When did you read your favorite books?

[Sharon]

Do you have a favorite book that resonated with you because you read it during a particular time in your life?

I was a preteen when everyone read Harry Potter in US schools and I still feel like some part of that phenomenon. Then I loved F. Scott Fitzgerald as a teenager; I think I wouldn't have had the patience for his protagonists past the age of 20 or so.

On the other hand, I missed the boat on Catcher in the Rye. My real-life angst didn't translate well to reading about it.

[Leslie]

I read my favorite books over and over and find that different aspects resonate with me at different times. Every time I read East of Eden I find something new to love about it.

That being said, I have read some books that hit closer to home because I read them at exactly the appropriate moment. I think I read The Amber Spyglass the summer I turned 13 and it was just right.

[Deborah]

"I read my favorite books over and over and find that different aspects resonate with me at different times."

It's the same for me.

I credit the "Little House" series with my love for reading. I was already a decent reader when I discovered "On the Banks of Plum Creek" when I was eight or so. I realized it was part of a series and tracked down the rest. I whipped through those and looked for more. I re-read the whole series every two years or so and there's always something new in it for me.

[Greg]

Women In Love is one of my all-time favorites, and I do think that the setting played a part in that; I read Lawrence's Sons and Lovers when I was in high school, and HATED it. But just a few years later, I was studying in England for a semester, and read Women In Love. I was incredibly lonely at the time, missing my friends and my girlfriend and the land I was raised in, and I think I was in just the right state of melancholy for Rupert's moodiness to really resonate with me.

I still quite like the book, but nowadays, I'm less likely to try and sell it to my friends with the wide-eyed appreciation for maudlinism that I had in those days. At the very least, I now try to talk it up by emphasizing the slashiness of the wrestling scene.

[Matt]

Was a bit of a late bloomer on the whole "critical thinking" front and so didn't have one of those "it's all a little clearer now" moments until my second semester of college and my English class with Prof. Hall where we read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I had no idea that books could be so dense with meaning and it opened up a whole new appreciation for reading that still resonates with me today, many moons later.

I reread that book every couple years just to relive those moments of clarity (not the right word, but I can't come up with a better one at the moment) and I appreciate the wonder of Kesey's writing all over again.