Words, Words, Words

1. One Book You've read more than once
Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince - read it as a teenager in middle school. It's a little mature I think, but I still find it in library YA sections all the time. Melanie Rawn studied history, and you can tell. The wars and the political intrigue even the plague and famin that ensue are so well developed. There is a great dose of fantasy, magic, and super strong minded women in it too.

2. One Book You would want on a desert island

An Encyclopedia. As much as I love fiction, even really long or dense fiction isn't going to keep me entertained forever. And there are some fiction type things in encyclopedias like dragons or fairies. Not only that it might have some useful rescue information in it.

3. One Book That made you laugh
Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison- my SiL lent me this book when I was on my way to Scotland which is very appropriate because the narrator is a British girl. I got stranded at the airport and couldn't sleep on the uncomfortable seats so managed to read it and the two that follow in the series all while waiting for my plane. It was good thing that I read most of it in the middle of the night, because when it got closer to morning and there were actual people around I kept getting weird stares and looks because I was laughing so hard and so loudly.

4. One Book that made you cry

Oh gosh, what book hasn't made me cry would be an easier answer. All of Melanie Rawn's books have made me cry, Wasted (see #5) made me cry, I even think that Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events made me cry at somepoint (those poor orphans). I think that if a book is well written and gets me invested in the characters to the point where I care about what happens to them, when it's something bad, something incredibly good, I am going to cry.

5. One Book you wish you had written

Marya Hornbacher's Wasted. I don't ever wish to go through what this author went through in order to have the material for this story. She started out bulemic at the age of 9 and in high school became anorexic. The account of what happened to her body, mind and soul is fairly horrific and yet so amazingly compelling and articulate. Marya wrote the book when she was only 22. To have had the talent and the streangth to publish things so personal and ugly is really formidable.

6. One Book you wish had never been written

None. I'm a librarian. I don't condone censorship. Read a Banned Book! Even the books I don't like or don't agree with have a right to be published. I will not silence anyone's voice just because I don't like what they say.

7. One Book you are currently reading

Philip Pullman's The Amber Spy Glass - I've been working on this one for awhile. It's a pretty big book and work has kept me pretty busy. This is also a sci-fi/fantasy book and specifically young adult. The heroine is only 10ish and her companion is 12.

8. One Book you've been meaning to read

Oh, where do I start? I have a list. I've never actually finished Frankenstein and I would really like to. I think the concept is fantastic. I love that it was written by a woman, and when you study her life, what was going on with her at the time that she wrote it, the story becomes even more poignant. It is also one of the first science fiction books to be written.

9. One Book that Changed Your Life

In some small way they all have. I wish I knew which book I read first as a child, or was read to me. I bet that would be it. I think if I had to go far far back in my memory I'd choose the Frog and Toad books. My mother has the first few in hard cover and she loved them so much that we had to be very careful when reading them. I think it was my first taste of the idea that you can read a book and love the story so much that you want to take care of and perserve the physical object too. My mother also loved Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice which I also had to treat with exceptional care. We read it so much that we could recite it together and I every once in awhile I'll say from no where "going once, going twice, going chicken soup with rice." Speaking of Maurice Sendak: we loved Where the Wild Things Are in my house too. I think that book of so many others really fostered my imagination. I saw myself in Max, I still do, I have a wander lust, I always want to get away to bigger and better, more exciting things, but home with family is always a nice place to come back to once in awhile.

Basically...books themselves, and reading have changed my life.

Celebrate Bannned Book Week Sept 25-Oct 1.