Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Loving Lit

Jeannelle wants to know 25 authors I've read and loved in the past and which authors I currently read and love (can you imagine learning English as a non-native speaker?!)

First, my favorite reading story. One dark Massachusetts evening when I was quite young, I took myself and a book into my room and read it cover to cover. It was the first time I was completely "lost" in a book. It may well have been my first "big" book, but the joy of the memory for me is my mom's reaction. She was simply so proud of me and called me a reader. Then she moved a lamp into my room because "readers need good light." And I was forever hooked.

1. Margret and H.A. Rey: My first book was one of the Curious George series. Several years ago, my mom gave me the complete set in honor of that long-ago Massachusetts evening.
2. Virginia Lee Burton: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
3. Robert McCloskey: Make Way for Ducklings
4. Carl Sandburg: his biography of Lincoln was my first grown-up trilogy. It took me years to get through.

Then I got to high school and discovered that I "got" lit and my college major was decided.
5. Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage
6. Henry James: The Portrait of a Lady
7. Henrik Ibsen: A Doll's House, Hedda Gabbler
8. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter
9. Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart
10. Herman Melville: Moby Dick
11. John Greenleaf Whittier: I LOVED his poetry until I took a class and learned that the critics deride his stuff. I am still recovering from that shock.
12. Jonathan Swift: I use A Modest Proposal in class and relish how many students take it literally.

#13-25 (and lighter fare) coming tomorrow, if you can stand it.

Now, I have a 7 hour trip ahead of me tonight. Any reading suggestions??

11 comments:

Julie said...

this is fun to get, cannot wait to see the others!!!

My favorite author is Jasper Fforde. You have to get the Eyre Affair...it is awesome. I consider it Harry Potter for adults. It takes me outside my imagination and is full of literary references and makes me feel so stupid at times. The man is brilliant!!! (and the reference to Harry Potter is about imagination...Fforde's books have nothing to do with witches, wizards or anything like that... it is all literary genius!)

Mental P Mama said...

Sandburg is sooo wonderful. I am reading a great bio of Mary Lincoln right now by Catherine Clinton--very good. I love Faulkner and Eudora Welty.... But you do get props for Mike Mulligan. I always wanted to go live in that cellar with them.

Busy Bee Suz said...

I am astonished the books that you have devoured. ;0
I have always been a reader...but light reading compared to YOU.
Steven King. Danielle Steele. People magazine. :)
I do like biographies more than anything though....
good luck on your trip!!

Jeannelle said...

Thank you, Caution, for the early reading memories! Always interesting to see....every reader's list is different. Oh, Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann....what a great and memorable story! I happened to buy an old volume of Whittier poems at the antique show a few weeks ago....haven't cracked it open yet, though.

I've never been able to read in a moving vehicle without getting a sickening headache, thus, the driver's seat is my favorite place. I just finished "The Cloister Walk" by Kathleen Norris and absolutely loved it.

God's blessings for a safe trip!

Unknown said...

I really wish I had more time to read...really I do.

Checkered said...

My favorite read is The Human Race 600. It's pretty lofty material but it satisfies something in me. ;>]

Decadent Housewife said...

Autobiographies - people are interesting.
Cookbooks - they need to eat too.

Safe travels!

Laura ~Peach~ said...

well after that 7 hour trip you could come on a few more hours to my house :) ummm I get car sick trying to read and ride (of course I am usually the driver so that does not work) I am in the middle of the earths children series again (for the 30th time in 25 years) by Jean Auel, the books are clan of the cave bear, valley of horses, mammoth hunters, plains of passage and shelters of stone with one more to come out someday... they are pathetically slow on releasing her books.
the bible is a favorite of mine too :)
and any jim keilguard books
shoot give me a book I will read :)

Debbie said...

I have read hundreds of books and I read it and then completely forget most of them. That's a shame. How in the world do you remember all these? I have a mush brain any more :)

Safe travels my dear...

Chesapeake Bay Woman said...

That is a very impressive list, and even more impressive that you remember what you've read, because I can't unless it was by Jane Austen. Most anything of any quality I read was as a teenager or young twenties and the brain cells that existed then have long since gone to brain cell heaven.

E.A. Poe is really incredible. He was a "resident poet" at my university many moons ago, and you can still see his room on the campus tours.

Noe Noe Girl...A Queen of all Trades. said...

I just finished reading Diary of a Whimpy Kid with Little T. Does that count for anything?