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The Ten Books That have stayed with you / Influenced You
message 51:
by
Dave
(new)
Aug 28, 2014 07:34AM
Jodell. What I meant to say was the crowds gathering to buy Ethan Frome would have been so riotously enthusiastic that they'd have to be beaten back to keep order. (Splash of irony in there). Maybe the expression is less global than I though. Sorry to be unclear
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Barbara, the Dillon book is a very dark read, but an important one in ensuring that the victims are remembered. When you do read it, there's a documentary that aired a few years ago that interviews victims' families and some of the RUC detectives involved with the case. It might even be one that will encourage you to read the book.
http://youtu.be/28621JKN9UQ
Declan wrote: "I forgot to respond to this when Jodell posted it. Got distracted by group stuff.Let me see...
To kill a Mocking Bird- Harper Lee
Lord if the Flies- William Holding
Catch 22- Joseph Heller Declan ive read To kill a mocking bird on your list
Play..."
Paul wrote: "To learn a little something about Ireland and its history I'd say try Seek the Fair Land by Walter Macken . Its set in the 1640's during the Cromwell wars in Ireland and is one of the most beautifu..."I agree, Paul. And the whole trilogy is wonderful.
Barbara wrote: "Trelawn - another Doris Lessing book that should go on my list.Cathleen - I am so glad you included short stories. I'd have to add Alice Munro to my list, and love Frank O'Connor and William Trevo..."
I need to read Alice Munro. Making this list was fun but well-nigh impossible :)
Allan wrote: "Barbara, the Dillon book is a very dark read, but an important one in ensuring that the victims are remembered. When you do read it, there's a documentary that aired a few years ago that intervie..."
Thanks Allan. I bookmarked it to watch soon.
The Tempest/King Lear/Midsummer Night's DreamMemories, Dreams, Reflections/Carl Jung
Anna Karenina/Tolstoi
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf/Albee
To the Lighthouse/Virginia Woolf
Songs of Innocence/Blake
All the Pretty Horses/Cormac McCarthy
Lolita/Nabokov
Portrait of the Artist/Joyce
Madame Bovary/Flaubert
Les Enfants Terribles/Cocteau
Surprised that people don't include more books from childhood . These are the books that made us readers and developed us . Can people really say the ten books (or 13 in some cases ;-))that have impacted on them are all ones they read as an adult . Some of the lists read a little to much like lists of critical literary books and I don't believe them for a second but that's just me. ;-)
Plus lists with a tiny bit of background make more sense.
Strumpet City really does seem to be one of those books doesn't it Theresa.I'm going to have to check out our local library and see how good it is for kids books once the wee fella starts reading
Have to love that . Sounds like the librarian in Matilda
To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies and Paddy Clarke... are all books I read aged 13-15.
I think I read the three of those as a teen as well.Possibly 16 but close enough. I was just trying to broaden peoples net to cover those years . Some have already obviously
I think the book / film is more of a comment on humanity than kids
I have already done this on fb, but here goes!Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver
Nine Princes in Amber - Roger Zelazny
Red Branch - Morgan Llewelyn
Thru A Glass Darkly - Kathleen Koen
The Man Who Loved Slow Tomatoes - KC Constintine
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K Le Guinn
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
Age of Reason - Thomas Paine
Jamie Lynn wrote: "I know it's cliché at this point but To Kill a Mockingbird is still a beautiful book. There are so many reasons why. Atticus Finch is so strong in character and kind. Everyone should try to be more..."One of the best books in history, for sure!
Books I read as a kid that I loved: no particular orderCharlottes Web age 8 teacher read this to us I could not wait for the last half hour of school to hear her read this story.
Ode to Billy Joe age 16-----I cried over this story
The Outsiders age 13--------still one of my fav's
The Secret Garden age 10--------------loved
Thorn Birds age 19-------read it over to make sure
Gone With the Wind- age 17------------Loved Rhett
The Executioner's Song age 17--------broke my heart
Id have to think longer and harder to remember exactly all of the books I read as a kid.
How I became to love reading was I was in the Colorado Children's home run for orphans and children taken from there parents. At the time run by Catholic Nuns.
Every evening we would sit down in our reading room and we would be read to. It helped me to escape reality and dream.
Soon after, when I got out of the orphanage I would ride my bike to the local library and put my books in my basket of my bycicle and fly home to read.
Later in my teens I hid books in my back pack and put it between my school book and read on the sly while in school. I got in big trouble more than once for this.
I loved Theresa's story about her days reading as a child. I read everything I could ever get my hands on back then. I did not care what it was.
Heather wrote: "Jamie Lynn wrote: "I know it's cliché at this point but To Kill a Mockingbird is still a beautiful book. There are so many reasons why. Atticus Finch is so strong in character and kind. Everyone sh..."Loved To Kill a Mockingbird Jamie
Jamie Lynn wrote: "Yes, and kids who aren't taught the basic decent things of how to live in a society might just go crazy. Even when a child says a mean thing we have to point out to them that it's unkind. Although..."I saw the whole thing as the kids pretty much mimicking the behaviour of the adult world, with war religion etc. The problem was not that kids untaught could go crazy but that society itself was crazy, hence the war backdrop and all that.
The story has layers though so there multiple meanings
Its great to know books helped you through a rough time Jodell.I like to think a kid who reads a lot get so much from the books
Books still help me through rough times he he...tkx
Paul wrote: "Surprised that people don't include more books from childhood ."I guess you're right. I loved science fiction as a child, but all those Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke books just form a pleasant muddle in my head now. I can't remember the individual ones. I do remember that Cat's Cradle scared me - does that count?
I came to value literature more as an adult, and I enjoy seeing the world through the eyes of men and women who are a lot smarter than me.
If it still scares you it definitely counts ;-)
@Heather. As much as I loved LotR it just didn't make my cut. I felt like I walked every step with Sam and Frodo. I was totally immersed, but the other books in my top 10 just had an edge on it that I can't quite describe.
@J. Only read it recently, and it is a scary conclusion. I did like seeing the world through the eyes of different characters, though. The character didn't have to be more intelligent -quite the contrary- but I suppose the writer would have to be quite brilliant to portray a less-gifted character in a relateable way.
@J. Only read it recently, and it is a scary conclusion. I did like seeing the world through the eyes of different characters, though. The character didn't have to be more intelligent -quite the contrary- but I suppose the writer would have to be quite brilliant to portray a less-gifted character in a relateable way.
Oh, and a children's book that almost made my cut was Roald Dahl's Witches.
Run with the wind was the first book that made me cry when I gave it away. I gave it to the school library so everyone could enjoy it but was so upset after giving it away I thought about asking them for it back lol. That was in about 5th class I think.
Declan wrote: "The character didn't have to be more intelligent -quite the contrary- but I suppose the writer would have to be quite brilliant to portray a less-gifted character in a relateable way. "I think so, though perhaps intelligence by itself is not enough - I've known plenty of tedious intelligent people! Having a gift for storytelling is paramount. It seems to be built into the DNA of the Irish . Alas, I inherited my maternal Danish ancestral storytelling DNA...
Speaking of children's books, I was wondering if "Granny's Wonderful Chair" is well-known in Ireland. I found a beat up copy of the book at a rummage sale and bought it on a whim. I read it to my kids, who absolutely adored it. But I had never heard of it before (or since).
@Seraphina. That was nice gesture to your school. I'd never heard of a child doing that before, which makes it sound quite sweet.
@J. I agree that storytelling is an art that few people, but it's not a skill possessed by thickos.
Also, was Beowulf a Danish epic? I'm sure there are some pretty awesome Danish myths I'm forgetting.
@J. I agree that storytelling is an art that few people, but it's not a skill possessed by thickos.
Also, was Beowulf a Danish epic? I'm sure there are some pretty awesome Danish myths I'm forgetting.
Declan wrote: " I'm sure there are some pretty awesome Danish myths I'm forgetting."Hans Christian Anderson is Danish, so I guess he counts for something...
I have been meaning to get my hands on Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowolf, which is widely praised. Past attempts to read other translations (I believe it is Old English/Anglo Saxon rather than Danish) have left me with glazed eyes, and an unmoving bookmark very close to page one.
@ J I'm not a big fan of Seamus Heaney at all but I really did enjoy his translation of Beowulf.
Beowulf is a saxon poem . The Danish had plenty of myths though, a lot shared with the Norse and Germanic nations around them.
Theresa wrote: "My local children's library was the first place of any distance that I was allowed to go to alone and was a separate building round the back of the adult one. It was a 20 minute walk along quiet ro..."theresa - I love love love this story. I heard on NPR last weekend (our BBC radio:) that the state of Texas (I think) is moving most of their librarians out of school libraries into classrooms to teach to save money. Apparently librarians have to be licensed teachers as well as trained librarians. And children are losing out on having the resource of a great school librarian.
The only libraries I visited as a small child were my schools' libraries. I never visited a library on my own until I was 19 and needed to borrow text books.
We rode our bikes to our local town's very small library but I outgrew it when I was about twelve. I used my hard earned babysitting money to buy a library card in the larger town next to ours and never told my mom. She would have "killed" me had she know how far I was biking and that I paid for a library when we had a perfectly good one free one,The library I paid to belong to was beautiful. It was two story with the top story all glass. I dearly loved being there.
Why did you have to pay for membership, Diane? That strikes me as unusual.
@ Declan, I was not a resident of that town and that particular town did not extend borrowing privileges with other towns. The Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha book brought back the memory of being killed by parents. We used the same term in the Philadelphia suberb where I grew up. That was a great book.
Trelawn wrote: "For Shakespeare I read As You Like It and Hamlet. For novels I read Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, The Grass is Singing and December Bride. They were my exam year reads.For transition year I read L..."I really loved Lord of the Rings and Othello in school. In the school I went to, you kept that kind of thing to yourself though!
Same in my school John. I went to school in Drimnagh us readers were seen as a dangerous species
Paul wrote: "Can people really say the ten books (or 13 in some cases ;-))that have impacted on them are all ones they read as an adult . Some of the lists read a little to much like lists of critical literary books..."In fairness, you did say "Don't think too long on it but post what comes to mind."
That doesn't exactly provoke one to muse all the way back to childhood.
Paul wrote: "Same in my school John. I went to school in Drimnagh us readers were seen as a dangerous species"I hear you. I went to St. Brendan's near Shankill. Really rubbish school. There was no one jumping on a desk shouting "O Captain! my captain!" that's for sure. Slightest interest in literature would guarantee a fight at lunchtime!
Theresa, It was a big waste of my time. I do most of my work with people in cork but email , Skype and shared data folders is usually enough. Sadly sometimes they like to see my face
John wrote: "Paul wrote: "Same in my school John. I went to school in Drimnagh us readers were seen as a dangerous species"I hear you. I went to St. Brendan's near Shankill. Really rubbish school. There was n..."
God forbid a bit of intelligence ;-)
My school had an ancient library when i started, run by an equally ancient nun. At lunch I head up there with a book and lounge in one of the big armchairs. I was kind of sad when they built a big modern library.
Jodell wrote: "Books I read as a kid that I loved: no particular orderCharlottes Web age 8 teacher read this to us I could not wait for the last half hour of school to hear her read this story.
Ode to Billy J..."
Jodell, I also loved Ode to Billy Joe and had the hugest crush on Robby Benson in the film. The Secret Garden is still one of my favourite books. The Thorn Birds I have reread countless times and also Gone With the Wind.
Theresa wrote: "Diane wrote: "We rode our bikes to our local town's very small library but I outgrew it when I was about twelve. I used my hard earned babysitting money to buy a library card in the larger town nex..."When I was a little girl, I used to play "library," with index cards and a date stamp. I could entertain myself for hours.
If I was "good" and did my chores, my mother would take me to the library and I spent large chunks of my childhood there. There was only a limit on the number of books you could take out on a certain subject or author--so had my run of the place. And when I was really young (3 and 4), my mother took me to story hour at the local library--that was great :) An hour of the librarian reading stories to children.
Theresa wrote: "Diane wrote: "We rode our bikes to our local town's very small library but I outgrew it when I was about twelve. I used my hard earned babysitting money to buy a library card in the larger town nex..."Yes, indeed :)
@Cathleen. Not once, in my entire life, have ever heard of a child playing Library. That is incredibly cute. I'd love to see any child playing like that, personally.
@Emma. Don't forget that Meanies could be smelt at 30m on a cold day.
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