inspirational Characters are

all real beings who

I discovered in books.

Wangari Maathai

who started a program for replanting trees in Kenya

Wilma Rudolph

who became an amazing runner despite being born premature and suffering from illness

Sammy Lee

who became a champion diver though he was not allowed to

use the public swimming pool as a child because he was Asian-American

Dewey the Cat

who brought comfort to a town suffering from a deep recession

Louis Zamperini

who survived days on a rubber raft and a Japanese POW camp

Cesar Chavez

who fought for justice for migrant workers

Martin Luther King, Jr.

who sought Christian peace for an angry world

Dr. Paul Farmer

who treated the poorest of the poor

Greg Mortensen

who built schools for girls in Afghanistan

The Maasai Tribe in Kenya

who sent 14 of their most prized possessions to America

after hearing about the fall of the Twin Towers in NYC

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Unbroken

Are you like me? Do you ever read a book that is so amazing that all you want to do is tell people to go read this book?

I'm not just talking about telling other big readers like me and you. I'm talking about telling everybody. My brother who loves WWII. My eighty-four year old dad who never reads books. My friend who reads mainly mysteries. My checker at Kroger. Everybody.

When I woke up this morning, I felt so happy: I had finished Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand yesterday and I had loved it. I wanted to write a Sunday Salon post about Unbroken, a post so brilliantly written that everyone who read my post would zip out and buy the book and read it today.

I tried writing down my favorite parts of this amazing book and I tried writing lines and lines of enthusiastic prose about this amazing book and I tried writing entreaties to go buy this amazing book because it's, yes, amazing....but nothing seemed right.

Finally, I came across this fifty page excerpt of Unbroken and I realized that I could simply post part of the book and let you read the book for yourself and decide for yourself. In fact, I'll go further....I challenge you to simply read the two page preface of the book (pages 18 and 19) and see if this book works for you.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Wordless Wednesday

Top Ten Bloggish, Bookish Resolutions

Bloggish, Bookish Resolutions

1. I will post at least once a week.

2. I will sometimes skip a week if I feel like it.

3. I will visit at least ten blogs each week.

4. I will skip visiting blogs if I feel like it.

5. Here are the ten books I plan to read this year...

if I feel like it....

6. I will read 100 books...and...

7. I will review every book...

if I feel like it....

How do these sound? 

What are your bookish, bloggish resolutions for 2013???

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because those at TBB are particularly fond of lists. They love to share lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!



Each week they will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of their bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All they ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND post a comment on our post with a link to your Top Ten Tuesday post to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. If you can't come up with ten, don't worry about it---post as many as you can!

Travels in Siberia

It's ironic that the Sunday Salon has

this lovely picture of a nice, warm sun as its icon.

I did not see much sun during the past few weeks.

I've been in Siberia.

I've been reading Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier.

I discovered there is more to Siberia

than the terrible cold and the terrible prisons:

1. It can be quite warm and horribly mosquito-ey in August.

2. People throw trash everywhere. Even in camping areas.

3. There is a lot of drinking. Drinking and throwing up.

Drinking and passing out. Even children.

4. Cars break down a lot in Siberia. Like every day.

5. It's pretty common to get cholera and food poisoning.

Despite all these terrible things,

Ian Frazier loves Siberia.

And, because he was my guide 

on my first visit to Siberia,

I love it, too.

What have you been reading this week?

How in the World Did I Become a Person Who Reads War and Peace For Fun??!!

The question posted by The Blue Bookcase at

The Literary Blog Hop is:

How did you find your way to reading

literary fiction and nonfiction?

I found my way to reading when I was two years old!

Wasn't I lucky?

Across the street from my house, when I was little,

was a wonderful "playschool", what we call "PreK" today.

My mom needed a little quiet time,

so the teacher at the playschool offered to let me

join the four-year-olds a few days a week.

And---boom!---I learned to read. At two.

I found my way to reading literary works

much later. I think it arose out of a spirit

that was present in my family.

Every Sunday, we ate dinner with my grandparents

and my aunts and uncles and cousins.

After dinner, the grownups spent hours

discussing the issues of the day.

My grandfather and my uncles were big readers

and loved to thrash through social problems.

I loved that time, sitting by the table,

 excluded by my age and gender, but

listening to the snappy talk and clever comebacks.

So, now I ask you: 

How did you find your way to reading

literary fiction and nonfiction?

And, if you have any thoughts in this direction,

how can we help children find their way

to a love for thoughtful reading?

Wordless Wednesday

Top Ten Books I Resolve To Read in 2011

I have quite the ambitious list this year.

I can do this.

I can read these ten books.

I think I can, I think I can....

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

It's on so many must-read lists.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

This one intimidates me.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Very complex. Hope I'm up for it.

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

I've had this on my shelf for years.

And years.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I've tried this book three or four times.

This time I will finish it.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

I'm on page 255 of this book.

I can finish it. Right?

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

A YA classic that has eluded me.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Didion is always being recommended to me,

a big nonfiction reader.

Home Town by Tracy Kidder

Another nonfiction classic I've had sitting on my shelf

for years.
Must read this and pass it on.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I'm anticipating that this will be my most difficult read.

So, what do you think?

Any words of encouragement?

Caution?

What books do you hope to read in 2011?

A Brand New, Happy Year

I've been studying happiness for a while now.

(People always laugh when I tell them this. I don't know why.)

I've decided that this year, starting today, starting now,

will be my happiest year ever.

I know all the things that make people happier.

To remind myself, this morning

I reread three short books on happiness

(and browsed one big book).

Here are the important things I want to remember:

1. Walk.

2. Be thankful.

3. Laugh. Smile.

4. Love people.

5. Play.

6. Quiet time with God.

7. Good food.

8. Serendipity.

9. Wear fun clothes.

10. Read.

A nice reminder that I carry with me all the time:

Have you made resolutions for 2011?

This week I finished Hint Fiction,

Read This Next,

Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry,

three books on happiness,

a 1001 CBYMRBYGU called Children of the Forest, 

and 500 Handmade Books.

These are all reviewed here.

The 2010 Cybils Finalists

have been announced.

Take a look here.