No thematic unity.
May. 18th, 2005 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaThose of you who don't read ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
novel_gazing but are fond of Roo pictures should check out today's entry.
I am not going to see the new Star Wars movie tonight. In a couple of weeks at a matinee. Not tonight. (If there had been a girl Jedi character with a lightsaber, you betcher ass I'd be going tonight. There was not. Harumph.) Tonight I have wheatberry bread in the bread machine, and I'm going to bake some chicken with lemon dill mustard and make up some salads, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
markgritter and CJ and I are going to watch "The Incredibles." I will likely eat ice cream. I might work on Thermionic Night. Mark said an astute thing or two in the car last Sunday, so I've been poking them in my head and seeing how they come out.
I thought we were going to get through the current book meme without anybody ever tagging me for it, and I even had a theory about why that was. (Because nobody loooooves me. Um. No, that's not the theory, actually.) I figured I go on enough about books that are important to me that nobody is sitting around wondering, "I wonder what booksmrissa finds important? Oh, if only she would tell me!" But ellarien apparently wants to know more. So here we are.
Our current library file registers 2344 books. This does not include the children's books in the basement. The last book I bought was...um. Was The Midnighters, I think. I haven't read it yet. I'll let you know how it goes. The last book I finished was Bury the Chains, and I've talked about that.
Books that mean a lot to me: probably can't be said to depend on the definition of "is," but "mean a lot," oof, could I get into quibbling semantics with that.
But I won't. I'll get chronological instead.
Cowboy Andy was the first book I fell in love with. I don't remember it very clearly. I believe the joy of it faded when I could read it to myself, and I learned to read when I was 2. So it was sometime in the 18-23 months range that I loved this book. But it was desperately important. It was the first book that felt mine all the way through.
The Prince and the Pauper was the book by which I proved that I could, too, read the big kid books, and understand them, and should be allowed to check them out. I had a knock-down drag-out with my kindergarten teacher over it, because I wanted that book, and no one had ever attempted to deny me a library book I wanted before. Ever. It was flat-out inconceivable. I was a cheerful child most of the time, but my very soul was outraged that some guy I'd just met would try to interfere with my books, and I was having none of it. Happily for me, my parents and Mrs. Huntley the librarian were having none of it, either. I hauled it home and read it and proceeded to work my way through the rest of the library. Mrs. Huntley kept out the new books for me to read before anyone else, on the theory that they had plenty of books in the library they hadn't read before. (Also, as someone pointed out to me recently, she probably figured it wouldn't take me that long to get through them.) I adored Mrs. Huntley, who was apple-faced and a little brusque and had a husky voice and wore lots of purple.
D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants kept picking at the edges of my brain. I checked it out again and again. Even knowing all sorts of other things about Norse mythology now, I occasionally find myself with the D'Aulaires' words in my mouth, memorized without intent. I got to write an encyclopedia article about them awhile back. It was a good thing.
The Lord of the Rings immersed me completely. My dad read it to me first when I was in utero, but somehow that's not the memorable time. He read it again when I was in early grade school. I couldn't wait for more of it, and more, and always more. I understood that it was a quest plot, and not a quixotic one at that: I knew that there would come an ending. But the progress towards the destruction of the Ring never seemed important to me at the time -- it was what the Rohirrim were going to do next. And others, too. Mostly the Rohirrim. Loved the Rohirrim.
The Kestrel, oh, oh, blood and politics. And the Westmark series in general was the first time I understood that it was not always necessary to have more or even a good thing to have more. Sometimes having some of a good thing was much better than stretching it out into Westmark Book 37: Mickle and Theo's Fourth Great-Grandchild Discovers the Picket Line.
That's five, which is whatellarien requested with the meme. It takes me up to age 8. If anybody wants to hear about more important books, I'll certainly talk about more. Possibly even some I read for the first time when my age was in double-digits.
novel_gazing but are fond of Roo pictures should check out today's entry.I am not going to see the new Star Wars movie tonight. In a couple of weeks at a matinee. Not tonight. (If there had been a girl Jedi character with a lightsaber, you betcher ass I'd be going tonight. There was not. Harumph.) Tonight I have wheatberry bread in the bread machine, and I'm going to bake some chicken with lemon dill mustard and make up some salads, and
markgritter and CJ and I are going to watch "The Incredibles." I will likely eat ice cream. I might work on Thermionic Night. Mark said an astute thing or two in the car last Sunday, so I've been poking them in my head and seeing how they come out.I thought we were going to get through the current book meme without anybody ever tagging me for it, and I even had a theory about why that was. (Because nobody loooooves me. Um. No, that's not the theory, actually.) I figured I go on enough about books that are important to me that nobody is sitting around wondering, "I wonder what books
mrissa finds important? Oh, if only she would tell me!" But ellarien apparently wants to know more. So here we are.Our current library file registers 2344 books. This does not include the children's books in the basement. The last book I bought was...um. Was The Midnighters, I think. I haven't read it yet. I'll let you know how it goes. The last book I finished was Bury the Chains, and I've talked about that.
Books that mean a lot to me: probably can't be said to depend on the definition of "is," but "mean a lot," oof, could I get into quibbling semantics with that.
But I won't. I'll get chronological instead.
Cowboy Andy was the first book I fell in love with. I don't remember it very clearly. I believe the joy of it faded when I could read it to myself, and I learned to read when I was 2. So it was sometime in the 18-23 months range that I loved this book. But it was desperately important. It was the first book that felt mine all the way through.
The Prince and the Pauper was the book by which I proved that I could, too, read the big kid books, and understand them, and should be allowed to check them out. I had a knock-down drag-out with my kindergarten teacher over it, because I wanted that book, and no one had ever attempted to deny me a library book I wanted before. Ever. It was flat-out inconceivable. I was a cheerful child most of the time, but my very soul was outraged that some guy I'd just met would try to interfere with my books, and I was having none of it. Happily for me, my parents and Mrs. Huntley the librarian were having none of it, either. I hauled it home and read it and proceeded to work my way through the rest of the library. Mrs. Huntley kept out the new books for me to read before anyone else, on the theory that they had plenty of books in the library they hadn't read before. (Also, as someone pointed out to me recently, she probably figured it wouldn't take me that long to get through them.) I adored Mrs. Huntley, who was apple-faced and a little brusque and had a husky voice and wore lots of purple.
D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants kept picking at the edges of my brain. I checked it out again and again. Even knowing all sorts of other things about Norse mythology now, I occasionally find myself with the D'Aulaires' words in my mouth, memorized without intent. I got to write an encyclopedia article about them awhile back. It was a good thing.
The Lord of the Rings immersed me completely. My dad read it to me first when I was in utero, but somehow that's not the memorable time. He read it again when I was in early grade school. I couldn't wait for more of it, and more, and always more. I understood that it was a quest plot, and not a quixotic one at that: I knew that there would come an ending. But the progress towards the destruction of the Ring never seemed important to me at the time -- it was what the Rohirrim were going to do next. And others, too. Mostly the Rohirrim. Loved the Rohirrim.
The Kestrel, oh, oh, blood and politics. And the Westmark series in general was the first time I understood that it was not always necessary to have more or even a good thing to have more. Sometimes having some of a good thing was much better than stretching it out into Westmark Book 37: Mickle and Theo's Fourth Great-Grandchild Discovers the Picket Line.
That's five, which is what
ellarien requested with the meme. It takes me up to age 8. If anybody wants to hear about more important books, I'll certainly talk about more. Possibly even some I read for the first time when my age was in double-digits.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 10:53 pm (UTC)I'm also a big Alexander fan. Have you read Cynthia Voight's Jackaroo series? I didn't like the most recent one (Elske?), but the first few (Jackaroo, Wheel of Fortune) are great.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 02:37 am (UTC)I fear I'll have to get the D'Aulaire book. It doesn't have anything in it I don't have in three or four other sources, but it was very close to my heart when I was little.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 12:18 am (UTC)And it's only natural to see photos of cute tots instead of grownups. But I would have liked to see more grownups wearing the pirate hat. :-)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 02:36 am (UTC)We will attempt to get more pirate hat pictures on grown-ups if the Dread Pirate Robin brings it to Uncle Mark's birthday party. Heaven knows he's dictatorial enough with it: "Now Tim wear it!" He knows, of course, that we are his minions.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 02:18 am (UTC)