Influential book meme
Apr. 16th, 2004 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbaker(stolen from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tsgeisel) Ten Five books that influenced your life.
The original was ten, but I can come up with five more easily and still cover most of the bases.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
My dad read this to me as a bedtime story when I was five. What that says about my family, I won’t speculate. I enjoyed it, though. It probably helped solidify my interest in SF.
Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
This was the book that started me reading science fiction and fantasy. I checked out from the Huff Elementary School library when I was seven or eight and devoured it in about two days. Went back and checked out all their juvy Heinleins, Bradburys, Silverbergs, etc. Never looked back.
The school closed my last year there, and after other school libraries had their pick they allowed us to take any two books we wanted. I still have that very copy, prominently stamped "DONATED" and with a ripped page where the checkout pocket used to be.
Edward Gorey, Amphigorey
I found this in the children's section of the local library. (It's a cartoon book, after all.) I was probably seven. I read and re-read the compilation of Gorey’s odd works, and terrified my teachers by memorizing (and constantly citing) some of his limericks.* I hold Gorey, along with Monty Python and Charles Addams, primarily responsible for forming my sense of humor.
Walter R. Brooks, Freddy the Detective
I think this was the first I read in the 26-book series. I read as many as I could find (they were long out of print) when I was six to ten. Written between the 1920s and the '50s, they’ve been called "the American equivalent of the Pooh stories". I wanted a talking barnyard too. And I will always associate "Jinx the cat" with these rather than the kid's cartoon.
When the series was re-published a few years back, I snapped them up. Okay, they're not as good as I remember them being when I was a kid, but geez, is anything?
Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham
Gotta go with a Seuss for the last one. As with the Brooks series, I'm pretty sure I read all I could get my hands on – much earlier, of course. This book was always my favorite. It helped emphasize how fun reading is. And hooked me for life.
My senior year in high school they cut all our classes by three minutes to institute a mandatory 21-minute "reading period". Not that I needed the encouragement. My best friend, with the teacher's permission, read Dr. Seuss books to us one day a week. The final time of the year we teamed up to read Green Eggs and Ham. He was Sam-I-Am and I was the Straight Man. I made a green egg out of marshmallow. I still have a copy of the dittoed flyer we wrote up for the occasion.
tsgeisel) The original was ten, but I can come up with five more easily and still cover most of the bases.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
My dad read this to me as a bedtime story when I was five. What that says about my family, I won’t speculate. I enjoyed it, though. It probably helped solidify my interest in SF.
Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
This was the book that started me reading science fiction and fantasy. I checked out from the Huff Elementary School library when I was seven or eight and devoured it in about two days. Went back and checked out all their juvy Heinleins, Bradburys, Silverbergs, etc. Never looked back.
The school closed my last year there, and after other school libraries had their pick they allowed us to take any two books we wanted. I still have that very copy, prominently stamped "DONATED" and with a ripped page where the checkout pocket used to be.
Edward Gorey, Amphigorey
I found this in the children's section of the local library. (It's a cartoon book, after all.) I was probably seven. I read and re-read the compilation of Gorey’s odd works, and terrified my teachers by memorizing (and constantly citing) some of his limericks.* I hold Gorey, along with Monty Python and Charles Addams, primarily responsible for forming my sense of humor.
* The first child of Miss Keats-Shelley
Came to light with its face in its belly
The second was born
With a hump and a horn
And the third was as shapeless as jelly.
Walter R. Brooks, Freddy the Detective
I think this was the first I read in the 26-book series. I read as many as I could find (they were long out of print) when I was six to ten. Written between the 1920s and the '50s, they’ve been called "the American equivalent of the Pooh stories". I wanted a talking barnyard too. And I will always associate "Jinx the cat" with these rather than the kid's cartoon.
When the series was re-published a few years back, I snapped them up. Okay, they're not as good as I remember them being when I was a kid, but geez, is anything?
Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham
Gotta go with a Seuss for the last one. As with the Brooks series, I'm pretty sure I read all I could get my hands on – much earlier, of course. This book was always my favorite. It helped emphasize how fun reading is. And hooked me for life.
My senior year in high school they cut all our classes by three minutes to institute a mandatory 21-minute "reading period". Not that I needed the encouragement. My best friend, with the teacher's permission, read Dr. Seuss books to us one day a week. The final time of the year we teamed up to read Green Eggs and Ham. He was Sam-I-Am and I was the Straight Man. I made a green egg out of marshmallow. I still have a copy of the dittoed flyer we wrote up for the occasion.
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You suck.
Date: 2004-04-16 12:37 pm (UTC)Why?
Because a full-on Forty percent of your titles are identical to mine.
Which means I can't use them in my list.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-16 07:03 pm (UTC)re: Freddy
Date: 2004-04-17 11:36 am (UTC)