Good readers make good writers. I'm delighted to see so many magazines and newspapers running summer reading lists now.Trouble is, I want a different list. Instead of this summer's hot reads, I want to know what books you go back to again and again. What deserves a second reading? Or a third?
The book that calls me home every few years is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I LOVE the characters. I still want to be Jo when I grow up.
I also plan to reread A Prayer for Owen Meany now that I know how brilliantly John Irving uses foreshadowing.
What about you? Share your favorites with the team. If you were making a summer rereading list, what would be on it?
P.S. If you're looking for a list of favorite creativity books, consider Melanie's list!
5 comments:
The Martian Chronicles.
Ray Bradbury understands that science fiction isn't about rockets and lasers.
Still Life With Woodpecker.
Tom Robbins lets loose with a stream of consciousness novel - a "post-modern fairy tale". Contains loose instructions for building a Froot Loops and batshit bomb. Brilliant.
Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle.
Because it's Vonnegut.
Anything by Andrew Sean Greer or the late David Foster Wallace. Great writers, brilliant craft. You'll go back and re-read whole chapters, just for the joy of reading them again. Wow.
My go-to books include:
J.R.R. Tolkien's Ring Trilogy and The Hobbit -- I fell in love with them early on, and there's something comforting to me in them.
The Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling) -- The story gives me hope. Hope in friendship, cooperation, the inherent potential and goodness in people, and the power of love.
The Adept series (Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris) -- I just love them. And they remind me that there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in even my philosophy. And that just because we call them different things, doesn't mean they - or we - are.
The Wood Wife (Terri Windling) -- I often read this when I begin to lose a sense of self or question living the life of an artist.
I also often turn to Dean Koontz for the way he writes about relationships and the extradordinary actions of ordinary people thrust into extradordinary circumstances.
It used to include Stranger in a Strange Land, which gave me hope for human potential, but I could never keep hold of a copy. (I just found one in my husband's stash, so here we go! I'll be curious to see if I feel the same about it now that I've grown in so many ways.)
When I was younger, I read and re-read the Little House series and The Chronicles of Narnia.
Thanks so much for the shout out!
Yay! More books for me to read! I thought about adding Vonnegut, but couldn't decide which one ... I was staring at Breakfast of Champions, Jailbird and Sirens of Titan. Really, you can't go wrong there ...
And I've never heard of The Wood Wife, so that's definitely on the list!
RE: The Wood Wife
Terri Windling tends to specialize in short stories and editing story collections. She's best known for her Fairy Tale series* and Endicott Studios. (I don't know how to do links, or I'd lead you to both her site and the Endicott site. You'd love them!!)
*The Fairy Tale Series (This series was created by Terri Windling and is published by Tor books. Tor books describes the series as a growing library of original novels by acclaimed writers of fantasy and horror, beautifully designed by artist Thomas Canty, each retelling a classic fairy tale.) (Wikipedia. 16 June 2009)
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